Sign Up

Sign up for our free newsletters to receive the latest news from our region in your inbox every weekday.

Posted inRegional

California snowlines on track to be 1,600 feet higher by century’s end

This winter produced record snowfall in California, but a new study suggests the state should expect gradually declining snowpacks, even if punctuated with occasional epic snowfalls, in the future. An analysis by Tamara Shulgina, Alexander Gershunov, and other climate scientists at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography suggest that in the face of unabated […]

Posted inSci/Tech

SalpPOOP Study Highlights Biogeochemical Importance of Zooplankton Fecal Pellets

February 2, 2023 – Microscopic plants called phytoplankton have gained scientific fame for their key role in transferring carbon from the atmosphere to the ocean, but they now may need to share their spotlight with salps, the jelly-like organisms that feed on them. The ocean is a major reservoir of carbon, absorbing large quantities of […]

Posted inCalifornia

Climate Change Projected to Increase Atmospheric River Flood Damages in the Western United States

A research team at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has found that flood damages triggered by atmospheric river storms may triple from $1 billion a year to over $3 billion a year by the end of the century unless action is taken to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.  The damages could be […]

Posted inCalifornia

Perspectives on California’s Drought and the Relation to Atmospheric Rivers

California’s variable hydroclimate is highly dependent on atmospheric river (AR) storms that transport high concentrations of moisture via long and narrow corridors from the subtropical Pacific to the western United States. A lack or surplus of these storms each year will typically determine whether California experiences a wet or dry water year (begins October 1st […]

Posted inSci/Tech

Scientists Announce Comprehensive Regional Diagnostic of Microbial Ocean Life using DNA Testing

Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) used tools of genetics research akin to those used in genealogical research to evaluate the diversity of marine life off the California coast.  The result is a breakthrough technique that researchers […]

Posted inRegional

Climate Change Identified as Contributor to 2017 Oroville Dam Spillway Incident

A one-two punch of precipitation resulted in damage to Oroville Dam’s main and emergency spillways pushing the second largest dam in California into a crisis in February 2017. Researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and colleagues say in a new study that they have identified the fingerprint of climate change in the events […]

Posted inEnviro

Climate Change is Making One of the World’s Strongest Currents Flow Faster

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), the only ocean current that circumnavigates the planet, is speeding up. For the first time, scientists are able to tell that this is happening by taking advantage of a decades-long set of observational records.  Researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Chinese […]

Posted inCalifornia

Scripps Oceanography Completes Seafloor Survey Using Robotics, Finds Thousands of Possible Targets of Interest at Dumpsite off Coast of Los Angeles

An expedition led by UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography mapped more than 36,000 acres of seafloor between Santa Catalina Island and the Los Angeles coast in a region previously found to contain high levels of the toxic chemical DDT in sediments and the ecosystem. The survey on Research Vessel (R/V) Sally Ride identified an excess […]

Posted inRegional

New Study Identifies Mountain Snowpack Most “At-Risk” from Climate Change

March 1, 2021 – As the planet warms, scientists expect that mountain snowpack should melt progressively earlier in the year. However, observations in the U.S. show that as temperatures have risen, snowpack melt is relatively unaffected in some regions while others can experience snowpack melt a month earlier in the year. This discrepancy in the […]

Posted inSci/Tech

Researchers Identify Natural Products with Potential Efficacy Against Coronavirus, Ebola, and Other Lethal Viruses

January 5, 2021 – Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California San Diego have broken down the genomic and life history traits of three classes of viruses that have caused endemic and global pandemics in the past and identify natural products – compounds […]

Posted inSci/Tech

New Study Helps Pinpoint When Earth’s Plate Subduction Began

December 10, 2020 -A new study from scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and the University of Chicago sheds light on a hotly contested debate in Earth sciences: when did plate subduction begin?  According to findings published Dec. 9 in the journal Science Advances, this process could have started 3.75 billion years […]

Posted inRegional

Researchers Identify Factor Behind 2017 Oroville Dam Spillways Incident

July 24, 2020 – In a February 2017 incident, failures in the spillways of Oroville Dam forced the evacuation of 188,000 people and caused $1 billion in damage repairs. According to scientists, a warmer climate might create more dangerous events like this. Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego […]

Sign In

We've recently sent you an authentication link. Please, check your inbox!

Sign in with a password below, or sign in using your email.

Get a code sent to your email to sign in, or sign in using a password.

Enter the code you received via email to sign in, or sign in using a password.

Subscribe to our newsletters:

OR

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Service.