From my Earth Day cover story from the Ventura County Reporter:
California does not need fear hurricanes, but it does every few years face El Niño, an oceanic shift that drives unimaginably vast amounts of water across the Pacific and up against the coasts of North and South America, raising the sea level by as much as a foot. It is similar to the storm surge that comes ashore with a hurricane, according to Susi Moser, a climate researcher at Stanford.
“Twelve inches [of sea level rise] is well within the kind of projection we can expect from a good storm surge during an El Niño,” she said. “It’s not exactly comparable to Superstorm Sandy because, for the most part, California’s coast is fairly steep. But where it is flat, such as low-lying areas around Ventura Harbor and the Oxnard shores, we have to expect major flooding. It’s not the end of the world for California, but if you think about the landfill areas in San Francisco Bay, for example, and take out the entire inner ring of the bay and lose the airport, that’s a pain in the ass.”
Like a scientist who can speak bluntly. Learned a lot doing this story — interesting to see that projections from fourteen different climate models found that falls especially will be hotter, but Januaries will be as cold as ever. Hope you like the story.
Kit Stolz 