One thing you try to learn, covering these stories, is how to navigate around the tricky subject of climate change. The trickiness isn’t if it’s happening, but rather what, exactly, it’s doing, what the effects are.

Take this year’s particularly nasty fire season, for example. We’ve had the driest spring in 80 years, and warm weather, too. So, can we blame that on climate change? UC Berkeley fire researcher Max Moritz gets asked this all the time, and I sense it’s one of his least favorite questions. After all: Next year might be rainy and cold. Will we take that to mean that climate change isn’t happening after all?

Here’s the best answer I’ve heard: The fire season of 2008 may or may not itself be the result of climate change, but it’s the kind of weather we’re likely to see more of in the future. That explains the Governor’s call to arm CalFire with more helicopters and fire trucks.

But it also means there’s a lot more to learn about how, exactly, climate change will drive fires in California. And if you ask Moritz, we tend to neglect those questions. No, it’s no surprise that Moritz — the researcher — wants more money for research. Still, it’s worth noting that while more than a billion dollars will be spent on fire fighting this year, UC Berkeley’s Center for Fire Research and Outreach may go broke before winter.


Listen to the California Ablaze Radio report online.

Each big storm with a high tide and an
onshore wind takes a big bite out of Sarichef.Photo By Shishmaref Erosion and Relocation Coalition

In an email this week from John Woodward, an Alaska builder and Home Energy author, he wrote, “I put together a working/management group to manage the relocation of the community of Shishmaref sustainabely. They live on Sarichef, a barrier island that global warming is wiping out.”

Shishmaref is home to a small community of Inupiat, a Native American tribe. John is working with the Inupiat Tribal Government, the City of Shishmaref, and the Shishmaref Erosion & Relocation Coalition, to salvage as much of the village as possible before it goes under water and move it, along with the island inhabitants, to a new plot of land in the interior of Alaska.

The Army Corp of Engineers gives the island about 5 or 10 more years of livability. But as the ocean and permafrost warm and the ocean rises, unpredictable storms take a heavy toll on the island. “Each big storm with a high tide and an on-shore wind takes a big bite out of Sarichef,” says Woodward.

The community is seeking funds for a comprehensive alternative energy plan, an anaerobic pump/methane generator, and the retrofit of all existing buildings, including more than 110 homes, community buildings and a school. The homes will be retrofit to use less than 5 Btu per square foot to heat. Heating load calculations can be pretty complicated, but in general, contractors recommend furnaces that can provide 30-50 Btu per square foot to heat homes in the Bay Area. To reach such a high level of energy efficiency, the Shishmaref homes will have the insulation installed on the outside of the structure, a technique that Woodward has successfully used in the past. The new village will have the look and functionality of the Inupiat culture as defined and designed through community planning.

“Our community planning process involves community charettes with the whole community gathered in the school gym,” say Woodward. “The goal of these meetings is the rough-out of a comprehensive community plan for sustainable relocation of the existing salvageable infrastructure and the development of the new village site.”

The Inupiat will build their new village to suit their needs and lifestyles, to be efficient, and to be in harmony with its surroundings-in other words, sustainabely. Let’s keep an eye on our northern neighbors, who may teach us some valuable lessons. How long before whole towns in California will have to relocate because of water shortages? We all witnessed what happened in New Orleans a few years ago. How long before towns and cities on the coast of California will have to move inland or be seriously reconfigured because of the rising Pacific Ocean?

You can e-mail John Woodward with questions, comments, ideas, and offers of help at panuktuk@yahoo.com.

Scientists predict we’ll be seeing hotter conditions and drier forests in the near future. The Summit Fire that’s been burning in the Santa Cruz Mountains is likely a part of that trend. QUEST talks to Malcolm North with the U.S. Forest Service. He says any area that’s burned before is vulnerable to burning again, including the Coast Range and Sierra Nevada.

You may listen to the “California’s Fire Future” Radio report online, as well as find additional links and resources.

Genetically, we’re all pretty much the same. A massive volcanic eruption 75,000 years ago may be why.

Lake Toba is all that is left of the volcano
that nearly wiped out mankind.Last blog I talked about how East Africans are genetically more diverse than Asians. Who are genetically more diverse than Native Americans.

From all of this you might have concluded that people are pretty different from each other. They aren’t.

People are surprisingly similar at a genetic level. For example, any two people from anywhere on Earth are more similar than two chimps from the same troop. Why are we all so alike?

One possible explanation is that something in our collective past nearly wiped us all out. And we all come from the few survivors who were left.

