Another beautiful day...

FROM: USA Today

By Traci Watson, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Senate legislation designed to slow global warming would reduce greenhouse gas emissions more rapidly than competing legislation passed by the House of Representatives, according to a draft bill obtained by USA TODAY.

The Senate bill, scheduled to be introduced today, requires a 20% decrease in 2020 in the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming. The House bill passed in June requires a 17% cut in 2020.

The main greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, produced when cars burn gasoline and power plants burn coal. Reducing emissions requires the use of other sources of energy, such as windmills and nuclear plants.

Like the House bill, the Senate draft also sets up a so-called cap-and-trade system to reduce emissions. Companies would have to buy pollution credits to emit greenhouse gases, while those that reduce their pollution could sell or trade the credits.

One of the most contentious sections of the House bill was the list of industries and other benefactors that would receive free pollution credits, which could eventually be worth billions of dollars. The Senate draft does not spell out who would get free credits, a topic that is likely to be crucial to Senate negotiations.

The entire draft is "a starting point" said Tony Kreindler of the Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental group. "It's going to change fairly substantially as they move forward."

As in the House, the Senate bill provides financial assistance to workers who lose their jobs because of the legislation.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., one of the Senate's most vocal opponents of climate-change action, predicted the bill won't even be debated on the Senate floor before the end of the year, let alone come up for a vote. "Why should Democrats bring up something that's going to further entrench them against the American people?" he told reporters Tuesday.

The bill's timetable is critical. Diplomats from more than 180 countries will gather in December to try to hammer out a new treaty to slow global warming.

"Is the U.S. Senate really expecting all the other countries to make a serious effort on climate change … in the absence of a clear commitment from the United States?" said John Bruton, the European Commission's ambassador to the United States, in a statement this month.

FROM: USGS

USGS will Grant Universities $5 Million to Beef Up Public Safety

Grants totaling $5 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are being awarded to 13 universities nationwide to upgrade critical earthquake monitoring networks and increase public safety.

“These stimulus grants will save lives as well as create jobs,” Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said today. “More than 75 million Americans in 39 states face the risk of earthquakes.

Through the modernization of seismic networks and data processing centers, scientists will be able to provide emergency responders with more reliable, robust information to save lives and reduce economic losses.”

Grants are awarded by the U.S. Geological Survey, and monitoring is a key component of the USGS Advanced National Seismic System. ANSS is a national network of sophisticating shaking monitors placed both on the ground and in buildings in urban areas. The ANSS "strong motion" instruments give emergency response personnel real-time maps of severe ground shaking and provide engineers with information to create stronger and sounder structures for homes, bridges, buildings, and utility and communication networks.

“These investments under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will provide jobs for the manufacturers of the equipment, the geophysical contractors who perform installations, and the colleges and universities that run regional earthquake networks and are training the next generation of earthquake scientists in partnership with USGS,” Salazar noted.

In California and other high-hazard regions, some parts of the current system include 40-year-old technology, and even the systems most recently upgraded date back to 1997. Think about what a 12-year-old computer looks like. Stimulus funding will replace old instruments with state-of-the-art, robust systems across the highest earthquake hazard areas in California, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, the Intermountain West, and the central and eastern United States.

The new monitoring systems will be more energy-efficient than the ones they replace and will make solar power the primary power source in remote locations. Engaging students in the siting and installation will provide a unique educational experience and help to train the next generation of earthquake scientists.

Because the investments will modernize aging equipment at existing stations, they do not represent out-year commitments and the new equipment should lower future maintenance costs. The investments in earthquake monitoring meet the stated Recovery Act criteria of being "temporary, targeted and timely" – spending that will flow directly into the economy.

Universities receiving funding include: Montana Tech of the University of Montana; California Institute of Technology; University of Oregon; University of Utah; University of California, San Diego; University of Washington; Saint Louis University; University of Memphis; Boston College, University of Nevada, Reno; University of California, Berkeley; Columbia University; and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

For more information, visit the Department of the Interior Recovery Investments Web site.

FROM: NOAA

Unusually high temperatures in the Arctic and heavy rains in the tropics likely drove a global increase in atmospheric methane in 2007 and 2008 after a decade of near-zero growth, according to a new study. Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, albeit a distant second.

NOAA scientists and their colleagues analyzed measurements from 1983 to 2008 from air samples collected weekly at 46 surface locations around the world. Their findings will appear in the September 28 print edition of the American Geophysical Union’s Geophysical Research Letters and are available online now.

“At least three factors likely contributed to the methane increase,” said Ed Dlugokencky, a methane expert at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. “It was very warm in the Arctic, there was some tropical forest burning, and there was increased rain in Indonesia and the Amazon.”

In the tropics, the scientists note, the increased rainfall resulted in longer periods of rainfall and larger wetland areas, allowing microbes to produce more methane. Starting in mid-2007, scientists noticed La Niña conditions beginning, waning and then intensifying in early 2008. This kind of climate condition typically brings wetter-than-normal conditions in some tropical regions and cooler sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. It can persist for as long as two years. In the United States, La Niña often signals drier-than-normal conditions in the Southwest and Central Plains regions, and wetter fall and winter seasons in the Pacific Northwest.

Observations from satellites and ground sites suggest that biomass burning – the burning of plant and other organic material that releases carbon dioxide and methane – contributed about 20 percent, of the total methane released into the atmosphere in 2007.

However, during the scientists’ 2007 measurement of methane for northern wetland regions, including the Arctic, temperatures for the year were the warmest on record. This temperature increase coincided with the large jump in the amount of methane measured in that area.

Dlugokencky and his colleagues from the United States and Brazil note that while climate change can trigger a process which converts trapped carbon in permafrost to methane, as well as release methane embedded in Arctic hydrates – a compound formed with water - their observations “are not consistent with sustained changes there yet.”

Methane is typically created in oxygen-deprived environments, such as flooded wetlands, peat bogs, rice paddies, landfills, termite colonies, and the digestive tracts of cows and other ruminant animals. The gas also escapes during fossil fuel extraction and distribution and is emitted during fires.

Authors of the study are Dlugokencky, L. Bruhwiler, P.C. Novelli, S. A. Montzka, K. A. Masarie, P. M. Lang, A.M. Crotwell, and J.B. Miller of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colo.; J.W.C. White of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colo.; L. K. Emmons of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colo.; and L.V. Gatti of the Laboratorio de Quimica Atmosferica, Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares, São Paulo, Brazil. Crotwell and Miller are also at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences in Boulder, Colo. The paper is available online.

FROM: San Diego Union-Tribune

Ocean-monitoring project will help researchers to predict beach closures

By Janine Zúñiga

Dozens of scientists, engineers and volunteers in wet suits and immersed in 67-degree water are setting up sensitive equipment along Imperial Beach's shoreline to better understand water pollution.

The work is part of a $1.5 million experiment that may help manage beach closures along the entire California coast.

Scientists with UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography say the goal of the Imperial Beach Pollutant Transport and Dilution Experiment is to track how pollutants are moved by waves, currents and tides.

Yesterday, investigators dropped floating devices called drifters, which move like dye, into the Pacific Ocean. Dye testing is set to begin Monday.

Drifters and dye both simulate pollution. However, drifters provide better data for how fast pollutants spread along the shore while dye better monitors cross-shore movement.

The drifters and nontoxic dye will be released from the Tijuana River to just north of the Imperial Beach city limit, depending on the swell and other conditions.

Scientists say the markers will be carried by currents and form a plume as they head toward the sensors. Measurements of waves, current, depth and the dye will track the rate at which the plume widens and dilutes.

Falk Feddersen, one of three principal investigators and a Scripps scientist, said researchers hope to have the raw data analyzed so it can be presented in February at the 2010 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Portland.

