When it comes to creating weather forecasts, one might picture thermometers, barometers, maps or charts. But a team led by the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla is using hurricane-hunting aircraft.
News reports about the campaign for La Jolla to secede from San Diego overlook some basic facts about critical infrastructure that will make or break a Southern California city in the next 30 years. The simple, visible elements like potholes, streetlights and sidewalks are only a tiny fraction of the infrastructure puzzle. The real problem is the water and sewer infrastructure that we don’t see.
With the sun finally emerging recently after a cool, wet winter and early spring, the storms that may lie ahead next winter aren’t what most people want to think about. But meteorologists are forecasting that an El Niño year is probably coming, bringing more storms, and La Jolla and other coastal communities may need to brace for impact.
A perfect combination of cosmic events will occur this holiday season to bring astronomically high tides known as king tides to San Diego just before Christmas, forecasters say. The phenomenon, which describes what are typically some of the highest tides of the year, are scheduled to occur on Dec. 23 and 24. A second round is predicted to happen on Jan. 21 and 22. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts that this winter season’s tides may cause coastal flooding in low-lying areas of San Diego.
After a series of meetings, the La Jolla View Reservoir project is taking a brief hiatus so the scope of what will be needed from La Jolla’s next reservoir can be determined. New findings are expected to be released in mid- to late April.
The waters off San Diego are home to the two largest kelp forests on the West Coast, and both are being closely watched by local experts who are concerned about the effects of climate change on the underwater groves.
The giant kelp forests off La Jolla and Point Loma are important to the ecosystem, said Ed Parnell, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla whose studies focus on coastal ecosystems in Southern California.
The warming climate is putting environmental pressure on California forests that have towered over the Golden State for thousands of years. They are not the only forests being stressed by climate change, the region’s iconic underwater forests are also facing challenges. Those forests are populated by giant kelp, and there is one located just off the La Jolla shore.
Local scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography are closely watching a storm system as it moves into Southern California.
Scientists are releasing weather balloons every three hours to study the storm system, classified as an atmospheric river.
“An atmospheric river is just a large amount of moisture that’s associated with the system,” said program analyst Brian Kawzenuk. “An atmospheric river is sort of what it sounds like: it’s a river in the atmosphere.”
The weather balloons will collect a plethora of data including temperature, wind speed, direction and more, allowing scientists to map out a vertical profile of the atmosphere as the system approaches.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
