While I have never been to Revere Beach, I look forward each
year to photos of the amazing sand sculptures from a competition
that brings people from throughout the world to this location just
north of Boston.
The winning entry in the Revere
Beach sand sculpting contest was “Nest” by Mélineige Beauregard of
Montreal, Canada. // Photo: Revere Beach
Partnership
Adding to the enjoyment of the Revere Beach International
Sand-Sculpting Festival are longtime sand-sculptors Dan Doubleday
and Meredith Corson-Doubleday, who bring the event to life,
especially for distant viewers, with their expert commentary on all
the pieces. I also appreciated the slide show created by
professional photographer Greg Cook on his
Wonderland website.
The sand sculptures are evaluated using four categories: (1)
degree of difficulty, (2) originality and creativity, (3) quality
of sculpting, and (4) overall visual impact.
In the two videos on this page, Dan and Meredith conduct their
fourth-day “walkthrough” together, as the sand sculptures take on
their final forms. At the time that Dan and Meredith recorded their
commentary, they did not know who the winners would be, so I would
like to add some help with that:
It’s next to impossible to keep up with all the new information
coming out about climate change, but I thought I would share some
new reports that I found interesting.
For the first three months of this year, I provided a weekly
report called
“Climate Sense.” I am still trying to gauge how often to write
these posts or drop them altogether. I am not conducting original
reporting; I’m just offering some reading material. Perhaps regular
readers of this blog prefer their own news sources. As always, I am
open to suggestions.
The war against the invasive European green crab continues in
Puget Sound, as this year’s Legislature offers financial support,
while the Puget Sound Crab Team responds to crabs being caught for
the first time in Samish Bay in North Puget Sound and at Kala Point
near Port Townsend.
In other parts of the country where green crabs have become
established, the invaders have destroyed native shoreline habitat,
diminished native species and cost shellfish growers millions of
dollars in damages. See
Environmental Protection Agency report (PDF 1.3 mb).
European green crab trapping
sites in Puget Sound.
Map: Washington Sea Grant
In Puget Sound, it’s hard to know whether the crabs are being
trapped and removed rapidly enough to defeat the invasion, but so
far humans seem to be holding their own, according to Emily Grason,
who manages the Crab Team volunteer trapping effort for Washington
Sea Grant.
“The numbers are still in line with what we saw the past two
years,” Emily told me. “Since the numbers have not exploded, to me
that is quite a victory. In other parts of the world, they have
been known to increase exponentially.”
The largely volunteer Crab Team program is focused on placing
baited traps at 56 sites in Puget Sound, as shown in the first map
on this page. About 220 trained volunteers are involved in that
work, with various federal, state and tribal agencies adding about
40 additional people.
“Survive
the Sound,” an online game that involves tracking salmon
migrations in Puget Sound, has thrown open its doors for everyone,
whether you donate money or not.
The idea of buying a salmon character to participate in the game
has been abandoned after two years, and now the fish are free for
the choosing. Long Live the Kings, which sponsors the game, still
welcomes donations, of course, but money is not a prerequisite.
“We wanted to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to
learn more about salmon and steelhead and support the movement to
recover them,” Lucas Hall, project manager for LLTK, told me in an
email. “So, we’ve simplified the sign-up process and eliminated any
fees associated with participation.”
Loving the Earth is the theme of a new music video by comic
rapper Lil Dicky, who enlisted the voices of two dozen famous
singers to play the roles of animals in the video.
Just released Thursday, the video is one of the hottest-trending
items on YouTube, where it reached 25 million views just before I
posted this. With its catchy tune, the song is being promoted as a
new anthem for Earth Day. Happy
Earth Day!, by the way.
An amazing new satellite, designed to peer down on the West
Coast and Hawaii, started transmitting stunning images last week,
when heavy snows blanketed parts of Alaska while California
wildfires sent plumes of smoke into the air. The satellite is
called GOES-17.
CLICK TO LAUNCH ANIMATION —
This full-disc image of the Earth, taken Thursday, shows clouds at
three altitudes: Band 10 is low-level; Band 9 is mid-level; and
Band 8 is upper-level.
Image: Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite
Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison
“With GOES-17’s coverage area now centered over the Pacific
Ocean, we now have high-resolution geostationary satellite coverage
of Alaska, Hawaii and much of the Pacific Ocean for the very first
time,” states a
news release from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.
GOES stands for Geostationary Operational Environmental
Satellite. GOES-17 will remain in stationary orbit at 137.2 west
longitude and 22,300 miles above the equator. Much of the equipment
in GOES-17 uses the same advanced technology as GOES-16, also known
as GOES East, which covers the East Coast. See map below.
I’m eager to see the photographs judged as the top 100 in the
Salish Sea nature photography competition, called “Salish Sea in
Focus.” If you have a favorite photo that tells a story or captures
the essence of an animal or a place in our inland waterway, you
have until June 4 to submit your image.
