El Nino temperature anomalies in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Jennifer Skene's post earlier this week here on the QUEST Community Science Blog about the potential effects of this winter's La Niña is a great lead-in for discussing this climatic phenomenon in a bit more detail. As Jennifer noted, the La Niña weather pattern is the flip side of El Niño, which is when unusually warm waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean affect weather patterns for large swaths of North and South America. For California, El Niños typically result in increased precipitation in the winter months and La Niñas are characterized by drier conditions.

El Niño is the nickname of the climate pattern called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. Although we don't hear much about the Southern Oscillation part, it is the atmospheric component of this linked ocean-atmosphere phenomenon. Although the physics of ENSO is still not fully understood and the subject of current research, the regularity of the pattern is well documented. The image below is a time series plot of ENSO events for the past 60 years. The positive values filled in with red are the warm ENSO phase (El Niño) and the negative values in blue are the cool ENSO phase (La Niña). The regularity isn't perfectly on beat — it varies from 3-7 years between measurable events. But this is enough regularity to make ENSO one of the more predictable patterns climate scientists have studied.

While the timing of ENSO cycles might have some predictability, the magnitude of ENSO (the height/depth of the peaks) can vary significantly. Some are weak while others are quite strong. The 1997-1998 El Niño is considered to be one of the strongest of the past 100 years and is still in the memory of many Californians because of the intense precipitation and subsequent flooding it unleashed.

What's really interesting is that this 3-7 year pattern of alternating ENSO phases is just the shortest timescale in a climate phenomenon with multiple rhythms superimposed. Paleoclimate research has revealed that ENSO also beats at timescales of hundreds to thousands of years. The image below is very similar to the above diagram — it has time in years on the horizontal axis and occurrence of ENSO events on the vertical axis. (Important difference to note are that the present is on the left side on this plot instead of the right side and time is in 'years ago' and not a date.)

This plot goes back to 10,000 years ago and shows the variability in ENSO at a much longer timescale. Within those taller peaks in the plot are numerous individual El Niños that are grouped together in time. This doesn't mean that every single El Niño is very strong — just that during a few hundred years there more of those strong El Niños. In addition to the peaks every several hundred years there is also an even longer-term trend of increasing ENSO events over 5,000 to 6,000 years.

Like a complex musical composition with multiple interacting rhythms, the interacting timescales of this climate phenomenon might result in weather patterns that defy our ability to predict confidently. The authors of the study looking at ENSO patterns for the past 10,000 conclude that bigger-scale changes in global climate (due to changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun) are driving those longer-timescale changes. A big question right now is how modern global climate change will affect ENSO. A warming ocean suggests El Niños will get more intense, but perhaps there are some unanticipated effects from the multiple interacting factors that still needs to be studied. We are improving our understanding of the Earth's climate systems but, as always, much more work needs to be done.

Images: (1) El Nino anomalies in the eastern Pacific Ocean; image from McPhaeden et al. of NOAA (2) ENSO Index from 1950-2010; image from McPhaeden et al. of NOAA; (3) Figure from Moy et al. (2002); Nature 420

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Is corn ethanol a poor fit for future U.S. liquid fuel needs?

The timing, then, was quite appropriate for a panel discussion last week organized by the Friends of Berkeley Lab at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Titled “Hope or Hype: What’s Next For Biofuels?” the event, hosted by KTVU’s John Fowler, featured a panel with Jay Keasling, Susanna Green Tringe, and Jim Bristow, three scientists exploring the role that synthetic biology might play in fabricating a better fuel for tomorrow’s autos. The evening consisted mainly of two themes: the relative limits of both crude oil and corn-based ethanol, and an outline of research being pursued to make new ideas practical.

Fossil fuels are unsustainable, a point that saturates public rhetoric each election cycle to the point of ad nauseum. It might be slightly more surprising to learn, however, that fuel based on ethanol (the alcohol found in all common beers, wines, and liquors) may be as bad for global warming as gasoline, perhaps even be worse. When extracted from corn, considerable energy is lost on fertilizers. If that energy was generated using a coal plant, global warming is still a problem. Additionally, ethanol is an unwieldy fuel. It is corrosive, for example, and therefore must be trucked, rather than piped, from one location to another. “I like to say that ethanol is for drinking, not for driving,” Keasling joked as he explained these faults.

The push in the American science community, then, tends to be away from corn-based ethanol and toward something called cellulosic biomass (Editor's Note: see our QUEST video "Beyond Biofuels" for more information). The idea is to make fuels not from corn, but rather from corn stover—plant leftovers after the crop has already been harvested. Alternatively, almost any other organic material ranging from wheat stover to sorghum to garbage could be used if the proper techniques are developed.

