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In a recent NASA mission called Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG), climate scientist Josh Willis embarked on a journey to study ice in Greenland and surrounding oceans and how much oceans are eating away at the ice around the edges of the ice sheet. The data collected included the ocean’s temperature and salinity, and the shape and depth of the sea floor. “The shape of the sea floor determines how much the warm water can reach in and touch the glaciers,” said Willis, who works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles. “Warm water is widespread across the Greenland shelf, and it is very much a major threat to the glaciers,” Willis said. “The thing we really don’t know is how fast is Greenland’s ice going to disappear. “If it takes a thousand years or two thousand years, then we can probably adapt. But if it happens in a few hundred, we should already be evacuating cities around the world,” he added.
Impact of sea ice
A separate study from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory suggests a link between sea ice melting in the Arctic and drier conditions in California. A new simulation that only looks at sea ice in the next two decades, shows a pressure ridge pushing the winter air masses north into Alaska and Canada, which impacts California. “We saw quite substantial drying of California so with (looking at) the sea ice alone, we saw 10 to 15 percent decrease in precipitation over a 20-year period,” said Ivana Cvijanovic, an atmospheric scientist and post-doctoral researcher at the national laboratory.
A large iceberg melts into jagged edges as it floats in Eriks Fjord near the town of Narsarsuaq in southern Greenland
Other factors such as greenhouse gases and particulate pollution can also affect the future of rainfall in California. The modeling framework used in the study at Lawrence Livermore helps scientists understand the impact of sea ice in isolation to these other factors. “Ice is disappearing on the Arctic Ocean. It’s disappearing from Greenland and this is reshaping climate patterns all across the planet,” Willis said. He and other scientists predict that as Arctic regions warm, the American Southwest will feel the impact. “We will probably see drier conditions in the long run in the second half of the [21st] century in the Southwest and that means we’re going to struggle with water needs and also fire,” Willis said.
Intersection of wildland, people
Dry conditions plus a growing population and urban sprawl equals more wildfires and costly devastation, such as the ones in Southern California. “We are in Southern California and a lot of the fires we find that happen right where people intersect with wildland happen because of people,” said Natasha Stavros, an applied science system engineer and fire expert at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. As the weather evolves and more wildfires burn, Stavros expects other environmental changes. “As we experience climate changes and things become hotter and dryer, fire acts kind of like an eraser. It erases the landscape and it actually allows new ecosystems to establish because they don’t have to compete with what was there,” Stavros said.
Firefighter Ryan Spencer battles a wildfire as it burns along a hillside toward homes in La Conchita, California
The American Southwest is not the only place where change is predicted. “As the atmosphere heats up, it becomes a better pipe for carrying water for picking it up from one place and dumping it in another,” Willis said. “This means that dry places are more likely to get drier and wet places are likely to get wetter. It also means that bigger more torrential downpours become more likely.”
Warming Arctic, Drier Regions, and Wildfires: Is There a Link?
Brown surveyed fire damage in Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles, the scene of some of the worst destruction of the past week. "This is the new normal," he said, blaming climate change for the increased danger of wildfires late in the year. "We're facing a new reality in the state where fires threaten people's lives, their property, their neighborhoods, and of course billions and billions of dollars" in damage, Brown told reporters. Late Friday, officials said they had linked the death of a 70-year-old woman in a car accident to the fires. Ventura County medical examiner Christopher Young said Virginia Pesola was fleeing the Thomas Fire in her car, following an evacuation route, when she crashed and died. Young said the cause of death was blunt force injuries and smoke inhalation.
California Gov. Jerry Brown discusses the Thomas Fire and the extended length of the state's fire season during a press conference Dec. 9, 2017, in Ventura, Calif.
