All posts by Gretchen Weber

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CA Wildfires Responsible for Unhealthy Ozone Levels

Those of us in the San Francisco Bay Area woke up to the smell of smoke on Monday morning, the result of the fires that burned on Angel Island through the night scorching about 400 acres.  Wildfires also burned in nearby Napa country throughout the weekend.  While we know that inhaling all that smoke can’t be a good thing, a new study out from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has quantified some of the risks, and what they’ve found is dangerous amounts of ground level ozone.

The study, which focused on California’s wildfires September and October of last year, found that the fires repeatedly boosted ozone to unhealthy levels – levels that exceed U.S. health standards — across much of California and Nevada.

While ozone in the upper atmosphere where it blocks ultraviolet radiation from the sun is a good thing for life on Earth, it’s a bad thing down here at the surface where ozone can cause breathing difficulty and aggravate respiratory problems like asthma and emphysema in humans and it can harm agricultural crops.  The EPA’s brochure on “good” and “bad” ozone identifies ozone as the main component of urban smog.

Many climate scientists are predicting hotter and drier weather for the American West, likely increasing the frequency and duration of wildfires.  “Bad” ozone might be something we’ll be getting used to.

Here’s a July article from the San Francisco Chronicle with an overview of California’s fires for the first half of 2008.

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Small Mammals on the Move in a Warming Yosemite

Over the last century, small mammals in Yosemite National Park have been on the move.  A recent study published in today’s issue of Science finds that as temperatures have warmed (a 3-degree Celcius increase in the park’s night-time low temperature) and Sierra glaciers have continued to melt, small mammals like mice, shrews, and chipmunks have moved to higher elevations or reduced their ranges in response to the climate.As part of the Grinnell Resurvey Project, a team from UC Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology headed up by professor Craig Moritz recently documented these changes in Yosemite by conducting a survey of the animal populations and comparing their data with an extensive data set collected in the same locations by field biologist Joseph Grinnell in the early 20th century.Of the 28 small mammals observed in the study, half had expanded their range upslope by more than 1,600 feet.

Since the higher up you are, the cooler the temperatures tend to be, recent research suggests that the mammals already living at high elevations may eventually face “mountaintop extinctions,” as they run out of room to climb higher if temperatures continue to rise. For example, the alpine chipmunk, which in 1918 was common at 7,800 feet, was recently nowhere to be found below 9,600 feet, according to the study.

Scientists acknowledge that changes in populations and animal communities are natural, but, Moritz says, what is less common is the speed with which these changes occured.

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Despite a Cool Summer, LA is Getting Hotter

It was looking like a cool summer in Los Angeles until a couple of weeks ago.  Temperatures in downtown LA topped 90 degrees Fahrenheit only once this summer until September 25th.  Since then, according to the National Weather Service’s Climatological Report, the city has seen 4 days above 90, including today. Which is what a group of university and NASA scientists say Southern Californians had better get used to.  

The scientists analyzed 100 years of temperature data collected in downtown Los Angeles  and found that between 1906 and 2006 the average number of extreme heat days – those over 90 degrees – increased from 2 per year to more than 25 per year.  In that time, the average maximum daytime temperature for the city climbed 5 degrees.  Heat waves have also increased, from 2-day events to sweltering stretches that last for 1-2 weeks. The scientists predict that in the coming decades, 10-14 day heat waves will be the norm. 

The bottom line? Even though this summer was a cool one, Southern California is going to get warmer, for longer periods of time. “Our snow pack will be less, our fire seasons will be longer, and unhealthy air alerts will be a summer staple” said study co-author Bill Patzert, a NASA climatologist and oceanographer.

The scientists assert that the main cause of this increase in temperature and heat days in Los Angeles is due the “urban heat island effect,” which makes urban areas 2-10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the surrounding rural areas.

Check out a historical temperature chart for downtown Los Angeles and a full report on the study here.

