Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (July 8, 2015)
Wednesday, July 8, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon 35 OSU researchers studying warm-water mass off West Coast By diane dietz The Register-Guard EUGENE (AP) — Oregon State University scientists are looking for a link between the California drought, climate change and a mass of warm water lingering in the Pacific Ocean off the West Coast. The events may be with- out connection — but the blob and the drought, which is troubling Oregon, too, have one thing in common: They are extreme. In recorded history, California hasn’t seen a dry spell as severe as the past four years. The mass of warm water in the ocean — hundreds of miles wide and about as long as California — has average temperatures that are five degrees to seven degrees warmer than normal, Washington climatologist Nick Bond said. “We’re in, if not uncharted territory, pretty near it. It is an extreme sort of thing,” he said. OSU scientists are join- ing with others at Oxford University, who work with scientists from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and the University of Melbourne in Australia to examine extreme weather and to determine their connection, if any, with climate change. The teams are relying on the excess computing power of 30,000 home computers volunteered by their owners – and they’re looking for other would-be citizen scientists to join in. Bond identified the mass of warm water — seen as a red-orange pool on climate maps — in late 2013, and it has persisted since. “We can keep track of sea surface temperatures quite well by satellites,” Bond said. While the images were telling one story, anecdotes from the ocean — of marine ecosystem disruption — came trickling in. Seabirds called Cassin’s auklets starved this winter off Washington and Oregon. Northwest fishers reported strange species in their nets, skipjack tuna or ocean sun- fish, which would be more likely along the coast of Baja, California. Last fall’s run of Fraser River sockeye salmon veered north around Vancouver Island. The Canadian fishery had a banner year and the U.S. fishers went home with empty holds. We’re in, if not uncharted territory, pretty near it. It is an extreme sort of thing. — Nick Bond Scientists are document- ing an unprecedented West Coast-wide marine algae bloom this year. The bloom poisons shellfish, causing authorities to shut down harvests. In mid-June, thousands of red crabs washed ashore in Southern California. In each case, research- ers wondered about whether the warm-water mass was a factor. Air temperatures can fluc- tuate up and down rapidly, but change comes more slowly to the ocean, Bond said. “There’s so much thermal inertia that a seven-degree anomaly is very large,” Bond said. “Once you get the water so much warmer — or so much colder — than normal, there’s some persistence to it.” The OSU scientists are working with counterparts around the globe to speed up research on extreme weather events — flood, blizzard, drought, heat waves, wind storms — to better determine the likelihood that any event is associated with climate change. The science is difficult because extreme events occur naturally also. Think about a baseball player on steroids, said Phil Mote, director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at OSU. The player might hit 50 home runs in a season, begin taking steroids, and then the homers jump to 70 per season. “You can’t say any par- ticular home run was because of steroids, but you can say overall the odds have gone up,” Mote said. The scientists use mas- sive statistical analysis, run- ning hundreds of climate scenarios, to try to determine the probability that a given extreme event was connected with human-caused climate change. In the past year, the answers to specific questions have emerged as probably yes, and probably no. Participating groups of researchers found that a 2013 heat wave in Australia was probably related to global warming, but another research effort determined that extreme rainfall in Colorado in the same year was probably not. M o s t r e c e n t l y, t h e researchers plan to test the connection between the California drought and the warm-water mass by com- paring massive amounts of oceanographic and climate data for an 18-month period — December 2013 to May 2015 — and then compare it with similar 18-month stretches, beginning in 1981. The scientists tweak vari- ables in the computer models and run them over and over to see what happens. They will ask, for exam- ple, whether there would be a California drought if they removed the influence of the warm water from the calculation. This requires analyzing staggering amounts of data. The OSU scientists esti- mate that they would need three super°computers to do the job, unless they could enlist the help of thousands of volunteers with idle space on their home computers. GENEVA VIEW RANCH O RIGINAL H OMESTEAD R ANCH S ECLUDED WITH 300- DEGREE S PECTACULAR V IEWS ! One of the largest undeveloped acreages in the area available, located 12 miles north of Sisters in Jeff erson County. Home to migrating mule deer, a herd of elk numbering over 100 head, wild turkey, cougar and eagles... wildlife abounds! Several hundred acres of ponderosa pine timber. Off -the-grid property off ers 300 days of sun- shine and a unique hand-dug well. Acreage can be split and sold separate; two tax lots. 1,109± acres. $1,600,000 Off ered by Tim O’Neil, 541-480-3682, Tim@LandAndWildlife.com For info information go to www.LandAndWildlife.com For the past dozen years, the Oxford group has done projects using the idle power of the “citizen scientists” they drafted. The technique is called distributed computing. there’s so much thermal inertia that a seven-degree anomaly is very large. — Nick Bond Volunteers download a program, and then the rest is largely automatic. The home computer loads a project, then does the analysis when it’s not otherwise occupied and then communicates the results the next time the com- puter connects to the Internet. “We can do hundreds if not thousands of simulations with the help of the volun- teers we’re hoping to recruit,” Mote said Mote said he volunteered with his MacBook Air. He normally uses only a fraction of its power. Volunteers can go to a Web page and see the data graphed in real time, Mote said. Eventually, the OSU researchers will analyze the patterns, calculate the prob- ability that events are con- nected and publish their find- ings in a peer-reviewed jour- nal, Mote said. “We hope to have enough results within the next couple of months to write a paper and submit it this fall,” he said. HOWELLS REALTY GROUP NEW LISTING! GLAZE MEADOW 325 • $749,500 On the Golf Cosrse! mls #201505828 NEW LISTING! SPRING HOME 14 • $1,450,000 It’s a Beauty! mls #201506342 Gary Yoder, G d Managing i Principal i i l Broker, k 541-420-6708 4 420 6 08 Dick Howells, Principal Broker, 541-408-6818 Phil Arends, Principal Broker, 541-420-9997 Joe Dye, Broker, 541-595-2604 Carol Dye, Broker, 541-480-0923 Steve Post, Broker, 541-480-5415 Don Bowler, Broker, 971-244-3012 WELCOME QUILTERS! Come see ss daily, 9 to 6, in osr new office at The Ranch, adjacent to t th e new Ranch Lodge Lo o dg dge Pool Po Complex! Compl p ex! the Exc����v� O���t� Re��t�r ��r Th � R�nc� 541-595-3838 The Ranch • 541 541-549-5555 41 1 -5 5 49-5555 in Sisters see all our listings at blackbutte.com
