Elaine Meinel Supkis
Last year, I watched with alarm as the sea life in the Gulf of Mexico suffered increasingly until a series of huge hurricanes passed through. This year, it is California seeing vast sea life die-offs and very hot temperatures. The storm season has barely begun. It is going to different from last year.
This year, the heat waves are concentrated on California.
CBS) RIVERSIDE, Calif. A continuing heat wave will send temperatures soaring into the triple digits, with hot weather lingering through Sunday, according to forecasters."We're probably not looking at record-setting heat, but we will see temperatures of 100 degrees to 105 degrees" in the valleys and inland areas, Greg Martin of the National Weather Service said.
A Catalina eddy is spinning fog ashore, which may help moderate coastal area temperatures. Surf should be 2-4 feet and water temperatures will range between 63 and 69 degrees.
The National Weather Service is urging people to take precautions to protect themselves from the heat by reducing outdoor activities, wearing lightweight and light-colored clothing and drinking plenty of water.
It has been cool here on my mountain in New York with one storm after another sweeping past. But out west, it is hot and hotter and dry and drier. California has been famous for hundreds of years of being a very dangerous place when droughts and heat threaten to set everything afire. What we are seeing also now is the same thing we saw last year in the Gulf of Mexico: terrible die-offs of marine life, the agony of the marine creatures being quite significant and are a warning sign about our ecosystems.
Last year's dead zones are now off the coast of California, not Florida.
This is the time of the year when the ocean off the California coast should be at its most lush, teeming with vast schools of krill to feed whales and salmon as well as plenty of baby rockfish for seabirds, seals and fishermen's nets.But based on new counts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, federal researchers are reporting an odd summer and a scarcity of some sea life from San Diego to Newport, Ore., for the second year in a row. And some scientists wonder if the warming of the world's oceans and atmosphere is playing a part.
"The upwelling that we normally expect in the springtime hasn't kicked in,'' said Frank Schwing, a NOAA oceanographer in Pacific Grove.
"We think there might be real consequences for the seabirds, fish and mammals.''
Culture of Life News tracked identical stories last year....in the Gulf of Mexico. One of the aspects of global warming hardest for people to understand is how the effects travel from venue to venue, restlessly in an increasingly dyanmic system. Just this spring, for example, after a very dry winter, at least for us up here, I was truly worried about water for my well and the pastures producing hay. Then, like someone turning on a tap, it has rained and rained and flooded and rained even more! I am betting it will stop just as suddenly as it started.
By MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press Writer 26 minutes ago
CORDELIA, Calif. - Miles from the shoreline, 10 baby brown pelicans lounge by a pool in a roomy cage, large buckets of fish there for the taking. Just days ago, these birds could not feed themselves at all. Scores of starving baby pelicans — emaciated, cold and too weak to fly — are washing up on California beaches in disturbing numbers this spring.The underfed California brown pelicans have stirred concerns over the endangered species, which in recent years has shown strong signs of recovery. Biologists say the recovery could actually be the source of the problem: There are more pelicans competing for food.
That is false. They are starving because everything is falling apart. This is why today's news is about pelicans again, now poisoned by algae blooms, drunkenly falling out of the sky! This isn't due to there 'being too many'!
This CNN story makes light of a very bad situation, namely, the waters are producing toxins!
LAGUNA BEACH, California (AP) -- The driver was sober. The bird he hit may have been under the influence.A California brown pelican flew through the windshield of a car on the Pacific Coast Highway on Thursday, and wildlife officials said the bird was probably intoxicated by a chemical in the water, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
Though toxicology tests take several weeks, the odd bird behavior was likely the result of poisoning from domoic acid, which has been found in the ocean in the area, Lisa Birkle, assistant wildlife director at the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach, told the Times.
Birds can be poisoned through eating algae tainted by the acid.
This is so much like the algae poisonings in the Gulf of Mexico just before Hurricane Dennis, the first of the mighty wall of storms that came raging into those hot, fetid waters! When birds begin to fall from the skies, this is the classic 'canary in the mine' moment we all must heed or else. As it is, I have spent this spring fretting about my wild birds. The song birds are just not in the numbers I usually get here and this worries me. The fear of a silent spring is a real fear.