“We will have a much better understanding of how pollutants get diluted in the water and how quickly they are transported if there's a spill or sewage in the surf zone,” Feddersen said.

Feddersen said a similar experiment in Huntington Beach in 2006 helped Scripps scientists improve sampling techniques but was limited in scope. This time, he said, “we're really going to dial it in.”

Feddersen said if pollutant movement is better understood, a model can be created to provide water-quality updates for ocean users. He said the updates could be made available online, much as current wave conditions are.

Six tripods holding sensors and meters sit anchored in the water off Ebony Avenue, marked by tall poles topped with colorful flags.

Researchers installed more equipment in the water and on the beach that will help gather and relay the information to Scripps hourly. Data will be collected for about one month. The experiment will run through Oct. 31.

The study was designed for dry-weather conditions when the Tijuana River flow is light and beach use is heavy. Imperial Beach was selected for its long, straight coastline and history of water pollution when it rains.

All-terrain vehicles will be used to survey the beach and specially equipped Jet Skis will collect data offshore. Warning signs are posted.

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation, California Department of Boating and Waterways, Office of Naval Research and California Sea Grant.

Feddersen said two recent meetings to discuss the study brought out locals who asked tough questions.

Ben McCue, a program manager at Wildcoast, an Imperial Beach-based conservation group, said he appreciates that Scripps reached out.

“This will give us one more tool to understand when the water is clean and when it is not,” McCue said. “The more people know, the better.”

Union-Tribune

FROM: Los Angeles Times

By Susan Carpenter

Any Los Angeles homeowner with a roof and an interest in rainwater harvesting may want to apply for a free rain barrel installation from the city. The rainwater harvesting pilot program, which kicked off in July, still has 170 openings for installations, each of which includes a free 55-gallon rain barrel and free setup.

Designed to conserve potable water and reduce the amount of polluted rainwater that runs untreated into the ocean, the $1-million pilot plan has enough funds to outfit 600 homes with one rain barrel each. About 40 installations have been completed out of the 430 homeowners who have so far signed up.

Because the pilot plan is funded by the Safe Neighborhood Parks, Clean Water, Clean Air and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2000 through the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, which identified the Ballona Creek watershed as a priority area for curbing rainwater runoff, homes in the Westside neighborhoods of Mar Vista, Sawtelle and Jefferson are given priority for the pilot. But all L.A. homeowners are eligible.

Implemented by the watershed division of the city's Bureau of Sanitation, the 600 rain barrel installations provided through the pilot program are estimated to save 584,100 gallons of water each year. The city estimates there are roughly 18 rain events in L.A. each year, which would fill each barrel as many times.

Though a single 55-gallon rain barrel will catch only about 10% of the 9,600 gallons of water generated in a typical year by an average 1,000-square-foot residential L.A. rooftop, those water savings are substantial. If each of the 800,000 residential parcels in L.A. were to install just a single rain barrel, the city estimates that about 800 million gallons of water would be saved, which would in turn reduce the demand for tap water -- a resource that's becoming more precious as L.A. enters a fourth year of drought.

L.A. hopes to have all the rain barrel installations completed this fall and an evaluation of the program finished next spring, so the program can be rolled out citywide in the fall of 2010.

Although rain barrels are available from a variety of manufacturers in a variety of sizes, the city chose a 55-gallon capacity because, when full, the rain barrels will weigh a relatively manageable 200 pounds. The rain barrels are also made from food-grade plastic. Repurposed from containers that once stored pickles, olives or syrup, the plastic won't leech, in case the harvested rainwater is used to grow food.

Each has already been retrofitted with wire mesh on top to screen debris, a spigot on the bottom to drain it, a connector at the bottom in case homeowners want to connect additional barrels and an overflow valve should the barrel fill up.

To apply for the remaining spots in the rainwater harvesting pilot program, visit larainwaterharvesting.org.

FROM: San Diego Union-Tribune

By Robert KrierUnion-Tribune Staff Writer

Anyone counting on El Niño to wipe out California's drought this winter may be counting chickens long before they've hatched.

Long-range forecasters are less and less bullish about El Niño, a global atmospheric condition that could bring extra precipitation to San Diego County.

Most of them say the odds still slightly favor a wetter-than-normal rainfall season in California, which could use a drenching after three straight years of drought. But the fledgling El Niño is showing signs of losing steam.

“If I were buying up water futures, I would not be reaching deep into my wallet at this point,” said Jan Null, a former forecaster for the National Weather Service who now runs a meteorological company.

California's water managers are taking a similar stance: They're not relying on El Niño to fill the state's depleted reservoirs. The shrinking supply has forced many water providers — including virtually all of the ones in San Diego County — to implement voluntary or mandatory restrictions on usage.

“We're planning for a dry 2010,” said Elissa Lynn, senior meteorologist for the California Department of Water Resources.

Local farmers, who have faced the double whammy of higher water rates and reduced supplies for the past two years, remain hopeful about the possibility of El Niño bringing a bounty of rain.
“We've got our fingers crossed big time on this,” said Eric Larson, executive director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau.

El Niño was off to a promising start in June. Waters in the Pacific were warming rapidly. Forecasters and computer-generated climate models predicted additional warming and the gradual formation of a powerful El Niño.

Only strong episodes of this atmospheric phenomenon, when sea-surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean are more than 3 degrees above normal, have been reliable indicators of wet winters in Southern California. Weak and moderate El Niños have produced everything from wet to dry to normal winters.

The National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center is labeling the latest El Niño as weak. Unless the system ramps up considerably in the next few months, its effect on Southern California's winter could be limited.

Since 1998, the center has rated three El Niño seasons as weak (about 1 to 2 degrees warmer than normal) or moderate (2 to 3 degrees warmer). Those were 2002-03, when San Diego received 10.62 inches of rain; 2004-05, when the city got 22.49 inches, the third-wettest year in city history; and 2006-07, the fourth-driest year with 3.85 inches.

San Diego averages 10.77 inches during the rainfall season, which runs from July 1 through June 30.

El Niño has little effect on summer weather patterns in the United States, but such summers in Mexico, which is experiencing its worst drought since 1940, are often very dry.

In winter during El Niño years, northern Mexico is usually wetter than normal while the rest of the country generally receives average amounts of rainfall.

One weather expert with a good track record of predicting rainfall in recent years thinks the coming winter actually will end up drier than normal in Southern California.

“This El Niño is definitely puny,” said Bill Patzert, a long-range forecaster and research oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. “It looks a lot like the El Niño of 2006-07.”

During strong El Niños, abnormally warm waters pump plenty of heat and moisture into the atmosphere. That tends to create a larger number of intense storms and tilts the storm track farther south over Southern California, said Dan Cayan, a researcher for the U.S. Geological Service and the University of California San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

But in the past two months, temperatures in the equatorial Pacific have stopped climbing after reaching about 1.4 degrees above normal, said Mike Halpert, deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center.

Forecasters have struggled to assess this year's El Niño, he said. Initially, one report suggested it would become the second-strongest episode on record. Now, some say El Niño has peaked and is already fading.

The atmosphere is not behaving as weather models predicted in the early summer, said Mike McPhaden, a senior scientist at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. El Niño has “developed in fits and starts,” he said.

Patzert said weak and moderate El Niños shouldn't even be labeled El Niños.

“You have to reserve the name ‘El Niño’ for the real big events that only happen every 12 to 14 years,” he said. “It's actually eroding the credibility of long-range forecasters and climatologists.”
Union-Tribune

FROM: FOX News

NEW IDRIA, Calif. — Abandoned mercury mines throughout central California's rugged coastal mountains are polluting the state's major waterways, rendering fish unsafe to eat and risking the health of at least 100,000 impoverished people.

