"2008 was one of the hottest years on record."The conventional wisdom is that a warming planet means more wildfires–and in many cases the conventional wisdom is right. But globally it's a more complex question.

Just last week, Max Moritz and his team at UC Berkeley's Center for Fire Research & Outreach published a study that shows widely varied fire response to climate changes around the world. Post-doctoral fellow Meg Krawchuk was the lead data cruncher in the effort, with contributions from researchers at Texas Tech University.

What they found were suggestions of rapid changes in fire regimes, and not all in the same direction. Some places (like most of California) will likely see a spike in the fire hazard, while other regions (like the Pacific Northwest) could see a retreat of wildfire frequency and intensity:

"In contrast to any expectation that global warming should necessarily result in more fire, we find that regional increases in fire probabilities may be counter-balanced by decreases at other locations, due to the interplay of temperature and precipitation variables. Despite this net balance, our models predict substantial invasion and retreat of fire across large portions of the globe."

Moritz has been stumping for new approaches to fire-climate analysis. He says rather than treat fire strictly as the product of other climate change variables, we should think of it also as a climate driver.

Map shows areas of potential fire advance (orange) and retreat (blue) by 2010-2039 (medium-high emissions scenario)

You can use the player below to hear an excerpt from my interview with Moritz, in which he explains the new perspective that he thinks his team's study brings to the fire-climate connection.

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Bay Area birders participate in the Audubon Christmas Bird
Count. Credit: terriem on flickr.com

Though it's easy to forget, any kid with a magnifying glass can tell you that you don't need a fancy degree to be a scientist. All it takes is a curious mind and a keen eye for observation. And in case the mere thought of a world full of wonders isn't enough to get you motivated, there are dozens of ways your personal observations can contribute to formal, published research. It's called "citizen science".

The idea behind citizen science is that ordinary folks, spread all across the country (or the world!), can collect valuable data on a breadth and scale that would be impossible for a single researcher to do on her own. It's particularly suited to projects that require lots of field observations but not a lot of special tools – things like counting creatures or measuring snow. And while the Internet has made the process of recruiting volunteers and reporting data easier than ever, for most projects, no technology is necessary. One of the oldest citizen science projects, the Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count, has been happening for over a hundred years!

In case you have any doubts about whether a scattered group of untrained citizens can really produce valuable data, just check out this week's headlines about how climate change is affecting bird populations (they're moving north). The news is based on an Audubon Society study that looked at 40 years worth of citizen-produced information.

So how can you get involved? There are all kinds of projects, some that are ongoing, others that happen at a particular time. Here are a few to consider:

• From February 13th – 16th, 2009, you can participate in the 12th annual Great Backyard Bird Count, another Audubon Society project (in partnership with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology), either on your own or by joining up with the Sacramento Audubon Society's organized events.
• As fellow blogger Ben Burress reported last month, from March 16-28, 2009 you can monitor light pollution through Globe At Night.
• Track a plant through the seasons with Project Budburst.
• Visit AntWeb's Bay Area Ant Survey to find out how to help discover and document the native and invasive ants in the Bay Area.
• Monitor frogs in your area with Frogwatch USA.
• Keep track of the weather with the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, & Snow Network.
• Follow the Monarch butterfly migrations with a variety of projects.

There's so much science out there, just waiting for you to get involved. Go observe!

Terrestrial snow at Chabot on December 16, 2008
Photo by Craig CoryellDriving to work today, I was amused to notice that the raindrops falling on my windshield were a bit grainy–and getting more so the higher up the hill I drove. I starting to think, is it starting to sleet? By the time I reached Chabot–at 1500 feet elevation–the precipitation had turned to bona fide snow!

This is quite unusual for the Oakland Hills, of course. In the ten years I've worked here, this is the second, maybe third, dusting I've witnessed. I recall the great freeze of '74, when it actually snowed in Oakland close to sea level—that's the year all the eucalyptus in the hills froze and died.

My mind wandered—pretty far out in space (an occupational hazard at Chabot). I started thinking about all the recent news and discoveries from around the Solar System, my thoughts guided by the fat white flakes drifting down all around the observatory domes.

Last September, NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander detected snow falling high in the atmosphere–about 4 kilometers high. This Martian snow, however, quickly evaporated in Mars' thin, dry air, never reaching the ground. Phoenix used a laser probe to make the detection–so we don't actually have picture to look at!

Snows of the Solar System may also fall out of the plumes of "cryovolcanoes"–the frigid outer Solar System's version of volcanism (may it live long and prosper). On moons such as Saturn's Enceladus and Neptune's Triton, plumes of material have been detected spouting from fissures and cracks–probably fueled by heat generated by tidal forces from their parent planets.