About 87,000 people remained evacuated from their homes, down from a height of more than 200,000 earlier this week. Since Monday, the fires have burned more than 670 square kilometers (260 square miles). New fires keep erupting in dry conditions, though, and are being stoked by relentless westward Santa Ana winds, which are expected to gust up to 80 kilometers per hour (50 mph) on Sunday. About 8,700 firefighters, accompanied by helicopters, continued to spray and dump water and fire retardant to try to slow the spread of the blazes that have erupted along the Pacific Coast from San Diego to Santa Barbara County, about 370 kilometers (230 miles) to the north. President Donald Trump responded to the fires Friday by issuing a federal declaration of a state of emergency for California, paving the way for federal agencies to help coordinate relief efforts.
The biggest and most destructive blaze is the Thomas Fire, about 90 kilometers (56 miles) northwest of Los Angeles. It has charred nearly 580 square kilometers (224 square miles) and destroyed nearly 440 structures. As firefighters made progress against the Los Angeles-area fires, most evacuation orders were lifted. One of the newer blazes, the Lilac Fire, broke out Thursday in San Diego County, more than 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of Los Angeles. The fire burned 16 square kilometers (6 square miles) in mere hours as it swept through the densely populated Rancho Monserate Country Club community and the small city of Fallbrook, home to numerous horse ranches and avocado orchards. Officials said 85 structures were quickly destroyed.
A fire engine passes flames as a wildfire burns along Santa Ana Road near Ventura, Calif.
Officials said a smaller fire erupted Friday in San Diego County, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of downtown San Diego. They said the fire was small compared with the Lilac Fire and that numerous resources would be sent to fight it. Fires are not uncommon in Southern California this time of year, before the winter rains set in, when the vegetation is tinder dry and winds blast the region. This year, however, has been particularly bad for California fires because of dry, hot and windy conditions that would be extreme for any season, including the winter season that is just two weeks away. Just weeks ago, wildfires that broke out in Northern California killed 44 people and destroyed 8,900 homes and other buildings.
California Governor: Late-year Wildfires are 'New Normal'
Granny says, "Dat's right - it's `cause o' dat global warmin'...
Warming Arctic, Drier Regions, and Wildfires: Is There a Link?
December 09, 2017 — Many scientists believe the Arctic, one of the fastest-changing places on the planet, could drive change in other parts of the world, including wildfire-ravaged Southern California.
In a recent NASA mission called Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG), climate scientist Josh Willis embarked on a journey to study ice in Greenland and surrounding oceans and how much oceans are eating away at the ice around the edges of the ice sheet. The data collected included the ocean’s temperature and salinity, and the shape and depth of the sea floor. “The shape of the sea floor determines how much the warm water can reach in and touch the glaciers,” said Willis, who works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles. “Warm water is widespread across the Greenland shelf, and it is very much a major threat to the glaciers,” Willis said. “The thing we really don’t know is how fast is Greenland’s ice going to disappear. “If it takes a thousand years or two thousand years, then we can probably adapt. But if it happens in a few hundred, we should already be evacuating cities around the world,” he added.
Impact of sea ice
A separate study from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory suggests a link between sea ice melting in the Arctic and drier conditions in California. A new simulation that only looks at sea ice in the next two decades, shows a pressure ridge pushing the winter air masses north into Alaska and Canada, which impacts California. “We saw quite substantial drying of California so with (looking at) the sea ice alone, we saw 10 to 15 percent decrease in precipitation over a 20-year period,” said Ivana Cvijanovic, an atmospheric scientist and post-doctoral researcher at the national laboratory.
A large iceberg melts into jagged edges as it floats in Eriks Fjord near the town of Narsarsuaq in southern Greenland
Other factors such as greenhouse gases and particulate pollution can also affect the future of rainfall in California. The modeling framework used in the study at Lawrence Livermore helps scientists understand the impact of sea ice in isolation to these other factors. “Ice is disappearing on the Arctic Ocean. It’s disappearing from Greenland and this is reshaping climate patterns all across the planet,” Willis said. He and other scientists predict that as Arctic regions warm, the American Southwest will feel the impact. “We will probably see drier conditions in the long run in the second half of the [21st] century in the Southwest and that means we’re going to struggle with water needs and also fire,” Willis said.
