What you can’t use is a plastic bag issued by Trader Joe’s. The store doesn’t give them out.

A bill two local lawmakers introduced Thursday, Feb. 8, in Sacramento would apply the Trader Joe’s policy statewide, banning stores from offering customers any sort of plastic film bags at checkout.

If you’re thinking “didn’t we already do that?” the answer is yes and no.

A decade ago, California legislators approved the nation’s first ban on the flimsy single-use plastic bags then commonly offered at most stores. Plastic bag manufacturers fought back, with the question put to voters in 2016. More than 53% of Californians voted to uphold the ban, which kicked in the next day.

But that law included a carveout that lets stores sell thicker plastic bags, typically at 10 cents each, since those are deemed “reusable.” And Jenn Engstrom, state director for the public interest advocacy group CALPIRG, said plastic bag companies have taken advantage of that loophole by mass producing thicker plastic bags that are sometimes now the only option for shoppers who don’t bring their own reusable tote.

The problem, data shows, is that most people still aren’t taking those bags back to grocery stores. The thicker bags also are just about impossible to recycle, since they need to go to special facilities. So while Californians are using fewer plastic bags, and those bags aren’t showing up as often during coastal cleanup days, data shows residents are actually producing more plastic bag by weight per person now than they did before the ban took effect.

The weight of plastic shopping bags thrown away by Californians in 2004, for example, was 147,038 tons, or roughly 8 pounds per person, according to CalRecycle. In 2021, plastic bag waste weighed 231,072 tons, or roughly 11 pounds per person.

Such spikes aren’t happening in places that don’t have loopholes allowing for thicker bags.

A dozen states and more than 500 cities have some sort of plastic bag ban in effect, per data in a report last month by CALPIRG and the Environment California Research and Policy Center.

The advocacy groups studied how full bans on all plastic film shopping bags have played out in five places: New Jersey; Vermont; Philadelphia; Portland, Ore.; and Santa Barbara. (Such local bans on plastic grocery bags were superseded by California’s less stringent policy in 2016, though cities and counties can still ban plastic bags in retail shops and restaurants.) Researchers found strong bans eliminate an average of roughly 300 single-use plastic bags per person per year.

“Plastic bag bans work — just not the way California does it,” Engstrom said.

To help California catch up, state Sens. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas and Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, and Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, introduced identical bills in the state Senate and Assembly that would make it illegal for stores to offer plastic film bags to customers starting in 2026. Instead, proposed Senate Bill 1053 and Assembly Bill 2236 would allow stores to provide 100% recycled paper bags or let consumers use their own reusable bags.

“If you have been paying attention – if you read the news at all in recent years – you know we are choking our planet with plastic waste,” Blakespear said. “A plastic bag has an average lifespan of 12 minutes and then it is discarded, often clogging sewage drains, contaminating our drinking water and degenerating into toxic microplastics that fester in our oceans and landfills for up to 1,000 years. It’s time to improve on California’s original plastic bags ban and do it right this time by completely eliminating plastic bags from being used at grocery stores.”

The California Grocers Association is backing the bill, as it did with the original ban in 2014.

In a press conference Thursday morning — flanked by plastic bag ban supporters wearing sea turtle and “plastic monster” costumes and carrying signs with messages like “leave plastic to Barbie” — Daniel Conway, a spokesman for the trade group, said California’s first ban was “revolutionary” when it passed.

“Like most good laws, you have to take a look and you have to adapt to changes in the world we live in,” he said.

Asked whether the lawmakers are concerned about this bill facing the same sort of pushback from plastic bag companies as the previous ban did a decade ago, Blakespear noted there has since been consolidation within the industry, with many of the same companies now producing paper and plastic bags. So she hopes they’ll simply get on board with shifting to providing more paper bags.

The lawmakers said they also hope that California strengthening its ban will spur others to follow suit, as happened when the state passed regulations around vehicle emissions.

“As the fifth or fourth largest economy in the world, depending on how you count it, we know that what we do here really does end up having ripple effects globally,”  said Allen, who chairs the Senate Environmental Quality Committee.

