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| Rock Dock Pillar Point Harbor 12/12/14 |
It’s been about a year since I’ve
blogged about the local climate here in Moss Beach, on the California coast, see Perpetual Summer.
In that post I commented on the weather changes I've
experience Coastside and I stated the weather patterns have changed during the
2013 year based on my observation over 16 years of being a Coastside resident.
So far it’s not been easy to quantify these changes thru temperature variation,
rain fall, historical humidity data and other variables. Recently we’ve had a
nice change to our weather pattern where the persistent high pressure ridge that
has blocked much of Northern California’s rain has dissipated allowing more
normal winter weather for much of December. At this point I’m going to do a
re-cap of the recent past with respect to weather, ecology, the local
environment, human and animal habitat and the effects on our coastal habitat
wellbeing!
Ridiculously Resilient Ridge (RRR):
There has been much talk and speculation about the high
pressure ridge that has been parked over California now for 2-3 years,
deflecting storms to the north. In the past high pressure ridges come and go as
normal weather patterns; however this unprecedented ridge seems to be
self-reinforcing with a positive feedback loop that maintains itself. Its persistence is unheard of in the normal
meteorology realm and has been christened the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge RRR by
David Swain, a Stanford University Doctoral Candidate who blogs at
weatherwest.com. As mentioned before, this RRR has appeared to have dissipated
at least temporarily as evidence by our nice December rain fall. Nobody knows
why this high pressure ridge has been so tenacious and persistent; there are
many factors in play here, ocean temperature, current and wind patterns,
increased carbon distribution, pollution, solar flares. Again, the problem
cannot be understood on a local level, it’s the entire earth universe
interconnected system that needs understanding, no easy task and not likely in
the near future.
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| Pescadero Creek Flow to Ocean |
Let’s look at ocean temperatures:
Higher than normal temperatures have been observed along the Northern California coast. This amounts to a 5-6 ° F temperatures increase over historic averages, ranking among the warmest recorded in the last 30 years. In October, it was 65 degrees off the Farallon Islands and in Monterey Bay, and 69 degrees off Point Conception near Santa Barbara. Normally these temperatures would be I the upper 50’s to low 60’s! The last time the ocean off California was this warm was in 1983 and 1997, both strong El Niño years that brought drenching winter rains to the West Coast. Recently, the water temperature at the Scripps pier in La Jolla was 71 degrees. The historic average back to 1916 for late October is 65 degrees.
I’m not exactly sure of how El Niño conditions are
predicted, looks like it’s based on ocean temperatures and winds especially
around the equator. Winds blowing from the north at the equator move warm water
closer to the equator. This wind has apparently slackened somewhat allowing
warmer water to move north.
What's happening are winds that normally blow from the
north, trapping warm water closer to the equator, have slackened since the
summer. That's allowed the warm water to move north. However, the water at the
equator has only warmed slightly making an El Niño event predicted to be mild. The
warmer ocean temperatures have negatively affected upwelling a critical food
chain event where churning cold water from down below pushes up ocean nutrients
such as plankton and krill. More warm water southern species of birds and
marine mammals and turtles have been observed recently in Northern California.
Other common species such as Cassin’s Auklets have been gravely impacted by
mediocre upwelling and scarcity of krill in the northern ocean.
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| Pumpkins Moss Beach, California |
Personal Observations and Comments:
I would also like to point out; I’ve lived in the Bay Area
for 46 years and have been a frequent visitor to the coast before I actually
moved to the coast. As we are all aware of the devastating drought that
continues into its third year, it should be noted the last 3 years has the
least precipitation in a 3 year stretch in recorded California History. It’s now becoming apparent to me that the
ground level effects of the drought are now visible in plain sight. We’ve all
seen the dramatic pictures of lakes and reservoirs drying up, boat docks
sitting on dry ground, the water receding, at Folsom Lake, San Luis Reservoir,
Shasta Lake and many more. Shasta Lake is at 35% capacity as of July 2014. Here
locally vegetation is dying all around, trees, shrubs, native and non-native
plants. My yard Ceanothus, normally a hardy native plant when mature now
requires frequent watering or it starts to turn yellow and die. Fires are
raging all around the state, the air is often dirty or smoggy and Spare the Air
Days are frequent. Blue Oaks, the most widely distributed oak trees in
California are in bad shape, soil moisture levels are at 2.5%, and normally
they are 12-18%.
