By Marla Cone30 March 2012 LONG BEACH, California – Kelp off Southern California was contaminated with short-lived radioisotopes a month after Japan’s Fukushima accident, a sign that the spilled radiation reached the state’s coastline, according to a new scientific study. Scientists from California State University, Long Beach tested giant kelp from the ocean off Orange […]
By JEFF BARNARD8 April 2012 TULELAKE, California – Dave Mauser walked the edge of a mudflat, peering underneath the dried brown rushes where one coot after another had gone to hide and then die. “Now the coots are getting the worst of it,” said Mauser, head biologist on the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, the […]
By INGFEI CHEN27 February 2012 MONTEREY, California – On a fog-shrouded morning in Monterey Bay, wildlife researchers are out to capture a southern sea otter named Blanca — part of a three-year project to learn why her species, hunted to near extinction a century ago, is still in trouble here despite decades of efforts to […]
By Andrew Freedman25 February 2012 (Climate Central) – Defying seasonal climate forecasts, this winter has been very good to Texas, which has been locked in the grips of one of the worst droughts in state history. But the unexpectedly generous winter storms have come too late for some, since water supplies are still running low. […]
Contact: Jeff Miller, (415) 669-73572 February 2012 SACRAMENTO, California – The California Fish and Game Commission voted unanimously today to designate two species of native frogs inhabiting high-elevation lakes in the Sierra Nevada and Southern California mountain ranges as threatened and endangered species under the state’s Endangered Species Act. More than 75 percent of the […]
By FELICITY BARRINGER23 January 2012 To see how thoroughly the concept of ecosystem services — the economic analysis of the natural world’s intersection with human endeavors — is embedded in climate change research, check out this forecast from a group led by researchers at Duke University and the Environmental Defense Fund. It examines the future […]
Contact: Alan Buis, 818-354-0474, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov 18 January 2012 La Niña, “the diva of drought,” is peaking, increasing the odds that the Pacific Northwest will have more stormy weather this winter and spring, while the southwestern and southern United States will be dry. Sea surface height data from NASA’s Jason-1 and […]
By Jens Erik Gould / Los Angeles 3 January 2011 To quench the thirst of Southern California’s some 20 million people, water must be imported from hundreds of miles away, across a daunting array of deserts, valleys and mountains. For decades, Angelenos have muttered a doomsday refrain: our water supply isn’t sustainable, and we are […]
By NOAKI SCHWARTZ and GARANCE BURKE, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS8 November 2011 CADIZ, California – Off historic Route 66 in the heart of the California desert, the barren landscape of dry scrub and rock abruptly gives way to an oasis of tall green trees heavy with lemons and grape vines awaiting next month’s harvest. Some think […]
San Francisco, CA, November 24 (SPX) – A new study, led by PRBO Conservation Science (PRBO), projects a bleak future for San Francisco Bay’s tidal marshes under high-end sea-level rise scenarios that are increasingly likely. PRBO and colleagues found that in the worst case scenario 93% of San Francisco Bay’s tidal marsh could be lost […]
