Climate Watch: California at the Tipping Point

Summary

California, known for its beautiful beaches and diverse climate, is at a critical juncture in its battle against climate change. In an engaging exploration by KQED, the state's susceptibility to global warming is examined through the lens of its rapidly diminishing snowpacks, increasing wildfires, and shifting ecosystems. From the Sierra Mountains to coastal tide pools, scientists are racing to understand the impacts of rising temperatures and sea levels. California faces formidable challenges, including managing water resources, combating forest fires, and dealing with rising sea levels, all while innovating solutions like desalination and wastewater recycling. As the state grapples with these environmental changes, it presents both a cautionary tale and a call to action, prompting us to consider our role in mitigating climate change's effects before it's too late.

Highlights

• California's warming faster than expected, impacting oceans and land 🌡️.
• Sierra Nevada's snowpack is crucial for water supply—now it's shrinking! ❄️
• Wildfire season is growing longer and fiercer due to climate change 🔥.
• Rising sea levels threaten San Francisco Bay's pricy real estate 🌊.
• Tide pool species are shifting as ocean temperatures rise 📈.
• Advanced sensors and models are mapping climate impacts accurately 🌍.
• Desalination and recycling could secure California's water future 💧.
• Climate models help predict California’s drastic future changes 🔮.
• Global warming pushes animals and plants into survival mode 🦚.
• A call for urgent action by scientists and policymakers to curb effects 📢.

Key Takeaways

• California's climate is warming faster than scientists anticipated, with profound impacts on both land and sea 🌡️.
• Vital water resources are at risk as snowpacks shrink and runoff patterns change, challenging water management strategies 🚰.
• Wildfires are becoming more severe and frequent due to drier conditions and dying trees, demanding robust firefighting tactics 🔥.
• Sea levels are rising, threatening coastal ecosystems and real estate, urging a need for adaptive strategies 🌊.
• Ecosystems from Sierra snowpacks to coastal tide pools are shifting, highlighting the need for detailed ecological studies 🌿.
• California's response to climate change involves exploring innovative water conservation and recycling technologies 💡.
• Understanding and mitigating these changes can prevent catastrophic outcomes and secure a sustainable future 🌎.

Overview

California's battle with climate change is heating up, literally. With temperatures rising faster than scientists predicted, both the ocean and landmass are warming significantly. This has dire implications for the state's water supply and fire management, as less snow and more rain upset the delicate balance of California’s natural resources.

The threat of rising sea levels is redefining coastal life. Areas like the San Francisco Bay, with its valuable real estate, face the risk of flooding. Meanwhile, ecosystems are struggling to adapt to these rapid changes. From trees in mountainous regions shifting positions to organisms in tides dealing with warmer waters, the biodiversity story is one of adaptation or extinction.

