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"title": "U.S. Faces Dramatic Rise in Extreme Heat, Humidity",
"headTitle": "U.S. Faces Dramatic Rise in Extreme Heat, Humidity | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Across the U.S., we’ve hit the dog days of summer. Most regions are now seeing their hottest temperatures of the year, and the combination of heat and high humidity sends most people running for a cold drink, some shade, or an air conditioner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heat is the No.1 weather related killer, and as carbon pollution continues, global temperatures will keep climbing, bringing hotter summers and more extreme and dangerous heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate Central’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://impact.statesatrisk.org/\">States at Risk\u003c/a> \u003c/em>project analyzed historic trends in summer temperatures since 1970 as well as projections for future extreme heat for hundreds of metro areas across the lower 48 states. Using several measures, our findings show that most U.S. cities have already experienced large increases in extreme summer heat and absolute humidity, which together can cause serious heat-related health problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We found that scores of U.S. cities home to tens of millions of people will face dramatic increases in dangerous and extreme heat days by the middle of this century if current greenhouse gas emissions trends continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hottest parts of the country, including Texas, the Southwest, and Florida have already experienced large increases in extreme heat days, including days over 90°F, 95°F, and 100°F, as well as rising levels of humidity that make hot days feel miserable and extremely hot days downright dangerous. Cities in those same states are facing the biggest projected increases in dangerous heat over the next several decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Florida\u003c/strong> faces by far the greatest increase in the dangerous combination of heat and humidity over the next several decades. The 13 metro areas in the U.S. projected to see the greatest increase in danger days by 2050, are all in Florida. Every one of these cities is projected to see an increase of more than 100 dangerous heat days — when the heat index, a combination of heat and humidity, is more than 104°F — by that time. This will only accelerate changes already seen in Florida, where Miami tops the nation with the greatest increase in annual average 90\u003csup>o\u003c/sup>F days per year since 1970 with 46 more such days. McAllen, Texas is second, with 26, followed by Tucson with 25.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Texas\u003c/strong> tops the nation in extreme heat, with 6 of the top 7 cities with the greatest increase in 95°F days, including Austin, San Antonio, and Corpus Christi. In addition, three Texas cities lead the nation in projected danger days by 2050. Nearly half the year, between 168 and 179 days, will be what the National Weather Service considers dangerous heat days by 2050 in McAllen, Laredo, and Brownsville-Harlingen.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Arizona\u003c/strong> is also hard hit, with Phoenix projected to see 146 danger days by 2050, Tucson expected to see 135, and Yuma projected to have 159. As a harbinger of these changes, Tucson now has 24 more days above 100°F on average per year than in the 1970s, the second largest increase in the nation.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846073\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Summer-Sizzle_CC.jpg\" alt=\"Summer Sizzle_CC\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Summer-Sizzle_CC.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Summer-Sizzle_CC-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846074\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Impacts-of-extreme-heat.png\" alt=\"Impacts of extreme heat\" width=\"720\" height=\"40\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Impacts-of-extreme-heat.png 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Impacts-of-extreme-heat-400x22.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Extreme heat and the combination of high heat and humidity pose serious risks for human health. According to the National Weather Service, heat is the No.1 weather-related killer in the U.S. — more than tornados, floods, and hurricanes — and it is estimated that between 600 and 1,500 heat-related deaths occur in an average summer in the U.S.\u003csup>1,2\u003c/sup> Individual heat waves can be even more deadly. The 1995 heat wave in Chicago is estimated to have led to more than 700 deaths and in excess of 1000 more hospital admissions than normal.\u003csup>3,4\u003c/sup>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This deadly risk is not likely to go away. By the end of the century, heat-related deaths are projected to increase by thousands to tens-of-thousands each year in the U.S.\u003csup>5\u003c/sup> Those most at risk of heat-related health impacts are infants and young children, elderly over 65, those already ill, athletes, and outdoor workers\u003csup>2\u003c/sup>. But everyone is potentially at risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elevated heat, especially along with high humidity, makes it difficult for the body to cool itself. In addition to increasing the risk of mortality, heat can cause problems throughout the body. It can range from dehydration, cramps, exhaustion, dizziness, vomiting and heat rash to more serious issues involving kidney failure, heart issues, and exacerbation of respiratory issues\u003csup>6,7\u003c/sup>. These heat impacts also provide a challenge to the healthcare industry with increased hospitalizations and doctors’ visits and insurance claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>High heat also impacts other sectors and infrastructure. Stagnant air often occurs during periods of elevated heat and allows dangerous levels of air pollutants to build up. High temperatures also directly provide conditions conducive for producing harmful ground-level ozone. Periods of extreme heat can wither crops and exacerbate drought conditions greatly impacting agriculture. Blackouts often accompany heat-waves as the need for cooling puts a heavy strain on the power grid. Heat waves can also lead to harmful algal blooms and promote other bacterial growth in bodies of water and lead to degraded fish habitat, such as for species that require cooler streams and rivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846076\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/More-danger-days-coming.png\" alt=\"More danger days coming\" width=\"720\" height=\"40\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/More-danger-days-coming.png 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/More-danger-days-coming-400x22.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The combination of hot temperatures and high humidity create dangerous conditions for humans. The National Weather Service defines as dangerous any day when the heat index (the combination of heat and humidity, commonly known as the “feels like temperature”) exceeds 104°F. Under these conditions, sunstroke and heat exhaustion are likely, and physical activity or being outside for long periods is risky, potentially leading to heat stroke. These dangerous heat days pose the greatest threat to kids and the elderly, and to people who don’t have easy access to air conditioning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846078\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg.jpg\" alt=\"DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We analyzed 360 of the biggest U.S. cities to see how the average number of danger days is projected to increase in the coming decades. The projections draw on 29 global climate models that have been downscaled across the continental U.S. to represent local climate conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The top 25 U.S. cities expected to see the most danger days by 2050 are:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846081\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c.png\" alt=\"DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c\" width=\"500\" height=\"497\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c.png 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c-400x398.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c-32x32.png 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c-50x50.png 50w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c-64x64.png 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c-96x96.png 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c-128x128.png 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 25 U.S. cities projected to see the biggest increase in danger days over current conditions are:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846083\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysgrowth_heat_500_484_s_c1_c_c.png\" alt=\"DangerDaysgrowth_heat_500_484_s_c1_c_c\" width=\"500\" height=\"484\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysgrowth_heat_500_484_s_c1_c_c.png 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysgrowth_heat_500_484_s_c1_c_c-400x387.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysgrowth_heat_500_484_s_c1_c_c-32x32.png 32w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846084\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/heatBanner_dayssince1970_720_40_s_c1_c_c.png\" alt=\"heatBanner_dayssince1970_720_40_s_c1_c_c\" width=\"720\" height=\"40\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/heatBanner_dayssince1970_720_40_s_c1_c_c.png 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/heatBanner_dayssince1970_720_40_s_c1_c_c-400x22.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even in the absence of high humidity, extremely hot days pose a considerable health threat, particularly under prolonged exposure. Across most of the U.S. temperatures have increasingly been exceeding 90°F, 95°F, and 100°F since 1970.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our analysis of trends in extreme heat days is based on annual counts of 90°F, 95°F, and 100°F exceedances in the country’s largest 200 cities. The hottest cities are seeing the biggest average increases in extreme heat days, in general.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The top 25 cities that have seen the biggest increase in annual average days above 90°F since 1970:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846085\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_90days_rank_500_485_s_c1_c_c.png\" alt=\"HeatReport_90days_rank_500_485_s_c1_c_c\" width=\"500\" height=\"485\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_90days_rank_500_485_s_c1_c_c.png 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_90days_rank_500_485_s_c1_c_c-400x388.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_90days_rank_500_485_s_c1_c_c-32x32.png 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_90days_rank_500_485_s_c1_c_c-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The top 10 cities that have seen the biggest increase in 100°F days are:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846086\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_100days_rank_500_525_s_c1_c_c.png\" alt=\"HeatReport_100days_rank_500_525_s_c1_c_c\" width=\"500\" height=\"525\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_100days_rank_500_525_s_c1_c_c.png 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_100days_rank_500_525_s_c1_c_c-400x420.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846087\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/heatBanner_warmingsummers_720_40_s_c1_c_c.png\" alt=\"heatBanner_warmingsummers_720_40_s_c1_c_c\" width=\"720\" height=\"40\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/heatBanner_warmingsummers_720_40_s_c1_c_c.png 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/heatBanner_warmingsummers_720_40_s_c1_c_c-400x22.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 1970, summers have been warming in 45 of the lower 48 states. In many of these states, this warming is driven largely by nighttime temperatures getting hotter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846088\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers.png\" alt=\"Fastest warming summers\" width=\"500\" height=\"499\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers.png 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers-400x399.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers-32x32.png 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers-50x50.png 50w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers-64x64.png 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers-96x96.png 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers-128x128.png 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846089\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Steamier-summers.png\" alt=\"Steamier summers\" width=\"720\" height=\"40\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Steamier-summers.png 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Steamier-summers-400x22.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As temperatures rise, evaporation increases, causing increased water vapor in the air. That extra moisture makes the air feel muggier, and can make it a lot more difficult to tolerate the heat because our bodies have a harder time keeping cool through perspiration. As summers warm across the country from increasing greenhouse gases, cities are also getting sticker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate Central analyzed how the average summer dew point has changed in 200 major U.S. cities since 1970 (the \u003ca href=\"http://wxshift.com/videos/ask-a-met-dew-point\">dew point\u003c/a> is a measure of how much moisture is in the air). We found that 87 percent of those cities have experienced an overall increase in their average summer dew point over the past 46 years, indicating that there is typically more moisture in the air on hot summer days now than there used to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The top 25 cities seeing the largest increase in summer air moisture since the 1970s are (several of which are among the fastest warming cities in the country):\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846090\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c.png\" alt=\"HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c\" width=\"500\" height=\"495\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c.png 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c-400x396.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c-32x32.png 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c-50x50.png 50w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c-64x64.png 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c-96x96.png 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c-128x128.png 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a> \u003cem>is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Analysis by Alyson Kenward, PhD, Jennifer Brady, James Bronzan and Todd Sanford. Read full \u003ca href=\"http://assets.climatecentral.org/pdfs/Heat_methodology.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">methodology\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Footnotes:\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>1. Harvard Medical School (2005), \u003ca href=\"http://ccsl.iccip.net/ccf_report_oct_06.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Climate Change Futures: Health, Ecological and Economic Dimensions\u003c/a>, Cambridge, MA: The Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>2. Centers for Disease Control, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/extremeheat/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Extreme Heat and Your Health\u003c/a>, 2011\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>3. Palecki et al. (2001), Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. T\u003ca href=\"http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0477%282001%29082%3C1353%3ATNAIOT%3E2.3.CO%3B2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">he Nature and Impacts of the July 1999 Heat Wave in the Midwestern United States: Learning From the Lessons of 1995\u003c/a>. 82:7, 1353. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>4. Semenza et al. (1999), Am. J. Preventive Med. \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749379799000252\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Excessive Hospitalizations During the July 1995 Heat Wave in Chicago\u003c/a>. 16:4, 269. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>5. U.S. Global Change Research Program (2016), T\u003ca href=\"https://health2016.globalchange.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">he Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>6. Becker, J.A. and L.K. Stewart (2011), American Family Physician. \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21661715\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Heat-related illness\u003c/a>. 83:11, 1325.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>7. Glazer, J.L. (2005), American Family Physician. \u003ca href=\"http://www.aafp.org/afp/2005/0601/p2133.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Management of Heatstroke and Heat Exhaustion\u003c/a>. 71:11, 2133.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "As carbon pollution continues, global temperatures will keep climbing, bringing hotter summers and more extreme and dangerous heat.",
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"title": "U.S. Faces Dramatic Rise in Extreme Heat, Humidity | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Across the U.S., we’ve hit the dog days of summer. Most regions are now seeing their hottest temperatures of the year, and the combination of heat and high humidity sends most people running for a cold drink, some shade, or an air conditioner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heat is the No.1 weather related killer, and as carbon pollution continues, global temperatures will keep climbing, bringing hotter summers and more extreme and dangerous heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate Central’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://impact.statesatrisk.org/\">States at Risk\u003c/a> \u003c/em>project analyzed historic trends in summer temperatures since 1970 as well as projections for future extreme heat for hundreds of metro areas across the lower 48 states. Using several measures, our findings show that most U.S. cities have already experienced large increases in extreme summer heat and absolute humidity, which together can cause serious heat-related health problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We found that scores of U.S. cities home to tens of millions of people will face dramatic increases in dangerous and extreme heat days by the middle of this century if current greenhouse gas emissions trends continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hottest parts of the country, including Texas, the Southwest, and Florida have already experienced large increases in extreme heat days, including days over 90°F, 95°F, and 100°F, as well as rising levels of humidity that make hot days feel miserable and extremely hot days downright dangerous. Cities in those same states are facing the biggest projected increases in dangerous heat over the next several decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Florida\u003c/strong> faces by far the greatest increase in the dangerous combination of heat and humidity over the next several decades. The 13 metro areas in the U.S. projected to see the greatest increase in danger days by 2050, are all in Florida. Every one of these cities is projected to see an increase of more than 100 dangerous heat days — when the heat index, a combination of heat and humidity, is more than 104°F — by that time. This will only accelerate changes already seen in Florida, where Miami tops the nation with the greatest increase in annual average 90\u003csup>o\u003c/sup>F days per year since 1970 with 46 more such days. McAllen, Texas is second, with 26, followed by Tucson with 25.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Texas\u003c/strong> tops the nation in extreme heat, with 6 of the top 7 cities with the greatest increase in 95°F days, including Austin, San Antonio, and Corpus Christi. In addition, three Texas cities lead the nation in projected danger days by 2050. Nearly half the year, between 168 and 179 days, will be what the National Weather Service considers dangerous heat days by 2050 in McAllen, Laredo, and Brownsville-Harlingen.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Arizona\u003c/strong> is also hard hit, with Phoenix projected to see 146 danger days by 2050, Tucson expected to see 135, and Yuma projected to have 159. As a harbinger of these changes, Tucson now has 24 more days above 100°F on average per year than in the 1970s, the second largest increase in the nation.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846073\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Summer-Sizzle_CC.jpg\" alt=\"Summer Sizzle_CC\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Summer-Sizzle_CC.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Summer-Sizzle_CC-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846074\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Impacts-of-extreme-heat.png\" alt=\"Impacts of extreme heat\" width=\"720\" height=\"40\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Impacts-of-extreme-heat.png 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Impacts-of-extreme-heat-400x22.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Extreme heat and the combination of high heat and humidity pose serious risks for human health. According to the National Weather Service, heat is the No.1 weather-related killer in the U.S. — more than tornados, floods, and hurricanes — and it is estimated that between 600 and 1,500 heat-related deaths occur in an average summer in the U.S.\u003csup>1,2\u003c/sup> Individual heat waves can be even more deadly. The 1995 heat wave in Chicago is estimated to have led to more than 700 deaths and in excess of 1000 more hospital admissions than normal.\u003csup>3,4\u003c/sup>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This deadly risk is not likely to go away. By the end of the century, heat-related deaths are projected to increase by thousands to tens-of-thousands each year in the U.S.\u003csup>5\u003c/sup> Those most at risk of heat-related health impacts are infants and young children, elderly over 65, those already ill, athletes, and outdoor workers\u003csup>2\u003c/sup>. But everyone is potentially at risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elevated heat, especially along with high humidity, makes it difficult for the body to cool itself. In addition to increasing the risk of mortality, heat can cause problems throughout the body. It can range from dehydration, cramps, exhaustion, dizziness, vomiting and heat rash to more serious issues involving kidney failure, heart issues, and exacerbation of respiratory issues\u003csup>6,7\u003c/sup>. These heat impacts also provide a challenge to the healthcare industry with increased hospitalizations and doctors’ visits and insurance claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>High heat also impacts other sectors and infrastructure. Stagnant air often occurs during periods of elevated heat and allows dangerous levels of air pollutants to build up. High temperatures also directly provide conditions conducive for producing harmful ground-level ozone. Periods of extreme heat can wither crops and exacerbate drought conditions greatly impacting agriculture. Blackouts often accompany heat-waves as the need for cooling puts a heavy strain on the power grid. Heat waves can also lead to harmful algal blooms and promote other bacterial growth in bodies of water and lead to degraded fish habitat, such as for species that require cooler streams and rivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846076\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/More-danger-days-coming.png\" alt=\"More danger days coming\" width=\"720\" height=\"40\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/More-danger-days-coming.png 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/More-danger-days-coming-400x22.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The combination of hot temperatures and high humidity create dangerous conditions for humans. The National Weather Service defines as dangerous any day when the heat index (the combination of heat and humidity, commonly known as the “feels like temperature”) exceeds 104°F. Under these conditions, sunstroke and heat exhaustion are likely, and physical activity or being outside for long periods is risky, potentially leading to heat stroke. These dangerous heat days pose the greatest threat to kids and the elderly, and to people who don’t have easy access to air conditioning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846078\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg.jpg\" alt=\"DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDays_sanfrancisco_en_title_lg-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We analyzed 360 of the biggest U.S. cities to see how the average number of danger days is projected to increase in the coming decades. The projections draw on 29 global climate models that have been downscaled across the continental U.S. to represent local climate conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The top 25 U.S. cities expected to see the most danger days by 2050 are:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846081\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c.png\" alt=\"DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c\" width=\"500\" height=\"497\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c.png 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c-400x398.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c-32x32.png 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c-50x50.png 50w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c-64x64.png 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c-96x96.png 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c-128x128.png 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysrank_heat_500_497_s_c1_c_c-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 25 U.S. cities projected to see the biggest increase in danger days over current conditions are:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846083\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysgrowth_heat_500_484_s_c1_c_c.png\" alt=\"DangerDaysgrowth_heat_500_484_s_c1_c_c\" width=\"500\" height=\"484\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysgrowth_heat_500_484_s_c1_c_c.png 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysgrowth_heat_500_484_s_c1_c_c-400x387.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/DangerDaysgrowth_heat_500_484_s_c1_c_c-32x32.png 32w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846084\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/heatBanner_dayssince1970_720_40_s_c1_c_c.png\" alt=\"heatBanner_dayssince1970_720_40_s_c1_c_c\" width=\"720\" height=\"40\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/heatBanner_dayssince1970_720_40_s_c1_c_c.png 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/heatBanner_dayssince1970_720_40_s_c1_c_c-400x22.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even in the absence of high humidity, extremely hot days pose a considerable health threat, particularly under prolonged exposure. Across most of the U.S. temperatures have increasingly been exceeding 90°F, 95°F, and 100°F since 1970.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our analysis of trends in extreme heat days is based on annual counts of 90°F, 95°F, and 100°F exceedances in the country’s largest 200 cities. The hottest cities are seeing the biggest average increases in extreme heat days, in general.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The top 25 cities that have seen the biggest increase in annual average days above 90°F since 1970:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846085\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_90days_rank_500_485_s_c1_c_c.png\" alt=\"HeatReport_90days_rank_500_485_s_c1_c_c\" width=\"500\" height=\"485\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_90days_rank_500_485_s_c1_c_c.png 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_90days_rank_500_485_s_c1_c_c-400x388.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_90days_rank_500_485_s_c1_c_c-32x32.png 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_90days_rank_500_485_s_c1_c_c-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The top 10 cities that have seen the biggest increase in 100°F days are:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846086\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_100days_rank_500_525_s_c1_c_c.png\" alt=\"HeatReport_100days_rank_500_525_s_c1_c_c\" width=\"500\" height=\"525\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_100days_rank_500_525_s_c1_c_c.png 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_100days_rank_500_525_s_c1_c_c-400x420.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846087\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/heatBanner_warmingsummers_720_40_s_c1_c_c.png\" alt=\"heatBanner_warmingsummers_720_40_s_c1_c_c\" width=\"720\" height=\"40\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/heatBanner_warmingsummers_720_40_s_c1_c_c.png 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/heatBanner_warmingsummers_720_40_s_c1_c_c-400x22.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 1970, summers have been warming in 45 of the lower 48 states. In many of these states, this warming is driven largely by nighttime temperatures getting hotter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846088\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers.png\" alt=\"Fastest warming summers\" width=\"500\" height=\"499\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers.png 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers-400x399.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers-32x32.png 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers-50x50.png 50w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers-64x64.png 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers-96x96.png 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers-128x128.png 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Fastest-warming-summers-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846089\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Steamier-summers.png\" alt=\"Steamier summers\" width=\"720\" height=\"40\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Steamier-summers.png 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/Steamier-summers-400x22.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As temperatures rise, evaporation increases, causing increased water vapor in the air. That extra moisture makes the air feel muggier, and can make it a lot more difficult to tolerate the heat because our bodies have a harder time keeping cool through perspiration. As summers warm across the country from increasing greenhouse gases, cities are also getting sticker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate Central analyzed how the average summer dew point has changed in 200 major U.S. cities since 1970 (the \u003ca href=\"http://wxshift.com/videos/ask-a-met-dew-point\">dew point\u003c/a> is a measure of how much moisture is in the air). We found that 87 percent of those cities have experienced an overall increase in their average summer dew point over the past 46 years, indicating that there is typically more moisture in the air on hot summer days now than there used to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The top 25 cities seeing the largest increase in summer air moisture since the 1970s are (several of which are among the fastest warming cities in the country):\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-846090\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c.png\" alt=\"HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c\" width=\"500\" height=\"495\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c.png 500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c-400x396.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c-32x32.png 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c-50x50.png 50w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c-64x64.png 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c-96x96.png 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c-128x128.png 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HeatReport_Dewpoints_500_495_s_c1_c_c-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a> \u003cem>is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Analysis by Alyson Kenward, PhD, Jennifer Brady, James Bronzan and Todd Sanford. Read full \u003ca href=\"http://assets.climatecentral.org/pdfs/Heat_methodology.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">methodology\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Footnotes:\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>1. Harvard Medical School (2005), \u003ca href=\"http://ccsl.iccip.net/ccf_report_oct_06.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Climate Change Futures: Health, Ecological and Economic Dimensions\u003c/a>, Cambridge, MA: The Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>2. Centers for Disease Control, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/extremeheat/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Extreme Heat and Your Health\u003c/a>, 2011\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>3. Palecki et al. (2001), Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. T\u003ca href=\"http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0477%282001%29082%3C1353%3ATNAIOT%3E2.3.CO%3B2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">he Nature and Impacts of the July 1999 Heat Wave in the Midwestern United States: Learning From the Lessons of 1995\u003c/a>. 82:7, 1353. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>4. Semenza et al. (1999), Am. J. Preventive Med. \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749379799000252\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Excessive Hospitalizations During the July 1995 Heat Wave in Chicago\u003c/a>. 16:4, 269. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>5. U.S. Global Change Research Program (2016), T\u003ca href=\"https://health2016.globalchange.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">he Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>6. Becker, J.A. and L.K. Stewart (2011), American Family Physician. \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21661715\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Heat-related illness\u003c/a>. 83:11, 1325.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Governor Brown Looks to Extend Climate-Change Efforts",