All year, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration have been forecasting an El Niño, conditions in which warm ocean
water at the equator near South America can affect the weather in dramatic
ways. But now the water is only slightly warmer than normal at the equator,
leading scientists to declare a mild El Niño is on the way. And although strong
El Niños often have brought wet winters to California, mild ones have just as
often resulted in moderate or dry winters.
Cassin’s Auklet Die-off:
Hundreds of HY hatch year Cassin’s Auklets have been found
dead on northern California beaches recently due to starvation. Cassin’s
Auklets are krill eaters solely and that source of food has diminished greatly
and is believed responsible for the current Cassin’s Auklet die-off!
Warm Water and Southern Ocean
Observations:
Folks at Point Blue Science, a nonprofit group from
Petaluma, Ca have documented more than 100 Common Dolphins off the Farallon
Islands, a species normally found off of Southern California.
The Point Blue scientists have scooped up a tiny species of
ocean snail called the tropical sea butterfly, normally found far to the south.
They have documented a Guadalupe fur seal, normally found off Baja California in
Mexico; blue buoy barnacles and purple-striped jellyfish, which usually drift
off Southern California; and a Guadalupe murrelet, a tiny seabird that frequents
Mexico. Other observations noted by Point Blue are as follows quoted directly
from Point Blue:
In September, a fisherman off San Francisco caught an
endangered green sea turtle, an extremely rare find for Northern California,
since the species usually lives off Mexico and the Galapagos Islands. He
returned it to the sea unharmed.
Similar tales are turning up in Southern California, where
fishermen and scientists have found Hawaiian ono, along with tripletail, a fish
species commonly found between Costa Rica and Peru, and other warm-water
species.
In August and September there were even sightings of
skipjack tuna and giant sunfish, or mola mola, off Alaska.
Conclusions:
From a local standpoint, I’ve continued to make an effort to
identify a smoking gun so that we have a starting point in which to begin turn
around action. I’ve not been able up to now to identify that gun on a local
level but it’s apparent there are many smoking guns and it’s surprising that
many people want to suppress evidence of those smoking guns. It’s surprising in
that some deniers will accept the possibility of climate change, but not the
notion it’s caused by human beings? If not human beings….WHO OR WHAT? We are
aiding and abetting corporations in their incessant sledge hammering our planet
into oblivion. Want smoking guns; just follow the money and the corporations
that wield large piles of money around buying countries, and their natural
resources and politicians in an insane effort to sustain unbridled growth that
can only destroy our economic system along with the planet that sustains it!
While about 97% of climate scientist are agreeing that human
activity is affecting our climate, there is a smaller number and growing number
of scientist that insist we have already passed the tipping points of
self-re-enforcing climate feedback loops and in essence the human population is
doomed! The term Near Term Human Extinction
is being bandied around by some people and may well be a common term in the
near future. I don’t know if we have reached a tipping point somewhere in our
bio system, but a tipping point we have not reached is our ambivalence and
indifference to what the powerful greed heads of our population are doing to
this small planet! There should be a worldwide outcry and unprecedented action
to stop the destruction and rape of planet earth. What we get instead is
SILENCE!
We need a tipping point of indignation and disgust at what
we are allowing to happen to our habitat and the future habitat of our
children. We cannot depend on the bought and sold politicians we have elected,
not only are they driven by stupidity and greed, they are shallow inferior
people that have no credentials to be leaders and yet they dominate and control
all decisions that affect the world population. Let’s look at some of the
people we have chosen to represent us and make decisions for us. We have a Supreme
Court justice that is a publically admitted homophobe and racist. A large
portion of our Republican politicians not only deny climate change but insist
evolution is bunk and the earth is 6000 years old! These people make decisions
that impinge our lives and those of our children. Look at the class of morons
that the Republican Party paraded before us in the last two presidential
primaries. The pizza salesman was probably the most innocuous, but how low can
you go with Sara Palin, Michelle Bachman, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Newt
Gingrich, and Mike Huckabee! How can anybody consider electing these religious
zealots and war mongers to run the most powerful country in the world? There is
a name for this kind of government it’s called a Kakistocracy, a system of rule
by the worst men! I don’t hold out a lot
of hope for the future of mankind on this planet; we even seem to want to
strengthen our Kakistocracy as evident by our recent elections.