Given these challenges, California is at a crossroads. Solutions like desalination, water recycling, and innovative agricultural practices are on the table to meet the state's needs. Yet, the urgency is clear: collective action must be taken now to mitigate potential catastrophes, ensuring a sustainable future for the next generations.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to California's Climate Challenges California's coastal climate presents unique challenges, differing from the stereotypical sunny beaches often associated with California.
• 00:30 - 05:00: Microclimates and Coastal Warming The chapter discusses how microclimates and daily weather patterns, such as fog, might give a misleading impression about global warming. Despite temporary local weather variations, the broader trend is that both the ocean and California's landmass are warming faster than scientists predicted. Evidence of climate change is becoming increasingly visible across California, prompting further exploration.
• 05:00 - 05:30: The Sierra Nevada's Snowpack and Water Supply The chapter discusses the crucial role of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California's water supply. It highlights the importance of snowflakes that fall in the mountains, which are essential for maintaining the state's water resources. The chapter includes insights from Frank Giry of the State Department of Water Resources at a monitoring site near south Lake Tahoe, focusing on how California's winter snow pack is tracked and its significance for water supply management.
• 05:30 - 10:00: Impact of Diminishing Snowpacks The chapter titled 'Impact of Diminishing Snowpacks' discusses a procedure used for measuring snowpacks, which are critical sources of water for California's agriculture and urban areas. It begins with surveyors measuring a specific distance to take samples, emphasizing the importance of these studies. Forty percent of California's surface water is attributed to melting snowpacks, described as the 'Frozen reservoir.' For over a century, core sampling has been a standard practice to assess the water content in the snow using a hollow pole and scale. This process is crucial for managing and predicting the state's water supply.
• 10:00 - 15:00: Spring Changes and Wildfire Risks This chapter discusses the intricacies of snow measurements, focusing on the importance of not only the amount of snow but also its water content. Snow can vary significantly in water density, affecting its weight and implications for water resources. The chapter mentions the historical context of snow surveys, with the first recorded survey conducted on Mount Rose in 1906, highlighting the importance of long-term data for evaluating climate change scenarios.
• 15:00 - 20:00: Marine Ecosystems and Intertidal Species The chapter discusses the importance of consistent data collection methodology, specifically highlighting the recent trends in snowpack measurements over the past three years. It notes a significant decline compared to historical averages, and scientists have deduced that there's an increase in rain and decrease in snow at higher elevations. Consequently, snow is running off earlier and faster instead of melting gradually. Hydrologists are concerned that if this trend continues, the snow might melt too early for reservoirs to capture efficiently. This has implications on water management and ecosystem dynamics.
• 20:00 - 25:00: Rising Sea Levels and Coastal Impacts The chapter 'Rising Sea Levels and Coastal Impacts' discusses the changes in snow melt timing and the increasing temperatures recorded over recent years. Observations show that snow melts approximately two weeks earlier than it did 20 years ago. Although two weeks may not seem significant, it has considerable implications for regions like California that receive no rainfall during the summer. Furthermore, data from NASA indicates that the period from 1997 to 2008 encompasses the ten hottest years recorded since modern record-keeping began 120 years ago.
• 25:00 - 30:00: Climate Models and Future Projections The chapter discusses the impact of disappearing snow packs on California's ecosystems and water supply.
• 30:00 - 35:00: Redwood Forests and Climate Adaptation The chapter discusses the efforts to understand the inner workings of the Sierra snow pack. It emphasizes the need for developing new technologies for spot measurements to accurately gauge the snowfall and predict the amount of snow available in the spring when it melts. The narrative highlights Conlin's team's initiative in installing networks of ground-based sensors in strategic Sierra locations, referred to as a 'woods Wide Web.' The data gathered from these sensors aims to create the first-ever map of indicators such as soil moisture and temperature.
• 35:00 - 40:00: Conclusion: The Path Forward The conclusion chapter discusses the complex dynamics of water cycles involving solar radiation, snow depth, and stream flow beneath snow. It highlights the current lack of understanding concerning the timing, distribution, and amount of water obtained from mountain snow packs. The chapter emphasizes the importance of comprehending these cycles, including water movements through soil and streams, for predicting runoff occurrences. Such insights are vital tools for future water managers to optimize water capture strategies effectively.