"headTitle": "Governor Brown Looks to Extend Climate-Change Efforts | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Gov. Jerry Brown has launched a campaign to extend some of the most ambitious climate-change programs in the country and ensure his environmental legacy when he leaves office in two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The centerpiece of the push is a cap-and-trade program that aims to reduce the use of fossil fuels by forcing manufacturers and other companies to meet tougher emissions limits or pay up to exceed them. The program has been one of the most-watched efforts in the world aimed at the climate-changing fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”mucZabSoq9pMwf5Ev8R1JTwKRNTFHUFM”]The four-year-old program, however, is only authorized to operate until 2020 and faces a litany of challenges, including a lawsuit questioning its legality, poor sales of credits, and lukewarm support among Democratic legislators to extend it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, the California Air Resources Board will release a proposed blueprint for continuing the cap-and-trade program until 2030, with a vote expected next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters credit the strategy — born under previous Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and stemming from other climate change programs initiated under Brown — with helping to cut California’s overall output of emissions by 1.5 percent in its first two years, despite the massive energy demands of the state’s thriving economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With Brown set to leave office in 2018, a state appeals court is considering a challenge from the California Chamber of Commerce contending the pollution-credit program is an illegal tax, not a fee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental groups say the lawsuit and overall uncertainty about the survival of the program are undermining the market for pollution credits. A May auction saw companies buy only one-tenth of the available credits, leaving the state billions of dollars short in projected revenue from the sales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, groups representing oil interests confirmed last week that they are in direct talks with the Brown administration over cap-and-trade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California oil companies have long sought to alter or repeal the state’s low-carbon fuel standard. By 2020, those companies would be required to reduce the carbon content of gasoline and other fuels by 10 percent, a significant jump from the current 2 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Any deal-making on climate change would reflect a pragmatic approach to the oil industry by Brown, who took office encouraging immediate boosts in oil and gas drilling to spur California’s economy, even as he promoted incentives that would reduce long-term reliance on fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What you’re seeing now is an all-hands-on-deck effort to formulate the most responsible way forward.” said Derek Walker, an associate vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund. “They’re talking to the oil industry, talking to environmental groups, to organized labor — they’re talking to everybody.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown has leveraged his position as governor to help draw attention to the battle against climate change. He has set non-binding mandates for increased use of solar, wind and other renewable energy sources in California in the decades to come while signing accords and global support statements aimed at easing climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At home, though, Brown has encountered trouble from moderate Democrats in the state Assembly who last year blocked his plan to slash statewide petroleum use in half within 15 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same lawmakers refused to endorse legislation by Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, seeking to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions through 2050. Pavley was forced to scale back her proposal that now would extend only to 2030. She has since compromised even further, agreeing last month to merge parts of her plan with legislation mandating that revenues from such programs be spent in low-income communities affected by pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Winning legislative support could be key for Brown in ensuring the survival of the cap-and-trade program, said Jessica Levinson, a political science professor at Loyola Law School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“His ability to solidify cap and trade is a big part of being able to say to other governors, to other countries, ‘We’re doing something big and specific and real and it works,'” Levinson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Should the program succumb to legal challenges, market weakness or legislative ambivalence: “Jerry Brown’s fingerprints will be on whatever we ultimately decide to do,” Levinson said.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Gov. Jerry Brown has launched a campaign to extend some of the most ambitious climate-change programs in the country and ensure his environmental legacy when he leaves office in two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The centerpiece of the push is a cap-and-trade program that aims to reduce the use of fossil fuels by forcing manufacturers and other companies to meet tougher emissions limits or pay up to exceed them. The program has been one of the most-watched efforts in the world aimed at the climate-changing fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>The four-year-old program, however, is only authorized to operate until 2020 and faces a litany of challenges, including a lawsuit questioning its legality, poor sales of credits, and lukewarm support among Democratic legislators to extend it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, the California Air Resources Board will release a proposed blueprint for continuing the cap-and-trade program until 2030, with a vote expected next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters credit the strategy — born under previous Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and stemming from other climate change programs initiated under Brown — with helping to cut California’s overall output of emissions by 1.5 percent in its first two years, despite the massive energy demands of the state’s thriving economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With Brown set to leave office in 2018, a state appeals court is considering a challenge from the California Chamber of Commerce contending the pollution-credit program is an illegal tax, not a fee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental groups say the lawsuit and overall uncertainty about the survival of the program are undermining the market for pollution credits. A May auction saw companies buy only one-tenth of the available credits, leaving the state billions of dollars short in projected revenue from the sales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, groups representing oil interests confirmed last week that they are in direct talks with the Brown administration over cap-and-trade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California oil companies have long sought to alter or repeal the state’s low-carbon fuel standard. By 2020, those companies would be required to reduce the carbon content of gasoline and other fuels by 10 percent, a significant jump from the current 2 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Any deal-making on climate change would reflect a pragmatic approach to the oil industry by Brown, who took office encouraging immediate boosts in oil and gas drilling to spur California’s economy, even as he promoted incentives that would reduce long-term reliance on fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What you’re seeing now is an all-hands-on-deck effort to formulate the most responsible way forward.” said Derek Walker, an associate vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund. “They’re talking to the oil industry, talking to environmental groups, to organized labor — they’re talking to everybody.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown has leveraged his position as governor to help draw attention to the battle against climate change. He has set non-binding mandates for increased use of solar, wind and other renewable energy sources in California in the decades to come while signing accords and global support statements aimed at easing climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At home, though, Brown has encountered trouble from moderate Democrats in the state Assembly who last year blocked his plan to slash statewide petroleum use in half within 15 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same lawmakers refused to endorse legislation by Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, seeking to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions through 2050. Pavley was forced to scale back her proposal that now would extend only to 2030. She has since compromised even further, agreeing last month to merge parts of her plan with legislation mandating that revenues from such programs be spent in low-income communities affected by pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Winning legislative support could be key for Brown in ensuring the survival of the cap-and-trade program, said Jessica Levinson, a political science professor at Loyola Law School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“His ability to solidify cap and trade is a big part of being able to say to other governors, to other countries, ‘We’re doing something big and specific and real and it works,'” Levinson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Should the program succumb to legal challenges, market weakness or legislative ambivalence: “Jerry Brown’s fingerprints will be on whatever we ultimately decide to do,” Levinson said.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>A persistent wash of warm waters off the West Coast, which caused wildlife die-offs and blocked drought-quenching storms from reaching California last year, was caused by the happenstance interplay of natural ocean cycles, research findings published Monday show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The findings also suggested that while the drought and the blob of warm water were the result of the natural whims of the weather, climate change could make such events more likely and intense in the future. To a small extent, it’s already doing so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The atmospheric variability that forced the warm blob is the same that forced the drought,” said \u003ca href=\"http://ocean.eas.gatech.edu/manu/\">Emanuele Di Lorenzo\u003c/a>, an ocean and climate dynamics professor at Georgia Tech who coauthored the analysis, \u003ca href=\"http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nclimate3082\">published in Nature Climate Change\u003c/a>. “This atmospheric variability is increasing under greenhouse gases.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new findings could help scientists predict when similar marine heatwaves and droughts will strike in the future. They also suggest such heatwaves will become more common and intense, which could mean greater drought risks in the West. (By increasing evaporation and reducing snowfall, warmer temperatures are already making Western droughts worse.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This could potentially provide predictability,” said \u003ca href=\"http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~cliff/cliff.php\">Cliff Mass\u003c/a>, a University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor who wasn’t involved with the research. “This is natural variability that we’re dealing with.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A patch of warm water that appeared off the West Coast during the fall of 2013 spread through the Gulf of Alaska into 2014, with winter water temperatures exceeding 5°F above average. The marine heatwave persisted but waned during the year and then burst back to its former devastating glory a winter later, affecting the entire coast, from Mexico to Alaska.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result was ecological tumult. Alaskan fishermen \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/west-coast-warming-natural-variability-18067\">netted tropical species\u003c/a>. A poisonous algae bloom linked to warm waters kept crabbers from California to Washington off the water. Seabirds and sea lions starved on beaches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The warm water was the result of an atmospheric accomplice that helped to parch the West: a ridge of high pressure. The timing was unfortunate. Experts had expected \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/monster-el-nino-transforms-worlds-weather-20138\">one of the most powerful El Niños\u003c/a> on record last year to douse California’s drought, but the high pressure system off southern California deflected its hearty storms northward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With El Niño now over, California is stuck in its \u003ca href=\"http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Home/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?CA\">fifth year of drought\u003c/a>, with the most severe conditions in the south, where the ridge’s effects were strongest. And scientists are left trying to unravel the mystery of what just happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Di Lorenzo and \u003ca href=\"http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~mantua/work.html\">Nathan Mantua\u003c/a>, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist, wanted to know whether the warm ocean winter of 2015 was linked to the warm ocean winter a year earlier. Understanding any links could boosts scientists’ abilities to forecast the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_841024\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-841024\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/climate-central-fire.jpg\" alt=\"California's persistent drough is fueling wildfires. \" width=\"720\" height=\"406\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/climate-central-fire.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/climate-central-fire-400x226.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California’s persistent drough is fueling wildfires. \u003ccite>(Russ Allison Loar/Flickr)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The pair analyzed temperature records and model simulations, discovering that they could force models to re-enact the observed conditions in ways that pointed to the influence of well-known ocean cycles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These climate patterns tend to have some influence on each other, and then El Niño is a central player in coordinating the connection,” Mantua said. “Looking at the historical record we see that similar things have happened, but never to the extreme that was observed in the last few years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mantua said the connections that El Niño helped to forge between warm waters in the Gulf of Alaska in 2014 and along coastlines further south could account for about half of the unusually warm water temperature in 2015 — over and above long-term warming rates. (Scientists call these long-distance connections, the likes of which are common around the planet, ‘teleconnections.’)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That means about half of the extreme we can’t account for,” Mantua said. “One possibility is it’s just bad luck that things lined up in this way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scripps researcher \u003ca href=\"http://scrippsscholars.ucsd.edu/agershunov/biocv\">Alexander Gershunov\u003c/a> said the new analysis “insightfully synthesizes previous research” in a way that could create a new paradigm for scientists, helping them understand invisible connections between different patterns of natural variation in the Pacific Ocean. And that could help with long-range weather forecasting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If it holds up to scrutiny, the new paradigm may prove instrumental in significantly extending the lead time for forecasting El Niño,” Gershunov said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conclusion that climate change could exacerbate Western drought risks didn’t surprise Stanford University climate scientist \u003ca href=\"https://earth.stanford.edu/noah-diffenbaugh\">Noah Diffenbaugh\u003c/a>. His own research has linked greenhouse gas pollution from fossil fuels, farming and deforestation with weather patterns that can fuel Californian droughts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re finding the conditions that have been present during the recent drought years, that those are more probable with increasing greenhouse gas forcings,” Diffenbaugh said.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A persistent wash of warm waters off the West Coast, which caused wildlife die-offs and blocked drought-quenching storms from reaching California last year, was caused by the happenstance interplay of natural ocean cycles, research findings published Monday show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The findings also suggested that while the drought and the blob of warm water were the result of the natural whims of the weather, climate change could make such events more likely and intense in the future. To a small extent, it’s already doing so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The atmospheric variability that forced the warm blob is the same that forced the drought,” said \u003ca href=\"http://ocean.eas.gatech.edu/manu/\">Emanuele Di Lorenzo\u003c/a>, an ocean and climate dynamics professor at Georgia Tech who coauthored the analysis, \u003ca href=\"http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nclimate3082\">published in Nature Climate Change\u003c/a>. “This atmospheric variability is increasing under greenhouse gases.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new findings could help scientists predict when similar marine heatwaves and droughts will strike in the future. They also suggest such heatwaves will become more common and intense, which could mean greater drought risks in the West. (By increasing evaporation and reducing snowfall, warmer temperatures are already making Western droughts worse.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This could potentially provide predictability,” said \u003ca href=\"http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~cliff/cliff.php\">Cliff Mass\u003c/a>, a University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor who wasn’t involved with the research. “This is natural variability that we’re dealing with.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A patch of warm water that appeared off the West Coast during the fall of 2013 spread through the Gulf of Alaska into 2014, with winter water temperatures exceeding 5°F above average. The marine heatwave persisted but waned during the year and then burst back to its former devastating glory a winter later, affecting the entire coast, from Mexico to Alaska.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The result was ecological tumult. Alaskan fishermen \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/west-coast-warming-natural-variability-18067\">netted tropical species\u003c/a>. A poisonous algae bloom linked to warm waters kept crabbers from California to Washington off the water. Seabirds and sea lions starved on beaches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The warm water was the result of an atmospheric accomplice that helped to parch the West: a ridge of high pressure. The timing was unfortunate. Experts had expected \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/monster-el-nino-transforms-worlds-weather-20138\">one of the most powerful El Niños\u003c/a> on record last year to douse California’s drought, but the high pressure system off southern California deflected its hearty storms northward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With El Niño now over, California is stuck in its \u003ca href=\"http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Home/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?CA\">fifth year of drought\u003c/a>, with the most severe conditions in the south, where the ridge’s effects were strongest. And scientists are left trying to unravel the mystery of what just happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Di Lorenzo and \u003ca href=\"http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~mantua/work.html\">Nathan Mantua\u003c/a>, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist, wanted to know whether the warm ocean winter of 2015 was linked to the warm ocean winter a year earlier. Understanding any links could boosts scientists’ abilities to forecast the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_841024\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-841024\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/climate-central-fire.jpg\" alt=\"California's persistent drough is fueling wildfires. \" width=\"720\" height=\"406\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/climate-central-fire.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/climate-central-fire-400x226.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California’s persistent drough is fueling wildfires. \u003ccite>(Russ Allison Loar/Flickr)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The pair analyzed temperature records and model simulations, discovering that they could force models to re-enact the observed conditions in ways that pointed to the influence of well-known ocean cycles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These climate patterns tend to have some influence on each other, and then El Niño is a central player in coordinating the connection,” Mantua said. “Looking at the historical record we see that similar things have happened, but never to the extreme that was observed in the last few years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mantua said the connections that El Niño helped to forge between warm waters in the Gulf of Alaska in 2014 and along coastlines further south could account for about half of the unusually warm water temperature in 2015 — over and above long-term warming rates. (Scientists call these long-distance connections, the likes of which are common around the planet, ‘teleconnections.’)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That means about half of the extreme we can’t account for,” Mantua said. “One possibility is it’s just bad luck that things lined up in this way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scripps researcher \u003ca href=\"http://scrippsscholars.ucsd.edu/agershunov/biocv\">Alexander Gershunov\u003c/a> said the new analysis “insightfully synthesizes previous research” in a way that could create a new paradigm for scientists, helping them understand invisible connections between different patterns of natural variation in the Pacific Ocean. And that could help with long-range weather forecasting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If it holds up to scrutiny, the new paradigm may prove instrumental in significantly extending the lead time for forecasting El Niño,” Gershunov said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conclusion that climate change could exacerbate Western drought risks didn’t surprise Stanford University climate scientist \u003ca href=\"https://earth.stanford.edu/noah-diffenbaugh\">Noah Diffenbaugh\u003c/a>. His own research has linked greenhouse gas pollution from fossil fuels, farming and deforestation with weather patterns that can fuel Californian droughts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re finding the conditions that have been present during the recent drought years, that those are more probable with increasing greenhouse gas forcings,” Diffenbaugh said.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Climate Change May Already Be Shifting Clouds Toward the Poles",