“We’re not just on our own when we make these decisions. We’re making decisions that end up impacting markets and have global implications.”

GRINDAVIK, Iceland — A volcano in southwestern Iceland erupted Thursday for the third time since December, sending jets of lava into the sky, triggering the evacuation of the popular Blue Lagoon geothermal spa and cutting heat and hot water to thousands of people.

The eruption began at about 0600 GMT (1 a.m. EST) along a three-kilometer (nearly two-mile) fissure northeast of Mount Sýlingarfell, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said. Several communities on the Reykjanes Peninsula were cut off from heat and hot water after a river of lava engulfed a supply pipeline.

The strength of the eruption had decreased by mid-afternoon, the Met Office said, though lava continued to spew from parts of the fissure and a huge plume of steam rose over a section of the crack where magma mixed with groundwater.

The eruption site is about 4 kilometers (2½ miles) northeast of Grindavik, a coastal town of 3,800 people that was evacuated before a previous eruption on Dec. 18. The Meteorological Office said there was no immediate threat to the town on Thursday.

Civil defense officials said no one was believed to be in Grindavik at the time of the new eruption. “They weren’t meant to be, and we don’t know about any,” Víðir Reynisson, the head of Iceland’s Civil Defense, told national broadcaster RUV.

The Civil Defense agency said lava reached a pipeline that supplies several towns on the Reykjanes Peninsula with hot water — which is used to heat homes — from the Svartsengi geothermal power plant. Authorities urged residents to use hot water and electricity sparingly, as workers rushed to lay an underground water pipe as a backup. Schools, gyms and swimming pools were shut because of the lack of heat and water.

The Blue Lagoon thermal spa, created using excess water from the power plant, was closed when the eruption began and all the guests were safely evacuated, RUV said. A stream of steaming lava later spread across the exit road from the spa.

No flight disruptions were reported at nearby Keflavik, Iceland’s main airport, but hot water was cut off, airport operator Isavia said.

The Icelandic Met Office earlier this week warned of a possible eruption after monitoring a buildup of magma, or semi-molten rock, below the ground for the past three weeks. Hundreds of small earthquakes had been measured in the area since Friday, capped by a burst of intense seismic activity about 30 minutes before the latest eruption began.

Dramatic video from Iceland’s coast guard showed fountains of lava soaring more than 50 meters (165 feet) into the darkened skies. A plume of vapor rose about 3 kilometers (1½ miles) above the volcano.

Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic, averages an eruption every four to five years. The most disruptive in recent times was the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which spewed huge clouds of ash into the atmosphere and led to widespread airspace closures over Europe.

Dave McGarvie, a volcanologist who has worked extensively in Iceland, said it’s highly unlikely the “gentle, effusive” eruption would disrupt aviation because such volcanoes produce only a tiny amount of ash.

Grindavik, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, was evacuated in November when the Svartsengi volcanic system awakened after almost 800 years with a series of earthquakes that opened large cracks in the earth north of the town.

The volcano eventually erupted on Dec. 18, sending lava flowing away from Grindavik. A second eruption that began on Jan. 14 sent lava towards the town. Defensive walls that had been bolstered since the first eruption stopped some of the flow, but several buildings were consumed by the lava, and land in the town has sunk by as much as 1½meters (4½ feet) because of the magma movement.

No confirmed deaths have been reported, but a workman is missing after falling into a fissure opened by the volcano.

Both the previous eruptions lasted only a matter of days, but they signal what Icelandic President Gudni Th. Johannesson called “a daunting period of upheaval” on the Reykjanes Peninsula, one of the most densely populated parts of Iceland.

It’s unclear whether the residents of Grindavik will ever be able to return permanently, McGarvie said.

“I think at the moment there is the resignation, the stoical resignation, that, for the foreseeable future, the town is basically uninhabitable,” he said.

He said that after centuries of quiet, “people thought this area was fairly safe.”

“It’s been a bit of a shock that it has come back to life,” he added, “Evidence that we gathered only quite recently is that eruptions could go on for decades, if not centuries, sporadically in this particular peninsula.”

