Experts Agree on Rain Forecast: It’ll Be Dry. Or Not.

If you talk to the National Weather Service, they will tell you (link) that we're in an "ENSO-neutral" condition, and for that reason they're unwilling to predict the upcoming rain season in our region.

But according to this typically excellent story from Rob Krier at the San Diego Union-Tribune, many forecasters who spoke at a winter forecasting seminar last weekend suspect that despite normal sea surface temperatures in the Pacific today, we will have a dry winter in our region. Krier explains:

One of the key factors that long-range forecasters watch, sea-surface temperatures in the central Pacific Ocean, is not providing much of a clue this year. When those waters are abnormally warm, a condition known as El Niño, Southern California tends to get a very wet winter. When the waters are much cooler than normal, a La Niña occurs, and the region is generally dry.

This fall, the water temperatures in the Pacific have been very close to normal. Under such "neutral" conditions, the forecasters look at other factors but usually have a more difficult time predicting precipitation patterns. The Climate Prediction Center in Maryland has basically punted, forecasting an equal chance of a wet, dry or normal winter in Southern California.

The Climate Prediction Center explains their logic, or tries to, in their inimitably eye-glazing way:

A
majority of the SST forecasts indicate a continuation of ENSO-neutral
conditions (-0.5°C to 0.5°C in the Niño-3.4 region) into the first half
of 2009 (Fig. 5).
Several dynamical models suggest the development of a La Niña during
Northern Hemisphere Winter 2008-09. This outcome becomes more likely if
the current Madden-Julian Oscillation were to stall in a location that favors enhanced
low-level easterlies and increased upwelling in the east-central and
eastern Pacific. However, it is rare for La Niña to develop late in the
year. Therefore, based on current atmospheric and oceanic conditions
and recent trends, ENSO-neutral conditions are expected to continue
into early 2009.

Huh? They write that badly and still couldn't even reference the models?

This is why we need reporters. Krier reports that Klaus Wolter, a climate research at NOAA, predicted "a more bleak picture for Southern California. He believes that the atmosphere is dialing up a weak La Niña and that other forces will contribute to a drier-than-normal winter."

Meanwhile a little rain is expected this evening, and more tomorrow. The call is for "a slug of moisture" that will move "directly over L.A. and Ventura County." Yay!

Below see an infrared image of the incoming clouds and moisture from the NWS:

IR2HNX

Your Fine: $101 Million. Payable: Forever

Steven Emory Butcher, the man who while burning trash, set off the longest-burning wildfire in recorded California history, was sentenced Monday to 45 months in Federal prison and fined $101 million.

Butcher is not just homeless but mentally ill. It's easy to mock the absurdity of the fine,  but in a typically excellent Slate piece (here), Christopher Beam explains the logic.

How's a guy who sleeps in a tent supposed to pay $101 million?

He isn't. Instead, he's expected to pay a tiny bit every month until he
dies. The man, Steven Emory Butcher, currently receives $1,000 a month
in Supplemental Security Income, which is basically welfare for the
elderly, disabled, or blind. The federal court ordered that Butcher
would pay $25 to Los Padres National Forest four times a year while in
prison, and then $50 a month once he's released. No one expects him to
deliver the entire $101 million—even a spokesman for the prosecutor
acknowledged that the odds of Butcher paying it off were "extremely
slim"—but they do expect him to pay what he can.

It's possible to sympathize with a mentally ill man and yet still want to see him punished for the Day Fire, which burned for weeks on its way from I-5 to Ojai, consuming vast expanses of forest and chaparral on its way. (Not to mention the chaos and desperation of evacuations for yours truly and his family.) It's a shame for all of us, but I can't feel too sorry for Butcher, especially since he was fined for setting two fires in the forest within three years.

So why fine him so much? It's the law. A federal judge is required by statute
to make a defendant pay restitution when there's property damage
incurred, even if he doesn't have the money. The amount of the
restitution depends not on how much the criminal can afford to pay, but
how much property the victim lost, as determined by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.
For example, the 2006 fire set by Butcher cost Los Padres National
Forest more than $59 million in damages, plus fire suppression costs,
according to an assessment by the U.S. Forest Service.

Los Padres will not soon forget the Day Fire. It probably wishes it could forget Steven Emory Butcher. [pic from Fire Lookout via Flickr]

Dayfireaftermath

How You Feel When You Think of the Climate

As the ever-quotable Tom Friedman of the New York Times points out, Bush has left Obama with two ginormous deficits; one economic, the other related to climate. In an interview, Friedman said:

We basically did nothing for eight years, and in fairness to Bush we
didn't do much in the eight years previous, either, to mitigate climate
change. The tragedy is that we've got two deficits to overcome. We need
people to care about both of those deficits.

True. And it's tough just to pay attention. For those interested in this issue, I highly recommend an aggregation site called The Daily Climate, which does an excellent job of assembling the top twelve or so stories about climate every day, under categories such as "Solutions," "Consequences," "Causes," and so forth. It's a good site, and it's free…but it's not easy to face with your morning coffee.

Speaking of mornings…here's another way to look at the issue. The election was a dream, but now we wake up again to the chaos around us. Courtesy of the hard-working, gifted, and generous Steve Brodner of The New Yorker, among many other publications. 

Find more at his drawger page, here.

Wake Up Call sm

Tea Fire Burns Through Westmont College into Montecito

A fire started yesterday afternoon in Santa Barbara has already burned through Westmont College down into Montecito, consuming between 80-100 homes. Initial news reports are fragmentary but not reassuring, and the pictures are alarming. Here's a first-hand account from Ray Ford, of the Santa Barbara Independent, and a picture from a resident, Justin Fox, who lives just two miles south of the fire.