"headTitle": "Climate Change May Already Be Shifting Clouds Toward the Poles | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The way clouds cover the Earth may be changing because of global warming, according to a study published Monday that used satellite data to track cloud patterns across about two decades, starting in the 1980s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clouds in the mid-latitudes shifted toward the poles during that period, as the subtropical dry zones expanded and the highest cloud-tops got higher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These changes are predicted by most climate models of global warming, even though those models disagree on a lot of other things related to clouds, says \u003ca href=\"http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~jnorris/\">Joel Norris\u003c/a>, a climate scientist at the University of California, San Diego.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I guess what was surprising is that a lot of times we think of climate change as something that’s going to occur in the future,” says Norris. “This is happening right now. It’s happened during my lifetime — it was a bit startling.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 70 percent of our planet is covered by clouds, at any given moment. These constantly moving shape-shifters aren’t exactly easy for scientists to study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clouds aren’t as simple as their fluffy nature might suggest. To understand them, scientists have to track the behavior of tiny water droplets, as well as huge masses of clouds that might be hundreds of miles wide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And climate modelers also have to take into account the fact that clouds can have two different effects on temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“During daytime, if there are a lot of clouds present, thick clouds, then that will keep the temperature cooler,” says Norris, because clouds reflect incoming sunlight back to space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But thick clouds can also act like a blanket that keeps the Earth’s warmth in, he says, “which is the reason why a cloudy night won’t be as cold at the surface as a clear night.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clouds have been called the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/clouds/\">wild card\u003c/a> of climate science. Researchers argue over how exactly global warming will affect clouds and vice versa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While weather satellites can give you tons of cloud pictures, Norris says these satellites aren’t that great for trying to figure out long-term trends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The difficulties we have is that every few years a new satellite is put up with a different instrument, the orbits change, and this all changes how much cloud the satellite measures,” Norris explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So he and his colleagues recently did a bunch of corrections that would make it possible to compare cloud measurements over a couple of decades, starting in the 1980s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this week’s issue of the journal \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature18273\">Nature\u003c/a>, the researchers explain how their findings match what scientists would expect to see, based on climate models.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norris says it’s probably happening primarily because of two influences — human-produced global warming, and also the recovery from the cooling effect of two volcanic eruptions during that time frame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So will other climate researchers buy this new history of clouds? \u003ca href=\"http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/trenbert/\">Kevin Trenberth\u003c/a> at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado isn’t so sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a very good attempt to try and get a handle on this, but I don’t think it’s the final answer,” says Trenberth, who notes that the time frame studied was pretty short and included a period often described as the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/news/global-warming-hiatus-debate-flares-up-again-1.19414\">global warming hiatus\u003c/a>, from 1999 to 2013.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate researchers still have a lot of work to do when it comes to understanding clouds, says Trenberth, who believes the state of the science is still like that old \u003ca href=\"http://jonimitchell.com/\">Joni Mitchell\u003c/a> song \u003cem>Both Sides Now, \u003c/em>in which she sings, “I really don’t know clouds at all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Climate+Change+May+Already+Be+Shifting+Clouds+Toward+The+Poles&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The way clouds cover the Earth may be changing because of global warming, according to a study published Monday that used satellite data to track cloud patterns across about two decades, starting in the 1980s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clouds in the mid-latitudes shifted toward the poles during that period, as the subtropical dry zones expanded and the highest cloud-tops got higher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These changes are predicted by most climate models of global warming, even though those models disagree on a lot of other things related to clouds, says \u003ca href=\"http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~jnorris/\">Joel Norris\u003c/a>, a climate scientist at the University of California, San Diego.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I guess what was surprising is that a lot of times we think of climate change as something that’s going to occur in the future,” says Norris. “This is happening right now. It’s happened during my lifetime — it was a bit startling.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 70 percent of our planet is covered by clouds, at any given moment. These constantly moving shape-shifters aren’t exactly easy for scientists to study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clouds aren’t as simple as their fluffy nature might suggest. To understand them, scientists have to track the behavior of tiny water droplets, as well as huge masses of clouds that might be hundreds of miles wide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And climate modelers also have to take into account the fact that clouds can have two different effects on temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“During daytime, if there are a lot of clouds present, thick clouds, then that will keep the temperature cooler,” says Norris, because clouds reflect incoming sunlight back to space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But thick clouds can also act like a blanket that keeps the Earth’s warmth in, he says, “which is the reason why a cloudy night won’t be as cold at the surface as a clear night.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clouds have been called the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/clouds/\">wild card\u003c/a> of climate science. Researchers argue over how exactly global warming will affect clouds and vice versa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While weather satellites can give you tons of cloud pictures, Norris says these satellites aren’t that great for trying to figure out long-term trends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The difficulties we have is that every few years a new satellite is put up with a different instrument, the orbits change, and this all changes how much cloud the satellite measures,” Norris explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So he and his colleagues recently did a bunch of corrections that would make it possible to compare cloud measurements over a couple of decades, starting in the 1980s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this week’s issue of the journal \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature18273\">Nature\u003c/a>, the researchers explain how their findings match what scientists would expect to see, based on climate models.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norris says it’s probably happening primarily because of two influences — human-produced global warming, and also the recovery from the cooling effect of two volcanic eruptions during that time frame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So will other climate researchers buy this new history of clouds? \u003ca href=\"http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/trenbert/\">Kevin Trenberth\u003c/a> at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado isn’t so sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a very good attempt to try and get a handle on this, but I don’t think it’s the final answer,” says Trenberth, who notes that the time frame studied was pretty short and included a period often described as the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/news/global-warming-hiatus-debate-flares-up-again-1.19414\">global warming hiatus\u003c/a>, from 1999 to 2013.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate researchers still have a lot of work to do when it comes to understanding clouds, says Trenberth, who believes the state of the science is still like that old \u003ca href=\"http://jonimitchell.com/\">Joni Mitchell\u003c/a> song \u003cem>Both Sides Now, \u003c/em>in which she sings, “I really don’t know clouds at all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Climate+Change+May+Already+Be+Shifting+Clouds+Toward+The+Poles&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Wind, Not Water, to Blame for Drought, Says Study",
"headTitle": "Wind, Not Water, to Blame for Drought, Says Study | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Since California’s most recent drought began more than four years ago, scientific studies have been helping us better understand the causes and implications. We know now that a lack of precipitation has largely been caused by a very stubborn high-pressure system sitting off the West coast – dubbed at one time the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge. We’ve also learned that high-pressure systems like this may be the kind of thing we’ll see more of with climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL069386/abstract\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">new study\u003c/a> published in Geophysical Research Letters helps increase our understanding of the relationship between drought and the water cycle. Its main finding is consistent with earlier findings that atmospheric circulation, or wind, causes drought, said Jiangfeng Wei, one of the study’s authors and a research scientist at the University of Texas, Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wei and his fellow researchers – Qinjian Jin, a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Zong-Liang Yang, a professor in the Jackson School’s Department of Geological Sciences; and Paul Dirmeyer, a professor at George Mason University, Virginia – found that California’s precipitation source is mainly an area over the Pacific Ocean near the West coast. Most of the precipitation that falls in the state comes from evaporation over the ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So one might expect that variations in the ocean evaporation would link to variations in precipitation, including drought. But that’s only true, they found, with extreme wet events – not drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We found that the large-scale atmospheric circulation, or wind, actually controls the ocean evaporation and also controls the transfer of evaporated moisture from the ocean to California,” said Wei. “Therefore, the atmospheric circulation is the original cause of the drought. Both ocean evaporation and atmospheric circulation may affect California precipitation, but the later one is much more powerful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers further elaborated in their study, writing, “This could be because extreme wet events in California are usually supplied by additional moisture from enhanced evaporation, in addition to favorable circulation patterns, while California droughts are mainly caused by circulation anomalies and are less associated with reduced evaporation in moisture sources.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wei said that the study leads to a better understanding of the water cycle associated with variations in California’s precipitation, and may contribute to prediction of droughts and floods. It could also help inform research in other regions: the researchers are setting their sights next on Texas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of the precipitation in Texas comes from evaporation from the Gulf and the Pacific Ocean. “Texas has a much larger land area, and local land evaporation and associated feedbacks also play important roles in Texas rainfall,” said Wei. “Therefore, the study of Texas will be more complicated. In some sense, this study in California is a simplified case for studying the complicated ocean-land-atmosphere interactions and the influence of water cycle on rainfall.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article originally appeared on\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://mail.kqed.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=9e4bb0e1a7d74f24ba4684ef2533053d&URL=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newsdeeply.com%2fwater\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Water Deeply\u003c/a>, and you can find \u003c/em>\u003cem>it \u003ca href=\"https://mail.kqed.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=9e4bb0e1a7d74f24ba4684ef2533053d&URL=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newsdeeply.com%2fwater%2farticles%2f2016%2f07%2f07%2fnine-experts-to-watch-on-california-water-policy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003cem>For important news about the California drought, you can\u003c/em> \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://mail.kqed.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=9e4bb0e1a7d74f24ba4684ef2533053d&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwaterdeeply.us5.list-manage.com%2fsubscribe%3fu%3d8b78e9a34ff7443ec1e8c62c6%26id%3d2947becb78\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sign up\u003c/a>\u003c/em> \u003cem>to the Water Deeply email list.\u003c/em>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A new study looking at the relationship between the water cycle and California’s drought found that large-scale atmospheric circulation is a primary force behind water shortages.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Since California’s most recent drought began more than four years ago, scientific studies have been helping us better understand the causes and implications. We know now that a lack of precipitation has largely been caused by a very stubborn high-pressure system sitting off the West coast – dubbed at one time the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge. We’ve also learned that high-pressure systems like this may be the kind of thing we’ll see more of with climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL069386/abstract\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">new study\u003c/a> published in Geophysical Research Letters helps increase our understanding of the relationship between drought and the water cycle. Its main finding is consistent with earlier findings that atmospheric circulation, or wind, causes drought, said Jiangfeng Wei, one of the study’s authors and a research scientist at the University of Texas, Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wei and his fellow researchers – Qinjian Jin, a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Zong-Liang Yang, a professor in the Jackson School’s Department of Geological Sciences; and Paul Dirmeyer, a professor at George Mason University, Virginia – found that California’s precipitation source is mainly an area over the Pacific Ocean near the West coast. Most of the precipitation that falls in the state comes from evaporation over the ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So one might expect that variations in the ocean evaporation would link to variations in precipitation, including drought. But that’s only true, they found, with extreme wet events – not drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We found that the large-scale atmospheric circulation, or wind, actually controls the ocean evaporation and also controls the transfer of evaporated moisture from the ocean to California,” said Wei. “Therefore, the atmospheric circulation is the original cause of the drought. Both ocean evaporation and atmospheric circulation may affect California precipitation, but the later one is much more powerful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers further elaborated in their study, writing, “This could be because extreme wet events in California are usually supplied by additional moisture from enhanced evaporation, in addition to favorable circulation patterns, while California droughts are mainly caused by circulation anomalies and are less associated with reduced evaporation in moisture sources.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wei said that the study leads to a better understanding of the water cycle associated with variations in California’s precipitation, and may contribute to prediction of droughts and floods. It could also help inform research in other regions: the researchers are setting their sights next on Texas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of the precipitation in Texas comes from evaporation from the Gulf and the Pacific Ocean. “Texas has a much larger land area, and local land evaporation and associated feedbacks also play important roles in Texas rainfall,” said Wei. “Therefore, the study of Texas will be more complicated. In some sense, this study in California is a simplified case for studying the complicated ocean-land-atmosphere interactions and the influence of water cycle on rainfall.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article originally appeared on\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://mail.kqed.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=9e4bb0e1a7d74f24ba4684ef2533053d&URL=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newsdeeply.com%2fwater\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Water Deeply\u003c/a>, and you can find \u003c/em>\u003cem>it \u003ca href=\"https://mail.kqed.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=9e4bb0e1a7d74f24ba4684ef2533053d&URL=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newsdeeply.com%2fwater%2farticles%2f2016%2f07%2f07%2fnine-experts-to-watch-on-california-water-policy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003cem>For important news about the California drought, you can\u003c/em> \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://mail.kqed.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=9e4bb0e1a7d74f24ba4684ef2533053d&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwaterdeeply.us5.list-manage.com%2fsubscribe%3fu%3d8b78e9a34ff7443ec1e8c62c6%26id%3d2947becb78\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sign up\u003c/a>\u003c/em> \u003cem>to the Water Deeply email list.\u003c/em>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Sea Level Rise Could Wash Away Our Natural and Cultural History",
"headTitle": "Sea Level Rise Could Wash Away Our Natural and Cultural History | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>A 50-minute subway ride connects downtown Manhattan with the Broad Channel neighborhood in outer Queens. On each end sits a National Park Service site that showcases the diversity of what parks can be and how they’re united in common challenges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the Manhattan end, the weathered green hue of the Statue of Liberty looms over the blue waters of New York Harbor, a beacon of hope to the world over. The hulking monument greeted more than 12 million immigrants who passed through its neighbor to the west, Ellis Island, from 1892-1954. The Statue of Liberty still serves as a reminder that we all strive for better days ahead, and for the more than 4 million annual visitors who make the pilgrimage to these iconic landmarks, it serves as the defining symbol of a country built almost entirely of immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the other end of the A train’s twisting route through the city is a much quieter place. Gateway National Recreation Area is a sprawling natural oasis. In fact, it’s the only natural National Park Service site in the country you can reach by subway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the center of the park is Jamaica Bay, a nearly 20,000-acre stretch of water nestled between the Queens’ Rockaways neighborhood and Long Island. Manhattan’s skyline glitters in the distance, but Gateway couldn’t feel further from the 8.5 million people crammed into the city’s 305 square miles (to say nothing of the 20 million living in the larger metro area). Beaches and marshes provide respite for city dwellers as well as thousands of birds that call Gateway home or use it as a stopover on the Atlantic flyway that runs from Nova Scotia to Florida. Its waters teem with life, luring recreational fishermen to its shores, just miles from the hordes of tourists with selfie sticks in Times Square and bankers hustling along Wall Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Viewed separately, the Statue of Liberty and Gateway parks have little in common aside from a shared city. But they’re inextricably linked, being forced to deal with the impacts of climate change and sea level rise. Together, they’re growing threats that endanger the culture and history these parks were created to protect, not to mention billions of dollars in assets and the quality of life for millions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How the National Park Service prepares for and deals with those threats is a step into an uncertain future, one that could reshape the landscape for parks and communities along the coast and across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_816751\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1598px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-816751\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/StatueofLiberty_NPS.jpg\" alt=\"The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island have stood as testaments to the promise of a better tomorrow. \" width=\"1598\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/StatueofLiberty_NPS.jpg 1598w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/StatueofLiberty_NPS-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/StatueofLiberty_NPS-800x451.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/StatueofLiberty_NPS-768x433.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/StatueofLiberty_NPS-1440x811.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/StatueofLiberty_NPS-1180x665.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/StatueofLiberty_NPS-960x541.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1598px) 100vw, 1598px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island have stood as testaments to the promise of a better tomorrow. \u003ccite>(National Park Service)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Test of the Human Spirit\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The water was up to here,” Rob Parrish said, holding his hand up to his shoulder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It should be noted that Parrish, the head of professional services at the Statue of Liberty, is a big dude, a former Marine standing well north of 6 feet. In the crowd buzzing around Ellis Island’s main building, he is head and shoulders above the fray, even without the construction hat perched atop his shaved head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drawing an imaginary line out from Parrish’s shoulders to the steps of the island’s main building, it’s clear that \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/statistics-show-just-how-intense-hurricane-sandy-was-15196\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge\u003c/a> — the highest to hit New York Harbor on record — got within inches of creeping into the first floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parrish arrived in the aftermath of Sandy to help assess the storm’s damage and build Ellis and Liberty Island back with an eye toward the future risks that climate change poses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For this and all future projects, climate change will be on the checklist items,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That fits with the bigger picture of how the National Park Service is responding to climate change, particularly along the coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a new model of if a park is impacted, be smart in how you replace and restore things,” said Rebecca Beavers, the climate change coordinator at the National Park Service’s Geologic Resources Division. “Do not rebuild in-kind, do not replace as was. Instead, we need to look at innovative ways to protect these places into the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rising 305 feet above New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty is arguably the most recognizable landmark in the country. From its dedication in 1886 to today, it stands as a testament to freedom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1984 when it was \u003ca href=\"http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/307\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">designated a World Heritage Site\u003c/a>, UNESCO lauded it not only as a “masterpiece of colossal statuary” but as a “masterpiece of the human spirit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is no greater test of that human spirit than how we respond to climate change, and it’s no surprise that the National Park Service’s efforts to do so are so intensely focused at the statue and Ellis Island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Waters in the harbor have \u003ca href=\"http://sealevel.climatecentral.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">risen a foot\u003c/a> since the start of the Industrial Revolution. That rise is expected to \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/study-reveals-acceleration-of-sea-level-rise-20055\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">accelerate as the world warms\u003c/a>. They are projected to be more than 3 feet higher by 2100, though that figure\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/sea-levels-rise-20-feet-19211\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">could be significantly higher\u003c/a> if Antarctica’s massive stores of ice go into a major meltdown, something not out of the realm of possibility. Add in the likelihood of more\u003ca href=\"https://wwa.climatecentral.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">extreme storms\u003c/a> combined with ever-rising storm surge, and the challenges for park managers are both long-term and acute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hurricane Sandy, which killed 147 and caused $75 billion in damage in 2012, laid bare what some of those challenges are and kickstarted the process for how to address them. The Statue of Liberty is at the center of the National Park Service’s rebuilding efforts, serving as a potential blueprint for how other parks can meet the challenges of rising seas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parrish’s job is to help take that model and make it a reality in New York Harbor. He knows the park’s geography intimately, from the new grass laid down (as it turns out, it’s the same turf you’ll find on an NFL field) to the location of the heating and cooling system components tucked in basements, and the threat sea level rise poses to all of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the root of Parrish’s job is the tension of ensuring the park’s $1.5 billion in assets within 3 feet of the current sea level are protected in a seamless visitor experience. The latter means that when you visit Ellis Island or Liberty Island, the experience is the same as it always was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a kid coming here today, we want them to bring their kid here 20 years later and have it look the exact same way,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Parrish and the National Park Service, it’s the efforts that most visitors will never see that will make the park enjoyable today and for decades into the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One thing that quickly became clear behind the scenes after Sandy’s fury was that second-floor space for all the buildings on Liberty and Ellis islands was at a premium. While the areas accessible to visitors in the main building were spared from floodwaters, other parts of the building weren’t so lucky. Lower-lying structures were inundated. Waves lifted heavy wooden benches from the ground and smashed them into the swinging glass doors on the administration building lobby that had been refinished just two years prior to Sandy’s landfall, damage that’s still visible today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The basement of Ellis Island’s main building completely filled with seawater and that’s where trouble really hit home. The basement and first floor of another building housed all the electrical, heating and cooling, and communication infrastructure that the park needs to remain open. Saltwater destroyed millions of dollars worth of boilers, transformers, switchboards, cooling pipes and other equipment essential for running Ellis Island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Liberty Island, it was a similar story, though on a smaller scale since the island itself has less built infrastructure and was “only” 75 percent inundated (as opposed to Ellis Island, which was fully submerged). The storm shuttered Ellis Island for a year and the Statue of Liberty for roughly 9 months. Nearly four years later, parts of both islands still resemble construction zones but progress has definitely been made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the life of the park here, people can’t recall water overtopping the island. People never would’ve thought it was possible. That’s why the park was less prepared,” Parrish said, standing on a new stainless steel frame amidst the hum of machinery on Ellis Island. “Now we’re basically taking equipment to places that are higher up. This mezzanine was a response to Sandy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The steel platform houses much of heating, cooling, electrical and telephone equipment needed so that 4 million people can visit the park every year in relative comfort and safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s also a host of other improvements equally unsexy (think antimicrobial duct padding that can resist seawater damage, motors placed outside machinery for easy replacement and oil-filled transformers that can function even after being submerged under 10 feet of saltwater) that are part of a $53 million overhaul to the park’s infrastructure damaged by Sandy. Parrish even has to rethink the building materials used for the walls themselves, joking that “drywall is a four-letter word around here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In terms of money invested for the future, I doubt if there is anywhere else in the U.S. park system that’s this far ahead in preparing for sea level rise,” said Adam Markham, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ special initiative on climate impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fixes may not inspire passionate paeans to perseverance, but as sea levels rise and storm surge becomes an ever greater concern, they’re what will keep these parks open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not going to raise Ellis Island,” Parrish said. “Things come and things go. This may go, but I’m going to try my hardest. You have to hope mankind acts and you try your damnedest where you can to make a difference.