Intersection of wildland, people
Dry conditions plus a growing population and urban sprawl equals more wildfires and costly devastation, such as the ones in Southern California. “We are in Southern California and a lot of the fires we find that happen right where people intersect with wildland happen because of people,” said Natasha Stavros, an applied science system engineer and fire expert at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. As the weather evolves and more wildfires burn, Stavros expects other environmental changes. “As we experience climate changes and things become hotter and dryer, fire acts kind of like an eraser. It erases the landscape and it actually allows new ecosystems to establish because they don’t have to compete with what was there,” Stavros said.
Firefighter Ryan Spencer battles a wildfire as it burns along a hillside toward homes in La Conchita, California
The American Southwest is not the only place where change is predicted. “As the atmosphere heats up, it becomes a better pipe for carrying water for picking it up from one place and dumping it in another,” Willis said. “This means that dry places are more likely to get drier and wet places are likely to get wetter. It also means that bigger more torrential downpours become more likely.”
Warming Arctic, Drier Regions, and Wildfires: Is There a Link?
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California Governor: Late-year Wildfires are 'New Normal'
December 09, 2017 - California Governor Jerry Brown cautioned Saturday that more wildfires were in his state's future, as firefighters battled six major blazes that have killed at least one person and damaged hundreds of homes.
Brown surveyed fire damage in Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles, the scene of some of the worst destruction of the past week. "This is the new normal," he said, blaming climate change for the increased danger of wildfires late in the year. "We're facing a new reality in the state where fires threaten people's lives, their property, their neighborhoods, and of course billions and billions of dollars" in damage, Brown told reporters. Late Friday, officials said they had linked the death of a 70-year-old woman in a car accident to the fires. Ventura County medical examiner Christopher Young said Virginia Pesola was fleeing the Thomas Fire in her car, following an evacuation route, when she crashed and died. Young said the cause of death was blunt force injuries and smoke inhalation.
California Gov. Jerry Brown discusses the Thomas Fire and the extended length of the state's fire season during a press conference Dec. 9, 2017, in Ventura, Calif.
About 87,000 people remained evacuated from their homes, down from a height of more than 200,000 earlier this week. Since Monday, the fires have burned more than 670 square kilometers (260 square miles). New fires keep erupting in dry conditions, though, and are being stoked by relentless westward Santa Ana winds, which are expected to gust up to 80 kilometers per hour (50 mph) on Sunday. About 8,700 firefighters, accompanied by helicopters, continued to spray and dump water and fire retardant to try to slow the spread of the blazes that have erupted along the Pacific Coast from San Diego to Santa Barbara County, about 370 kilometers (230 miles) to the north. President Donald Trump responded to the fires Friday by issuing a federal declaration of a state of emergency for California, paving the way for federal agencies to help coordinate relief efforts.
The biggest and most destructive blaze is the Thomas Fire, about 90 kilometers (56 miles) northwest of Los Angeles. It has charred nearly 580 square kilometers (224 square miles) and destroyed nearly 440 structures. As firefighters made progress against the Los Angeles-area fires, most evacuation orders were lifted. One of the newer blazes, the Lilac Fire, broke out Thursday in San Diego County, more than 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of Los Angeles. The fire burned 16 square kilometers (6 square miles) in mere hours as it swept through the densely populated Rancho Monserate Country Club community and the small city of Fallbrook, home to numerous horse ranches and avocado orchards. Officials said 85 structures were quickly destroyed.
A fire engine passes flames as a wildfire burns along Santa Ana Road near Ventura, Calif.
Officials said a smaller fire erupted Friday in San Diego County, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of downtown San Diego. They said the fire was small compared with the Lilac Fire and that numerous resources would be sent to fight it. Fires are not uncommon in Southern California this time of year, before the winter rains set in, when the vegetation is tinder dry and winds blast the region. This year, however, has been particularly bad for California fires because of dry, hot and windy conditions that would be extreme for any season, including the winter season that is just two weeks away. Just weeks ago, wildfires that broke out in Northern California killed 44 people and destroyed 8,900 homes and other buildings.
California Governor: Late-year Wildfires are 'New Normal'
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