By Anh Thu Truong
From Sept. 1 to 6, record-shattering temperatures in the high 90s, reaching the 100s towards inland California, have been making it an uncomfortably hot existence for southern Californians in the welcoming weeks of September.
While Southern California is no stranger to the occasional heatwave, the intensity and extent of this recent one have raised concerns about the trajectory of Earth’s warming climate.
According to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, “unusually hot days and multi-day heat waves are a natural part of day-to-day variation in weather. As the Earth’s climate warms, however, hotter than usual days and nights are becoming more common and heat waves are expected to become more frequent and intense.”
At its core, climate change is driven by the increased amounts of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. This entrapment of carbon dioxide emissions creates a phenomenon called the “greenhouse effect,” which in turn, makes heat escaping from the atmosphere more difficult. Since the industrial revolution in the middle 1700s, the introduction of factories and industries has accelerated the concentration of these emissions into our environment.
The issue with solving the climate crisis lies in its complexity. While the main culprit lies in greenhouse gas emissions, climate change is also a result of an intricate, interconnected web of human-driven activities, technologies, and environmental factors — all hurdling our world to a hotter future. The warming of our oceans, the changes in our weather patterns, the increased variability of our climate, and the effects of our manmade tendencies demonstrate the challenges when dealing with so many variables altering the climate.
Warming Oceans
If there’s something that scientists have agreed on, it’s that the oceans have been warming. Almost 90% of these global, heat-trapping greenhouse gasses are stored and trapped in our oceans. As harmful emissions accumulate in the atmosphere, the oceans’ huge capacity to absorb heat and energy has resulted in warming ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, coral reef bleaching, ice-caps melting, and habitat loss.
According to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), there has been a 1.5°F degree increase in temperature of the top 2,300 feet of the global ocean since 1901. This seemingly small change- a slight increase in temperature- has seen disastrous consequences for marine ecosystems worldwide.
The rising of sea levels has been a key concern for California’s coastal communities. As the ocean warms, the salt water thermally expands and results in elevated sea levels. It’s projected that by 2100, almost 24% to 75% of California beaches may be completely eroded. This growing threat opens the doors to increased risk of flooding during storms, and increased pressure for coastal communities to put more funding in order to rework their coastal infrastructure.
The Pacific Ocean has a major impact on California’s climate. With its coastline directly bordering the Pacific, these coastal waters are pivotal to influencing regional climate. In California, some of these major patterns that control our climate are the El Nino and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) cycles. Depending on their phases, these cycles could draw in swings of extreme weather patterns like intense rainfall, prolonged drought, or higher risks of flooding.
Chemistry teacher and marine biologist, Lisa Battig, highlights the importance of recognizing major ocean patterns that control our climate — while also acknowledging challenges with technology and predicting the effects of climate change on these cycles.
“The ocean drives so much of our climate … But as the oceans change, how are all these climate cycles going to change? Since they are all dependent on this really cold arctic water, as the Arctic water warms, how’s that going to change that [the cycles]?” Battig said. “So they [scientists] try to model it, but’s so many things to model that they just don’t have a great picture.”
Urbanization
On the mainland, our century has partaken in a rapid growth of urbanization, with more people flocking to major cities in droves. This shift in demographics brings out a variety of challenges, including the demand for housing, increased pressures for local resources, and the creation of new infrastructure.
“We know the oceans have warmed. We know that ground temperatures overall have warmed. But then you have another factor, cities,” Battig said. “Cities are heat islands. The more you take out these green areas and trees, the hotter an area gets.”
Battig highlights a key phenomenon of heat islands, cities that radiate heat due to infrastructure, like dark-pavement roads, roofing, and buildings, which absorb and emit this heat much more than places of natural landscapes. She additionally mentions the aspect of cities being primarily constructed on blacktops, and due to this type of architecture that sprawls throughout densely populated cities in California — it gives heat islands a means to strengthen.
One truth remains necessary: A balance must be struck between rapid population growth and preserving a sustainable, natural environment. Southern California alone holds a population of 23 million, and the large urban sprawl of cities and suburbia has significantly reduced the amount of vegetation, trees, and overall greenery that California once had to offer. The increased loss of natural space has been attributed to fewer trees that absorb harmful carbon emissions and more leeway for global temperatures to spike.
Wildfires
California also faces a unique environmental challenge: wildfires. In the span of the last five years, the 2018 and 2020 wildfire season saw California’s largest and most disruptive wildfires.
But not all wildfires are inherently bad for the environment, in fact, some are key to maintaining a healthy ecology and promoting new vegetation in California.
“Our Southern California Chaparral community is called a fire ecology which means that it is supposed to burn every few years. Certain seeds of species actually depend on fire in order to germinate,” Battig said. “What I’ve learned in all my years of learning is to figure out a way to stop building in natural areas.”
Just as urbanization is exacerbating the effects of climate change in the cities, the housing crisis due to the high cost of living, has also been pushing people out of cities and towards wildland areas instead. The term Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) refers to the areas where these wildlands and human communities intermingle, which also puts those who reside in these lands at a much higher risk of being affected by wildfires.
California has the highest number of people living in WUI areas within the United States, but living in these areas is strongly correlated with increased wildfire risks.
According to Dryad, a company that utilizes sensors to detect wildfires, “Firstly, it [those living in WUI areas] increases the likelihood of human-caused fires, as more human activities occur near or within wildland areas. Secondly, it complicates firefighting efforts, as protecting homes and communities in these areas can be challenging.”
With at least 85% of wildfires being man-made, it’s critical to consider another complexity in the climate change issue that’s driving a warming climate. These massive and destructive wildfires that consume large areas are driving up carbon, methane, and other emissions, which is detrimental when plants cannot re-grow back to maturity quickly enough, in order to remove those harmful emissions from the atmosphere.
Moving forward
While maintaining sustainable habits like conserving energy, composting, or minimizing our daily pollutants are positive contributions to the cause, mitigating this large-scale issue will take systematic accountability and universal political cooperation to see real change.
California has been at the forefront of much progressive legislation, which has been promising to curve the acceleration of climate change. During Climate Week, Gavin Newsom launched California’s Climate Action Counts campaign. This initiative aims to educate and encourage Californians to mobilize towards taking action in their communities to fight the climate crisis.
Yet, the climate crisis bleeds beyond the borders of environmentalism. Its effects on human communities, especially those who reside in vulnerable and impoverished areas, can be detrimental to our longevity in the future. It’s vital that the fight continues to hold our governments accountable and to keep demanding action toward policies and laws that can promote sustaining a healthy home for generations to come.
