Santa Barbara Featured in Climate Change Article

December 9, 2019, 3:35 am 16.6k Views 48 Comments

Brush fire near El Capitan on October 17, 2019 (Photo: CHP)

By an edhat reader

Santa Barbara has been featured in a Washington Post article covering climate change in California.

The article has an interview with the manager of the El Capitan Canyon Campground and how they’ve been negatively affected by fire and mudslides in the past few years. 

Research is showing that our once mild climate is growing hotter, drier, and windier creating intense wildfires, deadly mudslides, and extreme drought. Our area is warming at double the rate of the continental United States.

“Since 1895, the average temperature in Santa Barbara County has warmed by 2.3 degrees Celsius, according to The Post’s analysis. Neighboring Ventura County has heated up even more rapidly. With an average temperature increase of 2.6 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times, Ventura ranks as the fastest-warming county in the Lower 48 states,” the article states.

It’s a very interesting read and I’m curious what other edhatters think. Here’s the link to the full article.

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Written by Anonymous

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48 Comments

  1. Citizens Planning Association is doing a series of panel discussions focusing on “Land Use Planning for a Changing Climate”. The third in the series will be Thursday, January 23rd, focusing on the SB City area. We hope to have a representative from City Planning, the City Sea Rise Level committee, the City Fire Department, and the City Public Works.
    The first panel in October focused on Goleta area issues. The audience heard from a Goleta City Planner, a spokesperson from the SB Airport, and a County Planner. The second discussion , in late November, focused on UCSB/IV. Four experts in their fields discussed several ongoing planning efforts, to include the County’s Climate Plan implementation, restoration of a local wetland area as well as sustainability planning on the UCSB campus.
    The goal of these panel discussions is to make the public aware of what the local government agencies are doing to plan for the conditions this article discusses and to promote collaboration among the different agencies involved.

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  3. Your comfort swimming in the ocean is not the point. At all. Did you take the time to READ the article? It is incredibly well written and researched. The point is that only a 2° sea surface or atmospheric change has serious *global* consequences. It’s not about comparing Hendry’s Beach to Fiji. It’s that our local ocean is warmer than it used to be and what that means to the kelp, the marine inhabitants and ultimately when your beachfront home will fall into the sea or catch on fire.

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  4. Does anyone know what data they used to come up with their conclusion that the temperature increased by 2.3 degrees C (4.14 degrees F) since 1895? Did they use temperature station daily highs and lows, or some other data?

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  5. CHIP That’s a good question . I was born and raised here and in my 47 years of life Santa Barbara has actually gotten cooler and more mild. We no longer seem to have the July-October heat fest where I recall weeks of 95 degree temperatures . Nor do we have the crazy rain storms we used to. Droughts come and go but when they used to go boy did it rain and hail. I am curious to know where all the research came from.?

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  6. Really, you two don’t want to google your question to find the readily available info? There are so many studies out there summarizing their methods. Maybe it is best continuing on your merry way and believing that things are not getting hotter with more storms and rising sea levels. And that things will be the same for your kids as they were for you. At least you won’t have to worry so much.

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  9. When the writers at the Washington Post did their research regarding Santa Barbara’s raising temperature over the years, were they aware that the “official” weather reporting station was moved around to create a higher average temperature reading? This was done to make Santa Barbara more attractive tourist location.

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  10. Excellent point! In addition to the station moving, the city has changed a bit since 1895. Roads and buildings create localized warming that is not representative of the climate in general. I will investigate further…

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  12. I normally wouldn’t have concerned myself with this article but I especially wanted to see some comments from my conspiracy theorist friends who are so ignorant regarding climate change! You may not live long enough to realize how severely climate change will devastate not only Santa Barbara but the rest of the planet if nothing is done to reduce our impact from use of fossil fuels.

