The western United States this century is facing a greatly heightened risk of heavy rains inundating areas that were recently scarred by wildfires, new research warns.

Such events can cause significant destruction, including debris flows, mudslides, and flash floods, because the denuded landscape cannot easily contain the drenching moisture.

A new study finds that, if society emits heat-trapping greenhouse gases at a high rate, the number of times that an extreme fire event is likely to be followed within one year by an extreme rainfall event will increase by more than eight times in the Pacific Northwest by the end of the century. It will more than double in California.

Overall, more than 90% of extreme fire events in the three regions that the research team focused on — which included Colorado along with California and the Pacific Northwest — will be followed by at least three extreme rainfalls within five years.

The study authors, including scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, or NCAR, used advanced computer models of past and future climate, as well as an index of weather variables that contribute to wildfire risk, to reach their results.

Lead author Danielle Touma, who did much of the research at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before coming to NCAR, noted that previous research has shown that both wildfires and extreme rainfall will increase in the West with climate change. However, the increased frequency of extreme rainfall-after-fire events came as a surprise.

“It’s very concerning, given the destruction that comes with these kinds of events,” Touma said. “Clearly we need to understand the risks better, as this creates a major threat to people and infrastructure.”

The study is being published this week in Science Advances. Funding came primarily from the U.S. National Science Foundation, which is NCAR’s sponsor, and the Department of Energy.

Researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara; the University of California, Los Angeles; the Nature Conservancy of California; and Washington State University contributed to the study.

Fires and rain on the rise

Heavy rainfall on burned areas is often hard to predict, but it can have devastating impacts. In 2018, debris flows in Montecito, California, caused by a brief and intense rainfall over an area that had burned just a month earlier, left 23 people dead and caused widespread property damage.

Torrential rains in Colorado’s Glenwood Canyon last year triggered a massive mudslide in a recently burned area, stranding more than 100 people and closing a portion of I-70 in the canyon for weeks.

Following a fire, the risk of debris flows persists for 3-5 years, and the risk of flash floods for 5-8 years, because of the time needed for ground cover and fine roots to recover followed by the regrowth of vegetation.

To study the frequency of extreme rainfall events after extreme wildfires in a warming world, Touma and her co-authors turned to an ensemble of simulations by a number of climate and weather models, including the NCAR-based Community Earth System Model, a powerful computer model that enabled them to project likely changes in climate in the western United States.

The results indicated that, by the end of the century, there will be a doubling or more of weather conditions that lead to the risk of extreme wildfires throughout much of the West, with some regions experiencing greatly elevated extreme wildfire risk within the next few decades. In addition, the climate models showed a pronounced increase in extreme rainfall events.

The researchers then looked at the number of cases in which extreme rainfall is likely to fall on the same region that recently experienced an extreme wildfire.

They found that more than half of extreme wildfire events will be followed within a year by an extreme rainfall event across much of the West, and virtually all extreme wildfires in the Pacific Northwest will be followed within five years by extreme rainfall.

Once every three years, drenching rains in western Colorado or much of the Pacific Northwest may be expected to inundate regions just three months after extreme wildfires — a scenario that was virtually unheard of in recent decades.

Part of the reason for the confluence of extreme fire and rainfall has to do with how climate change is altering the seasonality of these events.

For example, the study found more extreme rains occurring in the early fall in Colorado and the Pacific Northwest, close to the peak fire season of May to September.

“The gap between fire and rainfall season is becoming shorter,” Touma said. “One season of disasters is running into another.”

This material is based upon work supported by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a major facility sponsored by the National Science Foundation and managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

“Climate change increases risk of extreme rainfall following wildfire in the western United States” was written by Danielle Touma, Samantha Stevenson, Daniel L. Swain, Deepti Singh, Dmitri A. Kalashnikov, Xingying Huang.

 

Taxonomy, the study of how living organisms relate to one another as species, has been around since the 1700s. Though scientists and philosophers have long debated what makes a species a species, taxonomists treat each species as a group of organisms that share common biological characteristics.

