Author: getwetprojectblog

The Federal Climate Information Website Will No Longer Be Updated

In June, the Trump administration announced that the government’s 15-year-old website, climate.gov, which was the primary source of information about climate change and science, would no longer be updated. Links to the old site redirect viewers to an address at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). As of 2021, the old website was receiving 900,000 visits per month and was a trusted source of information about the climate, according to NPR. The jobs of those who authored stories, created photos, and designed materials were eliminated.

Climate change effects include wildfire, ocean acidification, desertification, and coastal flooding caused by storms and sea level rise. |  Credit: CalFire

However, as the Guardian reports, a group of climate communications experts is rebuilding the climate.gov content at climate.us through a new nonprofit. The organization will offer services about climate to others such as local governments that are trying to adapt to global warming. The website is in development, and the organization has a presence on social media accounts like BlueSky and Facebook. 

According to Rebecca Lindsey, who was the managing editor of the government’s old site, the new entity includes several of her former federal colleagues, many of whom are grieving over losing not only a job but also a vocation. Lindsey added that there is a need for content that helps people develop climate literacy. Being outside of government gives the new group new opportunities to have fun by using platforms like TikTok.

The organization has launched a crowdfunding effort and hopes to get more permanent operating support from a foundation. Lindsey said that all of the climate information released prior to July 1 is still up on a government site, but you have to know where to look for it.

Meanwhile, the National Weather Service is trying to rapidly hire 450 people, including some meteorologists to fill jobs that were cut by DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency. Hundreds of forecasters were cut at NOAA after Trump took office, and there were warnings that there could be dangerous consequences if weather predictions were slowed.

However, applicants for the new meteorologist positions are being asked how they would promote Trump’s agenda by identifying one or two of his executive orders that they find significant, and how they would implement them if hired. Some experts are alarmed that the ideology of a potential weather forecaster could be considered. One told the Associated Press that he questioned whether forecasts would be made better based upon someone’s ideology.

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The Polluted Tijuana River Is Polluting the Air in San Diego

Some people who reside in the southern portion of San Diego County, California, say it stinks to live there. Literally. For years, residents have complained that odors emanating from the polluted Tijuana River, which flows from Mexico into the U.S. toward the Pacific Ocean, are causing eye, nose and throat irritation, respiratory problems, fatigue, and headaches.

A new study shows that turbulence in polluted waters of the Tijuana River transfers contaminants to the air. In this photo, culverts at the Saturn Boulevard river crossing generate high turbulence, enhancing the transfer of toxic wastewater pollutants. The location was identified by members of the local community as a source of particularly strong odors.  |  Credit: Beatriz Klimeck / UC San Diego

Now, a new study from scientists at UC, San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography; UC, Riverside; San Diego State University; the National Science Foundation; and National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) says the residents are not imagining things. The research found that the contaminated river is contaminating the air—releasing large quantities of the toxic gas hydrogen sulfide—commonly known as “sewer gas” because of its rotten egg smell.

In September 2024, the team had set up air quality monitors in San Diego’s Nestor community in the South Bay. One location was where water tumbles from a culvert, which as it falls, creates enough turbulence to send aerosolized particles of pollutants from the river into the air.

The scientists measured peak concentrations of hydrogen sulfide that were some 4,500 times what is typical for an urban area. In addition, they identified hundreds of other gases released into the air by the river and its ocean outflow, showing for the first time, a direct link between poor water quality and bad air quality—a connection lead investigator Kimberly Prather says had not been made before.

Untreated sewage and industrial waste have plagued the Tijuana River for decades, causing long-term closures of beaches. In July, the U.S. and Mexico signed a memorandum of understanding that requires both nations to expedite stormwater and sewage infrastructure projects on each side of the border.  

Last week, EPA announced the completion of a ten-million-gallon-per-day expansion of the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant in San Diego, which could help mitigate the issue, but as inewsource reports, it’s unclear as to when it will be operating at its new capacity.

The paper was published in the journal Science.

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The Seventh of Nine Planetary Boundaries Has Been Breached

While the UN was discussing climate change at the General Assembly, a new report showed that seven out of nine critical limits for Earth’s health have now been passed.

Bleached staghorn coral in the Great Barrier Reef  |  Credit: Matt Kieffer/Creative Commons

The Planetary Boundaries Science Lab at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research revealed that last year, ocean acidification had breached a boundary for the first time. The increasing acidity of the ocean is caused by the absorption of excess CO2 from the atmosphere, which they said was driven mainly by burning fossil fuels made worse by deforestation. 