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  14. Although we’ve only lived here 7 years, we are located near the police station, and we seem to be experiencing cooler temperatures than when we arrived. What do I base this on? My weather station, and the fact that I (obsessively) keep an hourly outdoor/indoor chart of the temperatures. In the last 2 years, we have had far fewer above 85° days. We experienced 3 this summer, which peaked quickly and quickly cooled down. Conversely, my daughter, who lives in Montrose (north Glendale, next to La Cañada, Pasadena) had temperatures consistently in the 95° range from June through October, much warmer than previous years. I feel like Santa Barbara, at least where we live, is in a “bubble”. This data is backed up by my tomato plants, which need consistent warm temperatures to thrive. Each year they have done incrementally worse because of our lovely cool weather. Do I believe in Climate Change and Global Warming? Absolutely, but it’s effecting our little “bubble” differently.

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  15. I have completed my inconvenient analysis for today. I downloaded all the data from the downtown santa barbara temperature station and analyzed the daily high temperatures. The result depends a great deal on how you approach the data. The article claims the temperature now is about 4.4 degrees higher (2.3C) than it was in 1895. The average high temperature in 1895 was 68.4. The average high temperature in 2018 was 72.2. The 2018 average is therefore 3.8 degrees higher than the 1895 average. I think that is fairly consistent with the claim in the article above. It follows that the overall trend from 1895 to today is slightly positive. However, there is a lot of data in between 1893 and today! The average high temperature in 1931 was 75.0 degrees. Therefore 1931 was a whopping 6.6 degrees warmer than 1895! The trend from 1931 to present is distinctively down. In addition, the trend for the last 5 years is also distinctly down. While it is true to say it is warmer now than it was in 1895, it is equally true to say it is cooler now than it was in 1931.

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  16. Fire is a natural thing in the wild, but thanks to actively trying to suppress fires since the 1920s, we have created a bad situation.
    In the comments, it was mentioned that we should stop prescribed burns. That’s one of the problems, decades-old brush. After each major front-range fire, prescribed burns are talked about but never acted on. So, the raging fires will keep on happening.
    Locally, what people should be angry about is moving the air attack base from SBA to SMX (happened back in 2007). This causes an additional apx. 20 minutes transit time for fixed-wing aircraft. Why this happened was explained to me by someone involved (part of it was financial), but, I won’t repeat this conversation since the discussion involved unsubstantiated claims. Also, the Air Tanker Base was downgraded from full service to call when needed in 2009. This, supposedly, was a Los Padres National Forest call without consulting other agencies involved.

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  19. Another article blaming “climate change” as the cause for doom and disaster. The temperature data used in this article cover a period of 124 years, which is 0.000003% of the age of the earth. This is equivalent to drawing conclusions on the overall health of a 50 year-old patient by observing the person’s temperature change over a 30 second period.

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  20. That was an enlightening read. Two things which would help our County cut back on air pollution: 1) Ban wood burning in fireplaces and other related wood burning devices, including restaurants which tout wood burning cookery. Also include a ban on prescribed burns. 2) Institute and enforce a ban County-wide on use of gasoline-powered leafblowers and hedge-trimmers. Don’t scoff about either of these bans until you’ve read up on and educated yourself about just how much wood burning and gasoline-powered blowers and hedge-trimmers contribute to local and global air pollution.

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  21. That was a joke. I actually have read the article twice. Clearly the climate is changing that is a fact. Clearly water temperature fluctuates, this is more apparent to the south of us. Clearly humans cause damage to the natural world. The cycle of drought, fire, rain and flooding has been happening in Southern California ,and in particular, Santa Barbara since real record keeping began. There has been a major fire or two every 7-12 years since 1889. There were 4 from 2007-2009. Every historical fire here has been human caused with the exception of the Gaviota Fire. Fire is not new. Fire in El Capitan Canyon is not new. More people living in the wildland urban Interface is new, aging infrastructure is new and poor urban planning is new. How can you blame fire frequency on climate change when humans, either by accident or intentionally are starting the fires? Earth is not spontaneously combusting. Without failing utility facilities, ignorant campers, ignorant workers, kite flyers, car accidents and arsonists none of these fires would have happened. More people= more fire= more catastrophic damage. The Thomas fire was the largest in California history. The prior record holder was in 1885. Santa Barbara still has mild fairly predictable weather with periods of extreme drought followed by torrential rain. This is not new.