Associated PressPosted on Thu, Apr. 13, 2006
LOS ANGELES - Pelicans are falling ill and dying from the same toxic algae bloom that is sickening sea lions and making shellfish unsafe for human consumption, wildlife rescuers said.More than three-dozen endangered California brown pelicans have been taken to the International Bird Rescue Research Center in San Pedro during the past week. Eighteen were dead on arrival, and many more are dying in the wild, center officials said.
The pelicans and marine mammals are being sickened by a neurotoxin called domoic acid, which is produced by the algae and works its way up the food chain. Poisoned pelicans are flying farther than usual inland, dropping from the sky and suddenly flipping on their backs on the ground.
Aguajitos.com:"THE SUN COMES UP bright that day. It is a Friday-June 17, 1859. There is a little breeze from the northeast, a clear sky, and the promise of a warm day. The morning temperatures are normal, 75-to-80 degrees, with an offshore breeze that prevents the ocean from having a cooling effect.By noon, people begin to notice something unusual is happening. The temperature has quickly risen to almost 100 degrees and the mountain breeze is becoming stronger and stronger. About 1 pm a heavy blast of hot air sweeps through the Goleta Valley from the direction of Santa Ynez Peak, driving even the hardiest into the shelter of their homes and filling them with terror; they think the end of the world has come.
The superheated air continues to pour down on the coast for the next hour. By 2 pm the temperature is an incredible 133 degrees! Many of the people take refuge behind the thick walls of Daniel Hill's adobe, who is owner of Rancho La Goleta, where they pray fervently for the oppressive heat to be lifted.
For the next three hours the temperature hovers at 130 degrees; by 5 pm it has cooled off only slightly, to 122 degrees. The inhabitants wonder if this will ever come to an end. Then suddenly, as fast as it has come, the hot breeze dies and a cool marine breeze washes over the land. By 7 pm the temperature is a comfortable 77 degrees and the half-baked citizens emerge from their houses to see what damage has occurred.
I lived all over the Southwest desert from California to Texas and everywhere inbetween. I have seen such hot winds but of course, not that hot! I remember being worried about frying my feet to the rocks in Death Valley. When we played outside in the extreme heat, we had to turn our backs to the sun so our shadows could protect the top of our feet which would overheat inside our shoes if we faced the sun.
As we fiddle with this planet's thermometer we should remember, things can go haywire all too easily! This story about Santa Barbara surprised me because I didn't know about it. One would think, this would be an important story to know, my parents live there today! Yet I never heard of it until tonight and this, only through snooping around the internet, typing in a host of weather-related words, some of which were rather exotic.Here is even more alarming news, my parents chose to buy a house right on the oceanfront!
December 21, 1812 - A severe 8.3 earthquake destroys all three coastal missions. The coastline is hit by six tidal waves up to 50 feet high. A Yankee vessel, the Mercury, is carried for over a mile up Refugio Canyon and back out to sea without damage. The Chumash village of Castil vanishes.
Americans imagine tsunamis are only for exotic places like Japan or Indonesia. It is not. If this sort of quake happened today, everything along the coast will disappear in minutes just as I saw, with horror, that Boxing Day in Sumatra.Warning people of these things is often futile. People do things because they want to do them. And they can't be stopped. As if I should complain, living for ten years in a tent, in the snow, on a mountain! Well! In today's news is the not surprising news that insurers are
cutting off most people living in coastal areas all over America, thanks to the violent weather and possible tsunami/earthquake events.
Culture of Life News Main Page
You are exactly right to
publish this obvious evidence of
system degradation. 'Think we'll ever grow up in this
country? It's probably
too late to repent.
Posted by: D.F. Facti | June 25, 2006 at 09:27 AM
What puzzles me is how this story escaped my childhood! Grandpa loved to tell about nature disasters in California! I suppose, this was before his time.
Mrs. Michner who was born in California in 1859, was not there, either, then and she lived to be well over 100 years old, so I knew her when I was a child.
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | June 25, 2006 at 04:43 PM