Kelp // Photo: Pete
Naylor
I’ve featured many nature photography contests in this blog, but
I don’t believe we’ve ever had one focused exclusively on the
Salish Sea. I hope everyone takes a little time to consider whether
a favorite photograph deserves special recognition. The competition
is organized by The SeaDoc
Society.
World Water Day, coming up this Thursday, is an annual worldwide
event designed to focus attention on the importance of water to all
living things.
Promoted by the United Nations, the 25-year-old World Water Day
has always raised concerns about the 2.1 billion people in the
world who don’t have easy access to clean water, creating a major
health crisis in some communities.
This year’s theme is “nature for water” — although the
discussion remains focused mainly on humans. Human actions have
contributed to increasing flooding, drought and water pollution —
and humans are able to use natural systems to help reduce the
problems.
So-called “nature-based solutions” include protecting and
improving water quality by restoring forests and wetlands,
reconnecting rivers to their floodplains and creating vegetated
buffers along lakes and streams, even in urban areas.
A
fact sheet (PDF 2 mb) put out by UNESCO (U.N. Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization) lays out the arguments on
behalf of nature-based solutions. A larger 150-page report, titled
“Nature
Based Solutions for Water” (PDF 42.7 mb) can be downloaded from
the UNESCO website.
A series of posters and cards related to this year’s theme can
be downloaded from the World Water Day website.
For the creative, I’m intrigued by the idea that you can create
your own collage, using individual elements taken from the four
posters. See “collage
kit” on the same resources page.
Considering that this is the 25th World Water Day, I anticipated
more events and celebrations. The one event listed for Washington
state is a guided tour of Edmonds Marsh, one of the few urban
saltwater estuaries still remaining in the Puget Sound region.
Details of the walk are provided in a brief article in
Edmonds News.
The first video on this page is a promotional piece by
UNESCO.
Official poster of World Water
Day
Source: UNESCO
I found the second video, filmed in Istanbul, Turkey, to be
revealing about people’s attitudes about water. I imagine the
reaction might be the same in some U.S. cities — although the
specific location probably makes a lot of difference. The video,
produced in 2015, was created for Standart Pompa, a manufacturer of
water pumps.
The video shows a video screen next to a water faucet with a
dying tree depicted on the screen. When passersby turned off the
water faucet, the tree suddenly transformed into a healthy green
condition. Although the weather was cold during the filming, nearly
a third of the people going by took their hands out of their
pockets and turned off the water, which was actually recirculating
from the drain so that no water was wasted.
The third video is a cartoon designed to drive home a message
about the importance of water, beginning with the simple act of
brushing your teeth. It was produced by TVNXT KIDZ.
Witnessing Puget Sound’s “king tides” could return as a more
popular outdoor activity this year, as Washington Sea Grant takes
the lead in promoting the event.
Locations where people have
posted king tide photos on the Witness King Tides
website
“King tides,” which are recognized in coastal areas across the
country, is the name given to the highest tides of the year. These
are times when people can observe what average tides might look
like in the future, as sea levels continue to rise.
The highest tide of 2018 is forecast for this Friday around 8
a.m., although the exact time depends on the location in Puget
Sound.
Activities include taking pictures of shoreline structures
during these high-tide events and then sharing the photos with
others. One can try to imagine what the landscape would look like
in a given location if the water was a foot or more higher. King
tide activities can be fun while adding a dose of reality to the
uncertainty of climate change.
King tides by themselves have nothing to do with climate change,
but these extremes will be seen more often in the future as new
extremes are reached. As things are going now, experts say there is
a 50 percent chance that sea levels in Puget Sound will rise by at
least 7 inches in the next 22 years and keep going from there. They
say there is a 99 percent chance that sea levels will be at least
2.4 inches higher by then. Check out the story I wrote in October
for the Encyclopedia
of Puget Sound.
Washington Department of Ecology, which had been promoting king
tides each year, has backed away from the event in recent years. In
the beginning, I thought the idea of king tides seemed kind of
silly, because high tides are affected by weather conditions on a
given day. But I came to embrace the idea that watching these
high-tide events will help shoreline residents and others
understand the challenges we are facing in the Puget Sound
region.
Addressing sea level rise may not be easy, but some waterfront
property owners are beginning to face the problem, as I described
in another story in the Encyclopedia of
Puget Sound.
During a king tide event in December 2012, the Kitsap Sun and
other newspapers covered the resulting flooding by running
photographs of high water in many places throughout Puget Sound. A
low-pressure weather system that year made extreme high tides even
more extreme. In fact, officials reported that the high tide came
within 0.01 feet of breaking the all-time tidal record set for
Seattle on Jan. 27, 1983. See
Water Ways, Dec. 18, 2012.
Washington Sea Grant, associated with the University of
Washington, has now taken over promotion of king tides, and we
should soon see an improved website, according to Bridget Trosin,
coastal policy specialist for Sea Grant. Bridget told me that she
hopes to promote more local events, such as getting people together
to share information during extreme high tides.