A likely candidate for this near annihilation event is the Toba volcanic eruption that happened in Indonesia 75,000 or so years ago. This eruption was huge.

It was equivalent to around 1 billion tons of dynamite and was about 3000 times more powerful than the Mount Saint Helens eruption in 1980. It also may have reduced the average global temperature by 5 degrees Celsius, darkened the world for 5 or 6 years, and plunged the world into a new Ice Age.

As you might imagine, this eruption had dramatic effects on species around the world including our own. Estimates of how many people were left range from around 1000-10,000 breeding pairs. The theory is that we are all so alike because we share these survivors’ DNA.

Whether true or not, a bottleneck in our past would not make us unique. Lots of species go through these near death experiences.

Scientists think cheetahs went through one around 10,000 years ago. Cheetahs are all so similar genetically that veterinarians can do skin grafts with “unrelated” cheetahs.

And of course, people have created bottlenecks in species too. For example, in the late 1890’s there may have only been 20-100 elephant seals left in the world because of hunting. Now there are at least 150,000 spread across the west coast.

Species are in danger long after they go through a bottleneck. They have a pretty limited gene pool which means they may not be particularly healthy and are in danger of being wiped out by, for example, a single disease. Humans are probably OK in this regard (consider natural resistance to HIV for example) but elephant seals, bison, and cheetahs, and many other species may not be.

Fortunately for us we successfully came through our bottleneck. Hopefully, the animals that we’ve nearly wiped out will too.

Dr. Barry Starr is a Geneticist-in-Residence at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, CA.

Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station

As the sun shines and the air warms in the Bay Area, take a moment to consider a place where it’s always cold–the South Pole. Thanks to some local folk, we can get a taste of the science at the bottom of the earth without leaving balmy San Francisco.

Berkeley graduate student Michaelangelo D’Agostino blogs about his trip south for the Economist. D’Agostino chronicles the stages of his journey, from New Zealand to the station, and what day-to-day life is like at -24 degrees Celsius.

SF’s own Exploratorium brings Antarctic scientists, live, to your computer monitor. In the webcasts, archived so you can watch any time,
scientists explain their research on everything from penguins and glaciers to neutrinos. The also have dispatches, updates from the scientists as they go about their work.

Amber Dance is the Quest Intern and a science communication student at UC Santa Cruz.

latitude: -90, longitude: 0

In dry years, fires in California cost billions of dollars and often result in lost lives. QUEST goes inside the fire season, looking at how the history of forest management could be feeding today’s flames.

You may view the “Into the Inferno: The Science of Fire” TV story online, as well as find additional links and resources. Also, see See additional photos from the making of Into the Inferno: The Science of Fire.


Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST, and is the producer for this story.

The Napa and Sonoma microclimates produce world famous wines, but what happens if the climate changes? Scientists are predicting that global warming could increase the number of super-hot days in the California wine region, interfering with the way grapes ripen. Local scientists and wineries are beginning to look at how to prepare.

You may view the “Napa Wineries Face Global Warming” story online, as well as find additional links and resources.

Gabriela Quirós is a Segment Producer for KQED-TV, and is the producer for this story.

With its rolling hills and winter storms, the Bay Area has been a landslide hotspot, putting houses and lives at risk. Meet the geologists working to understand and predict these natural disasters.

You may view the “Landslide Detectives” TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources. You may also view additional images for this story in our Landslide Detectives flickr photo set.

Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST, and is the producer for this story.

With California’s ambitious renewable energy goal, the state needs wind power. But California’s largest wind farm cluster at Altamont Pass unintentionally kills golden eagles, burrowing owls and other threatened birds. Now, wind companies, scientists and environmentalists are working to bird-proof these massive wind farms.

You may view the “Fatal Attraction: Birds and Wind Turbines” TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources. Also, you can see additional photos for this story.

Gabriela Quirós is a Segment Producer for KQED-TV, and is the producer for this story.

A monster lurks just off the coast of Northern California. Known as “Maverick’s,” this surf break north of Half Moon Bay generates some of the biggest waves in the world, and draws the big wave surfers that live for them. But what makes these waves so big? QUEST talks with scientists who are getting to the bottom of it and the big wave surfers willing to take their lives in their hands for the ultimate thrill ride.

You may watch the “Science of Big Waves” TV story online, and view geotagged photos from this story on the KQED QUEST - Science of Big Waves photo set.

Sudden Oak Death and Science of Big Waves (episode #108), airs tonight on QUEST at 7:30pm on KQED 9, and KQED HD, Comcast 709. (full schedule)

Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST, and is the producer for this story.