Discovering and describing new species is essential to biology researchers and conservationists because they use species as a unit of analysis. Species are also economically important to agriculture, hunting and fishing, and have special legal status, such as under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

Despite this, scientists have been able to formally name and describe only an estimated 10% of species on the planet, based on discovery trends over the years.

This gap in knowledge is known as the Linnean shortfall. It remains unclear whether poor research methodology, disagreements on how to define a species, or other factors are to blame for this gap.

We are scientists in evolutionary biology, and figuring out ways to better identify species is central to our research. Using genetic analysis and artificial intelligence, we were able to disentangle hidden species that have been lumped together in a single group and predict where and what types they might be. Our findings also pinpoint a potential cause for this shortfall in species identification: an underinvestment in the science of taxonomy.

Hidden species remain to be discovered

For this study, we chose to focus on mammals. Because of their relatively large size and importance to people as a source of food, companionship and entertainment, we predicted that it was more likely that a large proportion of mammalian species have been already been identified.

Our first task was to identify known species that might actually contain two or more species. To do this, we analyzed 1 million gene sequences from 4,300 named species, identifying clusters of sequences that showed high genetic diversity and fitting the data to an evolutionary model.

We found potentially hundreds of hidden species that were previously classified as a single group. This finding was expected, as it mirrors results from previous studies, albeit on a larger scale.

Where and what are these hidden species?

Once we identified the presence of these potentially hidden species, our second task was to determine what specific traits they have in common. To do this, we used a data science technique called random forest analysis, a form of machine learning that draws information from a large number of different variables in order to make a prediction about a particular outcome. It’s similar to the technique that Netflix uses to suggest shows you might be interested in watching.

In our case, we wanted to predict whether a known species contained hidden species. The predictor variables we used spanned environmental factors, such as the climate of common mammalian habitats, and species-specific factors, such as physical traits, geographic range, reproductive and survival patterns. We also included research-based factors on the techniques scientists used to conduct their studies. In total, we collected some 3.8 million data points to build our model.

Based on our model, we found that three types of predictor variables stood out the most.

The first type comprised attributes of the species itself, such as body mass and geographic range. These results suggest that small mammals with relatively large ranges are more likely to have hidden species. This makes sense as, all things being equal, it is more difficult for scientists to recognize physical differences in smaller animals than larger ones.

The second type was climate – there are likely to be more hidden species in wet, warm areas with a large difference in day and night temperatures. This likely reflects the fact that tropical rainforests tend to have very high levels of mammalian diversity.

The third type was research effort, including the geographic dispersion of samples in museum collections and the number of recent publications mentioning the scientific name of a known species. This implies that researchers are generally effective in identifying new mammals, as how much attention the scientific community has focused on a specific mammal predicts whether that creature is identified. This is supported by how the general characteristics we’ve identified match new mammalian species described over the past 30 years, as well as the fact that our model recognizes areas that scientists are already investigating for hidden species.

Unknown species face extinction

At a time when Earth is facing its greatest extinction crisis since an asteroid killed off the dinosaurs, we believe that identifying and describing the many undiscovered species on Earth is crucial to aiding the preservation of its biodiversity.

Even though our study still found a large number of mammals waiting to be discovered, mammalian diversity is already relatively well captured compared with that of other species. We found that roughly 80% of existing mammal species have already been described, a proportion far higher than in nonmammal groups with even higher diversity such as beetles or mites.

Discovering and describing new species, as with all scientific research, takes a village. Natural history museums are largely responsible for collecting the raw data we analyzed, and genetic and biodiversity databases provided the infrastructure to make it accessible to us. A culture of information sharing among peers and large computer networks supported the thousands of hours of computation time we needed. Our work was made possible only by ongoing investments in taxonomic research.

Biodiversity scientists are racing to better understand the processes that create and maintain biodiversity while in the midst of the planet’s sixth mass extinction, one that is entirely caused by human actions. Taxonomists face the challenge of describing the species around us before they go extinct. As our findings suggest, there is still a long way to go.