But an Associated Press investigation found that the federal government has tried to clean up fewer than a dozen of the hundreds of mines — and most cleanups have failed to stem the contamination.

Although the mining ceased decades ago, records and interviews show the vast majority of sites have not even been studied to assess the pollution, let alone been touched.

While millions live in the affected Delta region, the pollution disproportionately hurts the poor and immigrants who rely on local fish as part of their diet, according to a study conducted by University of California, Davis ecologist Fraser Shilling. His research found that 100,000 people, which he calls a conservative estimate, regularly eat tainted fish at levels deemed unsafe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"Tens of thousands of subsistence anglers and their (families) are consuming greater than 10 times the U.S. EPA recommended dose of mercury, which puts them at immediate risk of neurological and other harm," Shilling said.

But neither the state nor federal government has studied long-term health effects of mercury on the people who regularly eat fish from these waters.

The legacy of more than a century of mercury mining in California — which produced more of the silvery metal than anywhere else in the nation — harms people and the environment in myriad ways.

Near a derelict mine in this California ghost town, the water bubbling in a stream runs Day-Glo Orange and is devoid of life, carrying mercury toward a wildlife refuge and a popular fishing spot.
Far to the north, American Indians who live atop mine waste on the shores of one of the world's most mercury-polluted lakes have elevated levels of the heavy metal in their bodies and fears about their health.

And other mercury mines are the biggest sources of the pollution in San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest estuary on the Pacific Coast.

In all, this metal known as quicksilver has contaminated thousands of square miles of water and land in the northern half of the state.

Records and interviews show that federal regulators have conducted about 10 cleanups at major mercury mines with mixed results, while dozens of sites still foul the air, soil and water. The AP's review also found that the government is often loathe to assume cleanup costs and risk litigation from a failed project.

Mercury from mine waste travels up the food chain through bacteria, which converts it to methylmercury — a potent toxin that can permanently damage the brain and nervous system, especially in fetuses and children.

The federal government calls methylmercury one of the nation's most serious hazardous waste problems, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it is a possible carcinogen.

Mercury is considered most harmful to people when consumed in fish. People who regularly consume tainted fish are at risk of headaches, tingling, tremors and damage to the brain and nervous system, according to the CDC.

The toxin is less of a threat in drinking water, which is filtered and monitored more closely.

Mining in California ceased decades ago, leaving behind at least 550 mercury mines, though no one knows for sure how many. One U.S. Geological Survey scientist says the total may be as high as 2,000.

"Mercury tops the list as the most harmful invisible pollutant in the (state's) watershed," said Sejal Choksi of San Francisco Baykeeper, an environmental watchdog group for the bay. "It has such widespread impacts, and the regulatory agencies are just throwing up their hands."

In the 19th and 20th centuries, California produced up to 90 percent of the mercury in the U.S. and more than 220 million pounds of quicksilver were shipped around the world for gold mining, military munitions and thermometers. Much of the liquid mercury was sent to Sierra Nevada gold mines, where miners spilled tons of it into streams and soil to extract the precious ore.

"There's probably a water body near everybody in the state that has significant mercury contamination," said Dr. Rick Kreutzer, chief of the state Department of Public Health's Division of Environmental and Occupational Disease Control.

Government officials blame mining companies for shirking their financial responsibilities to clean the sites, either by filing for bankruptcy or changing ownership.

When the government does target a site, success is not guaranteed.

The Sulfur Bank Mine has made the nearby Clear Lake the most mercury-polluted lake in the world, despite the EPA spending about $40 million and two decades trying to keep mercury contamination from the water. Pollution still seeps beneath the earthen dam built by the former mine operator, Bradley Mining Co.

For years, Bradley Mining has fought the government's efforts to recoup cleanup costs. An attorney for the company didn't return calls seeking comment.

For the Elem Band of Pomo Indians, whose colony is next to the lake and shuttered mine, the mercury has made it unsafe to eat local fish.

Their colony was built in 1970 by the federal government over waste from the mine. Officials knew it was contaminated, but were not aware at the time how dangerous mercury was to people. The mine is now a Superfund site.

State blood tests on 44 volunteer adult tribe members in the 1990s found elevated levels of mercury. The average level was three times higher than found in people who do not eat tainted fish, but regulators said only one man was at immediate risk of brain damage or other harm.

Yet the EPA determined that the tribe's mercury levels were a serious enough threat for the agency to spend millions of dollars removing contaminated dirt from the colony's homes and roads.

Many have moved from the colony, leaving about 60 of what was once a community of more than 200 people.

As a child, Rozan Brown, 31, said she ate lake fish, swam in the turquoise waters of the mine waste pit and played on mercury-tainted mine waste piles.

"When I was pregnant, I drank the water," Brown said. "When I was breast-feeding, I worked as a laborer during some of the (mercury) cleanups."

The CDC says high levels of mercury can cause brain damage and mental retardation in children when passed from mother to fetus. Brown's son, Tiyal, has been diagnosed with autism. The CDC has found no link between mercury and autism, but agency spokesperson Dagny Olivares said in an e-mail, "Additional information is needed to fully evaluate the potential health threats."

At most abandoned mercury mines, especially ones in remote places, nothing gets done at all.
Twenty-seven years ago the EPA shut down New Idria Mine, once the second-largest mercury producer in North America. The mine and its towering blast furnace still sit untouched. Acidic runoff flows from hills of waste and miles of tunnels into a pool that smells like rotten eggs. The toxic brew turns nearby San Carlos Creek orange and kills aquatic life before flowing into the San Joaquin River.

"It's really hard living up here," said Kate Woods, 51, standing on a wooden bridge in front of her rural home, tucked amid the hills and cattle ranches just downstream of the mine. "It would be paradise here but for this damned orange creek."

Woods and her brother, Kemp, experience tremors in their hands and headaches, she said, blaming prolonged mercury exposure through water and dust. The EPA found mercury in the creek exceeding federal standards in 1997, records show. Field researchers sent a "high priority" referral to state water quality regulators, warning the mercury could be migrating into a popular fishing area and eventually to the Delta-Mendota Canal, "a drinking water conveyance to other parts of California."

Neither agency undertook the expensive cleanup, nor did they conduct the follow-up studies to find out if New Idria's mercury was the source of the contamination found downstream.

EPA officials said mines such as New Idria are a concern but are not always the agency's highest priority.

"We are here to protect the environment, and sometimes we do it better than other times," said Daniel Meer, EPA's assistant Superfund director for the region. "We can't start cleaning up everything all at once."

The EPA, with financial help from the mine owners, has covered up waste piles at two mines feeding pollution into Cache Creek to try to reduce the mercury flowing into the Delta, but no one has touched the other problem sites.

At least 13 other mine sites also pollute Cache Creek, and are responsible for 60 percent of the mercury in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where thousands regularly catch and eat local fish, state water quality officials said.

"What can we do? We're evaluating that now," said Jerry Bruns, a mercury control official with the Central Valley Water Quality Control Board. "It's complicated, we can't just go in there and do whatever we want. There are Native American archaeological sites and different landowners."

A separate cluster of derelict mercury mines near San Jose has been called the largest source of the toxin in the San Francisco Bay's south end, where warning signs warn fishermen of the "poisonous mercury" polluting the water.

A solution to California's mercury pollution is nowhere near at hand, state and federal regulators say.

"It took a hundred years to occur," said the EPA's Meer. "And it may take a hundred years or more to solve."

FROM: Los Angeles Times

Any L.A. homeowner with a roof and an interest in rainwater harvesting may want to apply for a free rain barrel installation from the city. The Rainwater Harvesting Pilot Program, which kicked off in July, still has 170 openings for installations, each of which includes a free 55-gallon rain barrel and free setup.