Climate Watch: California at the Tipping Point Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 the following KQED production was produced in high [Music] definition California may be known for sundrenched beaches but any local will tell you if you're taking a walk along the coast in San Mato County you better bring
• 00:30 - 01:00 sweater when the fog rolls in here global warming might be the farthest thing from your mind don't let micro climates or whatever the weather's doing on a given day fool you the fact is that both the ocean and the California land mass are both warming up as a whole and it's happening faster than scientists expected there are signs of climate change all over California and later we'll come right back here to see some of them but maybe the best place to start is about 200 miles that way and a few 2,000 ft that
• 01:00 - 01:30 way high in the Sierra NADA mountains California's vital water supply falls in the form of snowflakes I've joined Frank giry from the State Department of Water Resources here at one of the sites south of Lake Tahoe where he monitors California's winter snow pack we're
• 01:30 - 02:00 going to start from here we'll measure up 50 ft in the direction of that orange sign okay take our first sample repeat the process these studies are crucial to California's farms and cities 40% of California's surface water originates up here in what giry calls the Frozen reservoir for more than a century surveyors have been taking core samples and measuring the water content of the snow pack using a hollow pole and a scale 79 in 79 in
• 02:00 - 02:30 it's not just how much snow is on the ground it's how much water is in the snow the snow pack can run from 50% water density to nearly zero since wet snow is heavier the scale and conversion charts calculate the water content the first snow surveys were made basically just over the ridge from where we are now over on Mount Rose first one was made 1906 and if you're looking at any kind of a climate change scenario that's the key as far back as you can with a
• 02:30 - 03:00 consistent methodology on data collection is absolutely critical the combined snow pack measurements from the past 3 years show a trend significantly below historic average using Decades of data scientists have determined more rain and less snow is falling at higher elevations and rather than melting gradually the snow we get is running off earlier and faster if this pattern continues hydrologist sphere snow will melt too early for reservoirs to catch
• 03:00 - 03:30 all it does seem that snow melt is occurring earlier there records in yosee comparing the date of snow melt Now versus 20 years ago and it's about 2 weeks earlier 2 weeks doesn't sound like a big deal but California doesn't get rain in the summertime according to NASA 1997 through 2008 were the 10 hottest years since modern records began 120 years go
• 03:30 - 04:00 disappearing snow pack will affect more than just our water supply California's ecosystems will need to adapt or die we should expect that lower elevation trees will be moving up higher and some of the trees that we associate with higher elevations might be dying off so we should expect to see major ecosystem shifts that occur in sequa National Park hydrologists from UC Merced are scrambling to better understand the
• 04:00 - 04:30 inner workings of the Sierra snow pack what we need to do is develop some new technology spot measurements that give us a better idea of how much snow has fallen and then we'll know what's going to be there in the spring when it melts Conlin's team has installed networks of groundbased sensors in key Sierra locations a kind of woods Wide Web let's see if I've got any data coming in the data they're collecting will form the first ever map of indicators like soil moisture and tempure
• 04:30 - 05:00 solar radiation and snow depth even Stream flow underneath the snow we don't really understand the cycles and the timing and the distribution and and amount of water that we're going to get from snow pack in the mountains the cycling of water through the soil within the streams and when we can expect runoff to occur those are critical tools that um water managers will need and can use in the future in order to capture the early
• 05:00 - 05:30 runoff California may be faced with spending tens of billions of dollars to build new or expanded reservoirs I think water managers are just beginning to wrestle with the problems of climate change figuring out how to capture the water that may run off earlier because it's falling as rain now instead of snow is going to be a new challenge part of the answer may come from other sources of water such as desalination or Wastewater Recycling and Californians across the state will need to
• 05:30 - 06:00 conserve if we applied technology that we already have to use water more efficiently that in fact California could be growing it could have a healthy agricultural sector it could have a healthy Urban sector and actually use substantially less water than we use today the signs of change are all around us the natural harbingers of spring are arriving earlier plants are blooming
• 06:00 - 06:30 birds are nesting sooner and as spring turns to Summer the changes may become even more [Music] dramatic June 2008 after an especially dry spring lightning triggers more than a thousand wildfires in a single weekend mostly in Northern California and more maybe on the way
• 06:30 - 07:00 a recent NASA study found that as the Earth warms the number of lightning strikes in the west will increase couple that with a US Geological Survey study confirming trees across the West are dying at twice the historic rate due to Rising temperatures and drought and the future looks highly combustible what you see before you here is a very hot damaging fire that occurred in the middle of the month of May
• 07:00 - 07:30 about 2 and a half or 3 months earlier than it would in any given typical year uhhuh fire year which is a a great demonstration of how fire regime fire severity is expanding in California Crawford Tuttle chief deputy director at calfire the state's firefighting agency walked me through one of last year's burn zones dry conditions and dying trees make areas like this one a Tinder Box what you see here is a a fire condition that burn very hot you can