Danica Kirka and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this story.

The nesting eagles are demonstrating “resilience extraordinaire,” according to Friends of Big Bear Valley, which monitors the nest and live streams the happenings there via two web cams.

In a social media post Tuesday, Feb. 6, the nonprofit says Jackie and her partner, Shadow, have developed a “beautiful rhythm of duty exchanges,” each taking turns rolling the three eggs and then settling in to keep them warm, before the most recent storm. At one point, Jackie took over as main caregiver and settled into the nest for 35 hours straight, the nonprofit said.

“She is built to handle this,” FOBBV wrote on Facebook. Jackie has “over 7,000 waterproof feathers to keep her dry (and no matter how wet she looks, she is dry under those outer feathers), plus downy feathers under that to keep her warm. When she stands up to roll the eggs, it’s obvious that they are dry and warm.”

This is Jackie’s first three-egg clutch, according to FOBBV. She delivered the third egg on Jan. 31, six days after the first egg arrived. Pip watch will begin in early March.

“As the storm is predicted to continue for another day, Jackie and Shadow know what they are doing,” the nonprofit said Tuesday. “The camera system, however, may go up and down a bit as the area and the communications systems get covered in snow.”

The record-setting rain that’s pummeled Southern California over the past few days, coupled with solid water storage from last year’s wet winter, has Harvey De La Torre, head of the Municipal Water District of Orange County, offering this reassuring prediction:

“I’m very confident that we will not need drought restrictions in 2024.”

After a run of historically dry years, no part of California has been under drought conditions since September, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The new storm is likely to reduce water demand for weeks, with most Californians well trained to turn off sprinklers during storms. Also, state records show that both rainfall and snowpack levels — which were far below average just a couple weeks ago — are now much improved.

But in not-so-great news, water experts say conditions in this “Pineapple Express” storm haven’t been ideal for bolstering the state’s water supply.

That’s because so much rain fell so quickly that agencies controlling dams and reservoirs have to prioritize flood management over water recovery. That means releasing lots of water into the ocean.

Agency efforts to capture more stormwater in storage and groundwater recharge basins have improved in recent years, said Medhi Nemati, an environmental policy professor at UC Riverside who studies water infrastructure. But when parts of Los Angeles get 75% of their annual rainfall in just two days, Nemati said there’s only so much water agencies can do to keep up.

Also, while California mountains have certainly been getting solid snow, the storm just wasn’t cold enough to build up the massive snowpack the region needs to be insulated against dry months and years to come.

“Historically, El Niño winters weren’t that much warmer than other winters in California,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA, noted during a briefing on the storms. “But now they are. That’s climate change.”

Snowpack is an ideal reservoir of sorts, De La Torre said, since it stores water during winter and gradually releases it as snow melts each spring and summer. So, from a water management perspective, he said the most helpful anti-drought weather pattern would be a series of smaller and colder storms that help the snowpack pile up.

Instead, he said, climate change is fueling the opposite conditions, with longer and more intense dry periods followed by extremely wet storms that often don’t deliver much snow. That’s why, while Californians aren’t likely to face bans on outdoor watering this summer, De La Torre said we’re definitely “not out of the woods” in terms of a return to drought conditions in the near future.

That could depend on what happens in the next few weeks.

If temperatures start to rise early this year, as has happened in the past, then Nemati said the snowpack will melt too early to be of much use for water supplies, since reservoirs would still be full.

California also “still has a month left of its typically rainiest part of the year, and precipitation is still below average,” said Michael Anderson, state climatologist with the Department of Water Resources.

“Anytime precipitation and the snowpack — which is still lagging behind total state precipitation totals at only 75% of average — is below average before the end of the rainy season, there is a threat that dry conditions could set in again. However, major statewide reservoirs are still above average thanks to last year’s snowpack and are in a much better position than they were two years ago,” Anderson said.

In 2022, a megadrought that started in the West in the late 1990s had spiked, triggering unprecedented water restrictions throughout Southern California. And forecasters were largely predicting it would get worse in 2023.

