Science

Overview April 24, 2014

Science

Aquafornia news October 16, 2018 Los Angeles Times

UC San Diego’s huge earthquake simulator getting upgrade to better simulate deadly temblors

“We will be able to reproduce earthquake motions with the most accuracy of any shake table in the world,” said Joel Conte, the UC San Diego structural engineer who is overseeing the project. “This will accelerate the discovery of the knowledge engineers need to build new bridges, power plants, dams, levees, telecommunication towers, wind turbines, retaining walls, tunnels, and to retrofit older structures. …”

Aquafornia news October 16, 2018 Santa Rosa Press-Democrat

Dry winter curtails fatal disease in oak trees

A dry winter curtailed the presence of a deadly forest pathogen this year in Sonoma County and 13 other Northern and Central California counties, but experts still expect the oak-killing disease to spread and warned landowners to be vigilant.

Aquafornia news October 16, 2018 The Desert Sun

Why climate change is especially dangerous for low-income Coachella Valley residents

Higher temperatures, more intense droughts and more damaging wildfires and floods are just some of the climate change effects already being seen in the California desert — and residents of low-income, minority communities in the Coachella Valley are most likely to suffer the consequences of those environmental stresses. That was one of the takeaways from a series of presentations by scientific experts last week at UC Riverside’s Palm Desert campus.

Aquafornia news October 16, 2018 Associated Press

Trump may not know what’s behind warming, but scientists do

Despite what President Donald Trump says, scientists have long known that what’s warming the planet isn’t natural. It’s us. They even have the energy balance sheets accounting for changes in the climate to prove it. President Trump’s own White House put out a science report last year concluding that “the likely range of the human contribution to the global mean temperature increase over the period 1951-2010 is 1.1 to 1.4 F (0.6 to 0.8 C).”

Aquafornia news October 16, 2018 Delta Stewardship Council

Blog: Science governance: Closing the data to decision-making gap

How can government best support and protect the independence, credibility, and legitimacy of science? How can management and funding strategies ensure that scientific findings are relevant to decisions? How, in an age of information overload, can scientists ensure that their findings are not just useful, but also usable? What is the pathway of information from data collection to decision-making? And how can decisions better match the accelerating pace of environmental change?

Aquafornia news October 9, 2018 Arizona Daily Star

Q&A: Arizona can fight climate change, says UA researcher who helped write sobering report

Like the rest of the world, Arizona faces a long list of challenges in trying to cut greenhouse gas emissions enough to keep temperatures from spiraling out of control, says a University of Arizona scientist who helped write a new international report on climate change.

Aquafornia news October 9, 2018 University of California, Irvine

News Release: UCI study: Reduced Sierra Nevada snowmelt runoff to threaten California agriculture

An estimated three-quarters of the water used by farms, ranches and dairies in California originates as snow in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, but the future viability of that resource is projected to be at heightened risk due to global climate change.

Aquafornia news October 9, 2018 Los Angeles Times

‘Incredibly grim’ prognosis on global warming also carries clarion call for global action

One of the report’s contributors said predicted temperature increases will be greater in the semi-arid climate of the American West. Diana Liverman, a professor of geography and development at the University of Arizona, said this would lead to even more intense heat waves, droughts, fires and downpours than California is already experiencing.

Aquafornia news October 5, 2018 Associated Press

No free lunch for renewables: More wind power would warm US

Ramping up wind power in America would also dial up the nation’s temperatures, a new study out of Harvard found. While wind energy is widely celebrated as environmentally friendly, the researchers concluded that a dramatic, all-out expansion in the number of turbines could warm the country even more than climate change from burning coal and other fossil fuels, because of the way the spinning blades disturb the layers of warm and cold air in the atmosphere.

Aquafornia news October 5, 2018 The Sacramento Bee

UC Davis irradiated beagles during the Cold War. Now it’s agreed to clean the laboratory landfill.

