Earth & Space
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NASA satellite spots El Niño driving higher seas toward California
“For this winter in particular, there is a very reasonable likelihood that we’re going to see sea levels that are consistent with what we predict for the 2050s,” Michael Beck, the director of the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at UC Santa Cruz, told SFGATE. “If you look at this somewhat positively, you could say that this…
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As Waves Pound Pacifica, Surfers Pitch a Reef to Defend the Shore
Pacifica still needs to study the reef’s scale, how much sand is needed and its environmental impacts, said Borja Gonzalez Reguero, a professor with the Coastal Science and Policy Program at UC Santa Cruz. “So far it’s a concept, but it could be a viable one,” Gonzalez Reguero said. He qualified that by saying the…
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The mystery eating Ocean Beach alive
One of Ocean Beach’s foremost sand sleuths is UC Santa Cruz researcher Patrick Barnard, who spent two decades analyzing San Francisco’s shoreline for the U.S. Geological Survey. Barnard said humans have been wrestling with the sand for nearly two centuries. He cites data from as far back as the Gold Rush, when excessive mining injected…
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Deadly parasite is flourishing in a California river
Miles Daniels, an associate researcher at UC Santa Cruz, said there’s a risk the adult fish could die before reaching spawning grounds as they’re exposed to more pathogens on their route. “The longer you’re in a room with someone that’s sick, the more likely you’re going to get infected,” he explained. “The longer the fish…
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Animals Facing Greatest Risk of Death From El Niño Marine Heat Waves
“It’s hard to predict which ecosystem components will be impacted. During the last major heatwave, impacts were felt across the entire food web including fisheries,” Heather Welch, an associate project scientist at the University of California Santa Cruz who researches climate variability and change in ocean ecosystems through the lens of marine predators and fisheries,…
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Humpback whales likely killed by neurotoxin
The UC Santa Cruz Marine Mammal Stranding Network recently necropsied two young humpback whales. They washed up at Lovers Point Beach in Pacific Grove and Sunset State Beach in Watsonville within a few days of each other. Stranding network director Robin Dunkin says researchers confirmed a neurotoxin from algae blooms to be the cause of…
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‘It was a matter of time’: Pacifica Pier’s future uncertain as emergency repairs begin
“Anything we put in the water is going to fail over time,” said Gary Griggs, professor of earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz. “Pacifica, if it was (built) in ’73 and that’s now 50 years ago, it was a matter of time.”
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Where Did Earth Get Its Oceans? Maybe It Made Them Itself.
Other scientists agree that some amount of water could have formed on Earth — but perhaps not nearly enough to produce its oceans. “I’d say it’s certainly possible that some water could be generated by reaction with hydrogen early on,” said Quentin Williams, an experimental geophysicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “How much…
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Seymour Marine Discovery Center to open first new exhibit in 15 years
See More HQ is the center’s bilingual interactive “control room,” bringing real-time UC Santa Cruz coastal research to the public. Also in Lookout Santa Cruz.
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Lovers Point Beach closure extended after dead whale washes ashore
A coordinated response is now underway following the stranding of the deceased humpback whale, led by the Marine Mammal Stranding Network at UC Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Laboratory and Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, in partnership with the City of Pacific Grove, Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station, NOAA Fisheries and other local partners.
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The Magic of Seabird Colonies, and One Scientist’s Unique Way to Mitigate the Crises They Face
I was feeling down about it, but luckily, I had an upcoming call with Aspen Ellis. Ellis is a PhD candidate at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) who has studied seabirds for more than a decade. When I mentioned this issue, she knew it all too well.
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Yosemite National Park’s permissive new fishing policies spark controversy
Devon Pearse, an ecology professor at UC Santa Cruz and lead scientist at the California nonprofit Friends of the River who has previously studied Yosemite’s trout, told SFGATE that he’s skeptical the decision was based on science, and suspects instead it was likely politically motivated. In recent weeks, President Donald Trump signed an executive order…