Instead, the state experienced record snowpack. Local lake and reservoir levels also rose dramatically, after 33.56 inches of rain fell statewide in the water year from Oct. 1, 2022 to Sept. 30.

While experts were predicting a return to El Niño conditions that might make this another wet winter, the water year started slowly.

After measuring snowpack in the Sierra Nevada on Jan. 2, officials reported just 7.5 inches of snow, only about 30% of the average for that time of year. Based on those figures, state regulators allocated for water contractors to receive just 10% of the water they’d requested from the snowpack-fed State Water Project. Allocations will be updated later this month, though they’ll be based on January snowpack. De La Torre said it will probably be March before we see water from this storm reflected in those numbers, and not until April or May before they know where final allocations will land.

He’s optimistic that his agency, which handles wholesale water supplies for much of Orange County, will eventually receive much of what it asked for this year. The big question, he said, is whether they’ll have enough water to not only meet demands, but also store some water for the inevitable dry years to come. And, so far, De La Torre is feeling less confident about that.

Along with snowpack concerns, the Colorado River — which is critically important for Southern California’s imported water supply — remains well below average.

The river’s two key reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, are so massive that De La Torre said they just don’t recover nearly as quickly as California’s reservoirs. The river also is fed by melting snowpack in Colorado, which this year has seen a so-so snow season. And since rivers get some of their supply from flows fed by groundwater, a recent UC Riverside study shows they don’t recover as quickly or easily from drought, with steady precipitation needed over a number of years to replenish depleted groundwater.

That’s why Nemati said we need to focus on continuing to capture more water during wet years and getting our infrastructure ready for extreme storms, with more storage and recharge projects plus upgrades to our aging delivery system.

When it comes to staying out of a drought, De La Torre said, “It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.”

Click here to read the introduction to this week’s newsletter, where environment reporter Brooke Staggs reflects on winters in her hometown and how they’re being shaped by climate change.

 PROTECT

Monarchs decline: After two years of increases, Steve Scauzillo reports the population of Western monarch butterflies wintering on the California coast dropped 30% in late 2023. One bright spot: Some have been spotted in new areas, possibly thanks to folks planting more milkweeds. …READ MORE…

Asbestos tests coming: Some Tustin residences will soon be tested for asbestos and lead that might have been dispersed during the November hangar fire, Michael Slaten reports. Area residents interested in having soil on their property tested can sign up now. …READ MORE…

• Details of fire: Minute-by-minute account provides details for how firefighters battled Tustin hangar fire
• Health warnings issued: Smoke and debris tested positive for the presence of asbestos, lead, arsenic and nickel
• Risks later deemed minimal: Health officials say Tustin hangar fire didn’t pose big health risk

Sewage spill shutters beaches: Roughly one million gallons of untreated sewage has spilled into the Dominguez Channel, which discharges at Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro. Kristy Hutchings reports the spill has closed the entire waterfront. …READ MORE…

Burro slaughter breakthrough: There may finally be a breakthrough in a long-running investigation into the killing of wild burros in the Mojave Desert nearly five years ago, the Associated Press reports. Now authorities want the public’s help. …READ MORE…

 SIZZLE

Tree rings record climate change: A new study that analyzed tree rings going back five centuries confirmed what other research has shown: There’s no precedent in modern times for how hot and dry the West has been in the last two decades. …READ MORE…

What 1.5 degrees means: It’s becoming increasingly clear that it may be too late to stop our planet from hitting 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming above preindustrial temperatures. So what does that mean for us? And for efforts to avoid the next target of staying below 2 degrees of warming? Hayley Smith at the Los Angeles Times has a helpful explainer. …READ MORE…

 HYDRATE

Storm pummels state: Roads are flooded, trees are down, classes have been canceled, communities have been evacuated… Here’s a look at some of the great coverage my colleagues have produced over the past few days about how recent severe storms are impacting Southern California.