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  22. Chip, the polar bears are starving because the ice is disappearing. 2nd link was all about they guy that sounded the alarm in the 80s being proved right. The Guardian article says-Environment-related migration has been most acute in sub-Saharan Africa, but also affects millions of people in Asia and India. Europe and the US face increased pressure from people driven from north Africa and Latin America by deteriorating soil and water conditions.
    New Zealand has already agreed to accept the 11, 600 inhabitants of the low-lying Pacific island state Tuvalu if rising sea levels swamp the country. Elsewhere, as many as 100 million people live in areas that are below sea level or liable to storm surge. A total of 213 communities in Alaska are threatened by tides that creep three metres further inland each year.” …The last link is talking about 2050, so that remains to be disproven. I don’t see how you think these links support your point.

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  28. There is no denying the climate is changing, and that humans have had an impact. The extent of that impact can not accurately be quantified due to how complex our ecosystem is to model. Even before the Industrial Revolution the climate was constantly changing on time scales of not hundreds but thousand and tens of thousands of years. To take only 100 years of data, maybe less than half that being plentiful and reliable data, and make a determination of what the last 50 years should have looked like had humans not been on this Earth is simply not possible, let alone what the next 50 years is going to look like with and without human interference. Our system is simply too complex with too many variables we don’t fully understand. We can barely predict the weather next month! While I completely agree that we need to be good stewards of our planet, climate change alarmist have gone way overboard and unfortunately are taking resources away from more pressing societal needs.

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  29. And any discussion on reducing humans impact on the climate without addressing human population growth is ignoring the number one cause of anthropogenic climate change…. What is the maximum sustainable population of Earth? It isn’t infinite.

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  30. So all the scientists are wrong and boomers on Edhat saying it’s cold disproved them. I’m sure glad I visit this site, now I don’t need to worry about sea level rise, mass species die-offs, ocean acidification, water shortages causing global unrest, or wildfires everywhere. It’s cold and rainy outside, there’s no way that stuff is already happening.

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  31. STD – You are sorely mistaken. But, I really didn’t expect a denier to read the article explaining how accurate our climate models have proven to be, nor to acknowledge that we are changing the climate at a rate far exceeding anything seen in the past. The rate of heating correlates with the radiative forcing induced by the increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, which is primarily the result of human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels. Any attempt to cast that as a natural cycle is simply ignoring facts.

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  32. Just to be clear, STD’s opinions are not based on knowledge or understanding of climate science, and he doesn’t even understand the difference between weather and climate, so there’s no reason to accept what he wrote as true.

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  35. I would like to offer a few suggestions to the “believers” out there. I think that’s a fitting companion term for “denier.” If you plan to continue to effectively promote your religious beliefs in the future, I would highly recommend you stop using the terms like “global warming.” Weather tends to be unpredictable. What if it ends up getting much colder and wetter in the next few years? If you hang your hat on “warming” you will have some awkward explaining to do. Sure, you could call it a “pause” or something, but that could become untenable if a long term cooling trend were to take hold. Folks will look back on the “global warming” scare much like we look back on the dire predictions of a coming ice age from the 70s. Instead, use terms like “man made climate change.” That way you can take credit for any future weather patterns, hot or cold, wet or dry. It might also be a good idea to back away from CO2. At least call it a “climate change gas” or similar to hedge your bets. I would also suggest that “believers” start enforcing a policy against making any specific predictions. There are already far too many apocalyptic predictions that have not come to pass. Preach the gospel and warn of the apocalypse, but don’t ever, under any circumstances, commit to any specific trends or timelines. Keep it vague! You can’t risk adding another failed prediction to the record. Stick to your core values: people are sinful, they should feel guilty for living and having fun, etc. Exploit those core values to promote your agenda. Finally and most importantly, keep your options open so your religion can adapt to changing times in the future.