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_816755\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1601px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-816755\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JamaicaBayHeader_NPS.jpg\" alt=\"Jamaica Bay may be just miles from the heart of downtown New York, but it's a world away. \" width=\"1601\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JamaicaBayHeader_NPS.jpg 1601w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JamaicaBayHeader_NPS-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JamaicaBayHeader_NPS-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JamaicaBayHeader_NPS-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JamaicaBayHeader_NPS-1440x809.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JamaicaBayHeader_NPS-1180x663.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JamaicaBayHeader_NPS-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1601px) 100vw, 1601px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jamaica Bay may be just miles from the heart of downtown New York, but it’s a world away. \u003ccite>(Ryan Anderson/National Park Service)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rising Seas Put Gateway in the Balance\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A park service boat skips across the slate gray water of Jamaica Bay, bouncing over waves and hitting the troughs with a leaden thunk. To a landlubber, it’s bone jarring. To Jolene Willis, it’s an easy ride.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Willis is an ecologist at Gateway National Recreation Area. She has the practiced squint of someone who spends their fair share of days on a boat. And that’s because she pretty much does, motoring around Jamaica Bay to monitor the marshes that are key components of the park’s ecosystem. The marshes provide habitat for 325 species of birds and teem with aquatic life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_816761\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1601px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-816761\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JoleneWillis_BK.jpg\" alt=\"Jolene Willis walks on West Elders Marsh, which is part of Gateway’s longest-running marsh restoration project. \" width=\"1601\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JoleneWillis_BK.jpg 1601w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JoleneWillis_BK-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JoleneWillis_BK-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JoleneWillis_BK-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JoleneWillis_BK-1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JoleneWillis_BK-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JoleneWillis_BK-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1601px) 100vw, 1601px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jolene Willis walks on West Elders Marsh, which is part of Gateway’s longest-running marsh restoration project. \u003ccite>(Brian Kahn/climate Central)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As the boat pulls up to West Elders Marsh, Willis puts on her waders and hops over the bow into thigh-deep water. Schools of mummichogs — small fish the size of a pinky finger — buzz the shallows and horseshoe crabs bump into her feet. “They’re attracted to waders for some reason,” she said, making sure the anchor lodged in the muck surrounding the marsh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sloshing to shore, Willis rattles off the birds nesting on the highland part of the marsh — cormorants, herring gulls, black-eyed gulls, snowy egret, ibises and black-crowned night herons with a pair osprey buzzing by for good measure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_816757\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-816757 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HorseshoeCrab2_BK.jpg\" alt=\"Life and death play out on West Elders Marsh. From left to right, mallard eggs, a dead horseshoe crab and laughing gull eggs. \" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HorseshoeCrab2_BK.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HorseshoeCrab2_BK-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A dead horseshoe crab on West Elders Marsh. \u003ccite>(Brian Kahn/Climate Central)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If you’re an angler or birder, it’s paradise. If you could block out the view of the Manhattan skyline that’s just 11 miles northwest, and the rumble of planes taking off from nearby John F. Kennedy Airport, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’re in wilds of New York before it became the Big Apple. The bay is one of three chunks of land and water that make up Gateway National Recreation Area, which also includes parts of Brooklyn, Staten Island and New Jersey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>West Elders Marsh may be overrun with natural life, but it’s a manmade creation. Decades of pollution had killed off or degraded much of Jamaica Bay’s marshes, prompting the park to undertake a multi-million dollar restoration in the mid-2000s, well before Sandy changed the conversation and provided another influx of funds for research and restoration. The bay has lost 70 percent of its marshland due to polluted waterways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Healthy marshes can provide a stopover for some of the millions of birds that fly up and down the East Coast each year. But managing this bay is about more than just coastal habitat. It’s about protecting the residents who live along it shores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The point of the marsh is to absorb the impact of storms,” Willis said. “Everything we do helps reduce the impacts of climate change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gateway is a microcosm of the challenges the entire East Coast faces from sea level rise. The park protects a wealth of natural treasures like Jamaica Bay. It’s also home to $2.7 billion in assets — buildings, historic forts, and other structures — within 3 feet of current sea levels. And while it’s far from the dense urban core of New York, there are still thousands who live in the neighborhoods on the fringes of the park. How Gateway responds to sea level rise has direct consequences for its neighbors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sandy laid bare the catastrophic risk storm surge poses. Because sea level has risen a foot since the start of the 20th century and there’s so much infrastructure along the coast, there’s also the growing threat of everyday flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sea level rise was on park managers’ minds well before Sandy, including a computer modeling effort that started in 2008.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The park was not starting from zero,” said Rebecca Beavers, who coordinates much of the park service’s sea level rise work. “They have been looking at and studying these impacts for quite awhile.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Sandy took climate change out of the theoretical realm and into a real one. The funding that has since become available through the Hurricane Sandy Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act has also put the park’s adaptation plans on the fast track.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lion’s share of the $150 million set aside for Gateway from Sandy funds has been used for construction around the park, including relocating a number of buildings in floodplains and rebuilding marinas so visitors can access the park by boat. But Sandy also offered an unprecedented opportunity to study how natural resources were impacted, what resource managers could do to prepare them for the next storm, and how the park service could help protect people along the shoreline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After Sandy and the damage, funds for resiliency have afforded us an opportunity to take that planning and put it into action,” Patricia Rafferty, head of the park’s resources division, said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Jamaica Bay, most of the focus has been on marshes, which provide crucial bird and aquatic species habitat as well as natural defenses against storm damage. Local pollution is in large part responsible for 70 percent of Jamaica Bay’s saltwater marshes disappearing over the past 60 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now sea level rise is the next big threat to these marshes. So far it appears they are getting enough new sediment to stay a step ahead of rising tides. But with the rate of sea level rise expected to accelerate in the coming decades, it’s unclear if those same marshes will continue to keep pace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sea level rise is pushing water higher but being in the heart of one of the most densely populated urban areas in the world means there are a ton of nutrients being pushed into the bay, too” Willis said, swinging herself back into the boat. “That’s too much for some marshes to handle and they could die off.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saltwater marshes are by their very nature resilient to change. They deal with daily influxes of water that can regularly submerge at least part of their territory. But rising seas mean even Gateway park’s healthiest natural marsh, Joco, is facing an uncertain future. Confounding the race is the impact of local pollution and runoff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pushing off from West Elders Marsh, Willis turns the boat east toward Joco. The red and green buoys are the only landmarks to guide Willis, and she uses the age-old sailor adage “red right returning” — keeping the red buoys to the right if you’re heading back to port (and green on your right on the way out, which doesn’t have the same ring) — to navigate through the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the watery trail arrives at Joco, however, there’s not much to see. High tide has rolled into the bay ahead of the new moon, temporarily submerging the marsh under its murky waters. The only signs of terra firma are white PVC pipes used to mark sample sites poking up from the water and an osprey nest improbably perched on a barrel that had somehow alighted upright on the marsh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve never seen a tide like this,” Willis said. “This is fine once and awhile. When it becomes frequent, then we have problems. Eventually, it will always look this way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Always looking that way” means the end of the marshes the park is working so hard to restore as well increasing issues for the people living on the shores of Jamaica Bay. Some of the neighborhoods there already see two nuisance floods a month. By mid-century, sea levels could be another foot higher and with that increase, nuisance flooding \u003ca href=\"http://blog.ucsusa.org/melanie-fitzpatrick/sea-level-rise-in-jamaica-bay-new-york-688\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">could increase tenfold\u003c/a>. The same fate awaits Joco and if it disappears, so could the plants and animals that need it to survive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Losing Joco and other marshes would also have consequences for those onshore. Using Sandy recovery funds set aside by the Department of Interior, Gateway National Recreation Area has funded research to look at just how much protection wetlands can offer against future storm surge. The studies show that the main benefit of continuing to restore Gateway’s marshes would be to lessen the impact of waves, thereby lessening the destruction they cause. But the marshes are relatively ineffective at reducing flooding given the current configuration of the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To reduce the threat of flooding, researchers found the best route forward is to fill in parts of a shipping channel that was cut into the bay in the 1910s and has been dredged ever since. Philip Orton, a researcher at the Stevens Institute for Technology who authored the research, said he and his team have put forward that option to Gateway managers for consideration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not only is it a landscape that doesn’t have benefits for reducing flooding, it makes it worse,” Orton said, noting that the shipping channel essentially funnels more water into the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fate of these natural and human systems and how Gateway managers respond to climate change are closely intertwined. Beyond that, Gateway has a unique place in the National Park Service, providing a natural refuge in the largest metropolitan area in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Jamaica Bay is the largest open space in New York,” Rafferty said. “It’s a great way for people to experience nature in their own backyards, especially if they don’t have a backyard.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a> \u003cem>is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "How the National Park Service prepares for sea level rise could reshape the landscape for parks and communities along the coast.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A 50-minute subway ride connects downtown Manhattan with the Broad Channel neighborhood in outer Queens. On each end sits a National Park Service site that showcases the diversity of what parks can be and how they’re united in common challenges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the Manhattan end, the weathered green hue of the Statue of Liberty looms over the blue waters of New York Harbor, a beacon of hope to the world over. The hulking monument greeted more than 12 million immigrants who passed through its neighbor to the west, Ellis Island, from 1892-1954. The Statue of Liberty still serves as a reminder that we all strive for better days ahead, and for the more than 4 million annual visitors who make the pilgrimage to these iconic landmarks, it serves as the defining symbol of a country built almost entirely of immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the other end of the A train’s twisting route through the city is a much quieter place. Gateway National Recreation Area is a sprawling natural oasis. In fact, it’s the only natural National Park Service site in the country you can reach by subway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the center of the park is Jamaica Bay, a nearly 20,000-acre stretch of water nestled between the Queens’ Rockaways neighborhood and Long Island. Manhattan’s skyline glitters in the distance, but Gateway couldn’t feel further from the 8.5 million people crammed into the city’s 305 square miles (to say nothing of the 20 million living in the larger metro area). Beaches and marshes provide respite for city dwellers as well as thousands of birds that call Gateway home or use it as a stopover on the Atlantic flyway that runs from Nova Scotia to Florida. Its waters teem with life, luring recreational fishermen to its shores, just miles from the hordes of tourists with selfie sticks in Times Square and bankers hustling along Wall Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Viewed separately, the Statue of Liberty and Gateway parks have little in common aside from a shared city. But they’re inextricably linked, being forced to deal with the impacts of climate change and sea level rise. Together, they’re growing threats that endanger the culture and history these parks were created to protect, not to mention billions of dollars in assets and the quality of life for millions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How the National Park Service prepares for and deals with those threats is a step into an uncertain future, one that could reshape the landscape for parks and communities along the coast and across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_816751\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1598px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-816751\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/StatueofLiberty_NPS.jpg\" alt=\"The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island have stood as testaments to the promise of a better tomorrow. \" width=\"1598\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/StatueofLiberty_NPS.jpg 1598w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/StatueofLiberty_NPS-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/StatueofLiberty_NPS-800x451.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/StatueofLiberty_NPS-768x433.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/StatueofLiberty_NPS-1440x811.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/StatueofLiberty_NPS-1180x665.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/StatueofLiberty_NPS-960x541.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1598px) 100vw, 1598px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island have stood as testaments to the promise of a better tomorrow. \u003ccite>(National Park Service)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Test of the Human Spirit\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The water was up to here,” Rob Parrish said, holding his hand up to his shoulder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It should be noted that Parrish, the head of professional services at the Statue of Liberty, is a big dude, a former Marine standing well north of 6 feet. In the crowd buzzing around Ellis Island’s main building, he is head and shoulders above the fray, even without the construction hat perched atop his shaved head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drawing an imaginary line out from Parrish’s shoulders to the steps of the island’s main building, it’s clear that \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/statistics-show-just-how-intense-hurricane-sandy-was-15196\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge\u003c/a> — the highest to hit New York Harbor on record — got within inches of creeping into the first floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parrish arrived in the aftermath of Sandy to help assess the storm’s damage and build Ellis and Liberty Island back with an eye toward the future risks that climate change poses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For this and all future projects, climate change will be on the checklist items,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That fits with the bigger picture of how the National Park Service is responding to climate change, particularly along the coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a new model of if a park is impacted, be smart in how you replace and restore things,” said Rebecca Beavers, the climate change coordinator at the National Park Service’s Geologic Resources Division. “Do not rebuild in-kind, do not replace as was. Instead, we need to look at innovative ways to protect these places into the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rising 305 feet above New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty is arguably the most recognizable landmark in the country. From its dedication in 1886 to today, it stands as a testament to freedom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1984 when it was \u003ca href=\"http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/307\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">designated a World Heritage Site\u003c/a>, UNESCO lauded it not only as a “masterpiece of colossal statuary” but as a “masterpiece of the human spirit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is no greater test of that human spirit than how we respond to climate change, and it’s no surprise that the National Park Service’s efforts to do so are so intensely focused at the statue and Ellis Island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Waters in the harbor have \u003ca href=\"http://sealevel.climatecentral.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">risen a foot\u003c/a> since the start of the Industrial Revolution. That rise is expected to \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/study-reveals-acceleration-of-sea-level-rise-20055\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">accelerate as the world warms\u003c/a>. They are projected to be more than 3 feet higher by 2100, though that figure\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/sea-levels-rise-20-feet-19211\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">could be significantly higher\u003c/a> if Antarctica’s massive stores of ice go into a major meltdown, something not out of the realm of possibility. Add in the likelihood of more\u003ca href=\"https://wwa.climatecentral.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">extreme storms\u003c/a> combined with ever-rising storm surge, and the challenges for park managers are both long-term and acute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hurricane Sandy, which killed 147 and caused $75 billion in damage in 2012, laid bare what some of those challenges are and kickstarted the process for how to address them. The Statue of Liberty is at the center of the National Park Service’s rebuilding efforts, serving as a potential blueprint for how other parks can meet the challenges of rising seas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parrish’s job is to help take that model and make it a reality in New York Harbor. He knows the park’s geography intimately, from the new grass laid down (as it turns out, it’s the same turf you’ll find on an NFL field) to the location of the heating and cooling system components tucked in basements, and the threat sea level rise poses to all of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the root of Parrish’s job is the tension of ensuring the park’s $1.5 billion in assets within 3 feet of the current sea level are protected in a seamless visitor experience. The latter means that when you visit Ellis Island or Liberty Island, the experience is the same as it always was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a kid coming here today, we want them to bring their kid here 20 years later and have it look the exact same way,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Parrish and the National Park Service, it’s the efforts that most visitors will never see that will make the park enjoyable today and for decades into the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One thing that quickly became clear behind the scenes after Sandy’s fury was that second-floor space for all the buildings on Liberty and Ellis islands was at a premium. While the areas accessible to visitors in the main building were spared from floodwaters, other parts of the building weren’t so lucky. Lower-lying structures were inundated. Waves lifted heavy wooden benches from the ground and smashed them into the swinging glass doors on the administration building lobby that had been refinished just two years prior to Sandy’s landfall, damage that’s still visible today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The basement of Ellis Island’s main building completely filled with seawater and that’s where trouble really hit home. The basement and first floor of another building housed all the electrical, heating and cooling, and communication infrastructure that the park needs to remain open. Saltwater destroyed millions of dollars worth of boilers, transformers, switchboards, cooling pipes and other equipment essential for running Ellis Island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Liberty Island, it was a similar story, though on a smaller scale since the island itself has less built infrastructure and was “only” 75 percent inundated (as opposed to Ellis Island, which was fully submerged). The storm shuttered Ellis Island for a year and the Statue of Liberty for roughly 9 months. Nearly four years later, parts of both islands still resemble construction zones but progress has definitely been made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the life of the park here, people can’t recall water overtopping the island. People never would’ve thought it was possible. That’s why the park was less prepared,” Parrish said, standing on a new stainless steel frame amidst the hum of machinery on Ellis Island. “Now we’re basically taking equipment to places that are higher up. This mezzanine was a response to Sandy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The steel platform houses much of heating, cooling, electrical and telephone equipment needed so that 4 million people can visit the park every year in relative comfort and safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s also a host of other improvements equally unsexy (think antimicrobial duct padding that can resist seawater damage, motors placed outside machinery for easy replacement and oil-filled transformers that can function even after being submerged under 10 feet of saltwater) that are part of a $53 million overhaul to the park’s infrastructure damaged by Sandy. Parrish even has to rethink the building materials used for the walls themselves, joking that “drywall is a four-letter word around here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In terms of money invested for the future, I doubt if there is anywhere else in the U.S. park system that’s this far ahead in preparing for sea level rise,” said Adam Markham, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ special initiative on climate impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fixes may not inspire passionate paeans to perseverance, but as sea levels rise and storm surge becomes an ever greater concern, they’re what will keep these parks open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not going to raise Ellis Island,” Parrish said. “Things come and things go. This may go, but I’m going to try my hardest. You have to hope mankind acts and you try your damnedest where you can to make a difference.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_816755\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1601px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-816755\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JamaicaBayHeader_NPS.jpg\" alt=\"Jamaica Bay may be just miles from the heart of downtown New York, but it's a world away. \" width=\"1601\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JamaicaBayHeader_NPS.jpg 1601w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JamaicaBayHeader_NPS-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JamaicaBayHeader_NPS-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JamaicaBayHeader_NPS-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JamaicaBayHeader_NPS-1440x809.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JamaicaBayHeader_NPS-1180x663.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JamaicaBayHeader_NPS-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1601px) 100vw, 1601px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jamaica Bay may be just miles from the heart of downtown New York, but it’s a world away. \u003ccite>(Ryan Anderson/National Park Service)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rising Seas Put Gateway in the Balance\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A park service boat skips across the slate gray water of Jamaica Bay, bouncing over waves and hitting the troughs with a leaden thunk. To a landlubber, it’s bone jarring. To Jolene Willis, it’s an easy ride.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Willis is an ecologist at Gateway National Recreation Area. She has the practiced squint of someone who spends their fair share of days on a boat. And that’s because she pretty much does, motoring around Jamaica Bay to monitor the marshes that are key components of the park’s ecosystem. The marshes provide habitat for 325 species of birds and teem with aquatic life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_816761\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1601px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-816761\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JoleneWillis_BK.jpg\" alt=\"Jolene Willis walks on West Elders Marsh, which is part of Gateway’s longest-running marsh restoration project. \" width=\"1601\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JoleneWillis_BK.jpg 1601w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JoleneWillis_BK-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JoleneWillis_BK-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JoleneWillis_BK-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JoleneWillis_BK-1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JoleneWillis_BK-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/JoleneWillis_BK-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1601px) 100vw, 1601px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jolene Willis walks on West Elders Marsh, which is part of Gateway’s longest-running marsh restoration project. \u003ccite>(Brian Kahn/climate Central)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As the boat pulls up to West Elders Marsh, Willis puts on her waders and hops over the bow into thigh-deep water. Schools of mummichogs — small fish the size of a pinky finger — buzz the shallows and horseshoe crabs bump into her feet. “They’re attracted to waders for some reason,” she said, making sure the anchor lodged in the muck surrounding the marsh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sloshing to shore, Willis rattles off the birds nesting on the highland part of the marsh — cormorants, herring gulls, black-eyed gulls, snowy egret, ibises and black-crowned night herons with a pair osprey buzzing by for good measure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_816757\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-816757 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HorseshoeCrab2_BK.jpg\" alt=\"Life and death play out on West Elders Marsh. From left to right, mallard eggs, a dead horseshoe crab and laughing gull eggs. \" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HorseshoeCrab2_BK.