• Emergency declared as Southern California storm is called potentially catastrophic and life-threatening
• 40 people evacuated in the Topanga Canyon area
• Dirt road leading into beloved San Onofre Surf Beach destroyed and closed indefinitely
• Disneyland closing early as heavy rain closes Knott’s, Magic Mountain and SeaWorld
• Photos: Powerful storm sends water, mud slamming into Beverly Crest homes
• ‘Sketchiest’ rescue saves 3 stuck in tree in Devore after SUV is washed into creek
• SoCal Storm 2024: LA, OC and Inland Empire residents share videos on social media
• Downtown LA smashes rainfall record

 VOTE

OC voter guide: Along with questions about border policies and homelessness, the great team behind the Register’s primary election voter guide asked each candidate about a climate or environment policy they’d champion if (re)elected. Check out their answers here. …READ MORE…

Young voters hold sway: “They’re way less White and religious and wealthy than older voters. They’re also more influenced by specific issues, including the environment, gun control and racial justice.” Andre Mouchard looks at how young voters might impact this year’s elections. …READ MORE…

 TRANSPORT

People movers pushed back: Two automated transit systems slated to whisk riders to LAX and to SoFi Stadium are facing delays that could push their openings out by more than a year, Jason Henry reports. That means the SoFi one might not be ready for Olympics crowds after all. …READ MORE…

 EXPLORE

Explore new climate fiction: Whenever I’m stuck at home, I fuel my adventure addiction by watching movies and reading stories that transport me to other parts of the world. So with rain still falling in buckets around Southern California, I thought I’d use this space to share the awesome collection Grist has compiled of fresh fiction with a climate bent from Southern California and all over the world. Gonna get cozy and explore some of these tales tonight!

 PITCH IN

Try out this online tool: For this week’s tip on how Southern Californians can help the environment… Thought about trying to electrify your home but worried about costs or what difference it might make? Rewiring America recently launched a new online tool called the Personal Electrification Planner. It gives users a picture of the upfront cost, annual bill savings, annual emissions reductions, and air pollution and health impacts of electrifying their homes by switching to heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, induction stoves, electric dryers, EV chargers and rooftop solar. Test it out, then share the tool to spread the word!

Thanks for reading, Composters! And don’t forget to sign up to get The Compost delivered to your inbox.

I was 12 years old when I got my first job selling “Team Big Bear” T-shirts at a booth during one of the mountain bike races that took over Snow Summit ski resort each summer.

When the snow came that fall, I went back to the resort to rent lockers to skiers and snowboarders who needed to stash their belongings while they hit the slopes. We’d sing along to Blind Melon’s “No Rain,” which radio stations played on a steady loop that winter. And we’d talk about plans to grab our boards and jump on a lift ourselves as soon as we punched the clock.

The great Richard Attenborough released a documentary a few years ago called “A Life on Our Planet,” which he called a “witness statement” about how ecosystems around the world have been transformed by climate change over his 93 years. So when I saw there was a study by Dartmouth researchers that looked at how climate change has impacted snowfall across the Northern Hemisphere since 1980, when I was born, I knew it was time for a witness statement of my own that attempted to answer a question that’s been on my mind for some time: Can Southern California ski resorts survive climate change?

My childhood in Big Bear was winters with snow piled so high that we built tunnels and forts in our front yard. We’d cheer when the local TV channel flashed the news that school was canceled, then grab our sleds and head for the hills behind the post office in Fawnskin. One winter in high school, a friend and I grabbed our snowboards and hoofed it uphill in deep powder to ride at the old Snow Forest Ski Area, which had shut down a few years earlier.

Sure, some winters were whiter than others. But the arrival of snow always felt as inevitable as the avalanche of “flatlanders” who’d come chasing after it.

Anecdotally — to me and to my family, who still lives in Big Bear, and to many long-time residents of the area — the snow just doesn’t feel quite as inevitable anymore. And the Dartmouth study explained why, with data showing that spring snowpack has dropped by up to 40% in parts of the Southwest over my lifetime.