Power is out in much of the area; the Fire Department is urging residents to use as little water as possible…and a Santa Ana wind condition is expected today through Saturday in our area.

Teafire

Understatement of the Year

Well, it's almost December 2009, time to start considering some candidates for understatement of the year. Here's one from the veteran team at the McClatchey Newspapers:

Economic Summit Unlikely to Burnish Bush's Legacy

I thinking they're messing with us.

(To see the full pathetic story of the lame-duck Bush, go here. Pic from corps.man]

Bushsigningceremony

P.J. Cracks Back on the Right

Truly funny people can make you laugh (or at least, smile) even when they offend. P.J. O'Rourke is one of those people; horrendously wrong on numerous issues, but still funny. And this week he cracked back on his own beloved "conservative" movement, big time, in the Weekly Standard, in a piece poignantly termed We Blew It (here). He writes:

Let us bend over and kiss our ass goodbye. Our 28-year conservative
opportunity to fix the moral and practical boundaries of government is
gone–gone with the bear market and the Bear Stearns and the bear
that's headed off to do you-know-what in the woods on our philosophy.

An entire generation has been born, grown up, and had families of
its own since Ronald Reagan was elected. And where is the world we
promised these children of the Conservative Age? Where is this land of
freedom and responsibility, knowledge, opportunity, accomplishment,
honor, truth, trust, and one boring hour each week spent in itchy
clothes at church, synagogue, or mosque? It lies in ruins at our feet,
as well it might, since we ourselves kicked the shining city upon a
hill into dust and rubble.

Gotta admire any man that brutally honest with his own people.

What Lifts Us Out of Ourselves Helps Us Believe in the Future

Have been reading through a collection of short pieces by the great Rachel Carson, called Lost Woods: The Discovered Writings of Rachel Carson. Turns out Carson wrote the liner notes for a recording of Claude Debussy's La Mer, and subsequently was asked to give a talk on the connection between the arts and the natural world at a benefit for the National Orchestra in Washington, D.C. 

This was in the l950's, during the Korean War. She said:

I believe quite sincerely that in these difficult times we need more than ever to keep alive those arts from which men derive inspiration and courage and consolation — in a word, strength of spirit… When we contemplate the immense age of earth and sea, when we get in the frame of mind where we can speak easily of millions or billions of years, and when we remember the short time that hman life has existed on earth, we begin to see that some of the worries and tribulations that concern us are very minor. We also gain some sense of confidence that the changes and the evolution of new ways of life are natural and on the whole desirable.

It has come to me very clearly….that people everywhere are desperately eager for whatever will lift them out of themselves and allow them to believe in the future.

What lifts us out of ourselves, gives us strength. Words of wisdom, for yours truly as well…

Monsters in the Wilderness: the GOP Regroups

Paul Krugman is not just a Nobel Prize-winning economist. He's also a writer with real power and economy — one of the best columnists in the country. Here's an example, from a Wednesday post:

….for the past 14 years America’s
political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters
like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened
because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like
Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and
understanding” to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11
as an opportunity to start torturing people.

And in our national discourse, we pretended that these monsters were
reasonable, respectable people. To point out that the monsters were, in
fact, monsters, was “shrill.”

Four years ago it seemed as if the monsters would dominate American
politics for a long time to come. But for now, at least, they’ve been
banished to the wilderness.

And here's a sketch from Toles, on what those monsters look like:

GOPmonster

The End of Something Old, the Start of Something New

David Brooks, I owe you an apology. After your fervent support for the misguided and mismanaged war in Iraq, I thought you had become a neocon. Your seemingly mindless support of the re-election of Bush in 2004 was the final straw for me.

But perhaps I spoke too soon. Since 2005, Brooks has been expressing serious doubts about W., as illustrated best in this remark on Meet the Press from September 2005, shortly after Katrina:

I say that…you always [have] got to go back to competence. And sometimes in
my dark moments, I think [Bush] is "The Manchurian Candidate" designed to
discredit all the ideas I believe in. And so he has to follow through
on that [speech in New Orleans]. That's the crucial thing for the next two years for him.

Not really, of course. Bush's long-forgotten speech in New Orleans led to nothing of great substance except FEMA money (that would have been available in any case). But this remark from Brooks did lead to a little-noticed shift in his rhetoric. Although he never officially declared his support for Obama, Brooks this year hinted that he found Obama a better candidate than McCain, and, more importantly for yours truly, on Monday published a truly remarkable column that marked the end of one era and the beginning of another, for yours truly as well as for the nation. Brooks wrote:

Economically, [this election] marks the end of the Long Boom, which began in 1983.
Politically, it probably marks the end of conservative dominance, which
began in 1980. Generationally, it marks the end of baby boomer
supremacy, which began in 1968.

And for me, it marked the end of my career at Paramount Pictures as a story analyst. A secure income and a steady job — those days are gone, at least for a while. Here comes the free-lance life. But I'm not panicked about it, and suspect the timing might be right. At least I'll have company.

Raised in prosperity, favored by genetics, these young meritocrats [who support Obama] will
have to govern in a period when the demands on the nation’s wealth
outstrip the supply. They will grapple with the growing burdens of an
aging society, rising health care costs and high energy prices. They
will have to make up for the trillion-plus dollars the government will
spend to avoid a deep recession. They will have to struggle to keep
their promises to cut taxes, create an energy revolution, pass an
expensive health care plan and all the rest… We’re probably entering a period, in other words, in which smart young
liberals meet a stone-cold scarcity that they do not seem to recognize
or have a plan for.

It's funny: I have less money, but more belief in my country than ever. I view with equanimity the coming fall…and see its beauty. [pic of a favorite tree to come soon…]