In the early years of the nuclear age, scientists at UC Davis began studying the impact of radiation on beagles in a laboratory complex a mile south of the main campus. The lab and an adjacent landfill became a Superfund site, a toxic stew of chemicals, contaminated soils and dangerous metals such as hexavalent chromium and strontium-90.

Related News Release:

US Environmental Protection Agency: US EPA, California settle with UC Regents over Davis Superfund site cleanup

Aquafornia news October 4, 2018 US Geological Survey

News Release: USGS crews work fast to capture evidence of devastating Carolina floods

The floodwaters that covered wide swaths of the Carolinas’ coastal plain are finally receding, more than two weeks after Hurricane Florence made landfall Sept. 14 near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, and U.S. Geological Survey hydrographers are moving in rapidly to the areas where the flooding lingered longest. About 30 flood experts are in the second week of a high water mark campaign, traveling from one hard-hit community to the next, searching neighborhood by neighborhood and sometimes door to door for physical evidence of flooding.

Aquafornia news October 4, 2018 The Washington Post

Climate scientists are struggling to find the right words for very bad news

In Incheon, South Korea, this week, representatives of over 130 countries and about 50 scientists have packed into a large conference center going over every line of an all-important report: What chance does the planet have of keeping climate change to a moderate, controllable level?

Aquafornia news July 22, 2014 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

News Release: USGS Celebrates 50th Anniversary of Water Resources Research Act

From the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS):

The U.S. Geological Survey joins its many partners in other federal agencies, at universities, and in state and local governments in recognizing the importance of the Water Resources Research Act (WRRA) of 1964.

Signed into law 50 years ago by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 17, 1964, the WRRA established a Water Resources Research Institute in each state and Puerto Rico.

Aquafornia news July 16, 2014 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

News Release: New Global Geologic Map of Mars

From the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS):

A new global geologic map of Mars –the most thorough representation of the “Red Planet’s” surface – has been published by the U.S. Geological Survey. This map provides a framework for continued scientific investigation of Mars as the long-range target for human space exploration.

Aquafornia news July 14, 2014 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

News Release: ‘Dry Ice’ Cause of Gullies on Mars

From the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS):

Seasonal carbon dioxide frost, not liquid water, is the main driver in forming gullies on Mars today, according to a recent U.S. Geological Survey study that relied on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s (MRO) repeated high-resolution observations.

Aquafornia news July 7, 2014 San Jose Mercury News

Fossil Treasure Trove Discovered at Silicon Valley Dam Construction Site

From the San Jose Mercury News:

[Jim] Walker and construction crews building a new 220-foot-high dam at Calaveras Reservoir in the remote canyons east of Milpitas have been digging up a prehistoric treasure trove: the teeth of an extinct hippopotamus-like creature called a Desmostylus, clams, barnacles and the giant teeth from a 40-foot-long shark — and what could turn out to be an entire whale skeleton.

Aquafornia news July 3, 2014 New York Times

Second Try Puts Carbon Observatory Into Orbit

From The New York Times:

NASA’s new spacecraft to sniff carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere reached orbit on Wednesday after launching from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Aquafornia news June 17, 2014 NPR

Deep Underground, Oceans of Water May Be Trapped In A Crystal ‘Sponge’

From NPR:

“Science teachers may have to add a whole new layer to the water cycle. Scientists have discovered evidence of a vast reservoir of water hiding up to 400 miles beneath the surface.”

Aquafornia news June 13, 2014 KQED Science blog

Blog: New Evidence of Earth’s Deep Water Cycle Reveals a Virtual Buried Ocean

From the KQED Science blog:

“During the last year, whole oceans worth of water have been found in the [Earth's] mantle, hundreds of kilometers below the crust. And a paper in today’s [June 12] issue of Science traces water’s influence all the way down to an important boundary inside the Earth, the top of the lower mantle.”

Aquafornia news May 22, 2014 Associated Press

Century of Help to Farmers

From the Associated Press:

“The UC Cooperative Extension, which operates in all but one California county, celebrated its centennial with special events across the state.”

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