• 07:30 - 08:00 look at the how the the vegetation burned all the way up into the canopy here and this is an example of a catastrophic fire where there won't be anything left from this fire you'll end up with bare ground this is to some extent the future most certainly is given the the trends that we're seeing now healthy forests are one of our most effective filters for keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere but when they burn that carbon is
• 08:00 - 08:30 released calculated but aggressive reforestation after major wildfires may help restore some balance but the climate challenge reaches well beyond the High [Music] Country where Land and Sea meet you can cross worlds in just a few stripes
• 08:30 - 09:00 the intertial zone is one of the most dynamic ecosystems on the planet the organisms that live here need to deal with the changes that are happening on land as well as the changes that are happening in the ocean and we've already seen actually a lot of things changing out here we've seen species moving further north we've seen some localized Extinction so species that used to live in a place are no longer there and we're seeing a lot of um sort of interactions of different species that are that are changing scientists have been studying tide pools
• 09:00 - 09:30 for more than a 100 years and what they've been seeing lately has been well outside the range of natural variability these startling changes have drawn the attention of marine biologists like Eric Sanford nice well these tyool communities have been used for a long time as a model system to help us understand about the natural world for example you might be interested in how fish or crabs are doing out in the open ocean um those organis are hard to find in the open
• 09:30 - 10:00 ocean they might be fast moving um but these tidepool communities are great because it's really easy to study these organisms so really we're using these species as model organisms to help understand um what happens when temperatures warm up and it's easy to see here how the climate can tip the delicate balance within an ecosystem one thing we want to remember is that communities like this one have lots of species that live in the same place and they interact with each other so what we have here is what we used to call starfish fish when I was a kid and
• 10:00 - 10:30 I guess word got out that it's not a fish right so um this is is its common name is is more correctly the ochre sea star its favorite food is the muscle this is the California muscle here and one of the important things about this muscle is that it's a habitat forming species we've been interested in how changes in temperature might affect the feeding rate of this important Predator this ochre sea star and so what are you seeing well changes of a few degrees are enough to increase their feeding rates really dramatically and so you could
• 10:30 - 11:00 imagine in the future if temperatures in the ocean continue to increase that the appetite of these sea stars might also increase and therefore they'd be eating a lot more muscles and and decreasing the size of these muscle beds that are habitat for a whole lot of species the changes also mean that the original residents may need to either move out or move over for some new neighbors so let's see oh this is interesting over here this is a a see an enemy see it under the rock here yeah what are you pointing to ex exactly well so this year is is actually called the
• 11:00 - 11:30 Sunburst sea an enemy and you can recognize it by the lines that are on its Central dis it's a more Southern species that's found all the way down into Baja Mexico and in recent years it's been increasing in abundance here in Northern California and it's also being found further up the coast than it used to be so this appears to be a a southern species that potentially in response to these warmer ocean temperatures has been slowly marching its way up the coast these tide poool
• 11:30 - 12:00 communities are telling us a lot about how species might be responding to climate change in addition to ocean temperatures Rising the sea level is also creeping up that's not just Theory it's a real and growing problem sea levels are rising basically for two reasons the first one is the one we all kind of realize is that ice sheets are melting and more water is being added to the ocean but the other reason why sea levels are rising is that the volume of the water is actually expanding as the water gets warmer the molecules
• 12:00 - 12:30 in the water start to bounce around so we may have the same number of molecules of water but they're taking up more space as the water itself expands habitat along the coastline will shrink changing the Dynamics of the inter tidal Zone the organisms aren't necessarily going to be able to just March up the shore some things can't survive higher than they are now so we get something that's called Coastal squeeze which is when sea level rises and the organisms
• 12:30 - 13:00 on the shore can't go any further up so the band that they occupy just gets compressed and it isn't just tiny intertitle Denison in [Music] danger talk of rising sea levels should get the attention of people who live around the San Francisco Bay Bay if projections are correct some of
• 13:00 - 13:30 the priciest California real estate may find itself underwater over the past Century the Waters of San Francisco Bay have risen 7 in over the next Century the waters may rise a meter 3 ft 4T or more will Travis's agency which regulates development Around The Bay is currently working on a comprehensive regional response to rising sea levels
• 13:30 - 14:00 what we've done is mapped the Bay Area to see which areas are vulnerable to Rising Waters so downtown San Francisco San Francisco International Airport Silicon Valley Oakland Airport virtually anywhere that's low-lying flat land around the bay is vulnerable to sea level rise what we need to be doing is designing the bay for the way it'll be in the future when it has different water elevations different solinity
• 14:00 - 14:30 different chemistry different temperature and probably different species we need to be doing proactive adaptive planning that will put the conditions in place that will react the way we want when those changes come about in the future to prepare for and perhaps reduce global climate change we need a better understanding of what's on the horizon sophistic ated computer models that
• 14:30 - 15:00 project global temperatures into the next Century are helping fill in the picture we've been trying to look at how man-made emissions are going to alter the Earth's atmosphere and alter the climate that responds to those changes we're fortunate to have an excellent record of how the climate has changed in the past it's buried in the ice cores that we've extracted from Greenland and Antarctica core samples reaching thousands of feet into the ice have yielded more than 100 100,000 years worth of climate data trapped within