Acidification makes it harder for organisms like oysters and corals to build their shells or skeletons, disrupting marine ecosystems and potentially affecting food security and coastal protection. Corals, both in cold water and in the tropics are at risk, as are Arctic environments. 

Currently, the institute says there are only two planetary boundaries that are within safe limits—air pollutants and the ozone layer in the stratosphere—successes they attribute to international action on aerosol emissions, although parts of the world, such as South and East Asia, and parts of Africa and Latin America, are still experiencing dangerous particulate pollution.

The other boundaries that have been breached are climate shifts in temperature and weather patterns, changes in land systems like deforestation, freshwater use, biosphere functioning and resilience, biogeochemical flows such as water or nitrogen cycles, and novel entities like chemicals and microplastics.

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Heat Waves Are Becoming More Frequent and Intense in Rivers

Heat waves are becoming more frequent and intense across the U.S., so perhaps this summer you took a dip in a river to cool off. However, according to new research it might not have been as refreshing as it once was. 

Credit: Dillon Groves/Unsplash

A new study from Penn State found that heat waves are happening in rivers too, and they’re accelerating faster than and lasting nearly twice as long as the heat waves in the air. It’s a surprising finding, given that many rivers are fed by snowmelt and underground streams, but the team found that periods of abnormally high temperatures in rivers are becoming more common, more intense, and longer-lasting than they were 40 years ago. Lead author Li Li (李黎) wrote in The Conversation that the increased heat puts stress on aquatic ecosystems and can also raise the cost of treating drinking water. 

The team collected river data at nearly 1,500 sites in the contiguous United States between 1980 and 2022. They found that temperatures rose above 59 °F (15 °C)—a threshold that can stress many species—at 82 percent of study areas for an average of 11.6 days per year. The places where the waters warmed the fastest were in the Northeast, the Rocky Mountains, and Appalachia.

The authors say climate change is driving river heat waves, as rising air temperatures affect water conditions. Changing precipitation patterns with global warming are shrinking winter snowpacks, leaving less meltwater to support river health. Low, slow-moving water warms more easily and holds less oxygen, creating dangerous conditions for aquatic life and increasing the chances of large-scale die-offs. The study adds that human activities, such as dams and agriculture, play a secondary role in shaping how and where rivers are most vulnerable to these impacts.

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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https://h2oradio.org/this-week-in-water/your-dogs-carbon-paw-print

Alaska’s Salmon River Once Ran Pure and Clear. Now, It’s Orange Because of Climate Change.

In 1977, author John McPhee wrote his nonfiction classic “Coming into the Country.” It describes how he and a group of men canoed the Salmon River in the Brooks Range of Alaska to assess its potential for Wild and Scenic status—a designation that would provide long-term federal protection. On their trip, they found abundant Arctic grayling (Thymallus arcticus), chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta)—and as McPhee writes, “the clearest, purest water I have ever seen flowing over rocks,” which allowed them to “see down 15 feet in pools.”

In Alaska’s Brooks Range, rivers once clear enough to drink from now run orange and hazy with toxic metals.  |  Credit: Taylor Roades

Not anymore. These days, the Salmon River runs orange—contaminated with toxic metals. Not because of acid mine drainage—although the water has the same ocher color—but because of climate change. According to new research from the University of California, Riverside, permafrost—the frozen Arctic soil that has locked away minerals for thousands of years—is beginning to thaw with a warming planet. As it thaws, water and oxygen creep into the exposed soil, triggering the breakdown of sulfide-rich rocks and creating sulfuric acid that leaches naturally occurring metals like iron, cadmium, and aluminum from rocks into the river, which poisons fish and damages ecosystems. 

According to a press release, the team’s analysis confirmed that thawing permafrost was unleashing geochemical reactions that oxidize sulfide-rich rocks like pyrite, generating acidity and mobilizing a wide suite of metals, including cadmium, which accumulates in fish organs and could affect animals like bears and birds that eat fish. The authors say that levels for several of the metals exceed EPA toxicity thresholds for aquatic life. Additionally, the cloudy water reduces the amount of light reaching the bottom of the river and smothers insect larvae that salmon and other fish eat.

According to the study, the Salmon River is not alone. A recent inventory in the same mountain range identified 75 streams that have recently turned orange and turbid. The authors say it’s likely happening across the Arctic. Wherever there’s the right kind of rock and thawing permafrost, the process can start. Unfortunately, co-author, Tim Lyons, said once it starts, it can’t be stopped, calling it “another irreversible shift driven by a warming planet.”

