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USA Today
10-06-2025
- Climate
- USA Today
A fog-free San Francisco? Scientists ponder California's climate future
A fog-free San Francisco? Scientists ponder California's climate future Nearly 70% of Californians live in coastal counties, which figure to be most impacted by diminished fog. Show Caption Hide Caption Climate change is now impacting where Americans choose to live Many U.S. locales have reached a climate change "tipping point." Populations are declining as flooding becomes unbearable. SAN FRANCISCO – As most of the U.S. sweltered in mid-July 2022 − when temperatures in many major cities reached the high 90s and even triple digits − a national weather map showed San Francisco topping out at 65 degrees. It was just a typical foggy summer day in the city by the bay, which averaged 62 degrees that month, about the same as the next two Julys. Now the advent of climate change raises the question of whether summertime visitors will stop rushing out to buy sweatshirts upon arrival and instead feel perfectly comfortable in shorts and T-shirts. The future of San Francisco's iconic fog has been debated in media stories during recent years, and some experts note a diminished cloud cover along the California coast that could lead to a warming trend. But few if any detect signs that San Francisco's summer chill is going away like the once-celebrated Fog City Diner, which shut down at the end of May. 'From the data, I can't foresee it any time soon,'' said Rachel Clemesha, a project scientist with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego who studies the state's coastal climate. 'There are years when there's more or less cloud cover. The last couple of years have been within that range. It is a very foggy place, so it would be very dramatic to get you a fog-free city.'' Data on decreasing fog along coast is 'spotty' Clemesha said some decrease has been confirmed in Southern California in what residents there call the marine layer, mostly in highly urbanized areas, but nothing that applies statewide. Peter Weiss, a faculty researcher and lecturer at the UC-Santa Cruz department of environmental sciences, said that despite a growing narrative of waning fog along the California coast, the data to support it is 'very spotty,'' with few academic studies in the last decade. The reasons include the fog's unpredictability – Weiss calls it an 'ephemeral phenomenon'' – and the lack of a standard way to measure it. Some studies, such as the landmark analysis by James Johnstone and Todd Dawson in 2010, rely on airport visibility records. Others use satellite images to determine the extent of the cloud cover, and others yet believe water content is a more valuable gauge. The airport records are the most extensive, going back to 1950, and Weiss said from that year until 2012 they revealed a 5% decrease in fogginess. 'Nobody's quite sure why,'' he said. 'It probably has to do with the ocean's sea-surface temperature, and that goes through various phases. Overall, there's warming due to global warming, but it's episodic. There appears to be some pattern with less fog after the warmer sea-surface temperatures, but this is still an area of research.'' Many California residents, ecosystems would be affected While the scientific community endeavors to figure out the long-range impact of climate change on California's coastal fog, there's a strong consensus that diminished cloud cover would have a harmful effect. Nearly 27 million of California's 39 million residents – close to 70% – live in coastal counties, by far the largest total in the nation, and they generate 80% of the state's gross domestic product. Their lives are certain to be impacted, as would be the state's powerhouse agriculture industry, which totals close to $60 billion a year in revenue. Species such as the widely admired coastal redwoods, which get up to 40% of their yearly water intake from fog, could be threatened if that resource dwindled. Daniel Fernandez, an environmental sciences professor at Cal State Monterey Bay, is part of a group seeking a grant from a private foundation to study how climate change may alter fog and affect various ecosystems. 'You could have significant die-off of species that are dependent on the fog at locations where it gets reduced,'' he said. 'It would also change how people live. When you look a fog zones, you don't need air conditioning. There are a lot of things we don't need that we take for granted. Those things could all change.'' It can feel like living in a cloud The fog, more prevalent in the summer, is created when warm and moist air sweeps over cold waters, which are churned off the California coast by strong winds in what's known as upwelling. The marine cover can be light enough to simply cool down a warm day and thick enough to wet residents' hair and obscure their eyeglasses, giving the impression they're living in a cloud. Some years the fog is thicker than others, but it tends to be more extensive in Northern California than the state's southern coast because of the differences in their ocean temperature (colder in the north), latitude and topography. Ian Faloona, a professor of land, air and water resources at UC Davis, said he and a colleague conducted a study using regional climate models and found a downward trend in cloudiness along the coast, but agrees the overall evidence 'is not going to hit you over the head.'' He compares that to the abundant data indicating California in general is warming quickly, about 1 degree Celsius – 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit – per decade. Even San Francisco is heating up a bit, though not nearly as fast: Its average summer temperature has risen by 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit since 1970, according to the independent research group Climate Central. Two different perspectives on what the future holds But climate scientists are split over whether the increased heat will lead to less fog because the air over the ocean won't be cold enough to condense, or whether stronger winds will atone for that factor. 'Under climate change, we know the land is warming much faster than the ocean, so that temperature difference across the land and ocean interface is increasing, which could drive stronger winds, which could help preserve this cloudiness,'' Faloona said. 'So there are two arguments you could make about what we theoretically think should happen, and which one's winning out I think is still an open scientific question.'' Sara Baguskas, an assistant professor at San Francisco State University with a specialty in coastal fog, said the lack of conclusive evidence that it's ebbing should not induce complacency but rather stimulate funding to study and predict its patterns. She's among the climate researchers who have heard from longtime coastal residents saying the marine layer has subsided over the years. 'So it's not unreasonable to be concerned about coastal fog declining in the future, but it diminishing completely is unlikely,'' she said. 'No coastal fog in California is a scary thought for both people and ecosystems.''