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/07/HorseshoeCrab2_BK-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A dead horseshoe crab on West Elders Marsh. \u003ccite>(Brian Kahn/Climate Central)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If you’re an angler or birder, it’s paradise. If you could block out the view of the Manhattan skyline that’s just 11 miles northwest, and the rumble of planes taking off from nearby John F. Kennedy Airport, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’re in wilds of New York before it became the Big Apple. The bay is one of three chunks of land and water that make up Gateway National Recreation Area, which also includes parts of Brooklyn, Staten Island and New Jersey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>West Elders Marsh may be overrun with natural life, but it’s a manmade creation. Decades of pollution had killed off or degraded much of Jamaica Bay’s marshes, prompting the park to undertake a multi-million dollar restoration in the mid-2000s, well before Sandy changed the conversation and provided another influx of funds for research and restoration. The bay has lost 70 percent of its marshland due to polluted waterways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Healthy marshes can provide a stopover for some of the millions of birds that fly up and down the East Coast each year. But managing this bay is about more than just coastal habitat. It’s about protecting the residents who live along it shores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The point of the marsh is to absorb the impact of storms,” Willis said. “Everything we do helps reduce the impacts of climate change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gateway is a microcosm of the challenges the entire East Coast faces from sea level rise. The park protects a wealth of natural treasures like Jamaica Bay. It’s also home to $2.7 billion in assets — buildings, historic forts, and other structures — within 3 feet of current sea levels. And while it’s far from the dense urban core of New York, there are still thousands who live in the neighborhoods on the fringes of the park. How Gateway responds to sea level rise has direct consequences for its neighbors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sandy laid bare the catastrophic risk storm surge poses. Because sea level has risen a foot since the start of the 20th century and there’s so much infrastructure along the coast, there’s also the growing threat of everyday flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sea level rise was on park managers’ minds well before Sandy, including a computer modeling effort that started in 2008.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The park was not starting from zero,” said Rebecca Beavers, who coordinates much of the park service’s sea level rise work. “They have been looking at and studying these impacts for quite awhile.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Sandy took climate change out of the theoretical realm and into a real one. The funding that has since become available through the Hurricane Sandy Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act has also put the park’s adaptation plans on the fast track.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lion’s share of the $150 million set aside for Gateway from Sandy funds has been used for construction around the park, including relocating a number of buildings in floodplains and rebuilding marinas so visitors can access the park by boat. But Sandy also offered an unprecedented opportunity to study how natural resources were impacted, what resource managers could do to prepare them for the next storm, and how the park service could help protect people along the shoreline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After Sandy and the damage, funds for resiliency have afforded us an opportunity to take that planning and put it into action,” Patricia Rafferty, head of the park’s resources division, said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Jamaica Bay, most of the focus has been on marshes, which provide crucial bird and aquatic species habitat as well as natural defenses against storm damage. Local pollution is in large part responsible for 70 percent of Jamaica Bay’s saltwater marshes disappearing over the past 60 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now sea level rise is the next big threat to these marshes. So far it appears they are getting enough new sediment to stay a step ahead of rising tides. But with the rate of sea level rise expected to accelerate in the coming decades, it’s unclear if those same marshes will continue to keep pace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sea level rise is pushing water higher but being in the heart of one of the most densely populated urban areas in the world means there are a ton of nutrients being pushed into the bay, too” Willis said, swinging herself back into the boat. “That’s too much for some marshes to handle and they could die off.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saltwater marshes are by their very nature resilient to change. They deal with daily influxes of water that can regularly submerge at least part of their territory. But rising seas mean even Gateway park’s healthiest natural marsh, Joco, is facing an uncertain future. Confounding the race is the impact of local pollution and runoff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pushing off from West Elders Marsh, Willis turns the boat east toward Joco. The red and green buoys are the only landmarks to guide Willis, and she uses the age-old sailor adage “red right returning” — keeping the red buoys to the right if you’re heading back to port (and green on your right on the way out, which doesn’t have the same ring) — to navigate through the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the watery trail arrives at Joco, however, there’s not much to see. High tide has rolled into the bay ahead of the new moon, temporarily submerging the marsh under its murky waters. The only signs of terra firma are white PVC pipes used to mark sample sites poking up from the water and an osprey nest improbably perched on a barrel that had somehow alighted upright on the marsh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve never seen a tide like this,” Willis said. “This is fine once and awhile. When it becomes frequent, then we have problems. Eventually, it will always look this way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Always looking that way” means the end of the marshes the park is working so hard to restore as well increasing issues for the people living on the shores of Jamaica Bay. Some of the neighborhoods there already see two nuisance floods a month. By mid-century, sea levels could be another foot higher and with that increase, nuisance flooding \u003ca href=\"http://blog.ucsusa.org/melanie-fitzpatrick/sea-level-rise-in-jamaica-bay-new-york-688\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">could increase tenfold\u003c/a>. The same fate awaits Joco and if it disappears, so could the plants and animals that need it to survive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Losing Joco and other marshes would also have consequences for those onshore. Using Sandy recovery funds set aside by the Department of Interior, Gateway National Recreation Area has funded research to look at just how much protection wetlands can offer against future storm surge. The studies show that the main benefit of continuing to restore Gateway’s marshes would be to lessen the impact of waves, thereby lessening the destruction they cause. But the marshes are relatively ineffective at reducing flooding given the current configuration of the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To reduce the threat of flooding, researchers found the best route forward is to fill in parts of a shipping channel that was cut into the bay in the 1910s and has been dredged ever since. Philip Orton, a researcher at the Stevens Institute for Technology who authored the research, said he and his team have put forward that option to Gateway managers for consideration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not only is it a landscape that doesn’t have benefits for reducing flooding, it makes it worse,” Orton said, noting that the shipping channel essentially funnels more water into the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fate of these natural and human systems and how Gateway managers respond to climate change are closely intertwined. Beyond that, Gateway has a unique place in the National Park Service, providing a natural refuge in the largest metropolitan area in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Jamaica Bay is the largest open space in New York,” Rafferty said. “It’s a great way for people to experience nature in their own backyards, especially if they don’t have a backyard.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Why Plans to Replace Diablo Canyon With 100 Percent Clean Energy Could Fall Short",
"headTitle": "Why Plans to Replace Diablo Canyon With 100 Percent Clean Energy Could Fall Short | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>When PG&E announced plans to close California’s last remaining nuclear plant last week, it also \u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/en/about/newsroom/newsdetails/index.page?title=20160621_in_step_with_californias_evolving_energy_policy_pge_labor_and_environmental_groups_announce_proposal_to_increase_energy_efficiency_renewables_and_storage_while_phasing_out_nuclear_power_over_the_next_decade\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced a historic plan\u003c/a> to replace it with clean energy, like solar or wind, and energy efficiency gains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That way, the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which doesn’t put out carbon emissions, won’t be replaced with something that does, like natural gas, the utility said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a 100 percent clean energy transition is less certain than it sounds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some say that natural gas power plants could also play a role in replacing Diablo Canyon, because of the challenges of adding large amounts of renewable energy to the grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘It’s going to be up to everybody to hold them accountable.’\u003ccite>Laura Wisland, Union of Concerned Scientists\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Solar and wind power \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/04/04/what-will-california-do-with-too-much-solar/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fluctuate based on the weather conditions \u003c/a>and time of day. Natural gas plants are kept running to fill in the gaps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the short term, some say closing Diablo Canyon could actually boost greenhouse gas emissions, because there may not be enough renewable energy to cover the loss of the nuclear plant in the first few years after it retires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E says it’s committed to a greenhouse-gas free solution. Whether that happens will depend on how the utility and regulators at the California Public Utilities Commission put that plan in motion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Shrinking Gap?\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, Diablo Canyon produces about 20 percent of PG&E’s electricity. That’s a lot of megawatts to replace. PG&E says not all of them be replaced, though, thanks to California’s “changing energy landscape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t need it,” said Geisha Williams, president of PG&E Electric. “There’s been so much energy efficiency. There’s been so much power that’s been generated by customers on their own private solar rooftop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California must double its energy efficiency by 2030 under a state law passed last year, SB 350, which means PG&E’s customers will need less electricity from their utility. \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/28/california-preserves-solar-incentives-in-defeat-for-utilities/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Home solar systems are booming\u003c/a>, which reduces the need for large power plants. Customers in Marin and Sonoma Counties, for example, have left PG&E and are forming their own local utilities, a process known as community choice aggregation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition, PG&E is required to get more of its power from renewable sources, like solar and wind, in order to meet the state’s goal of 50 percent renewable power by 2030.\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-wHtHc\" src=\"//datawrapper.dwcdn.net/wHtHc/5/\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"webkitallowfullscreen\" mozallowfullscreen=\"mozallowfullscreen\" oallowfullscreen=\"oallowfullscreen\" msallowfullscreen=\"msallowfullscreen\" width=\"100%\" height=\"330\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Add all that up and PG&E says it would only need to run Diablo Canyon at half-power in the future, which makes it financially infeasible to keep open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Diablo retires, PG&E will need to replace roughly 9,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity. (In California, it takes around 6,000 gigawatt-hours to power one million households for a year). Through improved energy efficiency, PG&E expects demand to fall by 2,000 gigawatt-hours by 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That leaves a gap of roughly 7,000 gigawatt-hours to make up for the year that Diablo’s reactors go offline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To bridge that gap, PG&E plans to significantly boost the renewable energy it uses by 2031. By six years after Diablo’s retirement, PG&E says it plans to be generating 55 percent renewable power, system-wide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even considering PG&E’s rapid renewable energy growth, some energy analysts say PG&E may need to turn to natural gas for the first few years after Diablo Canyon’s retirement, a move that could add to California’s greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Natural Gas as a ‘Bridge Fuel’\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They actually increase their dependence on gas-fired generation over a short time frame because that’s really the only option that’s available to them,” said Morris Greenberg, Managing Director of North American Power at \u003ca href=\"http://www.pira.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">PIRA Energy Group\u003c/a>, an energy market research firm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PIRA ran an analysis of the Western electric grid and found that while the use of natural gas is currently declining in Northern California, it could rise around 34 percent from 2023 to 2026 because of Diablo’s closure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_610986\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-610986 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/CAISO2.jpg\" alt=\"Grid operators balance California's transmission system on a minute-by-minute basis at the Independent System Operator.\" width=\"640\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/CAISO2.jpg 640w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/CAISO2-400x280.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Grid operators balance California’s transmission system on a minute-by-minute basis at the Independent System Operator. \u003ccite>(Lauren Sommer/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Greenberg says the analysis takes into account PG&E renewable energy goals, but not the exact specifics of the plan announced last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E says there’s a reason it hasn’t spelled out exactly how it will replace Diablo’s power: it’s hard to predict how energy technology will change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I try to write down megawatt-hour by megawatt-hour what fills that gap in 2025 right now, that’s actually a losing strategy,” said Todd Strauss, PG&E’s senior director of energy policy planning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The proposal clearly recognizes there’s lots of other things that need to be done, but we shouldn’t specify it today,” he said. “We’re committed to having Diablo Canyon’s retirement not result in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions,” Strauss said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several of the environmental groups that signed on to PG&E’s closure plan say there is a risk of turning to natural gas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re determined to avoid that,” said Ralph Cavanagh of the Natural Resources Defense Council. He says there are alternatives like using energy efficiency programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re all going to work together to ensure that the fears of our adversaries are not realized: that anytime you lose a nuclear plant you automatically get an uptick in fossil fuels and pollution,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ups and Downs of Renewables\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The solar and wind power that will eventually replace Diablo Canyon is carbon-free, but they only work when the sun is out and the wind is blowing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”UDvFW0KjwXA2qzfZs2eJlC9ioUH62sa1″]As clouds cover the sun or the wind dies down, the power supply drops, creating fluctuations on the electric grid. To prevent widespread outages, the state’s grid operator, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.caiso.com/Pages/default.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">California Independent System Operator\u003c/a> (ISO), has to have another source of energy ready to fill in the gap immediately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Generally, it’s been natural gas power plants, which can be turned up and down as needed. That means gas plants have to be run at the same time as renewables, because once turned off, they can take hours to turn back on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as more renewable energy comes online, running renewables, natural gas and other power sources all together sometimes creates more power than the state needs. At those times, the California ISO has to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/04/04/what-will-california-do-with-too-much-solar/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">switch off solar farms\u003c/a> to avoid overloading the grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Retiring Diablo Canyon could help with that problem. The nuclear plant is designed to run at a steady, constant level. Nuclear advocates have argued that the state needs this kind of “baseload” power. Others say shutting down Diablo could actually improve grid management.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It will reduce the need to curtail our solar power plants,” said Cavanagh. “The nuclear plant can’t be ramped up and down, so it’s occupying space on the grid that solar farms could occupy at much lower cost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>TOO MUCH RENEWABLE POWER\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb> On a sunny day in March, some solar farms had to shut down because there was more power on the grid than Californians were using. \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"sharedaddy show-for-medium-up\">\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_611449\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1730px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-611449\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/Solar_-Grid_Desktop.png\" alt=\"SOURCE: California ISO. \" width=\"1730\" height=\"1000\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">SOURCE: California ISO. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"show-for-small-only\">\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_611442\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 750px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-611442 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/Solar_Grid_Mobile.png\" alt=\"SOURCE: California ISO\" width=\"750\" height=\"1334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">SOURCE: California ISO\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Natural Gas At the Ready\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as California approaches the legislative mandate of getting half its electricity from renewable sources, the grid will need more backup power ready to fill in when solar and wind power fluctuate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We could be at risk of running the gas fleet higher than we would otherwise run it,” said Laura Wisland of the Union of Concerned Scientists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wisland says there are a number of strategies to avoid that. Spreading solar and wind farms across a wide geographic area would prevent localized weather conditions, like cloud cover or lack of wind, from creating such large fluctuations on the grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some solar farms and natural gas plants are also less flexible than they could be, because their contracts limit how often they can be turned down or turned off. Wisland says having fewer limits on that would make it easier for the grid operator to balance the ups and downs of renewable energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E says it plans to negotiate more flexible contracts with both new renewable projects and older ones whose contracts are expiring soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/04/11/too-much-solar-in-california-not-if-you-bottle-it/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Energy storage projects\u003c/a>, like large batteries, can also provide power to balance out solar and wind, so natural gas wouldn’t be needed as much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California is also looking at \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/04/04/what-will-california-do-with-too-much-solar/\">joining its electric grid to other Western states\u003c/a>, so power can be shared more efficiently throughout the West. Instead of turning on more natural gas plants here, California could hypothetically look for clean power from other states instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E says it’s interested in those strategies, but state regulators must ultimately approve the decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There remains “a lot that is actually beyond PG&E, to be worked out at the California Public Utilities Commission, California ISO, and other California discussions,” says PG&E’s Strauss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If action occurs too late, then there may be some challenge to the reliability of the system,” he says. “But with a planned, deliberate approach with plenty of foresight, we’re going get reliability in the system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When they do sign up more renewables,” Wisland cautions, “they’re going to have to be much more aware of the integration challenges and be much more careful choosing renewables to minimize those challenges.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E says it will bring its plan to retire Diablo Canyon and replace it with clean energy before regulators later this year. When that happens, Wisland says, “It’s going to be up to everybody to hold them accountable.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "PG&E says it will replace the nuclear plant with renewable energy, but it's not as easy as it sounds.",
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"title": "Why Plans to Replace Diablo Canyon With 100 Percent Clean Energy Could Fall Short | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When PG&E announced plans to close California’s last remaining nuclear plant last week, it also \u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/en/about/newsroom/newsdetails/index.page?title=20160621_in_step_with_californias_evolving_energy_policy_pge_labor_and_environmental_groups_announce_proposal_to_increase_energy_efficiency_renewables_and_storage_while_phasing_out_nuclear_power_over_the_next_decade\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced a historic plan\u003c/a> to replace it with clean energy, like solar or wind, and energy efficiency gains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That way, the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which doesn’t put out carbon emissions, won’t be replaced with something that does, like natural gas, the utility said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a 100 percent clean energy transition is less certain than it sounds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some say that natural gas power plants could also play a role in replacing Diablo Canyon, because of the challenges of adding large amounts of renewable energy to the grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘It’s going to be up to everybody to hold them accountable.’\u003ccite>Laura Wisland, Union of Concerned Scientists\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Solar and wind power \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/04/04/what-will-california-do-with-too-much-solar/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fluctuate based on the weather conditions \u003c/a>and time of day. Natural gas plants are kept running to fill in the gaps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the short term, some say closing Diablo Canyon could actually boost greenhouse gas emissions, because there may not be enough renewable energy to cover the loss of the nuclear plant in the first few years after it retires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E says it’s committed to a greenhouse-gas free solution. Whether that happens will depend on how the utility and regulators at the California Public Utilities Commission put that plan in motion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Shrinking Gap?\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, Diablo Canyon produces about 20 percent of PG&E’s electricity. That’s a lot of megawatts to replace. PG&E says not all of them be replaced, though, thanks to California’s “changing energy landscape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t need it,” said Geisha Williams, president of PG&E Electric. “There’s been so much energy efficiency. There’s been so much power that’s been generated by customers on their own private solar rooftop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California must double its energy efficiency by 2030 under a state law passed last year, SB 350, which means PG&E’s customers will need less electricity from their utility. \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/28/california-preserves-solar-incentives-in-defeat-for-utilities/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Home solar systems are booming\u003c/a>, which reduces the need for large power plants. Customers in Marin and Sonoma Counties, for example, have left PG&E and are forming their own local utilities, a process known as community choice aggregation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition, PG&E is required to get more of its power from renewable sources, like solar and wind, in order to meet the state’s goal of 50 percent renewable power by 2030.\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-wHtHc\" src=\"//datawrapper.dwcdn.net/wHtHc/5/\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"webkitallowfullscreen\" mozallowfullscreen=\"mozallowfullscreen\" oallowfullscreen=\"oallowfullscreen\" msallowfullscreen=\"msallowfullscreen\" width=\"100%\" height=\"330\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Add all that up and PG&E says it would only need to run Diablo Canyon at half-power in the future, which makes it financially infeasible to keep open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Diablo retires, PG&E will need to replace roughly 9,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity. (In California, it takes around 6,000 gigawatt-hours to power one million households for a year). Through improved energy efficiency, PG&E expects demand to fall by 2,000 gigawatt-hours by 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That leaves a gap of roughly 7,000 gigawatt-hours to make up for the year that Diablo’s reactors go offline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To bridge that gap, PG&E plans to significantly boost the renewable energy it uses by 2031. By six years after Diablo’s retirement, PG&E says it plans to be generating 55 percent renewable power, system-wide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even considering PG&E’s rapid renewable energy growth, some energy analysts say PG&E may need to turn to natural gas for the first few years after Diablo Canyon’s retirement, a move that could add to California’s greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Natural Gas as a ‘Bridge Fuel’\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They actually increase their dependence on gas-fired generation over a short time frame because that’s really the only option that’s available to them,” said Morris Greenberg, Managing Director of North American Power at \u003ca href=\"http://www.pira.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">PIRA Energy Group\u003c/a>, an energy market research firm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PIRA ran an analysis of the Western electric grid and found that while the use of natural gas is currently declining in Northern California, it could rise around 34 percent from 2023 to 2026 because of Diablo’s closure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_610986\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-610986 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/CAISO2.jpg\" alt=\"Grid operators balance California's transmission system on a minute-by-minute basis at the Independent System Operator.\" width=\"640\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/CAISO2.jpg 640w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/CAISO2-400x280.