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Possible Spoiler for El Niño: A ‘Battle of the Blobs’
Listen to the story: http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2015/08/20150810ScienceBattleoftheBlobs.mp3 Hopeful Californians are looking to the Pacific this winter for an end to California’s...
View ArticleCal Fire Chief’s Nightmare Scenario
It comes down to this: the next couple of months. Lately Northern California has captured national headlines with fast-moving blazes such the Rocky and Jerusalem Fires in the coast ranges about 100...
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Dude, Where’s My Earthquake Warning System?
One year ago, in the pre-dawn hours of a Sunday morning, thousands of people were jounced out of their beds when a magnitude-6 earthquake struck the Napa Valley. The shaking claimed at least one life,...
View ArticleNASA: Rising Seas About to Catch Up With the West Coast
Rising Seas are about to become a bigger issue for the West Coast, according to scientists. Using satellite and other data, NASA scientists have been tracking rising sea levels around the world. They...
View ArticleCalifornia Cities Squeezed Out More Water Savings Again in July
Urban Californians stepped up to the plate again in July, beating Governor Jerry Brown’s statewide mandate for 25 percent water savings. “We’ve got a lot of people hitting home runs,” said Felicia...
View ArticleWhy the Worst of Fire Season May Lie Ahead
As bad as things are already, the system in place to manage California’s wildfire season is already “stretched very, very thinly,” according to Mark Ghilarducci, who directs the state’s Office of...
View ArticleHow El Niño Might Have Fed the Valley Fire’s Strange Ferocity
Researchers at San Jose State have a theory that could explain the wind-driven explosive growth of the Valley Fire, and as strange as it sounds it’s … a hurricane. Strengthening El Niño conditions have...
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California Drought Revives a River — and a Poignant History
California’s relentless four-year drought has had some unexpected consequences. It’s uncovered lost bits of history — ancient petroglyphs and remnants of mining towns at the bottom of reservoirs. And...
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Californians Take Drought Lessons From Down Under
Listen to the Story: http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio//2015/10/DroughtLessonsfromAustralia.mp3 Australia has become a crossroads for California policymakers seeking clues to coping with long,...
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Warm Temperatures Boost California Water Use in October
Heat is a brutal enemy to water conservation. Officials say the unusually high temperatures in October threw a wrench into water savings, the statewide conservation rate slipping to 22.2 percent,...
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‘Water Czar’ Disputes Poor Grades for California’s Drought Response
A “report card” for California’s response to the four-year drought is being greeted with some consternation by state water officials. “One always prefers ‘atta-boys’ to kicks in the pants,” responds...
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Move Over, ROY G. BIV: Rainbows Get a Makeover
Can anything new be said about rainbows? Certainly, from an artistic or literary standpoint, the possibilities seem endless. But in science as well, new ground is being broken into the nature of these...
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Scientists Track Undersea Noise Pollution as Ship Traffic Swells
Listen to the Story: http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio//2015/12/OceanSoundscapesMiller.mp3 When one of the world’s largest container ships passed under the Golden Gate Bridge on New Year’s Eve, it...
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2015 Was the Warmest Year on Record Globally (But Not in California)
2015 goes into the books as the warmest year the Earth has experienced since 1880, when official records began. And the record was not merely set, but shattered. Combining land and ocean surface...
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Hope for Supporting Polar Science Brightens at the Bottom of the World
The seventh and concluding post in a series of dispatches from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo...
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El Niño: It’s One For the Books — But Not Behaving As Expected
The prospect of an El Niño event in the Pacific Ocean always generates a stew of excitement, dread, and speculation in California. This largely stems from the fact that two of California’s wettest...
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Earthquake Warnings on Your Phone: There’s (Almost) an App for That
Having an earthquake warning system on everybody’s cell phone is sort of the holy grail of seismic civil defense. It appears that we’re halfway there. On Friday, scientists at U.C. Berkeley unveiled...
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El Niño Weakening, Stage Set for La Niña and Possible Dry Winter Next Year
Federal climate scientists say the near-record El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean have peaked and are slowly waning. Forecasters now say conditions are likely to flip to their opposite phase,...
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MAP: California Water Conservation Misses Governor’s Mandate in January
For the first time since mandatory statewide restrictions were imposed, Californians missed Governor Jerry Brown’s water conservation target in January. On average, local water suppliers delivered 17.1...
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Sierra Snowpack Shrinking — But More Is on the Way
There’s still plenty up there for skiers but Tuesday’s manual survey of the Sierra Snowpack didn’t do much to raise hopes for an imminent end to the drought. And time is running out. Statewide, the...
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