More worrisome, lead researcher Alex Gottlieb explained how this trend accelerates exponentially with each degree of global warming. “So that first degree might take 5 to 10% of your snowpack on average. But that second degree, it’s going to take 10 to 15%, and then the next 15 to 20%.” Absent drastic measures to halt global warming, Gottlieb told me, climate models show there will likely be little to no snow in our local mountains by the end of the century.

Gottlieb’s team tackled this research in hopes of giving folks a warning, so they can plan for water systems and economies and lifestyles that will almost certainly include much less snow down the road. That’s why I wanted to write this story, too. Not to scare anyone or to be a downer, but in hopes of informing residents and leaders of my hometown and other mountain towns in our region so they can plan for the wild weather swings climate change has already ushered in and what the models say will come. I’ve said it in this newsletter before: Ignorance is bliss but knowledge is power.

More summer and shoulder season activities, like the mountain bike races that have long helped lure tourists to town when the snow doesn’t beckon and give locals like 12-year-old me jobs, is a great start. There are more concerts and festivals in town now, which Big Bear Lake City Manager Erik Sund told me is part of a focused effort to maintain a solid level of tourism throughout the year.

One thing that surprised me in reporting this story was that ski resorts haven’t become more vocal advocates in the fight against climate change, which is threatening their very existence all over the globe. Industry trade groups such as the National Ski Areas Association and outdoor gear companies are doing some of this work. But local resort and state industry representatives told me they see it as a global issue, outside their wheelhouse, and that California is already a leader in this space.

As one reader responded: “When it hits them in the pocketbook, they will pay attention.”

Click here for this week’s curated list of environmental news impacting Southern California.

Thanks for reading, Composters! And don’t forget to sign up to get The Compost delivered to your inbox.

A California cheese and dairy company is the source of a decade-long outbreak of listeria food poisoning that killed two people and sickened more than two dozen, federal health officials said Tuesday.

New lab and inspection evidence linked soft cheeses and other dairy products made by Rizo-Lopez Foods of Modesto, California, to the outbreak, which was first detected in June 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Since then, at least 26 people in 11 states have been sickened. They include a person who died in California in 2017 and one who died in Texas in 2020, CDC officials said.

On Monday, the company recalled more than 60 soft cheeses, yogurt and sour cream sold under the brands Tio Francisco, Don Francisco, Rizo Bros, Rio Grande, Food City, El Huache, La Ordena, San Carlos, Campesino, Santa Maria, Dos Ranchitos, Casa Cardenas, and 365 Whole Foods Market.

The CDC previously investigated cases of food poisoning tied to queso fresco and other similar types of cheese in 2017 and 2021, but there was not enough evidence to identify a source.

The recalled products were distributed nationwide at stores and retail deli counters, including El Super, Cardenas Market, Northgate Gonzalez, Superior Groceries, El Rancho, Vallarta, Food City, La Michoacana, and Numero Uno Markets.

Listeria infections can cause serious illness and, in rare cases, death. People who are pregnant, older than 65 or have weakened immune systems are particularly vulnerable. Symptoms — like muscle aches, fever and tiredness — usually start within two weeks after eating contaminated foods, but can start earlier or later.

The CDC said consumers who have these products should discard them and thoroughly clean the refrigerator, counters and other contact sites. Listeria can survive in the refrigerator and easily contaminate other foods and surfaces.

RELATED: More than 10 inches of rain hits some Southern California areas

An ARkStorm is a type of atmospheric river. Atmospheric rivers are “relatively long, narrow regions in the atmosphere – like rivers in the sky.” ARkStorm’s on the other hand are basically a worst case scenario megastorm that was developed as a weather model in 2011. They are a “hypothetical but plausible extreme storm & flood scenario” for California.

Scientists took to social media to debunk theories that some believed that the storm coming to Southern California was an ARkStorm.