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Grid operators balance California’s transmission system on a minute-by-minute basis at the Independent System Operator. \u003ccite>(Lauren Sommer/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Greenberg says the analysis takes into account PG&E renewable energy goals, but not the exact specifics of the plan announced last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E says there’s a reason it hasn’t spelled out exactly how it will replace Diablo’s power: it’s hard to predict how energy technology will change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I try to write down megawatt-hour by megawatt-hour what fills that gap in 2025 right now, that’s actually a losing strategy,” said Todd Strauss, PG&E’s senior director of energy policy planning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The proposal clearly recognizes there’s lots of other things that need to be done, but we shouldn’t specify it today,” he said. “We’re committed to having Diablo Canyon’s retirement not result in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions,” Strauss said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several of the environmental groups that signed on to PG&E’s closure plan say there is a risk of turning to natural gas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re determined to avoid that,” said Ralph Cavanagh of the Natural Resources Defense Council. He says there are alternatives like using energy efficiency programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re all going to work together to ensure that the fears of our adversaries are not realized: that anytime you lose a nuclear plant you automatically get an uptick in fossil fuels and pollution,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ups and Downs of Renewables\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The solar and wind power that will eventually replace Diablo Canyon is carbon-free, but they only work when the sun is out and the wind is blowing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>As clouds cover the sun or the wind dies down, the power supply drops, creating fluctuations on the electric grid. To prevent widespread outages, the state’s grid operator, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.caiso.com/Pages/default.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">California Independent System Operator\u003c/a> (ISO), has to have another source of energy ready to fill in the gap immediately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Generally, it’s been natural gas power plants, which can be turned up and down as needed. That means gas plants have to be run at the same time as renewables, because once turned off, they can take hours to turn back on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as more renewable energy comes online, running renewables, natural gas and other power sources all together sometimes creates more power than the state needs. At those times, the California ISO has to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/04/04/what-will-california-do-with-too-much-solar/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">switch off solar farms\u003c/a> to avoid overloading the grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Retiring Diablo Canyon could help with that problem. The nuclear plant is designed to run at a steady, constant level. Nuclear advocates have argued that the state needs this kind of “baseload” power. Others say shutting down Diablo could actually improve grid management.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It will reduce the need to curtail our solar power plants,” said Cavanagh. “The nuclear plant can’t be ramped up and down, so it’s occupying space on the grid that solar farms could occupy at much lower cost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>TOO MUCH RENEWABLE POWER\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb> On a sunny day in March, some solar farms had to shut down because there was more power on the grid than Californians were using. \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"sharedaddy show-for-medium-up\">\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_611449\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1730px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-611449\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/Solar_-Grid_Desktop.png\" alt=\"SOURCE: California ISO. \" width=\"1730\" height=\"1000\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">SOURCE: California ISO. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"show-for-small-only\">\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_611442\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 750px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-611442 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/Solar_Grid_Mobile.png\" alt=\"SOURCE: California ISO\" width=\"750\" height=\"1334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">SOURCE: California ISO\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Natural Gas At the Ready\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as California approaches the legislative mandate of getting half its electricity from renewable sources, the grid will need more backup power ready to fill in when solar and wind power fluctuate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We could be at risk of running the gas fleet higher than we would otherwise run it,” said Laura Wisland of the Union of Concerned Scientists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wisland says there are a number of strategies to avoid that. Spreading solar and wind farms across a wide geographic area would prevent localized weather conditions, like cloud cover or lack of wind, from creating such large fluctuations on the grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some solar farms and natural gas plants are also less flexible than they could be, because their contracts limit how often they can be turned down or turned off. Wisland says having fewer limits on that would make it easier for the grid operator to balance the ups and downs of renewable energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E says it plans to negotiate more flexible contracts with both new renewable projects and older ones whose contracts are expiring soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/04/11/too-much-solar-in-california-not-if-you-bottle-it/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Energy storage projects\u003c/a>, like large batteries, can also provide power to balance out solar and wind, so natural gas wouldn’t be needed as much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California is also looking at \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/04/04/what-will-california-do-with-too-much-solar/\">joining its electric grid to other Western states\u003c/a>, so power can be shared more efficiently throughout the West. Instead of turning on more natural gas plants here, California could hypothetically look for clean power from other states instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E says it’s interested in those strategies, but state regulators must ultimately approve the decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There remains “a lot that is actually beyond PG&E, to be worked out at the California Public Utilities Commission, California ISO, and other California discussions,” says PG&E’s Strauss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If action occurs too late, then there may be some challenge to the reliability of the system,” he says. “But with a planned, deliberate approach with plenty of foresight, we’re going get reliability in the system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When they do sign up more renewables,” Wisland cautions, “they’re going to have to be much more aware of the integration challenges and be much more careful choosing renewables to minimize those challenges.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E says it will bring its plan to retire Diablo Canyon and replace it with clean energy before regulators later this year. When that happens, Wisland says, “It’s going to be up to everybody to hold them accountable.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Climate Change is Tipping Scales Toward More Wildfires",
"headTitle": "Climate Change is Tipping Scales Toward More Wildfires | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The 2016 \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/us-wildfires-one-map-20447\">wildfire season\u003c/a> has barely begun and dozens of large wildfires have already raged through Western states, with hundreds of thousands of acres burned. This comes on the heels of a 2015 wildfire season that was the worst on record in the U.S., with more than \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/2015-wildfire-season-sets-ominous-record-19879\">10 million acres burned\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These are not just random events. Climate change is producing conditions ripe for wildfires, tipping the scales in favor of the dramatic increases in large wildfires we have seen across the West since the 1970s. Snowpack is melting earlier as \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/seasonal-warming-in-your-state-18608\">winter and spring temperatures rise\u003c/a>, and in most states an increasing percentage of winter precipitation is falling as rain, meaning there is often less snowpack to begin with. Summer temperatures are rising, particularly in Southwestern states, where the number of extremely hot days is steadily increasing, creating more days where forests and grasslands are dried out and ready to burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2015, far below-average snowpack in California and the Pacific Northwest created exceptionally dry conditions across the West, and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/wildfires-burn-7-million-acres-19363\">region experienced fires\u003c/a> of a size rarely seen. Washington’s Okanogan Complex fire was the largest group of fires on record for the state. And multiple years of searing drought in California contributed to several fires that were among the state’s top 10 \u003ca href=\"http://wxshift.com/news/valley-butte-fires-some-of-the-most-destructive-in-california-history\">most destructive fires on record\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-796273\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/large-fires.jpg\" alt=\"large fires\" width=\"720\" height=\"492\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/large-fires.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/large-fires-400x273.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">A Climate Central analysis of 45 years of U.S. Forest Service records from the western U.S. show that the number of large fires on Forest Service land is increasing dramatically. The area burned by these fires is also growing at an alarming rate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Across the Western U.S., the average annual number of large fires (larger than 1,000 acres) burning each year has more than tripled between the 1970s and the 2010s.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The area burned by these fires has shown an even larger increase: in an average year, more than six times as many acres across the West were burned in the 2010s than in the 1970s.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The fire season is 105 days longer than it was in the 1970, and is approaching the point where the notion of a fire season will be made obsolete by the reality of year-round wildfires across the West.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>The situation in some individual states is more extreme:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>The average number of large fires burning each year on Forest Service land has increased at least 10-fold in the Northern Rocky Mountain states of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>In the Pacific Northwest, there are now five times as many large fires burning in a typical year in Washington as there were in the 1970s; in Oregon there are nearly seven times as many.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>And the conditions are likely to get worse in the next several decades. Climate Central’s States at Risk project analyzed historical climate data and downscaled climate projections from 29 different global climate models. We found that in most western states, the climate conditions that can stoke summer wildfires are projected to increase substantially in the relatively short period between now and 2050. Arizona is expected to see more than a month of additional high-risk fire days by 2050.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This analysis relies on the Keetch-Byram Drought Index (KBDI), a measure of the dryness of the top 8 inches of the forest floor, which serves as a proxy for the dryness of forest fuels. KBDI is one of a number of indicators of wildfire potential, but is commonly used by the U.S. Forest Service (along with other tools) to predict fire danger. The scale runs from 0 to 800.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our analysis found that the number of days with KBDI above 600 (a level at which the potential for wildfire is high) would increase significantly between now and 2050 in 10 of the western states if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated. Across these 10 states, the total number of days with KBDI above 600 is \u003cstrong>projected to increase 46 percent\u003c/strong> between 2000 and 2050.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although many factors influence the ignition and spread of wildfires, our KBDI projections suggest that the conditions suitable for more and larger fires will increase in the near- to midterm. This finding is consistent with other research on wildfire potential and burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a> \u003cem>is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The 2016 \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/us-wildfires-one-map-20447\">wildfire season\u003c/a> has barely begun and dozens of large wildfires have already raged through Western states, with hundreds of thousands of acres burned. This comes on the heels of a 2015 wildfire season that was the worst on record in the U.S., with more than \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/2015-wildfire-season-sets-ominous-record-19879\">10 million acres burned\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These are not just random events. Climate change is producing conditions ripe for wildfires, tipping the scales in favor of the dramatic increases in large wildfires we have seen across the West since the 1970s. Snowpack is melting earlier as \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/seasonal-warming-in-your-state-18608\">winter and spring temperatures rise\u003c/a>, and in most states an increasing percentage of winter precipitation is falling as rain, meaning there is often less snowpack to begin with. Summer temperatures are rising, particularly in Southwestern states, where the number of extremely hot days is steadily increasing, creating more days where forests and grasslands are dried out and ready to burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2015, far below-average snowpack in California and the Pacific Northwest created exceptionally dry conditions across the West, and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/wildfires-burn-7-million-acres-19363\">region experienced fires\u003c/a> of a size rarely seen. Washington’s Okanogan Complex fire was the largest group of fires on record for the state. And multiple years of searing drought in California contributed to several fires that were among the state’s top 10 \u003ca href=\"http://wxshift.com/news/valley-butte-fires-some-of-the-most-destructive-in-california-history\">most destructive fires on record\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-796273\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/large-fires.jpg\" alt=\"large fires\" width=\"720\" height=\"492\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/large-fires.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/large-fires-400x273.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">A Climate Central analysis of 45 years of U.S. Forest Service records from the western U.S. show that the number of large fires on Forest Service land is increasing dramatically. The area burned by these fires is also growing at an alarming rate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Across the Western U.S., the average annual number of large fires (larger than 1,000 acres) burning each year has more than tripled between the 1970s and the 2010s.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The area burned by these fires has shown an even larger increase: in an average year, more than six times as many acres across the West were burned in the 2010s than in the 1970s.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The fire season is 105 days longer than it was in the 1970, and is approaching the point where the notion of a fire season will be made obsolete by the reality of year-round wildfires across the West.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>The situation in some individual states is more extreme:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>The average number of large fires burning each year on Forest Service land has increased at least 10-fold in the Northern Rocky Mountain states of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>In the Pacific Northwest, there are now five times as many large fires burning in a typical year in Washington as there were in the 1970s; in Oregon there are nearly seven times as many.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>And the conditions are likely to get worse in the next several decades. Climate Central’s States at Risk project analyzed historical climate data and downscaled climate projections from 29 different global climate models. We found that in most western states, the climate conditions that can stoke summer wildfires are projected to increase substantially in the relatively short period between now and 2050. Arizona is expected to see more than a month of additional high-risk fire days by 2050.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This analysis relies on the Keetch-Byram Drought Index (KBDI), a measure of the dryness of the top 8 inches of the forest floor, which serves as a proxy for the dryness of forest fuels. KBDI is one of a number of indicators of wildfire potential, but is commonly used by the U.S. Forest Service (along with other tools) to predict fire danger. The scale runs from 0 to 800.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our analysis found that the number of days with KBDI above 600 (a level at which the potential for wildfire is high) would increase significantly between now and 2050 in 10 of the western states if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated. Across these 10 states, the total number of days with KBDI above 600 is \u003cstrong>projected to increase 46 percent\u003c/strong> between 2000 and 2050.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although many factors influence the ignition and spread of wildfires, our KBDI projections suggest that the conditions suitable for more and larger fires will increase in the near- to midterm. This finding is consistent with other research on wildfire potential and burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a> \u003cem>is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>When oil and gas prices go to extremes, such as when they crashed two years ago, scientists begin to \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/low-oil-prices-may-bode-ill-for-climate-18403\">look for answers\u003c/a>about what those prices mean for climate change — especially when cheap oil encourages people to \u003ca href=\"http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WGFUPUS2&f=4\">guzzle more gasoline\u003c/a> in less fuel-efficient vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy201677\">new study\u003c/a> shows that if oil and gas prices remain at either extreme — very high or very low — for long periods of time, they are likely to prevent countries from keeping global warming from exceeding 2°C (3.6°F). That’s especially the case if countries do not have climate policies, such as carbon pricing, that try to aggressively cap carbon emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If oil and gas prices remain low — less than $55 per barrel — for decades, it will be a disincentive to develop renewable energy and decarbonize the global economy, according to the research by the World Bank and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If oil and gas prices stay high for decades — $110 per barrel or more — oil demand still won’t be knocked down sufficiently to drastically reduce carbon emissions. High oil and gas prices encourage some renewables development, but their climate benefits are partially cancelled out by coal production. Coal gets a boost from high oil prices because it’s a cheaper alternative to natural gas, the research shows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“High oil prices will not be a climate savior any more than low prices will lead to climate catastrophe,” said study lead author \u003ca href=\"http://www.iiasa.ac.at/staff/staff.php?type=auto&visibility=visible&search=true&login=mccollum\">David McCollum\u003c/a>, an IIASA researcher. “If the world is really serious about meeting the kind of tight carbon budgets that are required for 2°C or lower, then strong climate policy signals that put a sizeable price on carbon will be needed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carbon pricing is needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions during long periods of both low and high oil prices, he said. Cheap oil calls for a higher carbon price because there will be higher demand for fossil fuels and less incentive to develop renewables. Expensive oil calls for a lower carbon price because expanded renewables development will offset some of the emissions from increased coal production, the study says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study, published last week in the journal Nature Energy, also underscores the “surprising” importance of natural gas prices in finding a solution to climate change, said \u003ca href=\"http://www.ceres.org/about-us/experts/andrew-logan\">Andrew Logan\u003c/a>, director of the oil and gas program at business and climate think tank Cires, which is unaffiliated with the research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Natural gas prices and oil prices historically rise and fall together — something known as “coupling,” which has significant climate implications. When oil prices are low as they are today, the corresponding low natural gas prices encourage electric utilities to build natural gas power plants and close their coal-fired power plants, which are major contributors to climate change. Natural gas emits about half the carbon as coal when used to generate electricity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study says that the coupling of oil and gas prices in the future is uncertain. But if coupling continues through a decades-long period of very high oil prices, carbon emissions will rise because expensive natural gas will encourage more coal to be used for electricity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conversely, if coupling continues through decades of low oil prices, the climate will benefit because coal won’t be able compete with cheap natural gas. But cheap oil is likely to slow the expansion of renewables, too, undermining the climate benefit of expanded natural gas production and countries’ ability to help decarbonize the global economy, the study says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From a climate perspective, a reduction in coal is a good thing, whereas a reduction in renewables is not so good,” McCollum said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Logan said the study adds important nuance to what has been a long-standing debate over how much oil prices affect the transition to a low-carbon economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While this is just a single paper, it does suggest that we need to approach climate policy with an eye toward addressing the impacts of oil prices, particularly low oil prices,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://earth.stanford.edu/rob-jackson\">Rob Jackson\u003c/a>, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford University who is unaffiliated with the study, said he questions the study’s assumption that oil and natural gas prices will rise and fall together for the foreseeable future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m unconvinced that natural gas and oil prices will stay so closely coupled,” he said, adding that more hydraulic fracturing and liquified natural gas terminals should reduce oil and gas prices’ dependence on one another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t tell how much natural gas might compete with coal and renewables in the future because the paper doesn’t include such a scenario,” Jackson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Logan said that as oil has become a less important fuel for heating and electric power generation, there is no logical reason for oil and natural gas prices to be coupled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With the shale gas revolution of the past decade and significant overcapacity in the global LNG (liquefied natural gas) market, the prices of the fuels have begun to decouple, and I suspect this trend will accelerate going forward,” Logan said. “What this paper underscores is that this change, in the near-term, has potentially significant and positive implications for the climate. Of course, in the longer term such a decoupling could prove damaging as sustained low natural gas prices are likely to hinder investment in clean energy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a> \u003cem>is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When oil and gas prices go to extremes, such as when they crashed two years ago, scientists begin to \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/low-oil-prices-may-bode-ill-for-climate-18403\">look for answers\u003c/a>about what those prices mean for climate change — especially when cheap oil encourages people to \u003ca href=\"http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WGFUPUS2&f=4\">guzzle more gasoline\u003c/a> in less fuel-efficient vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy201677\">new study\u003c/a> shows that if oil and gas prices remain at either extreme — very high or very low — for long periods of time, they are likely to prevent countries from keeping global warming from exceeding 2°C (3.6°F). That’s especially the case if countries do not have climate policies, such as carbon pricing, that try to aggressively cap carbon emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If oil and gas prices remain low — less than $55 per barrel — for decades, it will be a disincentive to develop renewable energy and decarbonize the global economy, according to the research by the World Bank and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If oil and gas prices stay high for decades — $110 per barrel or more — oil demand still won’t be knocked down sufficiently to drastically reduce carbon emissions. High oil and gas prices encourage some renewables development, but their climate benefits are partially cancelled out by coal production. Coal gets a boost from high oil prices because it’s a cheaper alternative to natural gas, the research shows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“High oil prices will not be a climate savior any more than low prices will lead to climate catastrophe,” said study lead author \u003ca href=\"http://www.iiasa.ac.at/staff/staff.php?type=auto&visibility=visible&search=true&login=mccollum\">David McCollum\u003c/a>, an IIASA researcher. “If the world is really serious about meeting the kind of tight carbon budgets that are required for 2°C or lower, then strong climate policy signals that put a sizeable price on carbon will be needed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carbon pricing is needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions during long periods of both low and high oil prices, he said. Cheap oil calls for a higher carbon price because there will be higher demand for fossil fuels and less incentive to develop renewables. Expensive oil calls for a lower carbon price because expanded renewables development will offset some of the emissions from increased coal production, the study says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study, published last week in the journal Nature Energy, also underscores the “surprising” importance of natural gas prices in finding a solution to climate change, said \u003ca href=\"http://www.ceres.org/about-us/experts/andrew-logan\">Andrew Logan\u003c/a>, director of the oil and gas program at business and climate think tank Cires, which is unaffiliated with the research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Natural gas prices and oil prices historically rise and fall together — something known as “coupling,” which has significant climate implications. When oil prices are low as they are today, the corresponding low natural gas prices encourage electric utilities to build natural gas power plants and close their coal-fired power plants, which are major contributors to climate change. Natural gas emits about half the carbon as coal when used to generate electricity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study says that the coupling of oil and gas prices in the future is uncertain. But if coupling continues through a decades-long period of very high oil prices, carbon emissions will rise because expensive natural gas will encourage more coal to be used for electricity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conversely, if coupling continues through decades of low oil prices, the climate will benefit because coal won’t be able compete with cheap natural gas. But cheap oil is likely to slow the expansion of renewables, too, undermining the climate benefit of expanded natural gas production and countries’ ability to help decarbonize the global economy, the study says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From a climate perspective, a reduction in coal is a good thing, whereas a reduction in renewables is not so good,” McCollum said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Logan said the study adds important nuance to what has been a long-standing debate over how much oil prices affect the transition to a low-carbon economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While this is just a single paper, it does suggest that we need to approach climate policy with an eye toward addressing the impacts of oil prices, particularly low oil prices,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://earth.stanford.edu/rob-jackson\">Rob Jackson\u003c/a>, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford University who is unaffiliated with the study, said he questions the study’s assumption that oil and natural gas prices will rise and fall together for the foreseeable future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m unconvinced that natural gas and oil prices will stay so closely coupled,” he said, adding that more hydraulic fracturing and liquified natural gas terminals should reduce oil and gas prices’ dependence on one another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t tell how much natural gas might compete with coal and renewables in the future because the paper doesn’t include such a scenario,” Jackson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Logan said that as oil has become a less important fuel for heating and electric power generation, there is no logical reason for oil and natural gas prices to be coupled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With the shale gas revolution of the past decade and significant overcapacity in the global LNG (liquefied natural gas) market, the prices of the fuels have begun to decouple, and I suspect this trend will accelerate going forward,” Logan said. “What this paper underscores is that this change, in the near-term, has potentially significant and positive implications for the climate. Of course, in the longer term such a decoupling could prove damaging as sustained low natural gas prices are likely to hinder investment in clean energy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a> \u003cem>is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"headTitle": "Firefighters Wrangle With Dead Trees | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>With drought and climate change conspiring to push California’s summer wildfire season into premature overdrive, the state’s lead wildfire agency has acquired a multimillion dollar arsenal to help it cope with unprecedented numbers of dying trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California recently bought $6 million worth of chippers, mobile sawmills, portable incinerators and other equipment to help its firefighters remove some of the nearly 30 million trees that now stand dead across the state, killed by drought and insects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”srl1sitSyRbHBEYZziS1xACfvmC3MvLx”]The equipment is being used as parched southern California landscapes explode in the types of summertime flames that wouldn’t normally be expected until August. Grasses that fattened up following winter storms in central and northern California are expected to fuel major blazes in the weeks ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more time that goes by, the dryer the fuels are going to become,” said Tom Rolinski, a U.S. Forest Service meteorologist who \u003ca href=\"http://www.predictiveservices.nifc.gov/outlooks/outlooks.htm\">forecasts fire conditions\u003c/a> in southern California. “As this summer unfolds and we get into the August and September timeframes, the fuels are going to be that much dryer, and we’re probably going to see more intense fires.