Danielle Parsons, PhD Candidate in Evolutionary Biology, The Ohio State University and Bryan Carstens, Professor of Evolutionary Biology, The Ohio State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control has new puppies joining its group of adoptable dogs this week.

Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of Australian cattle dog, Australian Kelpie, border collie, boxer, German shepherd, husky, shepherd and pit bull.

Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.

The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption.

Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online for information on visiting or adopting.

Male cattle dog

This 3-year-old male cattle dog has a short black coat with white markings.

He is in kennel No. 6, ID No. LCAC-A-3228.

Male pit bull terrier

This 1-year-old male pit bull terrier has a short white and tan coat.

He is in kennel No. 7, ID No. LCAC-A-2821.

Female pit bull puppy

This female pit bull puppy has a short black coat with white markings.

She is in kennel No. 9a, ID No. LCAC-A-3232.

Female pit bull puppy

This female pit bull puppy has a short tan coat with white markings.

She is in kennel No. 9b, ID No. LCAC-A-3233.

‘Cleo’

“Cleo” is a 1-year-old female boxer mix with a short black and white coat.

She is in kennel No. 12, ID No. LCAC-A-3110.

Australian cattle dog

This 3-year-old male Australian cattle dog has a black coat with tan markings.

He is in kennel No. 16, ID No. LCAC-A-3131.

Male border collie

This young male border collie has a short black and white coat.

He is in kennel No. 17, ID No. LCAC-A-3207.

‘Max’

“Max” is a 4-year-old male Australian Kelpie mix with a black and tan coat with white markings.

She is in kennel No. 18, ID No. LCAC-A-2852.

Female German shepherd

This 2-year-old female German shepherd has a black coat.

She is in kennel No. 19, ID No. LCAC-A-2844.

Female shepherd mix

This 1-year-old female shepherd mix has a short tricolor coat.

She is in kennel No. 20, ID No. LCAC-A-2843.

‘Kimber’

“Kimber” is a 1-year-old female pit bull terrier with a short red and white coat.

She is in kennel No. 22, ID No. LCAC-A-2957.

‘Barney’

“Barney” is a 3-year-old male retriever with a brown and black coat with white markings.

He is in kennel No. 23, ID No. LCAC-A-2856.

Male pit bull mix

This 3-year-old pit bull mix has a short tan and white coat.

He is in kennel No. 24, ID No. LCAC-A-2948.

‘Blue’

“Blue” is a 4-year-old female husky with a gray and white coat, and blue eyes.

She is in kennel No. 25, ID No. LCAC-A-2816.

Male Doberman pinscher mix pup

This male Doberman pinscher mix puppy has a short tan coat.

He is in kennel No. 31, ID No. LCAC-A-3210.

‘King’

“King” is a 1-year-old American bulldog with a short brown and white coat.

He is in kennel No. 32, ID No. 3109.

Female pit bull terrier

This 2-year-old female pit bull terrier has a short black and white coat.

She is in kennel No. 33, ID No. LCAC-A-3085.

Male Australian cattle dog

This 3-year-old male Australian cattle dog has a short black, tan and white coat.

He is in kennel No. 34, ID No. LCAC-A-3130.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has established an extraordinary new bench mark: detecting the light of a star that existed within the first billion years after the universe’s birth in the big bang — the farthest individual star ever seen to date.

The find is a huge leap further back in time from the previous single-star record holder; detected by Hubble in 2018. That star existed when the universe was about 4 billion years old, or 30 percent of its current age, at a time that astronomers refer to as “redshift 1.5.”

Scientists use the word “redshift” because as the universe expands, light from distant objects is stretched or “shifted” to longer, redder wavelengths as it travels toward us.

The newly detected star is so far away that its light has taken 12.9 billion years to reach Earth, appearing to us as it did when the universe was only 7 percent of its current age, at redshift 6.2. The smallest objects previously seen at such a great distance are clusters of stars, embedded inside early galaxies.

“We almost didn’t believe it at first, it was so much farther than the previous most-distant, highest redshift star,” said astronomer Brian Welch of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, lead author of the paper describing the discovery, which is published in the March 30 journal Nature. The discovery was made from data collected during Hubble’s RELICS (Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey) program, led by co-author Dan Coe at the Space Telescope Science Institute, or STScI, also in Baltimore.