The current California atmospheric river (AR) storm is not an ARkStorm.
ARs are a type of storm that bring in much of the rain in California. ARkStorm is AR 1000(k), the very rare AR that lasts for so long that it overwhelms our flood control capacity. Learn more in thread

— Dr. Lucy Jones (@DrLucyJones) February 5, 2024

Bottom line: All ARkStorms are atmospheric rivers but not all atmospheric rivers are ARkStorms. The biggest storms become big and devastating because they last for weeks. Imagine this week being repeated all month long. That's an ARkStorm

— Dr. Lucy Jones (@DrLucyJones) February 5, 2024

6) But, importantly, ARkStorm scenarios involve *much longer, more severe, and more widespread storm sequence than is currently occurring.*

Good news? Feb 2024 isn't an ARK2-like scenario. Bad news? A real such occurrence would be much worse.!#CAwater https://t.co/z5n9h3IjpM

— Dr. Daniel Swain (@Weather_West) February 5, 2024

Are we really doing another ARKstorm tweet again? This was senseless the first time around and senseless again. Please leave this messaging to the pro’s as there are nuances to understanding the real threat vs the imagined. This is imaginary at this point.

— NPD_MAWACA (@NPD_DNP) February 5, 2024

Online chatter about an #arkstorm hitting CA soon… debunked… for now. @DrLucyJones says arkstorms happen, on average, every 200-300 years.
The last one was 1862.

“What happened in 1862 is the rain didn’t stop.”@USGS video explains what would happen@fergusonbj @Cal_OES pic.twitter.com/vFchf4S3G1

— MarlaTellez (@MarlaTellez) February 2, 2024

Here's a tangible problem with exaggerated "ArkStorm might be coming" messaging:

Lots of folks, including community leaders, are now saying "Whew! We just weathered the ARkStorm okay!"

Except…they didn't! This is not an ARkStorm-level event–but many folks now think it was.

— Dr. Daniel Swain (@Weather_West) February 5, 2024

What we just saw was *not* an ARkStorm, folks. https://t.co/jIniW7B1zs

— Deirdre Des Jardins (@flowinguphill) February 5, 2024

Some people also made light of the heavy weather and poked fun at ARkStorm hysteria.

ARkStorm 2024.
We will rebuild. pic.twitter.com/CDFElEc877

— Crystal Heath DVM (@drcrystalheath) February 5, 2024

A handful of super powerful tropical storms in the last decade and the prospect of more to come has a couple of experts proposing a new category of whopper hurricanes: Category 6.

Studies have shown that the strongest tropical storms are getting more intense because of climate change. So the traditional five-category Saffir-Simpson scale, developed more than 50 years ago, may not show the true power of the most muscular storms, two climate scientists suggest in a Monday study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They propose a sixth category for storms with winds that exceed 192 miles per hour (309 kilometers per hour).

Currently, storms with winds of 157 mph (252 kilometers per hour) or higher are Category 5. The study’s authors said that open-ended grouping doesn’t warn people enough about the higher dangers from monstrous storms that flirt with 200 mph (322 kph) or higher.

Several experts told The Associated Press they don’t think another category is necessary. They said it could even give the wrong signal to the public because it’s based on wind speed, while water is by far the deadliest killer in hurricanes.

Since 2013, five storms — all in the Pacific — had winds of 192 mph or higher that would have put them in the new category, with two hitting the Philippines. As the world warms, conditions grow more ripe for such whopper storms, including in the Gulf of Mexico, where many storms that hit the United States get stronger, the study authors said.

“Climate change is making the worst storms worse,” said study lead author Michael Wehner, a climate scientist at the Lawrence Berkley National Lab.

It’s not that there are more storms because of climate change. But the strongest are more intense. The proportion of major hurricanes among all storms is increasing and it’s because of warmer oceans, said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy, who wasn’t part of the research.

From time to time, experts have proposed a Category 6, especially since Typhoon Haiyan reached 195 mph wind speeds (315 kilometers per hour) over the open Pacific. But Haiyan “does not appear to be an isolated case,” the study said.

Storms of sufficient wind speed are called hurricanes if they form east of the international dateline, and typhoons if they form to the west of the line. They’re known as cyclones in the Indian Ocean and Australia.

The five storms that hit 192 mph winds or more are:

— 2013’s Haiyan, which killed more than 6,300 people in the Philippines.