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, normally called CAL FIRE, which is charged with protecting tens of millions of acres of mostly private land, responded to about 250 fires last week — an unusually large number for mid-June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, CAL FIRE was working with other agencies to try to contain \u003ca href=\"http://abcnews.go.com/US/winds-hot-temps-fuel-fast-moving-fires-southern/story?id=40013024\">two major blazes\u003c/a> in southern California as firefighters in other southwestern states also battled big fires amid \u003ca href=\"http://wxshift.com/news/southwest-plains-to-roast-in-potentially-historic-heat-wave\">record-breaking heat\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fires are being fueled by droughts exacerbated by warming temperatures, which scientists have \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-bully-california-drought-19354\">linked to climate change\u003c/a> and to the natural \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/west-coast-warming-natural-variability-18067\">whims of the weather\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Warming causes fuels to be drier than they would otherwise be,” said \u003ca href=\"http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/user/williams\">Park Williams\u003c/a>, who researches ecology and climate change at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “Whether that corresponds to a large area burned for California this year will depend on human activities and individual weather events.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even as firefighters in California toil to battle the extraordinary blazes, they’re being forced to deal with another extraordinary phenomenon: the widespread \u003ca href=\"http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/california-fire-burners-battle-dead-tree-epidemic-39970342\">dying of trees\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 30 million trees across the state are estimated to have died, succumbing to attacks by beetles because of the weakening effects of drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the drought that sort of sets it off, and then it lets the beetles get out of hand,” said \u003ca href=\"http://faculty.ucmerced.edu/rbales/\">Roger Bales\u003c/a>, a professor at the University of California, Merced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Jerry Brown declared an emergency in the fall because of the unprecedented die-offs, helping to free up funds needed to remove and dispose of some of them. CAL FIRE hired hundreds of seasonal workers early this year to help remove dead trees and clear out other potential fuel for fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While ecologists value dead trees as natural assets that provide holes and logs needed by wildlife, firefighters view them as safety hazards that can crash down on roads, power lines and homes and that could potentially fuel bigger blazes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “scale of this tree die-off is unprecedented in modern history,” Brown’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/docs/10.30.15_Tree_Mortality_State_of_Emergency.pdf\">emergency declaration stated\u003c/a>, worsening wildfire risks and erosion threats and creating “life safety risks from falling trees.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A group of ecologists formally objected to the emergency declaration, \u003ca href=\"http://johnmuirproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/ScientistLetter2GovBrownRE2015Snags4Feb16.pdf\">arguing in a letter\u003c/a> to Brown that dead trees are natural and necessary parts of Californian landscapes. They pointed to a \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/wildfires-tied-to-drought-heat-topography-not-beetles-18817\">growing body of research\u003c/a> downplaying the wildfire hazards posed by trees killed by beetles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of those ecologists, \u003ca href=\"http://johnmuirproject.org/about-us/\">Chad Hanson\u003c/a>, director of a small California nonprofit, says he agrees that dead trees that pose falling hazards should be removed. But he said trunks should be left on the ground to provide habitat instead of being incinerated or removed. “Once you fell the trees, they’re no longer a hazard,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Summertime fires in California cause less property damage than the fires that are fanned by dry Santa Ana winds in the fall and winter, but they sap more firefighting resources, \u003ca href=\"http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/9/094005\">research published last year\u003c/a> showed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were really trying to figure out how fires will change in southern California in the future,” said \u003ca href=\"http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=4971\">James Randerson\u003c/a>, a University of California, Irvine earth scientist who contributed to the study. “What we realized early on is that there are two distinct fire types.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the effects of climate change on Santa Ana winds fires remain riddled with uncertainty, scientists are generally convinced that the parching effects of global warming will lead to bigger, longer and more damaging summertime blazes in California — if they aren’t already doing so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That suggests the intense and early summer fire seasons in this and other recent drought-stricken years may have been less an aberration and more a bellwether of something that CAL FIRE officials frequently describe as a “new normal” for firefighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With more greenhouse gas pollution piling into the atmosphere daily, continuing to warm the planet toward a 2°F increase from preindustrial times, and with warmer weather exacerbating droughts, mass tree die-offs could become routine features of Western landscapes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not only would that eliminate or shrink some forests, driving them northward or uphill toward cooler climates, it could also force increasingly overworked firefighting agencies to juggle the additional routine task of managing dead trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CAL FIRE is focusing its tree removal efforts in areas where most trees have died and where the dead trees pose the most immediate dangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re focused on high hazard areas with the greatest threat to life safety and critical infrastructure,” CAL FIRE spokeswoman Janet Upton said. “There are literally hundreds of thousands of acres, and growing, affected by the unprecedented scope and magnitude of tree mortality.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a> \u003cem>is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "California's overworked firefighters are being forced to take on another task — clearing dead trees.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>With drought and climate change conspiring to push California’s summer wildfire season into premature overdrive, the state’s lead wildfire agency has acquired a multimillion dollar arsenal to help it cope with unprecedented numbers of dying trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California recently bought $6 million worth of chippers, mobile sawmills, portable incinerators and other equipment to help its firefighters remove some of the nearly 30 million trees that now stand dead across the state, killed by drought and insects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>The equipment is being used as parched southern California landscapes explode in the types of summertime flames that wouldn’t normally be expected until August. Grasses that fattened up following winter storms in central and northern California are expected to fuel major blazes in the weeks ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more time that goes by, the dryer the fuels are going to become,” said Tom Rolinski, a U.S. Forest Service meteorologist who \u003ca href=\"http://www.predictiveservices.nifc.gov/outlooks/outlooks.htm\">forecasts fire conditions\u003c/a> in southern California. “As this summer unfolds and we get into the August and September timeframes, the fuels are going to be that much dryer, and we’re probably going to see more intense fires.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, normally called CAL FIRE, which is charged with protecting tens of millions of acres of mostly private land, responded to about 250 fires last week — an unusually large number for mid-June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, CAL FIRE was working with other agencies to try to contain \u003ca href=\"http://abcnews.go.com/US/winds-hot-temps-fuel-fast-moving-fires-southern/story?id=40013024\">two major blazes\u003c/a> in southern California as firefighters in other southwestern states also battled big fires amid \u003ca href=\"http://wxshift.com/news/southwest-plains-to-roast-in-potentially-historic-heat-wave\">record-breaking heat\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fires are being fueled by droughts exacerbated by warming temperatures, which scientists have \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-bully-california-drought-19354\">linked to climate change\u003c/a> and to the natural \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/west-coast-warming-natural-variability-18067\">whims of the weather\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Warming causes fuels to be drier than they would otherwise be,” said \u003ca href=\"http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/user/williams\">Park Williams\u003c/a>, who researches ecology and climate change at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “Whether that corresponds to a large area burned for California this year will depend on human activities and individual weather events.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even as firefighters in California toil to battle the extraordinary blazes, they’re being forced to deal with another extraordinary phenomenon: the widespread \u003ca href=\"http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/california-fire-burners-battle-dead-tree-epidemic-39970342\">dying of trees\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 30 million trees across the state are estimated to have died, succumbing to attacks by beetles because of the weakening effects of drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the drought that sort of sets it off, and then it lets the beetles get out of hand,” said \u003ca href=\"http://faculty.ucmerced.edu/rbales/\">Roger Bales\u003c/a>, a professor at the University of California, Merced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Jerry Brown declared an emergency in the fall because of the unprecedented die-offs, helping to free up funds needed to remove and dispose of some of them. CAL FIRE hired hundreds of seasonal workers early this year to help remove dead trees and clear out other potential fuel for fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While ecologists value dead trees as natural assets that provide holes and logs needed by wildlife, firefighters view them as safety hazards that can crash down on roads, power lines and homes and that could potentially fuel bigger blazes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “scale of this tree die-off is unprecedented in modern history,” Brown’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/docs/10.30.15_Tree_Mortality_State_of_Emergency.pdf\">emergency declaration stated\u003c/a>, worsening wildfire risks and erosion threats and creating “life safety risks from falling trees.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A group of ecologists formally objected to the emergency declaration, \u003ca href=\"http://johnmuirproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/ScientistLetter2GovBrownRE2015Snags4Feb16.pdf\">arguing in a letter\u003c/a> to Brown that dead trees are natural and necessary parts of Californian landscapes. They pointed to a \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/wildfires-tied-to-drought-heat-topography-not-beetles-18817\">growing body of research\u003c/a> downplaying the wildfire hazards posed by trees killed by beetles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of those ecologists, \u003ca href=\"http://johnmuirproject.org/about-us/\">Chad Hanson\u003c/a>, director of a small California nonprofit, says he agrees that dead trees that pose falling hazards should be removed. But he said trunks should be left on the ground to provide habitat instead of being incinerated or removed. “Once you fell the trees, they’re no longer a hazard,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Summertime fires in California cause less property damage than the fires that are fanned by dry Santa Ana winds in the fall and winter, but they sap more firefighting resources, \u003ca href=\"http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/9/094005\">research published last year\u003c/a> showed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were really trying to figure out how fires will change in southern California in the future,” said \u003ca href=\"http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=4971\">James Randerson\u003c/a>, a University of California, Irvine earth scientist who contributed to the study. “What we realized early on is that there are two distinct fire types.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the effects of climate change on Santa Ana winds fires remain riddled with uncertainty, scientists are generally convinced that the parching effects of global warming will lead to bigger, longer and more damaging summertime blazes in California — if they aren’t already doing so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That suggests the intense and early summer fire seasons in this and other recent drought-stricken years may have been less an aberration and more a bellwether of something that CAL FIRE officials frequently describe as a “new normal” for firefighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With more greenhouse gas pollution piling into the atmosphere daily, continuing to warm the planet toward a 2°F increase from preindustrial times, and with warmer weather exacerbating droughts, mass tree die-offs could become routine features of Western landscapes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not only would that eliminate or shrink some forests, driving them northward or uphill toward cooler climates, it could also force increasingly overworked firefighting agencies to juggle the additional routine task of managing dead trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CAL FIRE is focusing its tree removal efforts in areas where most trees have died and where the dead trees pose the most immediate dangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re focused on high hazard areas with the greatest threat to life safety and critical infrastructure,” CAL FIRE spokeswoman Janet Upton said. “There are literally hundreds of thousands of acres, and growing, affected by the unprecedented scope and magnitude of tree mortality.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a> \u003cem>is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Deader Than Ever: California Forests Head Into Fire Season",
"headTitle": "Deader Than Ever: California Forests Head Into Fire Season | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Roger Coigny has lived in the mountain community of Pinehurst for most of his 75 years. He’s seen a lot of changes, but nothing like the millions of Ponderosa pine trees here in the Southern Sierra Nevada that have died over the past two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And the ones that die the quickest are the biggest, most beautiful, tallest and strongest,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trees are stressed and dying after more than four years of unprecedented levels of drought, plus an infestation of bark beetles.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘It’s these dead trees; they’re just like napalm sticks. One spark and they explode.’\u003ccite>Roger Coigny, Pinehurst\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Last summer, the massive Rough Fire tore through stands of dead trees in nearby national forests, burning more than 230 square miles, including part of Kings Canyon National Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire burned close enough to Pinehurst that people were forced to evacuate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coigny put his six dogs, 1,200 pounds of tools and his clothes into his Volkswagen bus and headed down to the town of Selma near Fresno. When he returned a couple of days later, his house and property were covered in ashes, but they survived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer the forests are at risk of burning again. Coigny looks up from his burger and fries inside the Pinehurst Lodge and Restaurant and points out the window to a nearby mountain. He sees mostly dead Ponderosa pines in the distance, heavy with brown needles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s these dead trees,” he says, “they’re just like napalm sticks. One spark and they explode.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After lunch, Coigny leaves the pub and walks over to his white Volkswagen bus. He opens the front door and three dogs leap out. He calls one of them over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_781215\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2448px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-781215\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327.jpg\" alt=\"Pinehurst resident Roger Coigny monitors a scanner to keep track of wildfires near the home where he lives with his six dogs.\" width=\"2448\" height=\"1950\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327.jpg 2448w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327-400x319.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327-800x637.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327-768x612.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327-1440x1147.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327-1920x1529.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327-1180x940.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327-960x765.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2448px) 100vw, 2448px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pinehurst resident Roger Coigny monitors a scanner to keep track of wildfires near the home where he lives with his six dogs.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Chief, come here!” Coigny calls. “Come here, sing me a song.” Coigny offers up a “Wooo Wooo” to lure the dog into joining him. But he’s out of luck. Apparently Chief doesn’t sing on cue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coigny and his six rescue dogs live on a good-sized piece of land, and he wants to stay on top of any news about fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I listen to scanners all the time, for my paranoia,” Coigny says, “so I can listen to the fire guys. So that’s running all day long.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fire Crews Prepare\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nOn a steep trail in the Sierra foothills, not far from Pinehurst, a crew from Cal Fire practices cutting a fire line between tall, golden grasses. Steady rain this winter brought a lot of new growth to the foothills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re seeing grasses 4 and 6 feet tall here,” says Captain Roger Raines. “So combine that with the oak mortality, combine that with the fuels that transition from here into those dead pine trees, it’s a time bomb.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Dead Trees per Acre in California\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Trees dead because of drought, beetles, wildfire, Sudden Oak Death and other causes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"sharedaddy show-for-medium-up\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-781754\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireDesktopFinalB-800x1262.jpg\" alt=\"FireDesktopFinalB\" width=\"800\" height=\"1262\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireDesktopFinalB-800x1262.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireDesktopFinalB-400x631.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireDesktopFinalB-768x1212.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireDesktopFinalB-960x1515.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireDesktopFinalB.jpg 995w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"show-for-small-only\">\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-781755\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireMobileFinalB-800x1528.jpg\" alt=\"FireMobileFinalB\" width=\"800\" height=\"1528\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireMobileFinalB-800x1528.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireMobileFinalB-400x764.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireMobileFinalB-768x1467.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireMobileFinalB-960x1833.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireMobileFinalB.jpg 995w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>The grasses spread fire quickly, he says. Normally cattle would be up here grazing it down, but ranchers sold off a lot of their herds during the drought. Raines says Cal Fire is prepping early for a tough season, with new equipment that can shred dead trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Governor Jerry Brown’s state budget includes about $30 million for Cal Fire to take out dead trees near buildings and roads and to provide grants for mountain communities like Pinehurst. A statewide task force is helping to coordinate projects to remove dead trees near power lines, home, and roads — the places where they could cause the most damage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The local Fire Safe Council that serves Pinehurst and surrounding communities just got a grant from this fund to get rid of dead trees along county roads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_781214\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-781214\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Crews clear a fire break in the Sierra foothills, in preparation for this summer's fire season.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1632\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut-400x340.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut-800x680.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut-768x653.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut-1440x1224.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut-1180x1003.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut-960x816.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crews clear a fire break in the Sierra foothills, in preparation for this summer’s fire season. \u003ccite>(Alice Daniel/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Rains: A Small Reprieve\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe wet winter dropped a lot of moisture into the forests, says Scott Stephens, a fire scientist at UC Berkeley. That’s delaying the fire season by a couple of weeks, he says, but mostly in the northern part of the state. The chaparral down south didn’t get much rain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Southern California, San Diego, LA counties,” Stephens says, “I think they’re in difficult shape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the number of wildfires and acreage already burned this year is about on par with last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate change, drought, stressed and dying trees, forests that are too dense — these are all things that may add up to the new normal, Stephens says. Unless the forests are thinned and repaired, massive fires are inevitable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The forest we know today won’t be the forest our grand-kids know in 30 years unless we start to change trajectory and do higher amounts of restoration,” Stephens says.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Rains may delay fire season a bit, but after years of unprecedented drought, California forests are dense with dead trees. ",
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"description": "Rains may delay fire season a bit, but after years of unprecedented drought, California forests are dense with dead trees. ",
"title": "Deader Than Ever: California Forests Head Into Fire Season | KQED",