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
CO2 levels just broke another record. Here's what that means
When man first walked on the moon, the carbon dioxide concentration in Earth's atmosphere was 325 parts per million (ppm). By 9/11, it was 369 ppm, and when COVID-19 shut down normal life in 2020, it had shot up to 414 parts ppm. This week, our planet hit the highest levels ever directly recorded: 430 parts per million. For 67 years, the observatory on Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano has been taking these measurements daily — tracking the invisible gas that is building up in our atmosphere and changing life on Earth. The record is known as the Keeling Curve. Charles David Keeling began those recordings, some of the first in the world to measure CO2 concentration over time. His son, Ralph Keeling, born one year before the observatory opened, has witnessed the rapid increase firsthand over his lifetime. "I was a teenager when I first started to appreciate what my father was doing and how it might be significant," Keeling told CBC News. Back then it was around 330 ppm. Keeling, a geochemistry professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, took over the research once his father passed away in 2005. "This problem is not going away, and we're moving further and further into uncharted territory, and almost certainly, very dangerous territory." The build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere isn't visible to the naked eye, but its concentration matters because of the greenhouse effect. Like the glass walls that trap heat from the sun in an actual greenhouse, gases in our atmosphere such as CO2 and methane also trap heat from the sun. At the start of the Industrial Revolution, ice core samples show CO2 levels were around 280 parts per million but as they rose, warming has increased by about 1.3 C over the pre-industrial average. That's led to rising temperatures and leading to more frequent and extreme weather, like heat waves, floods, wildfires and droughts. While many have heard about the goals of limiting warming to 1.5 C or 2 C above pre-industrial levels, there have also been efforts to return CO2 levels to below 350 parts per million, as a key part of limiting the damage from climate change. The record highs have continued though. Just in the last year, CO2 readings from May have increased more than three parts per million — that many more molecules of CO2 trapping heat and contributing to warming. "We know why it's rising faster than ever, it's because we're burning more fossil fuels each year," said Keeling. Damon Matthews, a climate scientist and professor at Concordia University in Quebec, also says he's concerned and isn't surprised that there are new records every year. "If we want to actually stabilize CO2 levels in the atmosphere, we would need to cut global emissions by more than 50 per cent, and we're nowhere near doing that," he said, adding that there are other gases at play but CO2 is the dominant influence. "Every May, we're going to see a new record of atmospheric CO2, until we actually make a lot more progress on climate mitigation than we have today." The annual cycle, peaking in late spring in the northern hemisphere, is tied to plant photosynthesis — CO2 concentrations drop in the summer as plants absorb the gas and release oxygen. In 2021, the International Energy Agency said that if the world wants to limit global warming and reach net-zero by 2050, there could be no new coal, oil or gas projects. Matthews is part of Canada's net-zero advisory body and says he's seen some progress in decreasing CO2 emissions the last few years, but not enough. He says Europe's emissions have been going down for decades, and that last year CO2 emissions in China didn't increase. However, he says Canada still lags behind other countries, and the U.S. is trending the other way. "There's lots of policy options, certainly focusing on expanding the oil and gas industry in Canada right now is not going to get us where we need to go in terms of climate," he said. "We just need to stop arguing about whether it's a priority and start doing the things that we know will help to solve the problem."