“Normally at these distances, entire galaxies look like small smudges, with the light from millions of stars blending together,” said Welch. “The galaxy hosting this star has been magnified and distorted by gravitational lensing into a long crescent that we named the Sunrise Arc.”

After studying the galaxy in detail, Welch determined that one feature is an extremely magnified star that he called Earendel, which means “morning star” in Old English. The discovery holds promise for opening up an uncharted era of very early star formation.

“Earendel existed so long ago that it may not have had all the same raw materials as the stars around us today,” Welch explained. “Studying Earendel will be a window into an era of the universe that we are unfamiliar with, but that led to everything we do know. It’s like we’ve been reading a really interesting book, but we started with the second chapter, and now we will have a chance to see how it all got started,” Welch said.

When stars align

The research team estimates that Earendel is at least 50 times the mass of our Sun and millions of times as bright, rivaling the most massive stars known.

But even such a brilliant, very high-mass star would be impossible to see at such a great distance without the aid of natural magnification by a huge galaxy cluster, WHL0137-08, sitting between us and Earendel.

The mass of the galaxy cluster warps the fabric of space, creating a powerful natural magnifying glass that distorts and greatly amplifies the light from distant objects behind it.

Thanks to the rare alignment with the magnifying galaxy cluster, the star Earendel appears directly on, or extremely close to, a ripple in the fabric of space.

This ripple, which is defined in optics as a “caustic,” provides maximum magnification and brightening. The effect is analogous to the rippled surface of a swimming pool creating patterns of bright light on the bottom of the pool on a sunny day. The ripples on the surface act as lenses and focus sunlight to maximum brightness on the pool floor.

This caustic causes the star Earendel to pop out from the general glow of its home galaxy. Its brightness is magnified a thousandfold or more. At this point, astronomers are not able to determine if Earendel is a binary star, though most massive stars have at least one smaller companion star.

Confirmation with Webb

Astronomers expect that Earendel will remain highly magnified for years to come. It will be observed by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Webb’s high sensitivity to infrared light is needed to learn more about Earendel, because its light is stretched (redshifted) to longer infrared wavelengths due to the universe’s expansion.

“With Webb we expect to confirm Earendel is indeed a star, as well as measure its brightness and temperature,” Coe said. These details will narrow down its type and stage in the stellar life cycle. "We also expect to find the Sunrise Arc galaxy is lacking in heavy elements that form in subsequent generations of stars. This would suggest Earendel is a rare, massive metal-poor star,” Coe said.

Earendel’s composition will be of great interest for astronomers, because it formed before the universe was filled with the heavy elements produced by successive generations of massive stars.

If follow-up studies find that Earendel is only made up of primordial hydrogen and helium, it would be the first evidence for the legendary Population III stars, which are hypothesized to be the very first stars born after the big bang. While the probability is small, Welch admits it is enticing all the same.

“With Webb, we may see stars even farther than Earendel, which would be incredibly exciting,” Welch said. “We’ll go as far back as we can. I would love to see Webb break Earendel’s distance record.”

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute, or STScI, in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.

MIDDLETOWN, Calif. — What does it mean to have the "Best Day Ever"?

Over 100 participants came together to find out at the Lake County Quality Care Counts, or LCQC, conference on March 19 at Twin Pine Casino in Middletown.

The Lake County Office of Education’s LCQC is a program that improves the quality of early learning for children ages zero through five by providing professional development, supplies and coaching to early childhood providers

"LCQC hosts this conference every year to provide inspiration, new ideas and high-quality professional development that early educators can use in their classrooms," said LCQC Director Angela Cuellar-Marroquin.

The conference succeeded in bringing together early childhood educators from across Northern California to participate and leave with new knowledge and passion for continuing their work.

“Optimizing the early years of children’s lives is the best investment we can make in our community to ensure their future success,” Lake County Superintendent of Schools Brock Falkenberg said.