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"headline": "Deader Than Ever: California Forests Head Into Fire Season",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Roger Coigny has lived in the mountain community of Pinehurst for most of his 75 years. He’s seen a lot of changes, but nothing like the millions of Ponderosa pine trees here in the Southern Sierra Nevada that have died over the past two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And the ones that die the quickest are the biggest, most beautiful, tallest and strongest,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trees are stressed and dying after more than four years of unprecedented levels of drought, plus an infestation of bark beetles.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘It’s these dead trees; they’re just like napalm sticks. One spark and they explode.’\u003ccite>Roger Coigny, Pinehurst\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Last summer, the massive Rough Fire tore through stands of dead trees in nearby national forests, burning more than 230 square miles, including part of Kings Canyon National Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire burned close enough to Pinehurst that people were forced to evacuate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coigny put his six dogs, 1,200 pounds of tools and his clothes into his Volkswagen bus and headed down to the town of Selma near Fresno. When he returned a couple of days later, his house and property were covered in ashes, but they survived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer the forests are at risk of burning again. Coigny looks up from his burger and fries inside the Pinehurst Lodge and Restaurant and points out the window to a nearby mountain. He sees mostly dead Ponderosa pines in the distance, heavy with brown needles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s these dead trees,” he says, “they’re just like napalm sticks. One spark and they explode.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After lunch, Coigny leaves the pub and walks over to his white Volkswagen bus. He opens the front door and three dogs leap out. He calls one of them over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_781215\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2448px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-781215\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327.jpg\" alt=\"Pinehurst resident Roger Coigny monitors a scanner to keep track of wildfires near the home where he lives with his six dogs.\" width=\"2448\" height=\"1950\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327.jpg 2448w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327-400x319.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327-800x637.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327-768x612.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327-1440x1147.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327-1920x1529.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327-1180x940.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19871_alt_439-e1466193635327-960x765.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2448px) 100vw, 2448px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pinehurst resident Roger Coigny monitors a scanner to keep track of wildfires near the home where he lives with his six dogs.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Chief, come here!” Coigny calls. “Come here, sing me a song.” Coigny offers up a “Wooo Wooo” to lure the dog into joining him. But he’s out of luck. Apparently Chief doesn’t sing on cue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coigny and his six rescue dogs live on a good-sized piece of land, and he wants to stay on top of any news about fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I listen to scanners all the time, for my paranoia,” Coigny says, “so I can listen to the fire guys. So that’s running all day long.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fire Crews Prepare\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nOn a steep trail in the Sierra foothills, not far from Pinehurst, a crew from Cal Fire practices cutting a fire line between tall, golden grasses. Steady rain this winter brought a lot of new growth to the foothills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re seeing grasses 4 and 6 feet tall here,” says Captain Roger Raines. “So combine that with the oak mortality, combine that with the fuels that transition from here into those dead pine trees, it’s a time bomb.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Dead Trees per Acre in California\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Trees dead because of drought, beetles, wildfire, Sudden Oak Death and other causes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"sharedaddy show-for-medium-up\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-781754\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireDesktopFinalB-800x1262.jpg\" alt=\"FireDesktopFinalB\" width=\"800\" height=\"1262\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireDesktopFinalB-800x1262.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireDesktopFinalB-400x631.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireDesktopFinalB-768x1212.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireDesktopFinalB-960x1515.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireDesktopFinalB.jpg 995w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"show-for-small-only\">\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-781755\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireMobileFinalB-800x1528.jpg\" alt=\"FireMobileFinalB\" width=\"800\" height=\"1528\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireMobileFinalB-800x1528.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireMobileFinalB-400x764.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireMobileFinalB-768x1467.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireMobileFinalB-960x1833.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/FireMobileFinalB.jpg 995w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>The grasses spread fire quickly, he says. Normally cattle would be up here grazing it down, but ranchers sold off a lot of their herds during the drought. Raines says Cal Fire is prepping early for a tough season, with new equipment that can shred dead trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Governor Jerry Brown’s state budget includes about $30 million for Cal Fire to take out dead trees near buildings and roads and to provide grants for mountain communities like Pinehurst. A statewide task force is helping to coordinate projects to remove dead trees near power lines, home, and roads — the places where they could cause the most damage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The local Fire Safe Council that serves Pinehurst and surrounding communities just got a grant from this fund to get rid of dead trees along county roads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_781214\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-781214\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Crews clear a fire break in the Sierra foothills, in preparation for this summer's fire season.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1632\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut-400x340.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut-800x680.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut-768x653.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut-1440x1224.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut-1180x1003.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/RS19869_photo-qut-960x816.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crews clear a fire break in the Sierra foothills, in preparation for this summer’s fire season. \u003ccite>(Alice Daniel/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Rains: A Small Reprieve\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe wet winter dropped a lot of moisture into the forests, says Scott Stephens, a fire scientist at UC Berkeley. That’s delaying the fire season by a couple of weeks, he says, but mostly in the northern part of the state. The chaparral down south didn’t get much rain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Southern California, San Diego, LA counties,” Stephens says, “I think they’re in difficult shape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the number of wildfires and acreage already burned this year is about on par with last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate change, drought, stressed and dying trees, forests that are too dense — these are all things that may add up to the new normal, Stephens says. Unless the forests are thinned and repaired, massive fires are inevitable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The forest we know today won’t be the forest our grand-kids know in 30 years unless we start to change trajectory and do higher amounts of restoration,” Stephens says.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "The Unexpected Health Risks of Drought",
"headTitle": "The Unexpected Health Risks of Drought | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>No place has been hit harder by the California drought than Tulare County in the San Joaquin Valley. By now, most Americans have read or heard stories about residential wells going dry in the county’s rural towns, such as East Porterville, Orosi and Cutler.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it has remained unclear how water shortages are affecting people in these towns. How do they cope without running water in their kitchens and bathrooms? How has this affected their physical health and mental well-being?\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘Providing water for drinking and water for animals is going to take precedence over washing hands or washing food because there’s such a limited amount.’\u003ccite>Kelsey Hinton, Community Water Center\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Now there is polling data to answer such questions. For the first time ever, a survey tool developed by the Centers for Disease Control to assess public health in disaster settings has been applied to a drought. Specifically, it has been applied in Tulare County, which has had the state’s greatest number of residential well failures for several years running.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The survey, conducted by the California Department of Public Health and Tulare County Health and Human Services Agency, was conducted over several days in October 2015. Interviewers visited more than 390 homes in north and south Tulare County to speak with residents about the drought. The north survey region included the towns of Cutler and Orosi; the southern region included East Porterville.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Results were released on May 16. David Rozell, Tulare County’s public health emergency preparedness manager, said it has already proved valuable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had a lot of anecdotal information,” Rozell said, “and we really just didn’t have anything that said, in a statistically valid way, that this drought was having an effect on people’s physical health, on their mental health. For me, I think validating those concerns was a very important outcome.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Cutler and Orosi, 67 percent of the interviews were conducted in Spanish; in East Porterville, 48 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time of the survey, about 9 percent of the homes surveyed in Cutler and Orosi did not have running water, compared to about 12 percent in East Porterville.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the results, people reported the following drought effects:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Decrease in well water production: 21 percent in Cutler and Orosi; 53 percent in East Porterville\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Impact on finances: 38 percent in Cutler and Orosi; 40 percent in East Porterville\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Impact on health: 10 percent in Cutler and Orosi; 20 percent in East Porterville\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Impact on peace of mind: 33 percent in Cutler and Orosi; 49 percent in East Porterville\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Chronic health condition worsened: 23 percent in Cutler and Orosi; 28 percent in East Porterville\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Decreased income caused by drought: 35 percent in Cutler and Orosi; 29 percent in East Porterville\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Tomas Garcia, a homeowner in East Porterville, hauled water for more than a year after his well went dry in 2014. The experience led him to launch East Porterville for Water Justice, a group of residents working with state and county officials on a permanent water-supply solution.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">[contextly_sidebar id=”2BSCxMa9dhItkIN3SsavRC8eBx87gkfB”] \u003c/span>“It’s very, very hard to get off of work and haul water. My day was over around 10:30, 11 o’clock at night,” said Garcia, who works in a tire shop and has lived in East Porterville for 30 years. The family got a temporary water tank installed at their home about a year ago. “Now, I can take my kids to church in the morning instead of hauling water on Sundays. We’re surviving. It’s pretty crazy.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">About 95 percent of residents reported they have taken a number of actions to reduce their water consumption during the drought, from cutting showering time to repairing leaks and replacing appliances. More than 70 percent said there is still more they could do.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">But many also reported taking steps that could present a health concern. For instance, 58 percent in Cutler and Orosi said they reduced hand-washing frequency, while 68 percent reported this in East Porterville. In both areas, about 63 percent said they cut back on washing food.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Also, 60 percent in Cutler and Orosi and 70 percent in East Porterville said they stopped gardening, suggesting they were no longer growing their own food and likely switched to something less healthful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_778831\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-778831\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/California-Drought-Dry-Town-2.jpg\" alt=\"Residents whose wells have run dry can draw water from this 5,000-gallon (18,900-liter) water tank in East Porterville, Calif. The health department recently completed a survey about the impacts of the drought on East Porterville and a neighboring community.\" width=\"1400\" height=\"987\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/California-Drought-Dry-Town-2.jpg 1400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/California-Drought-Dry-Town-2-400x282.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/California-Drought-Dry-Town-2-800x564.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/California-Drought-Dry-Town-2-768x541.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/California-Drought-Dry-Town-2-1180x832.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/California-Drought-Dry-Town-2-960x677.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Residents whose wells have run dry can draw water from this 5,000-gallon (18,900-liter) water tank in East Porterville, Calif. The health department recently completed a survey about the impacts of the drought on East Porterville and a neighboring community. \u003ccite>(Scott Smith/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">“Unfortunately, people are forced to make these decisions about what’s most important,” said Kelsey Hinton, a Vista fellow at Community Water Center, a nonprofit group in Visalia working on water problems in the San Joaquin Valley. “Providing water for drinking and water for animals, things like that, are going to take precedence over washing hands or washing food because there’s such a limited amount.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">When people were asked why they hadn’t already come up with a permanent water solution on their own, the most common answers were either that it was too expensive, or that it was the landlord’s responsibility.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">In the first case, the only solution available to many homeowners is to drill a deeper well, because they are not close enough to an existing municipal water service to simply plug in a pipe. It can cost tens of thousands of dollars to drill a new water well, without a guarantee of hitting water.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To try to hold landlords more accountable, Rozell said Tulare County recently passed rules that forbid a landlord from charging rent if there is no running water in the home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">The county is also working with state officials on a permanent solution for unincorporated East Porterville, which has the greatest concentration of failed wells. It involves extending municipal water service from the adjacent city of Porterville. After a number of \u003ca href=\"http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/story/news/local/2015/12/10/county-porterville-trying-hash-conflict/77128608/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">false starts\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, that project now appears to be moving forward steadily.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">“I have a lot of hope that by the end of this year, some of our members in our community will have some water hooked up,” Garcia said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Susana De Anda, co-executive director of the Community Water Center, said the survey is helpful to paint a better picture of the Tulare water crisis. But she said it isn’t enough. For instance, it captures only a small slice of the affected population, in areas where homes are concentrated. Many people in more rural areas were not surveyed and their situation has not been quantified.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">“I think these studies and surveys are great to the extent they can help get information out to people,” De Anda said. “My question would be, how are we going to use it to help people?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Rozell said the county is working on that. One of the important findings from the study was that most residents rely on television to get information about the drought. So the county plans to approach local TV stations about running public service announcements and providing specific coverage of the water crisis.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">The county will also develop public information materials urging people not to cut back on basic hygiene practices, such as washing hands and food.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Last week, the county applied for a grant from the Centers for Disease Control to gather more data and use it to develop solutions to help people affected by the drought.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">One of the things Rozell found encouraging about the survey was the participation. Merely by knocking on doors unannounced, surveyors achieved a response rate in the survey of about 80 percent. This suggests people are eager for solutions and want to be involved.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">“We thought that was really tremendous,” he said. “It puts it on us now to go and do something useful with it.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cspan class=\"start\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.newsdeeply.com/water/about/\">Water Deeply\u003c/a> is\u003c/span> an independent digital media project dedicated to covering California’s water crisis. The project is part of \u003ca href=\"http://www.newsdeeply.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News Deeply\u003c/a>, a new media startup and social enterprise based in New York.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"description": "No place has been hit harder by the California drought than Tulare County in the San Joaquin Valley. By now, most Americans have read or heard stories about residential wells going dry in the county’s rural towns, such as East Porterville, Orosi and Cutler. But it has remained unclear how water shortages are affecting people",
"title": "The Unexpected Health Risks of Drought | KQED",
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"headline": "The Unexpected Health Risks of Drought",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>No place has been hit harder by the California drought than Tulare County in the San Joaquin Valley. By now, most Americans have read or heard stories about residential wells going dry in the county’s rural towns, such as East Porterville, Orosi and Cutler.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it has remained unclear how water shortages are affecting people in these towns. How do they cope without running water in their kitchens and bathrooms? How has this affected their physical health and mental well-being?\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘Providing water for drinking and water for animals is going to take precedence over washing hands or washing food because there’s such a limited amount.’\u003ccite>Kelsey Hinton, Community Water Center\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Now there is polling data to answer such questions. For the first time ever, a survey tool developed by the Centers for Disease Control to assess public health in disaster settings has been applied to a drought. Specifically, it has been applied in Tulare County, which has had the state’s greatest number of residential well failures for several years running.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The survey, conducted by the California Department of Public Health and Tulare County Health and Human Services Agency, was conducted over several days in October 2015. Interviewers visited more than 390 homes in north and south Tulare County to speak with residents about the drought. The north survey region included the towns of Cutler and Orosi; the southern region included East Porterville.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Results were released on May 16. David Rozell, Tulare County’s public health emergency preparedness manager, said it has already proved valuable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had a lot of anecdotal information,” Rozell said, “and we really just didn’t have anything that said, in a statistically valid way, that this drought was having an effect on people’s physical health, on their mental health. For me, I think validating those concerns was a very important outcome.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Cutler and Orosi, 67 percent of the interviews were conducted in Spanish; in East Porterville, 48 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time of the survey, about 9 percent of the homes surveyed in Cutler and Orosi did not have running water, compared to about 12 percent in East Porterville.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the results, people reported the following drought effects:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Decrease in well water production: 21 percent in Cutler and Orosi; 53 percent in East Porterville\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Impact on finances: 38 percent in Cutler and Orosi; 40 percent in East Porterville\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Impact on health: 10 percent in Cutler and Orosi; 20 percent in East Porterville\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Impact on peace of mind: 33 percent in Cutler and Orosi; 49 percent in East Porterville\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Chronic health condition worsened: 23 percent in Cutler and Orosi; 28 percent in East Porterville\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Decreased income caused by drought: 35 percent in Cutler and Orosi; 29 percent in East Porterville\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Tomas Garcia, a homeowner in East Porterville, hauled water for more than a year after his well went dry in 2014. The experience led him to launch East Porterville for Water Justice, a group of residents working with state and county officials on a permanent water-supply solution.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp> \u003c/span>“It’s very, very hard to get off of work and haul water. My day was over around 10:30, 11 o’clock at night,” said Garcia, who works in a tire shop and has lived in East Porterville for 30 years. The family got a temporary water tank installed at their home about a year ago. “Now, I can take my kids to church in the morning instead of hauling water on Sundays. We’re surviving. It’s pretty crazy.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">About 95 percent of residents reported they have taken a number of actions to reduce their water consumption during the drought, from cutting showering time to repairing leaks and replacing appliances. More than 70 percent said there is still more they could do.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">But many also reported taking steps that could present a health concern. For instance, 58 percent in Cutler and Orosi said they reduced hand-washing frequency, while 68 percent reported this in East Porterville. In both areas, about 63 percent said they cut back on washing food.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Also, 60 percent in Cutler and Orosi and 70 percent in East Porterville said they stopped gardening, suggesting they were no longer growing their own food and likely switched to something less healthful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_778831\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-778831\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/California-Drought-Dry-Town-2.jpg\" alt=\"Residents whose wells have run dry can draw water from this 5,000-gallon (18,900-liter) water tank in East Porterville, Calif. The health department recently completed a survey about the impacts of the drought on East Porterville and a neighboring community.\" width=\"1400\" height=\"987\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/California-Drought-Dry-Town-2.jpg 1400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/California-Drought-Dry-Town-2-400x282.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/California-Drought-Dry-Town-2-800x564.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/California-Drought-Dry-Town-2-768x541.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/California-Drought-Dry-Town-2-1180x832.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/06/California-Drought-Dry-Town-2-960x677.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Residents whose wells have run dry can draw water from this 5,000-gallon (18,900-liter) water tank in East Porterville, Calif. The health department recently completed a survey about the impacts of the drought on East Porterville and a neighboring community. \u003ccite>(Scott Smith/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">“Unfortunately, people are forced to make these decisions about what’s most important,” said Kelsey Hinton, a Vista fellow at Community Water Center, a nonprofit group in Visalia working on water problems in the San Joaquin Valley. “Providing water for drinking and water for animals, things like that, are going to take precedence over washing hands or washing food because there’s such a limited amount.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">When people were asked why they hadn’t already come up with a permanent water solution on their own, the most common answers were either that it was too expensive, or that it was the landlord’s responsibility.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">In the first case, the only solution available to many homeowners is to drill a deeper well, because they are not close enough to an existing municipal water service to simply plug in a pipe. It can cost tens of thousands of dollars to drill a new water well, without a guarantee of hitting water.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To try to hold landlords more accountable, Rozell said Tulare County recently passed rules that forbid a landlord from charging rent if there is no running water in the home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">The county is also working with state officials on a permanent solution for unincorporated East Porterville, which has the greatest concentration of failed wells. It involves extending municipal water service from the adjacent city of Porterville. After a number of \u003ca href=\"http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/story/news/local/2015/12/10/county-porterville-trying-hash-conflict/77128608/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">false starts\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, that project now appears to be moving forward steadily.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">“I have a lot of hope that by the end of this year, some of our members in our community will have some water hooked up,” Garcia said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Susana De Anda, co-executive director of the Community Water Center, said the survey is helpful to paint a better picture of the Tulare water crisis. But she said it isn’t enough. For instance, it captures only a small slice of the affected population, in areas where homes are concentrated. Many people in more rural areas were not surveyed and their situation has not been quantified.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">“I think these studies and surveys are great to the extent they can help get information out to people,” De Anda said. “My question would be, how are we going to use it to help people?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Rozell said the county is working on that. One of the important findings from the study was that most residents rely on television to get information about the drought. So the county plans to approach local TV stations about running public service announcements and providing specific coverage of the water crisis.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">The county will also develop public information materials urging people not to cut back on basic hygiene practices, such as washing hands and food.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Last week, the county applied for a grant from the Centers for Disease Control to gather more data and use it to develop solutions to help people affected by the drought.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">One of the things Rozell found encouraging about the survey was the participation. Merely by knocking on doors unannounced, surveyors achieved a response rate in the survey of about 80 percent. This suggests people are eager for solutions and want to be involved.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">“We thought that was really tremendous,” he said. “It puts it on us now to go and do something useful with it.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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},
"city-arts": {
"id": "city-arts",
"title": "City Arts & Lectures",
"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.cityarts.net/",
"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
"subscribe": {
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/City-Arts-and-Lectures-p692/",
"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
"title": "Close All Tabs",
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"info": "Close All Tabs breaks down how digital culture shapes our world through thoughtful insights and irreverent humor.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"order": 1
},
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"id": "code-switch-life-kit",
"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"meta": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnByLm9yZy9yc3MvcG9kY2FzdC5waHA_aWQ9NTEwMzEy",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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},
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/4s8b",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
"rss": "https://feeds.feedburner.com/freakonomicsradio"
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},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
"info": "Hosted by Terry Gross, \u003cem>Fresh Air from WHYY\u003c/em> is the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues. One of public radio's most popular programs, Fresh Air features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.",
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"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/381444908/podcast.xml"
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/series/423302056/hidden-brain",
"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
"id": "how-i-built-this",
"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/3zxy",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510313/podcast.xml"
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC2275451163"
}
},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1492194549",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"
}
},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "pbs"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
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