IoES in the News
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Phys.org: Climate change puts state’s snowpack in jeopardy in future droughts
“The cryosphere — frozen parts of the planet — has shown the earliest and largest signs of change,” said UCLA climate scientist Alex Hall, who along with study co-author Neil…
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San Francisco Chronicle: California to fight if EPA eases emissions rule
“If the administration loses on this, California’s power is then absolutely clear, and it can use that power to issue standards that are stronger, and it can get other states…
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San Francisco Chronicle: After near-record storms, signs of El Niño rise
“By any formal metric, this winter was unanticipated,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA. “The deeper question of why it’s happening is challenging. I don’t think we have…
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Popular Science: How we know there’s climate change, and humans to blame
“Past observations offer a context in which to view today’s climate — one in which Earth’s atmosphere is filled with the largest concentration of carbon dioxide in human history,” says…
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KPCC-FM’s Air Talk: Rollback of fuel economy rules could pit state, EPA
When EPA is asked to grant a waiver for California, it is required by law to follow what the Clean Air Act sets forth are the criteria for deciding that…
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Los Angeles Times: When it rains, billions of gallons of ‘free liquid gold’ lost
“We haven’t made the progress we should have,” said Mark Gold, associate vice chancellor for environment and sustainability at UCLA. “The money is not there. That’s been the big issue.”
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USA Today: Proposed NOAA budget cuts rattle scientists
Another expert notes that “virtually all we know about Earth’s atmosphere and oceans comes from sustained decades of government-funded scientific research,” according to a tweet from UCLA climate scientist Daniel…
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The Atlantic: The coming clean-air war between Trump, California
“California was the first state — the first, really, governmental entity — to enact tailpipe standards,” says Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at the University of California Los…
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KPCC-FM: Winter storms have another upside: cleaner air
“Clear, cold and calm would be probably the three words to describe the conditions most conducive to wintertime air pollution,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA.
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Los Angeles Times: Can California go its own way on federal environmental protections? These lawmakers want to try
“California will undoubtedly test the limits of what it’s possible for a state to do,” said Cara Horowitz, co-director of UCLA’s Environmental Law Clinic. The state, she said, “has made…
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Mercury News: Why it’s raining so much in California
“What we’ve seen describes California’s climate. It’s a climate precipitated by extremes,” said Daniel Swain, an atmospheric researcher at UCLA. “The precipitation is driven by the presence or absence of…
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Smithsonian magazine: Surprising reason the turtle learned to hide its head
“Given that there are only two neck vertebrae, they’re doing an awful lot of reconstructing,” said Brad Shaffer, an evolutionary biologist at UCLA not involved in the new study. However, he…
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San Francisco Chronicle: Dams remain in line for bulk of funding
Extremes are what California is likely to see more of, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and author of the California Weather…
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Los Angeles Times: L.A. area braces for what could be season’s biggest storm
“The Friday storm in particular could in fact become the strongest of the season in the Los Angeles region,” said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain.
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San Francisco Examiner: Line drawn in sand between beach access, protection
Jon Christensen, an adjunct assistant professor at UCLA’s Institute on the Environment and Sustainability, found the condition of the ocean and beaches is personally important to 90 percent of Californians.…
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KPCC-FM’s “Take Two”: Why Oroville crisis affects Southern California
“What we really need to do as soon as possible is to do a vulnerability assessment of really all our water infrastructure in the state of California,” said UCLA’s Mark…
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Bloomberg: Why America’s tallest dam is suddenly in danger
“Drought usually ends in flood in this part of the world,” said Daniel Swain, a University of California, Los Angeles climate scientist, “because that’s what it takes to end them.”
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Los Angeles Times: Oroville Dam dangers remain as new storm approaches
“The Friday storm in particular could in fact become the strongest of the season in the Los Angeles region,” said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain.
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Christian Science Monitor: An Oroville message: As climate shifts, so will water strategies
Precipitation in the northern Sierra Nevada mountain range is 220 percent above normal this winter, making it the wettest on record. But snowpack is just 145 percent above normal, falling…
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The New Yorker: L.A.’s mountain lions: dangerous predators or celebrity guests?
The mountain-lion population in the Santa Monica Mountains is in danger of entering an extinction vortex, a downward spiral in which everything starts to fail. “Without our assistance, the Santa…
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Orange County Register: Some can’t afford beach visits; legislators seek change
“There are historically patterns of visitation and discrimination … where people feel they’re welcome (at some beaches) and where they might not feel as welcome (at others),” said Jon Christensen,…
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Energywire: Where does Trump’s Supreme Court nominee stand on the environment
UCLA School of Law professor Ann Carlson wrote in a blog post last night that Gorsuch’s position, if other justices adopt it, would make environmental protection more difficult.
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The Washington Post: Scientists love how ‘silly’ Groundhog Day is
Science is what I do. I’m thrilled and inspired by being able to spend my days uncovering the secrets that hide in plain sight around us, and to use my…
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KPCC-FM: Is California climate law worsening pollution in communities of color?
Ann Carlson is co-director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA. “I’d like to see cap and trade play out to see how well it…