On Enceladus, the geyser plumes contain water vapor and ice crystals, and are believed to come from subsurface lakes of "warm" water (32 degrees Fahrenheit–in other words, ice water… but that's a veritable hot spring, or magma chamber, on a cold moon like Enceladus!).

The ice crystals in the geysers' plumes mostly fall back to Enceladus–maybe in a diffuse fall of "snow" across the globe? I'm waiting for those pictures…

Saturn's large moon Titan is speculated to possibly have a form of cryvolcanism, though no direct detection has yet been made. Still, any water vapor that might erupt from a Titanian cryovolcano might be expected to fall in a form of snow….

Triton, much farther from the Sun than Saturn, is even colder than Enceladus. In fact, it's been called the coldest measured surface in the Solar System, at -391 degrees Fahrenheit. Here, nitrogen freezes solid. Triton cryovolcanoes, or geysers, may be partially solar-heated, but tidal heating within Triton is probably dominant. Triton's geysers spout nitrogen gas and dark material, which falls across the landscape in dark streaks and lighter deposits of frozen nitrogen–a form of extreme cryo-snow, to my imagination!

Now, are you as cold as I am just thinking about it? Time for a cup of cocoa…

On the surface, geoengineering almost seems like science fiction. Could humans engineer a way to compensate for global warming by changing dynamics in the Earth's atmosphere? But it's one of the ideas being discussing at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. Each year, thousands of scientists descend on downtown San Francisco to hold a week of meetings and discussions.

Here's how the idea would work: Using planes or other high-altitude transport, we'd disburse millions of tons of sulfur dioxide (or hydrogen sulfide) into the stratosphere, 13 miles above the Earth. Those gases would create tiny particles, which would reflect sunlight. This process already goes on in the stratosphere – about a third of the energy from the sun is reflected back into space thanks to this dynamic. But by adding more reflecting particles, scientists think it might be possible to cool the planet – and compensate for human-induced warming.

No one has tried this idea yet – but it's something scientists have already observed — through volcanoes. In 1991, Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines, spewing 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. As a result, global temperatures temporarily dropped about one degree Fahrenheit.

That doesn't necessarily mean a scheme like this would work. As UCLA Scientist Richard Turco said, it's not easy to predict how the particles would react and disburse. "If the particles are too large, that would actually create a warming effect, a greenhouse warming. Small particles are not useful because they don't reflect much radiation."

This plan isn't just a one time deal. As Turco continued, "we would need a huge monitoring system and can't afford to make any mistakes. Once you start this process, you have to maintain it for two to three centuries."

And then there's the "get out of jail free" aspect. If the focus of climate change policy becomes geoengineering, what happens to simply cutting emissions? As Professor Alan Robock of Rutgers University acknowledged, the costs and technology of geoengineering are uncertain — and it wouldn't curb other climate change impacts, like ocean acidification. "We have to focus on mitigation and keep this in our back pocket for emergencies."

According to Professor David Keith of the University of Calagry, it's worth studying geoengineering — just in case. Our greenhouse gas emissions will continue to grow. "We're not going to stop today, and even if we stopped today, there's enormous inertia," Keith said. In the event that climate change becomes catastrophic, Keith says we may need a last resort. "Whether you like or don't like this, it can be done quickly."

For more on what's new at the AGU, check out KQED's Climate Watch blog.

Could the future of potable water in California be in recycling wastewater? The Orange County Water District thinks so. In February of this year it opened its advanced water treatment plant, which produces 50 million gallons of potable water per day. It took them 13 years to finish the project. They spent a lot of that time educating consumers. Of course the idea of drinking water that was once used for other less savory purposes than drinking is an unpleasant thought. So Orange County's water district took its educational campaign very seriously. They went to great lengths to explain that the wastewater is cleaned to the point where it meets state and federal drinking water standards and then put through an extra filtration step, which consists of dumping it into a lake with a sandy basin and letting it filter into the aquifers. (This is why they call the project the Groundwater Replenishment System). As part of its outreach, the district even got Orange County's Bishop Jaime Soto to record positive comments about the project and posted the video on its Web site.

Here in the Bay Area, projects to use recycled wastewater aren't as advanced. Still, John Stufflebean, director of environmental services for the City of San José, says it’s in the cards for San José. The city has started its own educational effort. Stufflebean is one of the city officials that give regular guided tours of the San José/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant in northern San José. The process really is quite a sight. The gray and smelly raw wastewater comes in on one end, and at the end of a three-step process — once again clean and transparent — either trickles back into the Bay or is used to irrigate golf courses and farms. Stufflebean says that people on the tour often ask why this water can’t be used for drinking. With some additional steps, it could. Stay tuned. Perhaps in the future it will.

Watch the "State of Thirst: California's Water Future" TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources.

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