There are considerable scientific challenges. Much of the material we might like to use as fuel is tough and woody. Scientists have yet to figure out a satisfactory method for breaking this down, and a great deal of gene-sequencing effort is currently underway with the aim figuring this out. There are also challenges in terms of deciding what product will be generated from these woody materials. At least one idea is to genetically engineer an organism that can transform organic matter not into ethanol, but rather into something more amenable to transport and carbon neutrality.

What should we make of these new efforts? My own feelings are mixed. I enjoy my car, and I love road trips. As Bristow said during the panel, “The reality in the U.S. is that people are going to drive cars. We need liquid fuel.” The current push in biofuels research is tremendously important. The vast majority of energy sources are simply inadequate for powering cars to the extent that the public is accustomed to. The maximum power one could ever expect to obtain from a solar-powered car, for example, is less than 10 horsepower. Even the Geo Metro gets 55 horsepower. The new Volkswagen Beetle gets over 100 horsepower. Electric cars might hold some promise, but at this point it is impossible to tell whether batteries or biofuels will ultimately make a better alternative. These two fronts are also not necessarily exclusive, as the hybrid explosion of recent years has shown.

And yet, for all the excitement, selling the American public on biofuels feels a little like feeding methadone to a heroin addict. We believe that a shift to biofuels will assuage the continued seeping of carbon into the atmosphere. But there are a lot of side effects. The controlled production of biomass requires land, and with that allocation comes a host of ecological concerns. When it comes down to it, there will never be a substitute for good old fashioned belt-tightening.

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Cooper and me saving energy on the couch

Professor Temple Grandin says that dogs are genetic wolves that have co-evolved with humans for 100,000 years, maybe more. Hence dogs and humans have complementary advantages and deficits. Humans used to have a better sense of hearing and smell, now dogs are better than us at those. Humans walk upright and have better vision and organizational skills, so dogs depend on us to see things and try to find them. Both are social creatures. So the lesson is that Nature has bundled the hardware and software for these skills and abilities between the two species. Unbundling them carries certain risks, so you should try to live with a dog if you can.

I agree that dogs and humans are a pretty good combination. Michele and I have had a dog for about a year now. Cooper is a medium-sized Labradoodle, which is a Lab and Poodle mix. He's a great dog and we love him a lot. He's heartbreakingly cute and cuddly. He has a Lab's great disposition and a Poodle's smarts. We think he's the best dog ever.

But, along with being a good partner, is Cooper an energy efficient addition to our household? Are pets, and dogs in particular, a step in the right direction in the battle against global warming and the fight for energy security? Is Underdog more than a cartoon?

I think "bundling" ourselves with animals is a good idea for lots of reasons, but here is why I think dogs are energy efficient:

1.)   Dogs add warmth in the winter and stay outside most of the time in the summer, so they don't add much to a house's cooling load.

2.)   Dogs add fur in the winter and cool themselves using their tongues. Try that, humans!

3.)  When he has nothing to do, Cooper lays down flat as a pancake and barely moves, thereby conserving energy.

4.)  Dogs are great alarm systems and don't even need batteries.

5.)  Dogs eat stuff that humans throw away. They will clean your plates if you let them, saving water and energy.

6.)  Because dogs need to be walked, they cause their owners to exercise, reducing their owners' appetite and therefore their food intake (that's how it's supposed to work).

7.)  Dogs give you unconditional love and so you don't have to drive your car to visit family and friends.

Anybody want to weigh in on cats?

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The House version comes from Democrats on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. If it passes, a consumer would get a $3,500 voucher for trading in a truck with 15 miles per gallon in exchange for buying a new truck that gets 16 miles per gallon – a one MPG difference. (If the new truck got 17 miles a gallon, the consumer would earn $4,500). That's why environmentalists complain that the legislation is more about stimulating car sales than it is about getting gas guzzlers off the road.

The Senate version proposed by U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), puts the bar a bit higher. In order to qualify for the $3,500 voucher, that same replacement truck would have to get 20 MPG – five miles per gallon more than the old truck. (An improvement of seven miles per gallon would earn the consumer a $4,500 voucher.)

Interestingly, this is a compromise even for Senator Feinstein herself. Check out her original, more stringent, Cash for Clunkers bill here. Proposed in January, it required stricter efficiency from the replacement vehicle, and would have allowed consumers to use their vouchers for used cars, or for public transit. Those conditions were junked, presumably, because they don't stimulate new car sales.

This article from the Christian Science Monitor, takes the number crunching even farther. Among the details worth considering is the "carbon cost" of making all these new vehicles that consumers will be enouraged to buy, should C4C pass: between 3.5 to 12.4 tons of CO2 per vehicle, according to a Duke economist.