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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https://h2oradio.org/this-week-in-water/a-high-five-for-the-high-seas

Experts Say Urgent Action to Cut Water Use Is Needed in the Colorado River Basin

According to experts, water policy makers and water users in the Colorado River Basin need to get their acts together to substantially cut amounts they take from the river.

At Lees Ferry where river trips, both recreational and scientific, launch.  |  Credit: public domain

In a new analysis, six experts—Jack Schmidt, Anne Castle, John Fleck, Eric Kuhn, Kathryn Sorensen, and Katherine Tara—released a report saying that immediate action is needed, especially if this dry year is repeated next year. They estimate that consumptive use will exceed the flow of the river by no less than 3.6 million-acre feet, and the two main reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, would absorb the bulk of that shortfall, causing them to be depleted and reduced to dangerous levels. Last winter’s snowpack was miserable, and the forecast for the coming season is for less precipitation and warmer temperatures.

However, leaders in the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming, have been unable to agree with their lower basin neighbors of California, Arizona, and Nevada on how to cut water usage along the river.  The two basins have been discussing how to allocate the shortages when the current rules expire next year. The experts who wrote the report are urging the federal government to impose cutbacks along the river, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The animosity between the Upper and Lower Basins appears to have torpedoed the Trump administration’s nomination of Ted Cooke to be the commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation charged with managing the river. Cooke had been a water manager in Arizona for more than 20 years, which was viewed as disturbing in the Upper Basin states, and would make him biased in favor of the Lower Basin, according to KUNC. 

The White House asked him to withdraw his nomination, which he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, was based on vitriol the likes of which he had never seen. He said that officials from Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico had urged members of Congress to oppose his nomination.

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The UN High Seas Treaty, Now Ratified by 60 Countries, Will Become Law

In good news last week, Morocco and Sierra Leone ratified the High Seas Treaty that seeks to protect marine biodiversity in international waters—those beyond the jurisdiction of any country. The two nations put the treaty over the top of the 60 needed to bring it into effect under international law. The agreement covers about two-thirds of the oceans and addresses ongoing threats like plastic pollution, overfishing, as well as climate change, which is warming waters and threatening species. The high seas are also endangered by deep-sea mining.  

Mother and baby sperm whale  |  Credit: Gabriel Barathieu/Creative Commons

The High Seas Treaty is part of the goal to protect 30 percent of Earth’s land and seas by 2030, the so-called “30×30 target.” Among other goals, the intent of the agreement is to protect whales, sharks, tuna, corals, and many more species. The treaty also establishes a framework for sharing proceeds of resources generated from biodiversity in the oceans, like genetic material from marine organisms that could be used for medicines and cosmetics among other applications.  

The U.S. and China have not yet formally ratified the treaty. The Biden administration signed it, but since Trump took office, the country has not been involved. Earlier this year, Trump signed an order allowing the federal government to issue deep-sea mining permits that many other countries said would violate an older treaty.

Even though enough countries have ratified the treaty, the methods to implement it may be harder to enact. Each nation will have to regulate its own ships and companies. There will not be an international enforcement agency.

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EPA Is Moving to Allow the Twice-Banned Herbicide Dicamba in Agriculture

Dicamba is a herbicide that was twice banned by the courts, but now Trump’s EPA wants to put it back on the list of chemicals allowed for agricultural use. If the agency is successful at reregistering the weedkiller, then it would be allowed on soybean and cotton fields. 

Pesticides being sprayed on a soybean field in Iowa.  |  Credit: Eric Hawbaker, Blue Collar Ag, Riceville, IA/USGS

In 2020, environmental organizations sued the EPA to stop allowing the use of dicamba because, when it’s applied, it can drift and harm neighboring farms, communities, and ecosystems. A federal appeals court found against the EPA, ruling that it had understated the amount of damage from the herbicide and that its use would tear at the social fabric of farming communities. Then, the agency tried again to register dicamba, but another court prohibited its sale.

Now, the EPA plans to require practices that it says will minimize the impact on certain species and the environment, according to its website. The action was praised by the American Soybean Association, according to the Washington Post. A spokesperson for the Center for Food Safety said in a statement that allowing the chemical will decimate not only farmers and residents of rural America but also natural areas like wildlife refuges.

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https://h2oradio.org/this-week-in-water/watering-down-water-protections

Doorbell Cameras Can Monitor Rainfall and Adjust Sprinklers

Many people have doorbell cameras to see who’s there or whether a package has been delivered, but now those devices could tell you if your sprinklers need to run.