Designed to conserve potable water and reduce the amount of polluted rainwater that runs untreated into the ocean, the $1 million pilot plan has enough funds to outfit 600 homes with one rain barrel each. About 40 installations have been completed out of the 430 homeowners who have so far signed up.

Because the pilot is funded by the Safe Neighborhood Parks, Clean Water, Clean Air and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2000 through the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, which identified the Ballona Creek watershed as a priority area for curbing rainwater runoff, homes in the Westside neighborhoods of Mar Vista, Sawtelle and Jefferson are given priority for the pilot. But all L.A. homeowners are eligible.

Implemented by the watershed division of the city’s Bureau of Sanitation, rain barrel installation from the city. The Rainwater Harvesting Pilot Program, which kicked off in July, still has 170 openings for installations, each of which includes a free 55-gallon rain barrel and free setup.

Designed to conserve potable water and reduce the amount of polluted rainwater that runs untreated into the ocean, the $1 million pilot plan has enough funds to outfit 600 homes with one rain barrel each. About 40 installations have been completed out of the 430 homeowners who have so far signed up.

Because the pilot is funded by the Safe Neighborhood Parks, Clean Water, Clean Air and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2000 through the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, which identified the Ballona Creek watershed as a priority area for curbing rainwater runoff, homes in the Westside neighborhoods of Mar Vista, Sawtelle and Jefferson are given priority for the pilot.

But all L.A. homeowners are eligible.

FROM: USA Today

By Doyle Rice, USA TODAY

Summer temperatures for the globe's ocean surface ranked as the warmest on record, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Climatic Data Center.

Overall, when the Earth's land areas and oceans are included together, the three-month June-August period measured as the third-warmest summer on record. Global climate records go back to 1880.

Climatologists measure summer from June 1 to Aug. 31. The climate center is a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

"During the season, warmer-than-average temperatures engulfed much of the planet's surface," the center wrote in an online report. One exception to the warmth was the north-central USA and central Canada, which had an unusually cool summer.

The ocean's summer temperature was 62.5 degrees, 1 degree above the 20th-century average of 61.5 degrees.

Part of the unusually warm summer is due to a weak El Nino, a natural periodic warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean that affects weather around the world. "If El Nino continues to mature as projected by NOAA, global temperatures are likely to continue to threaten previous record highs," noted the center's report.

Additionally, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Arctic sea ice covered an average of 2.42 million square miles during August. This is 18.4% below the 1979-2000 average extent and is consistent with a decline of August sea ice extent since 1979.

FROM: NWS in Oxnard/Los Angeles

Sorry about the "ALL CAPS".

ALTHOUGH ASTRONOMICAL SUMMER OFFICIALLY ENDS DURING THE AFTERNOON OF SEPTEMBER 22ND... METEOROLOGICAL SUMMER...CONSIDERED TO BE THE MONTHS OF JUNE... JULY AND AUGUST HAS ENDED. THE SUMMER OF 2009 ENDED UP COOLER THAN NORMAL ACROSS MUCH OF SOUTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA.

AVERAGE TEMPERATURES FOR THE SUMMER WERE GENERALLY BETWEEN ONE AND TWO DEGREES BELOW NORMAL IN MOST COASTAL AND VALLEY AREAS... THANKS TO A PERVASIVE LAYER DURING THE VERY COOL MONTH OF JUNE. IN THE MOUNTAINS AND DESERTS...AVERAGE TEMPERATURES FOR THE SUMMER WERE ACTUALLY CLOSE TO NORMAL.

HERE ARE SOME PRELIMINARY AVERAGE MONTHLY AND SUMMER TEMPERATURES FOR A FEW SELECTED LOCATIONS ACROSS SOUTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA. 30-YEAR NORMAL DATA WAS FROM THE 1971-2000 PERIOD... EXCEPT 1961-1990 FOR WOODLAND HILLS.

*****IMPORTANT NOTE******
THESE DATA ARE PRELIMINARY AND NOT OFFICIAL. IN SOME CASES... ROUNDING ERRORS MAY HAVE CAUSED SLIGHT DISCREPANCIES IN THE AVERAGES BUT MOST DATA SHOULD BE CORRECT TO WITHIN ONE TENTH OF A DEGREE. ____________________________________________________________________ ***DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES (USC)*** JUNE JULY AUG SUMMER 2009 AVE HIGH/AVE LOW 74.5/60.8 83.8/64.3 84.1/64.4 80.8/63.2 30-YEAR NORMAL 79.5/61.4 83.8/64.6 84.8/65.6 82.7/63.9 DEPARTURE FROM NORMAL -5.0/-0.6 0.0/-0.3 -0.7/-1.0 -1.9/+0.7 THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE FOR THE SUMMER 2009 IN DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES WAS 72.0 DEGREES...OR 1.3 DEGREES BELOW THE NORMAL OF 73.3 DEGREES. ____________________________________________________________________ ***BURBANK (BOB HOPE AIRPORT)*** JUNE JULY AUG SUMMER 2009 AVE HIGH/AVE LOW 75.5/58.9 89.4/64.8 88.5/64.0 84.5/62.6 30-YEAR NORMAL 83.2/58.3 88.9/62.1 89.9/62.4 87.3/60.9 DEPARTURE FROM NORMAL -7.7/+0.6 +0.5/+2.7 -1.4/+1.6 -2.8/+1.7 THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE FOR THE SUMMER 2009 AT BURBANK AIRPORT WAS 73.5 DEGREES...OR 0.6 DEGREES BELOW THE NORMAL OF 74.1 DEGREES. ____________________________________________________________________ ***WOODLAND HILLS (PIERCE COLLEGE)*** JUNE JULY AUG SUMMER 2009 AVE HIGH/AVE LOW 79.2/53.2 96.5/58.3 94.5/57.2 90.1/56.2 30-YEAR NORMAL 87.7/53.5 95.4/57.3 95.4/58.2 92.8/56.3 DEPARTURE FROM NORMAL -8.5/-0.3 +1.1/+1.0 -0.9/-1.0 -2.7/+0.1 THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE FOR THE SUMMER 2009 AT PIERCE COLLEGE IN WOODLAND HILLS WAS 73.2 DEGREES...OR 1.4 DEGREES BELOW THE NORMAL OF 74.6 DEGREES. ____________________________________________________________________ ***LANCASTER (FOX FIELD)*** JUNE JULY AUG SUMMER 2009 AVE HIGH/AVE LOW 84.8/58.5 101.1/68.9 97.4/62.5 94.4/63.3 30-YEAR NORMAL 89.1/60.4 95.5/66.0 94.8/64.1 93.1/63.5 DEPARTURE FROM NORMAL -4.3/-1.9 +5.6/+2.9 +2.6/-1.6 +1.3/-0.2 THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE FOR THE SUMMER 2009 AT FOX FIELD IN LANCASTER WAS 78.9 DEGREES...OR 0.6 DEGREES ABOVE THE NORMAL OF 78.3 DEGREES. ____________________________________________________________________ ***SANDBERG*** JUNE JULY AUG SUMMER 2009 AVE HIGH/AVE LOW 71.7/51.9 88.0/66.5 85.2/63.2 81.6/60.5 30-YEAR NORMAL 77.7/56.3 84.7/62.8 84.4/63.2 82.3/60.8 DEPARTURE FROM NORMAL -6.0/-4.0 +3.3/+3.7 +0.8/0.0 -0.7/-0.3 THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE FOR THE SUMMER 2009 AT SANDBERG WAS 71.1 DEGREES...OR 0.4 DEGREES BELOW THE NORMAL OF 71.5 DEGREES. ___________________________________________________________________ BRUNO/RORKE

FROM: San Diego Union-Tribune

Makin Island expected to save millions in fuel costs

By Steve Liewer
Union-Tribune Staff Writer

Like virtually all Navy vessels, the new amphibious assault ship Makin Island is painted haze gray.