Listen to the Cash for Clunkers radio report online.

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"2008 was one of the hottest years on record."

Just last week, Max Moritz and his team at UC Berkeley's Center for Fire Research & Outreach published a study that shows widely varied fire response to climate changes around the world. Post-doctoral fellow Meg Krawchuk was the lead data cruncher in the effort, with contributions from researchers at Texas Tech University.

What they found were suggestions of rapid changes in fire regimes, and not all in the same direction. Some places (like most of California) will likely see a spike in the fire hazard, while other regions (like the Pacific Northwest) could see a retreat of wildfire frequency and intensity:

"In contrast to any expectation that global warming should necessarily result in more fire, we find that regional increases in fire probabilities may be counter-balanced by decreases at other locations, due to the interplay of temperature and precipitation variables. Despite this net balance, our models predict substantial invasion and retreat of fire across large portions of the globe."

Moritz has been stumping for new approaches to fire-climate analysis. He says rather than treat fire strictly as the product of other climate change variables, we should think of it also as a climate driver.

Map shows areas of potential fire advance (orange) and retreat (blue) by 2010-2039 (medium-high emissions scenario)

You can use the player below to hear an excerpt from my interview with Moritz, in which he explains the new perspective that he thinks his team's study brings to the fire-climate connection.

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Here's how the idea would work: Using planes or other high-altitude transport, we'd disburse millions of tons of sulfur dioxide (or hydrogen sulfide) into the stratosphere, 13 miles above the Earth. Those gases would create tiny particles, which would reflect sunlight. This process already goes on in the stratosphere – about a third of the energy from the sun is reflected back into space thanks to this dynamic. But by adding more reflecting particles, scientists think it might be possible to cool the planet – and compensate for human-induced warming.

No one has tried this idea yet – but it's something scientists have already observed — through volcanoes. In 1991, Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines, spewing 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. As a result, global temperatures temporarily dropped about one degree Fahrenheit.

That doesn't necessarily mean a scheme like this would work. As UCLA Scientist Richard Turco said, it's not easy to predict how the particles would react and disburse. "If the particles are too large, that would actually create a warming effect, a greenhouse warming. Small particles are not useful because they don't reflect much radiation."

This plan isn't just a one time deal. As Turco continued, "we would need a huge monitoring system and can't afford to make any mistakes. Once you start this process, you have to maintain it for two to three centuries."

And then there's the "get out of jail free" aspect. If the focus of climate change policy becomes geoengineering, what happens to simply cutting emissions? As Professor Alan Robock of Rutgers University acknowledged, the costs and technology of geoengineering are uncertain — and it wouldn't curb other climate change impacts, like ocean acidification. "We have to focus on mitigation and keep this in our back pocket for emergencies."

According to Professor David Keith of the University of Calagry, it's worth studying geoengineering — just in case. Our greenhouse gas emissions will continue to grow. "We're not going to stop today, and even if we stopped today, there's enormous inertia," Keith said. In the event that climate change becomes catastrophic, Keith says we may need a last resort. "Whether you like or don't like this, it can be done quickly."

For more on what's new at the AGU, check out KQED's Climate Watch blog.

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The new FOCE experimental chamber being developed by MBARI scientists.

The scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) are already well-known for uncovering some of the most extreme marine animals in the deep sea, like the incredible vampire squid. But recently, they're using their unique blend of biology and engineering to study one of the least-discussed impacts of climate change: ocean acidification.

When we hear about climate change, we tend of think of the atmosphere – and for good reason. But as MBARI scientists describe, the oceans are a key part of the process. The ocean acts like a giant sponge, absorbing carbon dioxide emissions from the air. And as we add more and more CO2 to air by burning fossil fuels, the ocean is absorbing it. On one level, it's done us a big favor. Scientists say that we would be experiencing much more extreme climate change were it not for the ocean's ability to remove the heat-trapping gas.

However, the carbon dioxide that the ocean absorbs is making the water more acidic. This isn't the first time that the oceans have become more acidic. But as is the case with many impacts of climate change, it's the rate at which acidification is happening that worries scientists the most.

As you can probably guess, the ocean is an incredibly complex system. So ocean acidification poses an interesting question to scientists: what will the impacts be on marine species and ecosystems? What they know already is that there will be winners and losers in more acidic waters. Some creatures may do fine, while others won't be able to adapt in time. Either way, food webs may feel the effects – including webs involving species that humans depend on , like salmon.

Another major concern has to do with marine animals with certain kinds of shells – known as "calcifiers." Corals, clams and others all use carbonate in the water to build their shells out of calcium carbonate. But ocean acidification reduces the amount of carbonate in the water, making it more difficult for them to make shells. That could be devastating for coral reefs, who are already facing a number of stresses.

