Climate change is dramatically altering the San Francisco Bay Area’s ecosystems and raising profound questions among conservationists about how to help species best adapt to new conditions.
National Park Service ecologist Sarah Allen has been looking at the “big picture” of marine ecosystem health since the mid-1970s when she worked as a field biologist on the Farallon Islands, then later in the ’80s and ’90s tracking seabirds, … Read more
The forecast calls for big rain this weekend from an "atmospheric river," a plume of moisture stretching thousands of miles across the Pacific and splashing onto land right smack on the Northern California coast.
In the 150-plus years that we’ve been tracking rainfall in Northern California, it’s never been this dry. It was the driest December in many places, and this week’s drizzle wasn’t enough to keep San Francisco from its driest-ever January. And … Read more
The survey research that Peter Moyle started decades ago now has a dual purpose: It offers evidence for the free fall of native fish populations, but it also may ultimately contribute to one of the best opportunities to soften this decline.
Over two years, David Kroodsma rode his bike 21,000 miles from Palo Alto to Tierra del Fuego and then from New York back home, to study and talk about climate change. A Q&A with the San Francisco-based climate journalist, scientist and educator, who's recently authored a book about his experiences.
This past fall a cyanobacteria known as, Microcystis aeruginosa, spiked toxin levels above the state's safe recreational exposure limit at Watsonville’s Pinto Lake. Scientists and the community have begun tackling the problem and hope that conclusions drawn at Pinto Lake will help remedy cyanbacterial blooms elsewhere.
Since 2010 the California King Tides Initiative has been documenting king tide events through photography—presenting a very real picture of rising sea levels. This year, the project has expanded to include a citizen science program, that will help researchers ground climate models.
With the persistent drought that has gripped California for the past year, state water managers are increasingly turning to cloud seeding to extract as much water as they can.
But the pressure to exploit these resources isn’t going away anytime soon either, nor is the debate over the wisdom of doing so. As we weigh the pros and cons, a missing piece of the conversation is the land itself: What is the Monterey Formation? What is it made of and how did it get here? And what kind of habitats, plants, and animals live atop it?
Like other aspects of climate science, ocean acidification (OA) science has created much debate, particularly when it comes to its impact on hard shelled sea creatures such as crabs.
Independent, nonprofit environmental journalism connecting people with nature in the San Francisco Bay Area.