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  38. You managed to list most of the original 1980s global warming predictions that never happened. What’s missing from the list was the 10s of millions of climate refugees by ~2010 that would be displaced by rising seas inundating islands and low lying areas. They never apologize for the failed hysterical predictions. I’m calling it “CO2 Nervosa” at this point, especially since they are using it to scare children.

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  41. From a practical standpoint, it seems hard to believe that you could add 7.5 billion large predator mammals to a planet, then give them the tools to make energy intensive communities and accessory products, and not affect the climate and environment. Just imagine if all of those 3rd world people are able to live more like we do in the US? Humans are not wired to respond to slow moving emergencies very well, which is why we are still having these discussions. By the time we are all convinced there is a problem, it will be too late to do anything about it. So, like Nero, let’s just keep fiddling while Rome is burning.

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  42. To deny the impact of industrialization on the earth and its ecosystems is straight up stupid. Flat earth, anti-vaxx, stupid… How about you people who are in denial about man’s impact on the climate / environment explain to us youngsters (naive kiddos) what caused the Dustbowl 100 years ago. Was that God’s anger towards the heathen farmers or was the it the result of man’s ignorance and greed and direct actions? Next, please explain to us what caused smog in LA, acid rain in the north in the 70’s and algae blooms in the gulf in the 00’s. OK Boomers. Its your turn. We’re waiting for your well researched and articulate answers to these questions.

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  43. Here are some examples of the failed predictions you asked about. Ice free arctic by 2018: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1988&dat=20080624&id=7mgiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7qkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5563,4123490 50M climate refugees by 2015: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/oct/12/naturaldisasters.climatechange1 Permanent drought in the southwest: https://www.energycentral.com/c/ec/dust-storm-marks-beginning-southwests-permanent-drought

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  44. These are two compilations that review past global warming predictions. There are others, but these are the most compressive. Unfortunately for this first one compiled in 2017, the IPCC changed their website so that the reference links in the article come up dead. *********************************** https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/10/30/some-failed-climate-predictions/ ********* This second link is a compilation of newspaper articles ********** https://realclimatescience.com/fifty-years-of-failed-apocalyptic-forecasts/ *********** This reaches back to the first arctic melting scares of the 1920s-1930s, flips to the global cooling scare of the 1970s, the famine disasters of Paul Ehrlich (aka The Population Bomb), then the current global warming scare hatched in the 1980s. You can’t change what the experts in past said what would happen in the future that didn’t happen. Read them for yourself, and don’t be bullied by those who are AGWer extremists. Here’s an interesting polar bear update****************************** https://climatism.blog/category/polar-bears/ ********** They won’t be disappearing from the arctic anytime soon, but they will be disappearing from posters about global warming since their numbers appear to be on the rise.

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  45. The same old tired fallacies are being trotted out here by the shameless deniers and shills. So far, they all appear in the list of 197 (so far) refuted denier claims that you can see in detail, with explanations, at =============================================================================
    https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php
    =============================================================================
    Some you’ll see in these Edhat comments are: #6 “Models are unreliable”, #11 “Ice age predicted in the 70s”, #22 “1934- hottest year on record”, #35 “IPCC is alarmist”, #37 “Polar bear numbers increasing”, #63 “Scientists can’t even predict weather”, #69 “Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated”, #71, #89, #92, #97, #100, #113…

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  46. I’d read through the comments of your link, a quick scan showed some provided links to scientific papers countering the denials of the denier claims. While the climate is changing, the global warming alarmist saying cities will be inundated by the ocean and everyone on the coast will die are doing a disservice to what the our collective motivation should be – being good stewards of our planet.

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  48. There you go again, citing websites that feature climate disinformation, written by charlatans that have no climate science knowledge. Just look those sites up on RationalWiki or SourceWatch, and you’ll see that they are funded by the dark money anti-science groups that back big carbon, and have no scientific standing whatsoever. SkepticalScience will show you how their conclusions are total bunk. If you want information on a given subject, and not disinformation and opinion masquerading as fact, consider the source. Use some critical thinking skills, which require you to drop your political bias.
    ==========================================================================
    https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

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