But Capt. Bob Kopas, commander of the ship, sees nothing but green — the color of environmental friendliness.

The Makin Island pulled into North Island Naval Air Station yesterday afternoon following a two-month journey from Northrop Grumman's Ingalls Shipbuilding yard in Pascagoula, Miss., and around the southern tip of South America.

About 1,200 family members welcomed the ship and its 1,023-member crew to its home port. The Makin Island will be commissioned here Oct. 24.

Kopas said the ship saved 900,000 gallons of fuel, worth more than $2 million, on its maiden cruise because of a first-of-its-kind mating of gas turbine engines and electric motors. The motors are used at low speeds — roughly 75 percent of the time — and the engine kicks in at high speeds.

“We're like a big hybrid car,” Kopas, who lives in San Diego, said as the ship neared the coastline. “I love it.”

The Navy predicts it will save $250 million in fuel costs over the life of the ship. Some analysts foresee the Makin Island heralding a shift to a fuel-efficient, all-electric fleet.

“It's a watershed for the Navy,” said Scott Truver, an independent naval analyst based in Washington, D.C. “It's a generational change.”

Makin Island is the first Navy vessel to combine gas turbines with auxiliary motors that run off the ship's electrical grid.

The technology has been used in the civilian world for years, said Joe Carnevale, senior defense adviser for the Shipbuilders Council of America. Many cruise ships have run entirely on electrical power for the past 20 years.

For the Navy, shifting to a “green” propulsion system was a complicated process because classes of ships are built over two or three decades. Altering something as basic as the power plant is expensive.

“Going in and changing out the propulsion system is a pretty big deal,” Carnevale said. “The Navy (fell) behind the commercial world.”

Truver believes the Makin Island marks the beginning of a transformation to electric-powered ships. It may mirror the gradual switch to electric automobiles in the civilian world — if vehicles such as General Motors' Chevrolet Volt are successful.

“This is the thin edge of the wedge for propulsion systems,” Truver said. “It's not a technical challenge. It's a political challenge.”

The Makin Island is the last of eight Wasp-class flattop amphibious assault ships delivered since 1989, all built for the job of carrying Marines to distant war zones. It's by far the most technologically advanced amphibious assault ship and, at $2.5 billion, the most expensive.

Construction started in 2004, but delivery was delayed by about two years after Hurricane Katrina laid waste to the Gulf Coast in 2005. Last year, much of the ship had to be rewired because of mistakes by inexperienced shipyard workers hired after the storm.

“It's like birthing a baby,” said retired Vice Adm. John Nyquist of Coronado, a member of the Makin Island's commissioning committee.

Early on, engineers decided to scrap the steam-powered boilers that employ World War II-era technology in favor of the modern, but initially costlier, gas turbine engines installed for years on the Navy's smaller cruisers and destroyers.

“Steam boilers are difficult to maintain,” said Nyquist, who served as assistant chief of naval operations for surface warfare during the 1980s. “They're a whole lot of work. You have to clean the watersides and firesides the old-fashioned way.”

Dumping the boilers means his engine room is cooler, quieter and requires fewer sailors, said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Constantino Constantino, an engineer aboard the Makin Island.

“I used to have 25 people. With this (ship), I only have about 10,” said Constantino, 47, of San Diego. “It's a big difference.”

All of the ship's systems are run by a computer network that checks every component and alerts sailors if something is wrong.

Instead of running around checking engine-room gauges, Petty Officer 1st Class Eli Bardowell watches a computer screen in his air-conditioned space.

“It saves us a lot of trouble-shooting,” said Bardowell, 32, of Port Maria, Jamaica. “It's a lot of fun because it's something different.”

In another nod to environmentally friendly technology, the Makin Island features four reverse-osmosis water-purification systems. Each holds 50,000 gallons, dwarfing the capacity of other ships. There's plenty of water, and that means no more of the Navy's infamous short showers.

“Water is not a problem,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Nicholas Ayres, 30, of Holden, Mo., who maintains the system. “We have on-demand hot water. You don't have to wait to get a hot shower.”

The Makin Island's skipper is looking forward to showing off his new ship in San Diego.

“Everybody's going to want to come and see this,” Kopas said. “We're gonna be the new boy on the block.”

FROM: Los Angeles Times

A lawsuit challenges President Obama's efforts to further limit greenhouse gas emissions by seeking to block the waiver the EPA gave California under the Clean Air Act.

By Jim Tankersley

Reporting from Washington - A federal lawsuit by two industry groups aims to halt the U.S. government and the state of California from moving ahead with new greenhouse gas emissions rules for cars and trucks -- an action that, if successful, could scuttle a key piece of the Obama administration's plans to set stricter nationwide standards for vehicles.

The lawsuit may be the first of many legal challenges targeting President Obama's efforts to limit the heat-trapping emissions that scientists blame for global warming. Some industry groups, for instance, already contend that his efforts could damage the domestic economy.

The suit filed Tuesday by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Automobile Dealers Assn. seeks to block the waiver that the Environmental Protection Agency granted to California under the Clean Air Act to set vehicle emissions standards.

That waiver was the subject of years of legal battles before the EPA officially granted it in July.

The Bush administration initially rejected the request, but soon after Obama's inauguration, the new president asked the EPA to reconsider.

At issue was how to interpret the Clean Air Act, which allows California to ask the agency for permission to set stricter pollution standards than the federal government's. The state had sued to compel the EPA under the Bush administration to grant the waiver.In May, Obama announced an agreement with California officials, environmental groups and major automakers that would lead to the creation of a national vehicle emissions standard, which would have the effect of boosting fuel-economy requirements 40% over the current 25-miles-per-gallon level.

The national standards would largely mimic California's.

The lawsuit isn't challenging the standard directly. Rather, it argues that the waiver sets a dangerous precedent of allowing a state to regulate what should be a national issue: global warming.

The Chamber of Commerce made a similar argument in a past court case, filing a brief in support of the Bush administration's decision to deny California's waiver request.

On Thursday, EPA officials defended their decision to grant the waiver, saying they acted "after a comprehensive analysis of the science and in adherence to the rule of law.

"The agency said it "believes strongly" that it was right and that the court would find its decision was "entirely consistent with the law."

California officials criticized the lawsuit.

"We are very disappointed that these parties continue to pursue an outdated course of action designed to obstruct and oppose efforts to move us toward a cleaner environment and greater energy security," said Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board.

The waiver lawsuit is probably the "leading edge" of a "hurricane of corporate challenges" to climate-related policies from Obama's EPA, said Frank O'Donnell, president of the environmental group Clean Air Watch.

"This may just be a delaying action by the chamber," he said. "But it does raise the stakes in this issue right away.

"The Chamber of Commerce also has threatened to sue to stop a proposed climate-related ruling by the EPA: the "endangerment finding."

The proposed finding declares greenhouse gases to be a threat to human health because of their contributions to global warming, and therefore to be subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act.

FROM: NOAA

The average June-August 2009 summer temperature for the contiguous United States was below average – the 34th coolest on record, according to a preliminary analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. August was also below the long-term average. The analysis is based on records dating back to 1895.

U.S. Temperature Highlights – Summer
-- For the 2009 summer, the average temperature of 71.7 degrees F was 0.4 degree F below the 20th Century average. The 2008 average summer temperature was 72.7 degrees F.
-- A recurring upper level trough held the June-August temperatures down in the central states, where Michigan experienced its fifth, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and South Dakota their seventh, Nebraska its eighth, and Iowa its ninth coolest summer. By contrast, Florida had its fourth warmest summer, while Washington and Texas experienced their eighth and ninth warmest, respectively.
-- The Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota region experienced its sixth coolest summer on record. Only the Northwest averaged above normal temperatures.