A new AI-powered irrigation system uses doorbell cameras to monitor rainfall and adjust lawn watering, helping homeowners save money and conserve water. Researchers say the technology can reduce water bills by up to $29 a month for a single home.  | Credit: Kaitlyn Johnson/Texas A&M University College of Engineering

Home irrigation systems are often programmed to automatically go on and off at set times and days, but when it rains, it’s not uncommon for sprinklers to run even when not needed. An innovation called “ERIC” developed by researchers at Texas A&M University claims to cut down on excess watering by turning doorbell cameras into rainfall monitors. 

It works by analyzing the camera footage using machine learning models to determine how much rain has fallen and automatically adjusts both the duration and day that the irrigation controller waters a lawn. 

The researchers say in a statement that their more precise irrigation schedule cuts down on excess watering and provides accurate rain data.  Some commercial irrigation systems do monitor if it rains but not how much. Their new AI-enhanced tool measures how much water has fallen in that precise location. The system was praised recently as being an incredibly creative method to utilize existing hardware.

The researchers published a paper on their innovation, saying it can save homeowners up to 9,000 gallons of water a month, using just the camera and a low-cost irrigation controller.

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The Red Sea that vanished and the catastrophic flood that brought it back

KAUST researchers find the Red Sea experienced a massive disruption 6.2 million years ago completely changing its marine life.

Source:King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST)

Summary:Researchers at KAUST have confirmed that the Red Sea once vanished entirely, turning into a barren salt desert before being suddenly flooded by waters from the Indian Ocean. The flood carved deep channels and restored marine life in less than 100,000 years. This finding redefines the Red Sea’s role as a key site for studying how oceans form and evolve through extreme geological events.Share:

    

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When the Red Sea Became a Desert
Around 6.2 million years ago, the Red Sea completely dried up before a monumental flood from the Indian Ocean refilled it in less than 100,000 years. Credit: Shutterstock

Scientists at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have provided conclusive evidence that the Red Sea completely dried out about 6.2 million years ago, before being suddenly refilled by a catastrophic flood from the Indian Ocean. The findings put a definitive time on a dramatic event that changed the Red Sea.

Using seismic imaging, microfossil evidence, and geochemical dating techniques, the KAUST researchers showed that a massive change happened in about 100,000 years – a blink of an eye for a major geological event. The Red Sea went from connecting with the Mediterranean Sea to an empty, salt-filled basin. Then, a massive flood burst through volcanic barriers to open the Bab el-Mandab strait and reconnect the Red Sea with the world’s oceans.

“Our findings show that the Red Sea basin records one of the most extreme environmental events on Earth, when it dried out completely and was then suddenly reflooded about 6.2 million years ago,” said lead author Dr. Tihana Pensa of KAUST. “The flood transformed the basin, restored marine conditions, and established the Red Sea’s lasting connection to the Indian Ocean.”

How the Indian Ocean Flooded the Red Sea

The Red Sea was initially connected from the north to the Mediterranean through a shallow sill. This connection was severed, drying the Red Sea into a barren salt desert. In the south of the Red Sea, near the Hanish Islands, a volcanic ridge separated the sea from the Indian Ocean. But around 6.2 million years ago, seawater from the Indian Ocean surged across this barrier in a catastrophic flood. The torrent carved a 320-kilometer-long submarine canyon that is still visible today on the seafloor. The flood rapidly refilled the basin, drowning the salt flats and restoring normal marine conditions in less than 100,000 years. This event happened nearly a million years before the Mediterranean was refilled by the famous Zanclean flood, giving the Red Sea a unique story of rebirth.

Why the Red Sea Matters Geologically

The Red Sea formed by separation of the Arabian Plate from the African Plate beginning 30 million years ago. Initially, the sea was a narrow rift valley filled with lakes, then became a wider gulf when it was flooded from the Mediterranean 23 million years ago. Marine life thrived initially, as seen by the fossil reefs along the northern coast near Duba and Umlujj. However, evaporation and poor seawater circulation increased salinity, causing the extinction of marine life between 15 and 6 million years ago. Additionally, the basin was filled with layers of salt and gypsum. This culminated in complete desiccation of the Red Sea. The catastrophic flood from the Indian Ocean restored marine life in the Red, which persists in the coral reefs to the present.

All in all, the Red Sea is a natural laboratory for understanding how oceans are born, how salt giants accumulate, and how climate and tectonics interact over millions of years. The discovery highlights how closely the Red Sea’s history is linked with global ocean change. It also shows that the region has experienced environmental extremes before, only to return as a thriving marine ecosystem.

“This paper adds to our knowledge about the processes that form and expand oceans on Earth. It also maintains KAUST’s leading position in Red Sea research,” said co-author KAUST Professor Abdulkader Al Afifi.

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251007081831.htm