Earth Equity News

Fog Fluctuations Could Threaten Giant Redwoods. By Christopher Joyce, NPR, February 23, 2010, audio and transcript. "The fog that chills Northern California summers and regularly buries the Golden Gate Bridge in a white cloud may be in decline. The California fog is a creature of a strange climate along the California coast... After looking at historical climate data for the region, Biologist James Johnstone from the University of California, found that the fog is diminishing. 'When you look at the evolution of that land temperature pattern,' he concludes, 'it strongly suggests that there's been maybe a 30 percent decline in fog frequency'... And that worries people who care about California's redwood trees. 'These forests take up to 30 or 40% of their water requirements a year from fog, here in what is essentially a Mediterranean climate,' says Ruskin Hartley. He runs a 90-year-old organization called Save the Redwoods, which helped fund the fog research... Johnstone's research appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Most scientists predict changes in temperature, rainfall and even ocean currents as the planet's climate warms. Johnstone says what ultimately happens to California's fog machine will depend a lot on how global climate change affects California."