Power

Renewable Energy Tax Credits Extended

In today’s historic passage of the $700 bailout package for the financial industry, Congess also managed to finally extend the alternative energy tax credits that have been held up for months in legislative wrangling.  The Senate approved incentives last week, and yesterday lawmakers included them as part of a $150.5 billion add-on package to the so-called “bail out bill” in efforts to gain more House votes for the financial rescue plan.  The move will extend the existing tax incentives for the wind and solar industries for that were set to expire at the end of the year.

An article from investment research firm Morningstar reports some of the details:

“The bill extends production tax credits for wind energy projects for one year, and for geothermal, biomass, and other renewable sources for two years. 

The solar energy industry won an eight-year extension of the investment tax credit for commercial and utility-scale solar projects, and an eight-year extension of tax credits for residential solar power installations.”

Passage of these incentives is good news for alternative energy advocates who feared the expiration of these credits might harm fledgling wind and solar businesses and initiatives.

Last month, David Gorn reported a story for Climate Watch about what’s going on with large-scale solar installations in California as the state pushes to meet a plan requiring that 1/3 of California’s energy come from renewable sources.  

 Stay tuned for Monday’s radio report on Quest exploring California’s Proposition 7, which would require more wind and solar energy use in the state.

Power

Wind and Solar Incentives Pass Senate

And speaking of solar power…  After months of roadblocks, the extension on tax credits for renewable energy is one step closer to reality after the Senate yesterday approved the $17 billion package with a 93-2 vote. The credits for wind, solar, and energy efficiency projects are part of “The Renewable Energy and Jobs Creation Act of 2008,” a larger tax bill (HR 6049) that has been stalled in Congress as legislators wrangled over how to fund the credits. If they are not renewed, the incentives will expire at the end of this year, undoubtably having a negative impact on future solar and wind innovation and expansion in the United States. 

You can read more about of the current situation in a piece by Ben Gemen at E&E Daily, but to access the article directly, you must be a subscriber.  For the rest of us, Climate Progess has posted the story here.

Power

Solar Incentives May Be Uneven Across State

In response to our Solar Realities series, a Northern California listener raised an interesting point and sent us the following email, though he asked that we withhold his name: 

As you likely already know, the CA Public Utility Commission‘s “California Solar Initiative” provides some very good rebates to give citizens, businesses, and public agencies an incentive to install grid-tied PV generating systems. However, one thing that might be worth noting is that the far northern portion of CA that is served by Pacific Power is not eligible for any of these rebates. The Pacific Power service area is all or part of Modoc, Siskiyou & Del Norte counties. So citizens in these counties cannot participate in the CA Solar Initiative! Apparently, the CA Public Utilities Commission has not yet gotten around to require Pacific Power to charge a fee to its CA customers to fund the rebate program. …2/3 of this of this area is prime territory for PV installations with a very high number of clear sky sunny days per year.

In Tuesday’s Climate Watch piece, reporter Rachael Myrow explains how California’s solar rebates and credits work for utilities customers in most of the state.

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In CA’s Future: More Hay, Less Lemonade?

Climate change might actually help California’s agriculture industry, according to preliminary research findings by one of today’s speakers at the California Climate Change Conference in Sacramento. UC Santa Barbara professor Charles Kolstad described his current research assessing potential future effects of weather and climate on different California agricultural crops such as broccoli and lettuce. His team compiled historical data on farm revenues, crop production, soil quality, and weather, and applied it to two of the standard scenarios provided by the IPCC; A2 (“business as usual”) and B1 (“more moderate change in climate”). Kolstad found “a clearly positive effect [of climate change] on profits” that is mostly due to temperature changes. Precipitation changes had a lesser effect on the results.

However, before you fire up the Farmall (that’s a tractor, for you city folk) and head for the fields, it’s important to note that the study does not account for future water availability and price, which obviously will have a huge impact on the future of agriculture in the state. When one conference attendee took issue with the study, calling it “completely wrong” based on several factors, Kolstad said he was aware that water availability and prices could “swamp these results,” but said that the study was focused on just one piece of a complicated issue.

Of course, not all crops will benefit from increased temperatures. According to the study, cotton and hay will see some of the biggest gains, but food crops like table grapes and lemons will suffer. So at least the horses of the future will be well fed…or not.