The first presenter, Sharron Krull, gave a keynote about incorporating art with science. Krull is an early childhood consultant through her company, Play Power. She is a veteran preschool teacher with over 45 years’ experience that encompasses nearly all areas of early childhood education.

Steve Spangler finished the day with an inspiring and interactive keynote. Spangler is an Emmy award-winning television host, science communicator, and celebrity educator.

During his high-energy presentation, he covered that the "Best Day Ever" is more than just a feeling or an emotion. It is a powerful principle that helps people connect, engage and share experiences with each other.

Participants gave the conference high marks.

“Best training I’ve been to. Truly. After the last two years … feeling a smidge burnt out and bogged down,” said Jacqui Joyce of Miss Jacqui’s Childcare. “This training completely reminded me why I do what I do. Got me excited for Monday, and who gets excited for Mondays!?"

"I am beyond grateful for today’s conference. The inspiration I left with today, is going right back into my classroom on Monday,” said Jacklyn Edwards, a teacher at Pomo Elementary in the Konocti Unified School District.

"I had so much fun I almost cried when it was over. Shooting toilet paper out of a leaf blower was just way too much fun. The excitement of the whole day was truly the "Best Day Ever,” said Jody Mederos of the North Coast Opportunities Head Start program.

Learn more about LCQC by visiting the Lake County Office of Education website at www.lakecoe.org/LCQC.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA — California’s snowpack is continuing to dwindle after months of dry weather.

The Department of Water Resources on Friday conducted the fourth snow survey of the season at Phillips Station.

Following three straight months of record dry conditions, the manual survey recorded just 2.5 inches of snow depth and a snow water equivalent of one inch, which is four percent of average for this location for April 1.

Statewide, the snowpack is just 38% of average for this date.

The snowpack at Phillips Station has plummeted since the beginning of the year, officials said.

On Dec. 30, the snowpack stood at 202% of normal for that date. In a normal season, the snowpack depth would be about five feet deep at this time of year.

The snow water equivalent measured at the snow survey shows the amount of water contained in the snowpack and is a key component of DWR’s water supply forecast, including anticipated runoff into the state’s reservoirs.

April 1 is typically when the snowpack is at its highest, however the statewide snowpack likely peaked in early-March this year and the Northern Sierra snowpack peaked in mid-January.

“The conditions we are seeing today speak to how severe our drought remains. DWR has been planning for the reality of a third dry year since the start of the water year on October 1,” said DWR Director Karla Nemeth. “While DWR has made significant investments in forecasting technology and other tools to ensure we make the most out of the snowmelt we do receive, water conservation will remain our best tool in the face of this ongoing drought and the statewide impacts of a warming climate. All Californians must focus on conserving water now.”

Dry conditions are impacting every region of the state, as the Northern, Central, and Southern Sierra snowpacks are all standing just above 28% to 43% of average for this date.

“With the exceptionally dry conditions during the past three months, our latest statewide snowmelt forecasts are only 44% of average,” said Sean de Guzman, manager of DWR’s Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Unit. “While today usually marks the typical peak of the state’s snowpack, this year’s snowpack likely peaked in mid-January in the Northern Sierra. Most of the snow accumulation this year came from just two storms in December that were followed by the driest January and February on record in the Sierra, and unfortunately March only brought a few weak systems.”

“Today’s snow survey reinforces what we’ve all observed – California just experienced the driest three months on record, and drought is worsening throughout the West,” California Secretary for Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot said. “Climate-driven water extremes are part of our reality now, and we must all adapt and do our part to save water every day.”

While the state continues to take necessary actions to help extend the state’s existing water supply, all Californians are also encouraged to do their part now to conserve as much water as possible to make it last.

Gov. Newsom has called on all Californians to voluntarily reduce their water use by 15% with simple measures to protect water reserves.

Earlier this week, the governor called on local water suppliers to move to level two of their water shortage contingency plans, which require locally-appropriate actions that will conserve water across all sectors, and directed the State Water Resources Control Board to consider a ban on the watering of decorative grass at businesses and institutions.

Individuals looking for information about reducing water consumption at home can visit SaveOurWater.com for water-wise tips.