U.S. Temperature Highlights – August
-- The average 2009 August temperature of 72.2 degrees F was 0.6 degree F below the 20th Century average. Last year’s August temperature was 73.2 degrees F.
-- Temperatures were below normal in the Midwest, Plains, and parts of the south. Above-normal temperatures dominated the eastern seaboard, areas in the southwest, and in the extreme northwest.
-- Several northeastern states were much above normal for August, including Delaware and New Jersey (eighth warmest), Maine (ninth), and Rhode Island and Connecticut (10th). In contrast, below-normal temperatures were recorded for Missouri and Kansas.

U.S. Precipitation Highlights – Summer
-- The Northeast region had its eighth wettest June-August summer on record. By contrast, the South, Southeast and Southwest regions, were drier than average. Arizona had its third driest summer, while both South Carolina and Georgia had their sixth driest.

U.S. Precipitation Highlights – August
-- In August, precipitation across the contiguous United States averaged 2.34 inches, which is 0.26 inch below the 1901-2000 average.
-- Above-normal averages were generally recorded across the northern U.S., west of the Great Lakes. The South and Southeast regions experienced below-normal precipitation.
-- Precipitation across the Southwest region averaged 0.85 inches, which is 1.10 inches below normal and ranks as the 4th driest August on record. Arizona had its fourth driest, New Mexico its fifth, and it was the eighth driest August on record for Colorado, Utah and Texas.
-- By the end of August, moderate-to-exceptional drought covered 14 percent of the contiguous United States, based on the U.S. Drought Monitor. Drought intensified in parts of the Pacific Northwest and new drought areas emerged in Arizona and the Carolinas. Montana, Wisconsin and Oklahoma saw minor improvements in their drought conditions.
-- About 27 percent of the contiguous United States had moderately-to-extremely wet conditions at the end of August, according to the Palmer Index (a well-known index that measures both drought intensity and wet spell intensity).

Other Highlights
-- There were more than 300 low temperature records (counting daily highs and lows) set across states in the Midwest during the last two days of August.
-- A total of 7,975 fires burned 1,646,363 acres in August, according to the National Interagency Coordination Center. August 2009 ranked fifth for the number of fires and sixth for acres burned in August this decade. From January through August, 64,682 fires have burned 5.2 million acres across the nation.

FROM: USA Today

By William M. Welch, USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — Even as a mammoth wildfire still burns in the San Gabriel Mountains, California hasn't seen this year the level of destruction that flames delivered the past two years.

That could change soon however, fire officials say. A prolonged drought, which is drying up vegetation and fueling a seemingly endless fire that has burned more than 250 square miles of Los Angeles County, could be the start of a fall siege in Southern California.

"We've had extreme fire behavior: 2007 and 2008 were what firefighters refer to as 'siege years,' " says Janet Upton, deputy director for communications for the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as CalFire. "We're certainly hoping we're not entering a third siege year."


California is in the third year of a drought that has contributed to extreme fire conditions. Fire officials say the lack of rain makes brush burn more easily. And when fire hits parched forests, the fire tends to burn faster and do more damage.

"You can have a fire go through the same area, and the damage to a forest is always more significant in drought years," says Del Walters, director of CalFire. Trees and logs burn hotter and more completely in droughts, he said, and their heat kills nearby trees that might otherwise survive.

Potential for a busy year
Even with the drought, there's plenty of available water to fight most fires, but pilots of firefighting helicopters and tankers may have to fly farther and work harder to fill their buckets.

Firefighters are told to be careful to spread out their collection sources so they don't dry out water holes that farmers and ranchers depend on.

"We're not down to the point where we're scraping the bottom of the barrel, but we're trying to be good neighbors and not wipe anybody out," says Bill Payne, chief of aviation for CalFire.

"They have to go a little farther for a good bucket of water … We try really hard not to impact one guy over another."

And firefighters can use any available water — from the Pacific Ocean to backyard swimming pools, as well as lakes, ponds and streams.

Wildfires are common to the American West and indeed are — to an extent — part of a natural cycle. But fire officials say California, which has millions of people living on the boundaries between cities and wildlands, has seen a striking number of large, destructive fires in recent years.

The fire still burning in the San Gabriel Mountains northwest of Los Angeles has grown so large it is now the 10th biggest, in terms of acreage burned, since the state began keeping records in 1932. Of the 10 largest recorded fires in California, five of them occurred in 2007, 2008 or this year, according to CalFire statistics. And only three were prior to the start of this decade.

"We are in the third year of a drought, and there is all the potential to have another busy year with above-normal fire activity," says Jason Kirchner, spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service.

The human factor
Humans cause nearly 95% of the fires in California, Walters said. The U.S. Forest Service says arson is the cause of the latest big fire, which started along the Angeles Crest Highway, the twisting route from the city into the high wilderness. Elevations exceed 7,000 feet in spots, and it is popular with car and motorcycle enthusiasts, as well as sightseers and hikers.

An October 2003 fire that burned more than 273,000 acres of San Diego County, killing 15 people and destroying 2,820 homes and other structures was the state's most destructive. The October 2007 fire in San Diego County burned almost 198,000 acres and 1,650 homes and structures, killing two people.

In June 2008, a fire in Siskiyou County in Northern California killed two people and destroyed 192,000 acres. The biggest in the 20th century burned 220,000 acres of Ventura County in 1932.

Walters said the season begins in Northern California and moves southward as the year progresses, as brush dries out in the summer heat and fall brings the dry desert winds called Santa Anas, which can quickly turn a spark into an fast-moving inferno.

Walters, the state fire chief, says efforts have been successful this year in containing fires overall. This year there have been 6,131 fires on private lands in the state, about 1,600 more than at this point last year. The acreage burned is far less: 123,554 acres compared with 355,392 during the same period last year.

Most western wildfires burn federal land. The Forest Service counts 1,262 fires on federal lands in California this year, burning more than 271,000 acres and most of that is the one fire still burning. At this point in 2008, there had been slightly fewer fires on federal land in California, 1,194, but they had burned 829,200 acres.

FROM: NOAA

NOAA has completed implementation of the final phase of a nine year, $180 million contract by installing the newest generation of IBM supercomputers for weather and climate prediction. The primary system, “Stratus,” and its backup, “Cirrus,” will allow NOAA to run more complex models in an effort to improve forecast accuracy and extend watch and warning lead times for severe weather, including hurricanes, tornadoes, air quality, wildfires, floods, tsunamis and winter storms.

“This new technology will provide us with more sophisticated models of the earth’s land, ocean and atmosphere, giving meteorologists better accuracy and precision in both long-term and short-term forecasting,” said Jack Hayes, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service.

“More accurate weather forecasts allow the National Weather Service to warn individual citizens and whole communities about impending dangerous weather well in advance so they can take action to protect lives and property.”

The new supercomputers, based on IBM Power 575 Systems, are four times faster than the previous system, with the ability to make 69.7 trillion calculations per second. Higher computation speed allows meteorologists to rapidly refine and update severe weather forecasts as dangerous weather develops and threatens U.S. communities. Billions of bytes of weather observations are fed into the system each day, including temperature, wind, precipitation, atmospheric pressure, and other oceanographic and satellite information taken from the ground, air, sea and space.

Interesting facts about Stratus:
-- The microprocessors inside Stratus contain 2,000 miles of copper wiring, enough to stretch from Washington, D.C. to the Grand Canyon.
-- It would take one person with a calculator 3 million years to tabulate the number of calculations that Stratus can perform in a single second.
-- Stratus would fit in half the size of a tennis court.
-- Stratus is 34 times more powerful than the most powerful supercomputer in existence a decade ago.