National Geographic
09-06-2025
- Science
- National Geographic
Jellyfish are finally giving up their secrets
Gelatinous zooplankton, colloquially known as jellies, are an evolutionary hodge-podge of squishy, translucent creatures composed mostly of water. While this group does include 'true jellyfish' with their iconic rounded bell and stinging tentacles, it is also host to a smattering of creatures such as worms, primitive chordates, and snails with wings. A California sheephead (Semicossyphus pulcher) takes a bite out of a twin-tailed salp (Thetys vagina.) Jellies are poorly suited to life near shore, so when they find themselves in a kelp forest, they can make easy prey. 'If being 95 percent water is what unites the group, that is where it ends,' says Grace Cawley, a PhD candidate at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Some are passive grazers, others track down their prey. Some are the size of a thimble, others can grow longer than a blue whale. Some cruise along the air-sea interface, others live thousands of meters beneath the surface. Cawley joked that the common reaction with jellies was ''oh, it's gooey?' Throw it with the gelatinous zooplankton.' In failing to recognize their diversity, humankind has overlooked some of the most ancient creatures on our planet. But thanks to advances in technology, scientists are now racing to decipher how jellies will shape the future of Earth's oceans. The hard part about squishy bodies The study of gelatinous zooplankton began in the late 1800s by scooping specimens out of the water from docks and ships. 'A lot of [early inquiry] was really just, 'what is this thing'?' says Steven Haddock, a leader in zooplankton biology at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). Typical methods for investigating evolutionary history simply didn't work. Jellies lack the bones and shells that make for good fossils—scientists struggled to keep them alive in the lab long enough to observe their life cycles—and attempts to preserve them resulted in jars of cloudy film that bore no resemblance to the original creature. The proliferation of larger, faster research vessels around the mid-1900s meant that it became possible to sample new and remote regions of the ocean. Scientists rushed to ask ''how many?' and 'how much?' before having answered 'who?' and 'how?'' wrote Haddock in an early paper . This 1 inch lemon jelly (Aegina citrea) may not seem intimidating, but it is a predator. Its prey are other gelatinous zooplankton like salps and ctenophores. Hula-skirt siphonophores (Physophora hydrostatica) normally live deeper than 700 meters, but strong currents will occasionally carry them to the surface. Many different groups have made the transition to life in the water column. This pelagic snail has evolved to be transparent, but it still retains its shell. These animals blur the line of what is considered a gelatinous zooplankton. In their case, it largely comes down to the context in which they are being studied. Many species of salp (colonial tunicates) have a complex life cycle that alternates between sexual and asexual reproduction. Once the individuals in the colony mature, they will break off to begin reproducing sexually. When Scripps Institution ecologist Elizabeth Hetherington began studying gelatinous zooplankton, she was shocked by how little was known about their lives. 'There were so many questions that seemed pretty simple, like basic questions about distribution and abundance … that I couldn't find answers to.' Since the early 2000s, advances in technology have revealed that they play a more vital role in the ocean's food web than scientists thought. One paper from 2022 suggested that pelagic tunicates—gelatinous sea creatures that float in the open ocean—could be responsible for transporting more than 10 percent of carbon that is eventually stored in the ocean floor. The discovery that this single group of jellies could play such an influential role in the carbon cycle surprised scientists. The significance of all the ocean's jellies combined is unclear; however, the role they play in helping store carbon is probably underestimated. New technology that allowed scientists to study tiny bits of DNA also yielded new insights into jellies themselves. One study published in 2023 found that ctenophores, the most fragile of the gelatinous zooplankton, may be the oldest animal species living on Earth. Not only did these new methods revolutionize the study of individual species, but they also transformed our understanding of the open ocean. Jellies were more prevalent than previously thought and enthusiastic participants in the food web , hunting and being hunted. Using DNA metabarcoding, a technique used to identify multiple species within a mixed sample, 'we [could] detect gelatinous zooplankton in the guts of predators' explains Hetherington. Though the remnants of jellies were rarely visible, their DNA has been found in stomach contents of a wide variety of birds, fish, and sea turtles, disproving the idea that they were just dead-ends in the food chain. As larvae, many fish species mimic the traits of gelatinous zooplankton to decrease their chances of being eaten. This larval cusk eel is nearly transparent which helps it hide in the open ocean. Scientists are still trying to answer major questions about how many species exist, in what numbers, and how those populations might be changing. 