Sea Grant is sponsoring a King Tide Viewing Party this Friday at
Washington Park boat launch in Anacortes, where Bridget will spell
out what high tides may look like in the future. Warming
refreshments will be provided, according to a
news release about the event.
Wherever you live around Puget Sound, you can go down to the
water to document the high tide, perhaps starting a new photo
gallery to show how high tides change at one location during king
tides in the future, as some folks are doing in Port Townsend.
For tips on preparing and posting photos, visit the “Witness
King Tides — Washington State” website, then check out the page
“Share
Your Photos.” To see the locations where photographs have been
taken, go to the
map page. One can click on locations on the map to see the
photographs taken from that spot.
King tides occur when the moon and sun are on the same side of
the Earth at a time when the moon comes closest to the Earth. Their
combined pull of gravity raises the sea level. The presence of a
low-pressure system can raise the tides even higher than
predictions published by the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Friday’s high tide is predicted to be 13.2 feet in Seattle at
7:55 a.m. We won’t have a tide that high again until January of
2019, according to NOAA. Still, Feb. 2 will see a 13.1-foot tide in
Seattle, and tides exceeding 12 feet are predicted for June 16,
Nov. 27, Dec. 1, Dec. 10, and daily high tides from Dec. 26 through
the end of this year.
A new report from the American Meteorological Society makes a
rather stunning statement about climate change. For the first time,
researchers have concluded that specific weather-related events
could not have happened without the influence of climate change
caused by human activity.
Three events studied in 2016 were so extreme that they did not
fit into the context of natural climate conditions, according to
researchers working on separate projects. One involved the global
heat record for 2016; another was focused on warmth across Asia;
and the third was the “blob” of warm ocean water familiar to folks
who follow weather in the Pacific Northwest.
A “blob” of warm water off the
Northwest coast from 2013 to the end of 2016 could not have
occurred without human-induced climate change, experts say.
Map: NOAA’s Earth System Research
Laboratory
“This report marks a fundamental change,” said Jeff Rosenfeld,
editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological
Society, in a
news release. “For years scientists have known humans are
changing the risk of some extremes. But finding multiple extreme
events that weren’t even possible without human influence makes
clear that we’re experiencing new weather, because we’ve made a new
climate.”
Personally, I did not expect to see this sort of demonstrable
statement about man-made climate change anytime soon. In classes
and seminars on the subject of climate change, I’ve often seen
lecturers present frequency curves that show the number of times
that certain weather-related phenomena — such as temperatures or
rainfall — are observed over a given time.
We’re told by climatologists that many of these curves are
steadily shifting, so that fairly extreme conditions occur more
often and truly extreme conditions emerge for the very first time
in certain locations.
Researchers are loathe to say that a given storm, drought or
hurricane is the result of climate change. They would rather say
climate change affects the likelihood of extreme weather events,
plotted at the end of the frequency curve. In the realm of
statistics, there is a tendency to hold onto the idea that almost
any kind of weather could occur almost anytime, provided that a
perfect storm of conditions line up together.
“First, it is important to note that climate scientists have
been predicting that … the influence of human-caused climate change
would at some point become sufficiently strong and emergent to push
an extreme event beyond the bounds of natural variability alone,”
state the six editors in an introduction to the report.
“It was also anticipated that we would likely first see this
result for heat events where the human-caused influences are most
strongly observed,” they continue. “It is striking how quickly we
are now starting to see such results, though their dependence on
model-based estimates of natural variability … will require ongoing
validation …”
In other words, the conclusion comes from computer models that
can analyze the probability of an extreme event taking place when
greenhouse gases are found at different concentrations. Results
using today’s observed conditions are compared with results using
conditions before the industrial release of greenhouse gases.
In the three highlighted papers, the researchers calculated the
“fraction of attributable risk,” or FAR, for the extreme event they
were studying. FAR is a statistical approach used in epidemiology
to measure the likelihood of an event under various conditions. For
explanations, see
Boston University School of Public Health and the
2007 IPCC report.
“All three papers concluded that the FAR was 1, meaning that the
event was not possible in the ‘control’ planet and only possible in
a world with human-emitted greenhouse gases,” the editors say.
Although this is the first time that researchers have concluded
that extreme events could not have happened without human-induced
climate change, the editors are quick to point out that the same
phenomenon may have occurred unnoticed in the past on a smaller
geographic scale.
These findings do not mean that the climate has reached any kind
of tipping point. It simply adds to the evidence that mounting
weather extremes are not the result of natural processes.
Reporters Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich of the
New York Times do a nice job of delving into the concept of
attribution science while mentioning five of the extreme events
covered in the new report. They quoted Heidi Cullen, chief
scientist at Climate Central, which produces news stories about
climate issues.
“In 2011, people were still of the mind-set that you couldn’t
attribute any individual event to climate change,” Cullen said.
“But with each subsequent issue (of the BAMS report), people are
able to say that climate change really is increasing the risk” that
extremes will occur.