FROM: NOAA

On August 10 at 12:56 p.m. PDT, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck the Indian Ocean. It happened near the Andaman Islands, north of the epicenter of the Dec. 26, 2004, earthquake that triggered a tsunami that killed a quarter of a million people. That’s when the scientists at NOAA’s National Weather Service Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) sprang into action to create a fast and accurate tsunami forecast.

Less than one hour after the earthquake occurred, a tsunami was measured in real time by a DART (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis) buoy located in the Indian Ocean.

Reports from a tide gauge near Yanam, India, confirmed the model forecast when it reported a 3.9 inch (10 cm) high tsunami, which went unnoticed by the public. This tsunami provided the first test of NOAA’s new tsunami warning system and validated the collaborative effort to save lives and property during any tsunami event.

“With the DART data and new forecast system, we were then able to cancel the watch with confidence that no destructive tsunami had been generated,” said PTWC’s Deputy Director Stuart Weinstein. The PTWC watch and cancellation messages went to 26 Indian Ocean warning points.


Advanced Technology Saving Lives
Since 1997, Vasily Titov, Ph.D., and his team at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) have been working on a new forecast system to provide faster and more accurate forecasts of approaching tsunamis.

NOAA’s research and ability to forecast tsunamis has greatly improved since the 2004 tsunami. This time, PTWC issued a tsunami watch based on initial earthquake information to all countries around the Indian Ocean.

“Now we have forecast models set up in the area that were not available in 2004 to help us determine what type of impact we would see at various coastline communities,” Titov said.

The new forecast system, which includes DART buoys and forecast models, was installed at the tsunami warning centers in Hawaii and Alaska in June 2009. The Aug. 10, 2009, Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami provided the first operational test — just months shy of the fifth anniversary of the 2004 tsunami event.

This successful test shows the progress NOAA has made since 2004, when no information about the Indian Ocean tsunami was available in real time. And there were no warning contacts in the 26 Indian Ocean nations to receive the information and take appropriate action.

The Indian Ocean DART buoy, designed by PMEL and deployed by NOAA’s National Buoy Data Center in December 2006, was a gift to the Kingdom of Thailand from the United States.

Since that time, this DART station has captured two non-destructive tsunamis and relayed the tsunami data in real time to the PTWC and other Indian Ocean nations via the Internet.

Sorry about the all CAPS

FROM: NWS OXNARD/LOS ANGELES

FROM AUGUST 26TH THROUGH SEPTEMBER 4TH...OR ON 1O CONSECUTIVE DAYS...MAXIMUM TEMPERATURES AT DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES REACHED 90 DEGREES OR HIGHER. THIS WAS THE LONGEST STREAK OF CONSECUTIVE 90 DEGREE DAYS SINCE A 13 DAY STRETCH IN LATE AUGUST AND EARLY SEPTEMBER OF 1995. THIS LATEST STREAK TIED FOR THE FIFTH LONGEST SUCH STREAK SINCE RECORDS BEGAN IN 1877. ONLY FOUR STRETCHES OF CONSECUTIVE 90 DEGREE DAYS HAVE BEEN LONGER...INCLUDING A 14 DAY STRETCH IN 1971...13 DAY RUNS IN 1983 AND 1995...AND AN 11 DAY STRETCH IN 1984. THE OTHER YEARS WITH 10 CONSECUTIVE DAYS OF 90 DEGREE TEMPERATURES WERE 1886...1965...1972...1978 AND 1994.

FROM: Los Angeles Times

By Emily Green

More than 1,000 climate experts from around the world gathered last month in Stockholm for World Water Week. If you didn't read about it or hear about it on TV, it's not necessarily because of the crisis besetting modern journalism. It could easily be the subject. If there is anything that can clear a room faster than a plague of toads, it's discussion of climate change and water.

Peter Gleick, a MacArthur fellow and president of a nonprofit environmental and public policy group called the Pacific Institute in Oakland, was in Stockholm for the meeting. He is, above any Californian, our man on the unmentionable.

So, are there ways to address this topic, I asked Gleick recently, without leaving everyone feeling utterably depressed and helpless? Absolutely, Gleick responded. "If you want to save energy, save water."

Aha, logical. Energy saved amounts to greenhouse gas emissions prevented. Energy is a hidden cost of water. In 2004, Gleick published a report with the Natural Resources Defense Council on the subject. As the date of the report suggests, the knowledge isn't new, but comprehension is so low, thousands of climatologists still feel compelled to sing the message in Stockholm.

It may be the stealthy quality of water. It simply seems to flow naturally into our sprinklers and garden hoses, while it's actually moved to us. This takes so much power that the pumps that convey and treat California's water account for roughly 20% of the electricity consumed in the state.

Southern California, particularly, drives that figure way up. We are so far away from the sources of our water in the Sacramento Delta and the Colorado River that the energy cost for bringing water to us is 50 times higher than for Northern Californians and five times the rate for the typical American.

Why so high? Water is heavy. In the case of the State Water Project coming from the Sacramento Delta, Southern California supplies must be pumped 2,000 feet over the Tehachapi Mountains. This is "the highest lift of any water system in the world," according to the Pacific Institute and Natural Resources Defense Council report.

Numbers making you dizzy? Then turn your attention to twin maps of the southwestern U.S. from a recent White House report on global climate change.

They show two futures projected by federal climate modelers: The most optimistic model, the "Lower Emission Scenario," predicts that in the last two decades of this century, Southern California will be lucky to lose only 20% to 30% of its current precipitation.

If we fail to restrict our energy consumption and cap our carbon emissions, the second map shows precipitation falling by 40%, not just here but also in the places that supply our water.

Gleick said saving hot water has a double benefit because it saves the energy to move as well as heat the water. But he isn't picky about where we find the savings.

"If you can, if you're replacing your washing machine, buy a high-efficiency water machine and you save a huge amount of energy and water and, in the long run, money," Gleick said. "But even if you're saving cold water, that's water that doesn't have to be pumped over the Tehachapi Mountains or water that in the future doesn't have to be desalinated."

This column being about gardening, an observation: About 40% to 60% of our water goes outdoors, depending on our climate zone. There's no time better than now to kill your lawn and go native. What Gleick was telling us, and what those maps were underscoring, was that we could act now to arrest global warming and plant gardens fit for the future.

Rebates are still being given by major water authorities for all manner of water-saving devices: washing machines, dishwashers, garden sprinkler and drip systems, toilets, shower heads. To find out details, look up BeWaterWise.com.

Web links to the reports cited in this column can be found on our L.A. at Home blog, latimes.com/home, where Green's columns appear weekly. She also writes on water issues atwww.chanceofrain.com.

FROM: FOX News

Giant engineering schemes to reflect sunlight or suck carbon dioxide from the air could be the only way to save the Earth from runaway global warming, according to a group of leading scientists. But they say that these schemes could have their own catastrophic consequences, such as disrupting rainfall patterns, and should be deployed only as a last resort if attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fail.

The Royal Society, a fellowship of 1,400 of the world’s most eminent scientists, published a report yesterday on the feasibility and possible dangers of technologies for cooling down the Earth, known as geoengineering. The ideas include artificial trees that draw CO2 from the air and mimicking volcanoes by spraying sulphate particles a few miles above the Earth to deflect the Sun’s rays. The most far-fetched would would be to launch trillions of small mirrors into space to act as a sunshield.

A far cheaper solution would be a fleet of 1,500 ships that would suck up seawater and spray it out of tall funnels to create sun-reflecting clouds. However, the report said that these clouds could disrupt rainfall patterns and result in mass starvation in countries dependent on the monsoon.