'In an oceanographic context, we're still a long way from having the big picture biogeochemistry stuff figured out' remarks Haddock. 'Questions like 'Are jellyfish increasing?', 'How much jellyfish biomass is there relative to fish biomass?', 'What is the true diversity of jellies?' … we're still struggling to answer those.' To answer these questions about jelly species, scientists must also learn more about how they fit in their ocean habitats. 'The ocean is not a stagnant place where nothing happens, the ocean is this dynamic, complicated system,' says Cawley. Jellies are no exception. Instead of maintaining a consistent, predictable population, many gelatinous zooplankton follow extreme boom and bust cycles that scientists are still trying to understand. One species of pelagic tunicate called a pyrosome can bloom with such intensity that it will make up 80 percent of the biomass in a given area. When blooms like this occur, they affect every aspect of an ecosystem from the food web to the chemistry of the water. With warming temperatures, overfishing, and pollution rapidly changing our oceans, answering these questions is becoming even more difficult. 'All of these ecosystems are impacted by warming and by pollution so it's important to get the baseline of where we are now,' but in a system as fluid as the ocean, a baseline is more complicated than a set of measurements, clarifies Hetherington. 'We should shift our thinking from baseline to baselines, that it's not this one thing, it's this dynamic range.' A baseline needs to capture the underlying patterns of our oceans. It's an intimidating challenge that begins with demystifying where these jellies are living and what they are doing. Still, in Haddock's eyes, it's an exciting time to study gelatinous zooplankton. 'There are new species within a stone's throw of New York City or Tokyo … if you just look in the right ways'
Newsweek
06-06-2025
- Science
- Newsweek
'Doomsday Fish' Discoveries Spark Fears Of Impending Natural Disaster
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The recent discoveries of two rare deep-sea dwelling oarfish have sparked fears of a looming natural disaster. The fish were discovered in separate incidents in India and Tasmania within the last week. In the first incident, fishermen in Tamil Nadu, India, pulled a 30-foot oarfish from the water. The massive fish required seven men to hold it for the video. Stock image of an oarfish. Stock image of an oarfish. Photo by Eric Broder Van Dyke / Getty Images On June 2, a dogwalker named Sybil Robertson encountered a dead nine-foot specimen washed up on a Tasmanian beach and posted photos to a citizen scientist group on social media. "I just knew it was something unusual and weird," Sybil Robertson told The Daily Mail, describing the oarfish's markings as "fabulous". A 'Doomsday' Fish? Oarfish are sometimes known as "doomsday fish"—a reputation that stems from interpretations of the oarfish in Japanese folklore. As per Forbes, at least a dozen oarfish washed up onto Japan's coastline in the year before the 2011 Fukushima earthquake and tsunami, which brought the deep-sea creatures back to the forefront of the imagination. Doomsday fish have been found in Tamil Nadu, India. — ಸನಾತನ (@sanatan_kannada) May 31, 2025 Ben Fraber, an ichthyologist and the marine vertebrate collection manager at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, told Newsweek in a phone interview that the mythology was "compelling enough" to capture the public's attention. "You do see when there's a big change in pressure on land, birds and other animals will move out of the way," Fraber said. However, researchers in Japan took a closer look at the phenomenon, bringing in data points that included beached whales and anglerfish, as well as known natural disasters and earthquakes dating back to the early 1900s. "They found almost no correlation whatsoever," Fraber noted. "It's really interesting to think about, but it doesn't seem to have a statistical link that we can find." A Rare Find Fraber has seen oarfish in person—last year, two oarfish were discovered by employees of Scripps Institution of Oceanography who were out snorkeling for the day. The employees notified lifeguards, and the institute was able to work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to bring the oarfish in. Fraber preserved the fish in formaldehyde and alcohol, and members of the public can see one of them currently in the Birch Aquarium at Scripps in San Diego. Fraber said oarfish sightings are relatively rare in Southern California—the two his team encountered were only the 21st and 22nd discovered since 1901. "Having the samples in person instead of just a video allows us to look at their stomach contents, look at their genetics, we'll get nitrogen and carbon isotopes that can tell us where they are in the open ocean food web," Fraber said. "And we preserve them so people in the future can continue asking questions from them." According to Fraber, oarfish are filter feeders whose jaws are modified so they can push them forward and vacuum water in, creating suction that