• 15:00 - 15:30 Isotopes and ancient gas bubbles what they reveal is that over thousands of years the climate goes through natural warming and cooling periods in a pattern that looks much like a heartbeat but the warming we're seeing now is off Rhythm what we're seeing now is occurring much faster rather than happening over tens of thousands of years we're seeing very rapid change occurring on just the time scale of a single century scientists use past climate data to
• 15:30 - 16:00 project climate models into the future this map shows how the Earth's temperature is increased since the beginning of the Industrial Age the yellows and reds show where the average global temperatures have been rising this timeline is showing how the temperature all over the globe has changed since the beginning of the 20th century and the simulation that we're seeing on the map is sort of a middleof the road pathway even in this middle of the road pathway the whole globe gets
• 16:00 - 16:30 hotter look at how warm California's gotten four or 5 degre hotter than our historical climate it doesn't take much to make a big difference consider that during the last major Ice Age the world's average temperature was just a few degrees cooler than it is today California is now projecting an increase of 3 to 6° warmer by the end of this Century so people might ask why should we trust a climate model after all it's only a model we don't just trust the models
• 16:30 - 17:00 blindly we're literally swimming in measurements about how the atmosphere is changing how plants on land are changing how the oceans are changing and we test our models to make sure that they can reproduce those observations from satellites balloons measurements on land measurements from deep inside the ocean fortunately we've been forewarned and we think we've been forearmed the fact fact that people are causing
• 17:00 - 17:30 climate change means that we have to change how we produce energy it's really that simple the models can show us some of what likely lies ahead but the future still holds many questions what will California look like when our children and grandchildren are raising their [Music] families in Marin County California's iconic
• 17:30 - 18:00 redwood trees may be facing a challenging future Key Hamilton a biologist at the California Academy of Sciences has studied how California's flora and fauna will respond to the coming habitat shifts so I suppose these Coast redwoods that we're walking through right now are a great example of a species that's pretty picky about where it grows that's exactly right these redwoods only grow
• 18:00 - 18:30 along a very narrow strip of California's coast and really where we are now in Mir Woods right along the coast of the Bay Area represents exactly the kind of habitat that the Redwood required coastal redwoods get much of their annual ration of water from fog if its frequency and density should decrease so will the range the Redwoods are hearty old souls
• 18:30 - 19:00 who've seen many changes in the climate over the Millennia but as the current models and tree core samples forell the predicted rate of change is much different it seems like a Redwood is one of the few living things you can actually point to and say well it's been through so much in terms of climate and survived why is what's happening now any different it's true we have individual redwood trees that have survived for so long they
• 19:00 - 19:30 provide a record through coring and measuring actual past climates like ice ages and droughts they have a record of historical variability but the speed at which the climate is changing far exceeds what we've been able to measure in the past and that means for organisms like redwoods they probably are going to have a hard time keeping up with their shifting clim envelope the effects would be subtle at
• 19:30 - 20:00 first individual redwoods can survive for centuries but in the projected new climate they may lose their ability to reproduce essentially dooming the forests to become tree museums is there any way to know then with the modeling and everything else what let's say our kids and grandkids are going to how they're going to perceive California how's it going to be different than it is now well that's a really difficult ult question to
• 20:00 - 20:30 answer we can look at what the climate models say about precipitation regimes or temperature changes but we can't tell you exactly how species are going to respond to that can we say exactly which ones are going to survive what populations are going to wink out will dispersal allow these populations to come up in another place [Music]
• 20:30 - 21:00 in 50 years it's not likely we'll see huge differences in the area that we're walking through right now however the trend over time is going to be difficult for a lot of species to cope with the science is clear the changes are already underway with more coming and the future climate will touch nearly every aspect of Our Lives we're not saying the sky is falling the climate change over the next
• 21:00 - 21:30 25 to 30 years we think can be handled with present day technology and we're going to have to look at this problem not just as a problem for people but really as an issue for the whole web of life it's going to change how we live how we get to work what kind of buildings we are in how we behave it is going to be the most profound change that we have experienced uh probably as
• 21:30 - 22:00 a species but it is also giving us the opportunity to really change things in a positive fashion so that we can live in harmony with nature instead of fighting against it the overwhelming majority of the world's climate scientists agree that decisions we make in the next few decades about automobiles energy and dozens of other vital issues will set the tone for the next s Century in the end it's up to us whether
• 22:00 - 22:30 the transition to a warmer world will be merely inconvenient or [Music] catastrophic climate change presents us with more than one conundrum first there's understanding how it'll all play out in nature and how it'll affect our own species among others and then there's the whole question of what are we going to do about it these are the things that Quest and climate watch will'll be exploring in the months to
• 22:30 - 23:00 come