The panel of 12 scientists who produced the report concluded that all these approaches were theoretically possible and, despite the potential side-effects, should be explored with a view to holding trials.

They called for a 160 million annual global research fund to study geoengineering technologies and said that Britain should contribute 16 million a year, ten times the amount being spent now on such research.

Professor John Shepherd, who chaired the panel, said: “It is an unpalatable truth that unless we can succeed in greatly reducing carbon dioxide emissions we are heading for a very uncomfortable and challenging climate future, and geoengineering will be the only option left to limit further temperature increases."

FROM: Los Angeles Times

A cooling trend should begin this week in Southern California, according to forecasters, bringing more relief to crews on the front lines of fires.

Temperatures have been dropping slightly over the last few days, but not as much as some officials hoped. Friday should be another hot one, with temperatures reaching the triple digits in some valley and mountain locations, according to the National Weather Service.

The weather service said the heat continues to be a health threat to the elderly, young children and the frail.

But an upper-level trough from the northwest is expected to bring "significant cooling to the region on Saturday and Sunday."

During the weekend, temperatures in the valleys are expected to drop to the high 80s and low 90s.

--Shelby Grad

FROM: San Diego Union-Tribune


By Mike Lee and Jeff McDonald
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS


Despite the hoopla over renewable energy — media chatter, government rebates, neighbors who “go green” — the nuts and bolts of installing more Earth-friendly power sources often get stuck.

San Diego County, for example, is wrestling with how to handle applications for using residential wind turbines. Critics say the approval process is confusing and drawn-out enough to discourage investment in green power, just as companies are moving to fill the home-windmill niche.

Similar difficulties are popping up nationwide as regulators try to accommodate renewable-energy projects while protecting property owners' backyard views, minimizing noise and addressing safety concerns.

“People are definitely encountering permitting problems as one of the factors slowing down the work and making the process a lot more difficult,” said Dariush Shirmohammadi, an adviser for the California Wind Energy Association. “It seems to be an issue for all sizes of renewables . . . and is a major concern for most developers.”

San Diego County isn't a state leader in wind-energy production, but wind is considered an important source of the region's future electricity supply. Although most wind power in the area comes from commercial-scale turbines, more residents want to install small systems that have become less expensive thanks to technological improvements and governmental incentives.

Nationally, wind-energy production has risen in the past decade.

Last year, enough wind-capturing capacity was installed nationwide to serve more than 2 million homes. A recent federal report said wind could generate 20 percent of the nation's electricity by 2030.

Advocates of wind power said its full potential can't be harnessed when it's snarled by bureaucracy.

Obtaining permits for home-based turbines can be tough in parts of the country, and California “is definitely regarded as one the more difficult,” said Jacob Susman, CEO of OwnEnergy, a wind-power company in New York.

Impediments include the lack of consistent standards from county to county and the cost of permits, which can double the price of a residential turbine, said Case van Dam from the California Wind Energy Collaborative at the University of California Davis.


As San Diego County's land-use planners try to refine the rules for residential turbines, companies that make them and people who want to use them can be left twisting in the breeze.

“We started in San Diego County because of the favorable zoning law,” said Bob Hayes of Prevailing Wind Power in Redondo Beach. “San Diego was shaping up to become the Silicon Valley of small wind.”

But county officials have become too restrictive with home turbines, Hayes said. Such systems can generate up to 500 kilowatts of electricity — roughly enough to power a small home. Hayes estimated that there are 20 residential windmills in the region.

County regulators said they support alternative energy but need to make sure the equipment doesn't endanger the neighborhood. They are working to revise noise, safety and other standards for companies manufacturing residential turbines.

“Our Board of Supervisors is very green-project friendly,” said Darren Gretler, the building division chief. “We want to do everything we can to make it more efficient for people to make energy-efficient products.”

The region's potential for wind power is greatest in and around the Laguna Mountains. There are very few spots available for large-scale turbine projects, but opportunities for residential systems exist in Alpine, Ramona and other communities east of San Diego, said Ryan Amador, a manager at the nonprofit California Center for Sustainable Energy in Kearny Mesa.

Amador often receives phone calls from homeowners who hope to use small wind turbines but wonder if it's too challenging to navigate the county's evolving criteria.

“I wouldn't say necessarily that it's the county of San Diego's fault,” said Amador, whose center is looking at how to help residents and regulators simplify the permit process. “(Renewable power sources) are emerging industries. . . . They are not necessarily covered in the old county general plan.”

Red tape has stymied Gil Riegler and Nancy Kolbert, who bought a home turbine last year but don't have permission to turn it on.

“This was supposed to be in and working quite a while ago — months ago,” said Kolbert, who operates a camel dairy on 34 acres the couple own in the Ballena Valley outside Ramona.

“It's up. It's beautiful. It's unobtrusive. To me, it stands as a beacon of forward thinking. I love it and I hope that the county will kind of chill out.”

Two years ago, county planners allowed a handful of backcountry residents to install Skystream 3.7s, home turbines that feature a 12-foot rotor atop a pole up to 50 feet tall. Last year, they approved nine more.

After the initial group was permitted, sales representatives for the Skystream continued marketing their product even though county officials were waiting to see how the first systems performed.

Within a few months, the county received a noise complaint and put the brakes on new approvals.

Planners began requiring that sound checks be conducted from the applicants' property lines rather than the nearest dwellings, which in some cases raised the decibel level to unacceptable standards. The noise limit is 50 decibels during daytime — quieter than some air conditioners and roughly equal to light traffic in a peaceful neighborhood — and 45 at night.


County regulators also sought certification from Underwriters Laboratories, the international product-safety analyst, that the wind turbines were designed and manufactured properly.

Hayes complained that Underwriters Laboratories has no formal standard for the Skystream 3.7 and said the California Energy Commission recognizes a different certification issued by Germanisher Lloyd, another certifier.

“For every turbine and permit I'm denied, there are thousands of dollars in incentives that are going to other states,” Hayes said.

Gretler said the county would soon start accepting the Underwriters Laboratories outline for certification until the company completes its formal studies.

“The Skystream maker is a trailblazing company, and we're trying to be trailblazers, too,” he said. “Together, I think we will make things happen.”

FROM: Los Angeles Times

The Station fire in the San Gabriel Mountains has taken an enormous toll on the environment, a fact that was particularly evident along Angeles Crest Highway, which remained closed to public traffic this morning.

Under skies tinged corral and gray by dense smoke, mile after mile of mountain and canyon lands along both sides of the two-lane highway, Route 2, had been stripped of manzanita, sumac, sycamore and pine trees that had not previously burned in nearly half a century.

Vistas had become moonscapes of dirt, rock and ash in the Angeles National Forest. Every few hundred yards, the charred remains of a squirrel or rodents could be seen lying by the side of the road. Some creatures, however, managed to survive.

Birds, including scrub jays, flitted among rare patches of chaparral clinging to cliff sides. A female mule deer wandered along the highway. A rabbit sat forlornly on a plateau covered with gray ash. Many firefighters recalled crossing paths with surviving rattlesnakes.

Federal wildlife authorities said biologists and environmental rehabilitation specialists were expected to begin inspecting the damage and developing recovery strategies in the near future.
Nearly every firefighter had a heartbreaking story to tell about an encounter with dead or dying wildlife.

"We came across a rabbit with a broken back, and we put it out of its misery," said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Capt. Nick Shawkey. "But the majority of animals die from superheated gases that precede the fire front. Their respiratory systems get knocked out. Essentially, they suffocate."

Standing on a cliff edge and surveying the devastation, he added, "It’s sad. Really sad. But it will come back."

-- Louis Sahagun at Mt. Wilson