traps food similar to bass or large whales. Oarfish primarily eat krill and small fish, which may be confused by the oarfish's silvery body that refracts light. "You're a little school of fish, you're swimming around, you see this thing, but it kind of just looks like a big jelly or gelatinous organism, something you're not too concerned about because a jellyfish is not going to try to eat you," Fraber said. "So you swim up and it's actually not that. It's this big fish that has a highly modified mouth that can protrude and create a kind of vacuum cleaner. It slurps up all these fish." A "Wow" Reaction Having handled and seen oarfish in person, Fraber understands the hype. "I think part of it is the size," he said. "Part of it is the look, they have this beautiful bright red fin, big silvery body, large eyes. "And part of it is the scale. We're not used to seeing animals that big—with the exception of sharks, dolphins and whales—so it elicits this kind of 'wow' reaction." Fraber noted that the mythology of sea serpents is probably related to misidentified oarfish long ago. "It's like actually getting to see this semi-mythological thing in person, it's not a myth, it's a real animal that's living with us on our planet, I think that makes it really amazing," he said. "Even though I've worked on fish for almost 20 years, and have handled many oarfish specimens, these two last year were the first time I actually got to see them fresh and unpreserved in person, and it was pretty magical."
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Earth's atmosphere hasn't had this much CO2 in millions of years
Earth's atmosphere now has more carbon dioxide in it than it has in millions — and possibly tens of millions — of years, according to data released Thursday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and scientists at the University of California San Diego. For the first time, global average concentrations of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas emitted as a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, exceeded 430 parts per million (ppm) in May. The new readings were a record high and represented an increase of more than 3 ppm over last year. The measurements indicate that countries are not doing enough to limit greenhouse gas emissions and reverse the steady buildup of C02, which climate scientists point to as the main culprit for global warming. 'Another year, another record,' Ralph Keeling, a professor of climate sciences, marine chemistry and geochemistry at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said in a statement. 'It's sad.' Carbon dioxide, like other greenhouse gases, traps heat from the sun and can remain in the atmosphere for centuries. As such, high concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere contribute to higher global temperatures and other negative consequences of climate change, including rising sea levels, melting polar ice, and more frequent and severe extreme weather events. Atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen sharply since preindustrial times, owing mostly to human activities that pump greenhouse gases into the air. Decades ago, crossing the 400 ppm threshold was unthinkable. That meant that for every 1 million molecules of gas in the atmosphere, more than 400 were carbon dioxide. The planet hit that grim milestone in 2013. And now, scientists have warned that levels of CO2 could reach 500 ppm within 30 years. But human society is already in uncharted territory. The last time the planet had such high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was likely more than 30 million years ago, Keeling said, long before humans roamed Earth and during a time when the climate was vastly different. He said it's alarming not only how high CO2 levels have climbed, but also how quickly. 'It's changing so fast,' he told NBC News. 'If humans had evolved in such a high-CO2 world, there would probably be places where we wouldn't be living now. We probably could have adapted to such a world, but we built our society and a civilization around yesterday's climate.' Carbon dioxide levels are typically represented on a graph known as the Keeling Curve, named for Keeling's father, Charles David Keeling, who began taking daily measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide in 1958 with instruments atop the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. The Keeling Curve famously shows a steep climb since the Industrial Revolution, owing to human-caused climate change. Ralph Keeling and his colleagues at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography found that average concentrations of atmospheric CO2 in May were 430.2 ppm. NOAA's Global Monitoring Laboratory, which has conducted separate daily readings since 1974, reported an average of 430.5 ppm in May. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are closely monitored to gauge how much humans are influencing Earth's climate. The readings are also an indicator of the planet's overall health. 'They're telling you about your whole system health with a single-point measurement,' Keeling said. 'We're getting a holistic measurement of the atmosphere from really a kind of simple set of measurements.' This article was originally published on
