Hot earth day
"Most of the US experienced record or near-record breaking temperatures, contributing to the warmest March since national records began in 1895," reports the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Click on the map for NOAA's March 2012 global climate analysis. After reading it, if you live in Southern California, Nevada, Arizona etc, what are you waiting for? Rip out your lawn. It will save roughly half of the water you use, the often dirty energy needed to pump that water hundreds of miles from wet places to dry ones, the energy needed to mow the lawn once a week, the air pollution caused by the mowers, and the energy needed to cart away and process the green waste. For support on landscape alternatives, check your local native plant society.
A genius caught between theft and heroism
Pacific Institute president and MacArthur Foundation fellow Peter Gleick impersonated a board member of an organization dedicated to denying climate change for all the right reasons but it now threatens his distinguished career. Is he a hero or a criminal — or both?
Cheer up. We may die
“The globe experienced its eighth warmest October since record keeping began in 1880,” reported the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration today. “Arctic sea ice extent was the second smallest extent on record for October at 23.5 percent below average. Additionally, La Niña conditions strengthened during October 2011. According to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, La Niña is expected to continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter.” To keep reading, click here.
For those of you who missed Bettina Boxall’s characteristically vivid reporting for the Los Angeles Times on the seldom noted dark twin of Southern California water consumption — the vast energy suck required to pump water here from the Colorado River and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta — click here.
Hot news is bad news
Global temperatures for July 2011 were the seventh hottest since record-keeping began in the 19th century, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported today. The month was the fourth hottest on record for the US, with 41 states experiencing hotter than normal temperatures and two — Texas and Oklahoma — suffering the hottest. If one of the newer presidential candidates imagines that he can pray his way out of climate change, it merits noting that Dallas exceeded 100F for 30 of the 31 days of July.
California was among the seven states west of the Rockies to have normal or cooler-than-normal temperatures. Thanks to unusual Pacific currents, we’ve had a good water year after a decade of largely bad ones. While some heat is forecast, so far our weather has been balmy. Why worry? The best non-scientific answer to that question may be found in this
Yes, this is what a La Niña looks like
Source: NASA. Click on the image for a NASA explanation of the "Pineapple Express," in which a jet stream carries moisture from near Hawaii over the American Southwest.
KQED’s Climate Watch, David Zetland’s Aguanomics, LA Observed and the LA Times are among the websites and news organizations shaking seeming contradictions from their collective umbrellas. Yes, this is a La Niña year, and yes, these are typically drier than normal. This being a far stronger than normal La Niña, chances were strong that it was going to be far drier than the already dry average across the American Southwest.
The short answer to why we’re having such a wet dry year is that we’ve had a rare incursion of a tropical rain system called “the Pineapple Express.” The longer answer might be that it is an indicator of climate change. We are not the…
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Click on the poppy for foundations, colleges, nurseries and water districts offering courses and support for dry gardeners
Before it was sheet mulch
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