Even if you're an animal without a shell, ocean acidification could make things difficult. Scientists are studying how much stress this could put on animals that can't regulate their internal pH, or how it could affect the larvae or reproduction of certain species. MBARI scientists are hoping that the flume they are developing to conduct FOCE experiments will help researchers answer some of these questions.

Check out the whole story – watch the "Acidic Seas" audio slide show online.

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Pacific Madrone

Marin will look Baja. Berkeley like Bakersfield.

That's the projection of climatologists for the end of this century, if global warming continues on its current path.

But in trying to determine what California's plant life will look like based on those projections, studies and computer models only go so far. Despite the dire warning raised by this recent plant-loss study, biologists say the reality probably will be a lot worse.

In trying to get your mind around the idea that two-thirds of California's endemic plant species will lose 80 percent of their range by the end of the century, there are two ways to look at it.

The first is that, well, plants will just be different. It's not as if we're going to have barren soil where plants are now. As climate changes and warms, plants will most likely shift to the north. If we're talking an 8.3 degree Celsius shift in the summers, that means a rise of about 15 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer. Desert plants would move into Bakersfield and the Central Valley, for example. And in the Bay Area, the climate would be more similar to Southern California.

So, one way to think about it is: Plants will migrate or shift to cooler climates, so our endemic plants wouldn't necessarily disappear – they would just shift north.

But there were many factors that were NOT included in the plant-loss projection. And, as study author David Ackerly says, they are sobering.

If plants migrate, where will they go, and how will they get there? They need a certain type of soil, a certain amount of water. Many times, they interact with and need the plants or animals around them to survive; for instance, the gooseberry might need an animal that likes its berries so that its seed can be spread. And they don't just get up and walk north. It's a long, laborious process that can easily be derailed.

During the last Ice Age, plants migrated a thousand miles, Ackerly says, over about a thousand years. So why can't plants here move a hundred miles in a hundred years? Let us count the ways.

So IF the soils are compatible, IF the entire ecosystem of plants and animals can successfully travel north, IF such sites as vernal pools can somehow be created in the north, IF those ecosystems can somehow leapfrog over cities, farms, reservoirs, roads, ranches and other developments and find a compatible area that doesn't already have a robust ecosystem, IF the slow-growing plants can somehow travel a mile a year for the next hundred years, then yes, you'll successfully have a new habitat in a different place farther north.

Biologists suspect that most endemic plant species in California will die, if climate change continues at the same pace. For instance, redwood trees could still be growing in California by the end of the century, because the adults are hardy – but scientists say it will be a forest of the "living dead," meaning that, if no seedlings can make it, those adults will be the last redwoods on earth.

And the plants that come in to replace California plants, they say, will be invasive species – more commonly known as weeds – the fast-growing Mediterranean-climate plants with light, airborne seeds that will take over a barren area.

That's different plant life, true. But it's unlikely, they say, that our madrone or bay ecosystems will actually be re-created a hundred miles away, unless we move them up there ourselves.


View a slideshow of the"Disappearing Plants" Radio Report online, as well as find additional links and resources.

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Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve

Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve can easily be missed: just off Highway 280 in the city of Woodside, the entrance is blocked by a rusted metal gate with a small sign that reads 'No Tresspassing, Area Patrolled.'

But some of the folks at QUEST – including yours truly – got a special tour of the preserve. I joined reporter David Gorn and biologist Scott Loarie on a three hour hike around Jasper Ridge's Searsville Lake.

I learned that plant-life on the preserve, and most endemic California plant-life, are in trouble.

At least, that's what Loarie and his team at Stanford predict. "If plants can't adapt to the climate changes," says Loarie, "Then by the end of the century two-thirds of California plants face an 80 percent reduction."

So which plants are most likely to go as the global climate changes, well, the plants that have a hard time with seed dispersion. Plants like Bay Laurel, the California Buckeye, Madrone and the Western Burning Bush have seeds that aren't easily dispersed. This gives them a very concentrated zone for growth. If the climate shifts slightly in that particular region, then the these California natives could all die out.

Bay Laurel

The plants that do have an easier time are those with a wide seed dispersion – like the beautiful but dangerous Poison Oak, the Coyote Bush, Clarkia, Virgin's Bower and Box Elder Maple. These plants all have small seeds that are easily dispersed by the wind, or by birds. By dispersing their seeds to various climates, these plants will have a better chance of surviving.

Virgin's Bower

So which California plants will survive a century from now? It's hard to say. But what is definite is that preserves like Jasper Ridge are crucial for monitoring and protecting California's unique plant life.


View a slideshow of the"Disappearing Plants" Radio Report online, as well as find additional links and resources.

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