— 2015’s Hurricane Patricia, which hit 215 mph (346 kph) before weakening and hitting Jalisco, Mexico.

— 2016’s Typhoon Meranti, which reached 195 mph before skirting the Philippines and Taiwan and making landfall in China.

— 2020’s Typhoon Goni, which reached 195 mph before killing dozens in the Philippines as a weaker storm.

— 2021’s Typhoon Surigae, which also reached 195 mph before weakening and skirting several parts of Asia and Russia.

If the world sticks with just five storm categories “as these storms get stronger and stronger it will more and more underestimate the potential risk,” said study co-author Jim Kossin, a former NOAA climate and hurricane researcher now with First Street Foundation.

Pacific storms are stronger because there’s less land to weaken them and more room for storms to grow more intense, unlike the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean, Kossin said.

So far no Atlantic storm has reached the 192 mph potential threshold, but as the world warms more the environment for such a storm grows more conducive, Kossin and Wehner said.

Wehner said that as temperatures rise, the number of days with conditions ripe for potential Category 6 storms in the Gulf of Mexico will grow. Now it’s about 10 days a year where the environment could be right for a Category 6, but that could go up to a month if the globe heats to 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. That would make an Atlantic Category 6 much more likely.

MIT hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel said Wehner and Kossin “make a strong case for changing the scale,” but said it’s unlikely to happen because authorities know most hurricane damage comes from storm surge and other flooding.

Jamie Rhome, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center, said when warning people about storms his office tries “to steer the focus toward the individual hazards, which include storm surge, wind, rainfall, tornadoes and rip currents, instead of the particular category of the storm, which only provides information about the hazard from wind. Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale already captures ‘catastrophic damage’ from wind so it’s not clear there would be a need for another category even if the storms were to get stronger.”

McNoldy, former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Craig Fugate, and University of Albany atmospheric sciences professor Kristen Corbosiero all say they don’t see the necessity for a sixth and stronger storm category.

“Perhaps I’ll change my tune when a rapidly intensifying storm in the Gulf achieves a Category 6,” Corbosiero said in an email.

Each year, albatross pairs – mated for life unless a partner dies – typically have just one egg. The eggs incubate for 60 days and crack open in the fourth week of January. From then, the chicks spend six months on the islands of the Midway Atoll, growing and learning to fly.

The massive seabirds — some have wingspans of up to 12 feet — spend their lives on their wings, soaring up to 500 miles a day and cruising at 80 mph with barely a flap, so developing flight skills are critical to survival. They are known to travel incredible distances without rest and are rarely spotted.

So seeing the birds close up and “being part of their tribe” was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the Orange County marine biologist who usually spends her time researching marine life closer to home off the Southern California coast and educating local students. Caruso, of Garden Grove, was part of a team of 12 citizen scientists who recently spent six days a week for three weeks counting albatross nests on the Midway Atoll.

Just back from the monthlong trip, Caruso has been sharing what she learned with students at local middle schools. The lesson includes fascinating tidbits about the albatross, but also how plastic pollution and entanglements from fishing lines, hooks, and nets are a real threat to the birds. She also tries to inspire students to think about volunteering as citizen scientists – much of her research is done with the help of hundreds of volunteers.

“I was handing them pieces of grass,” Caruso said of her recent experience as one of a dozen volunteers helping United States Fish and Wildlife Department officials with their annual albatross nest count on the U.S. territory island. The atoll is home to at least 70% of the albatross population and is known for its use during World War II and the battle that secured it for the U.S.

“They’d go about their business preening and they’d talk to their egg,” Caruso said. “I’d sit and watch them do their dances. There aren’t many places in the world where you can be among them.”

Counting albatross annually

The wildlife department – along with the Friends of Midway Atoll  – have kept track of the elusive seabirds since 1991. The U.S. Department of the Interior took over monitoring the atoll’s islands from the Department of Defense in 1996 when a Navy base was shuttered and the islands became a marine sanctuary, a national historical monument and a national wildlife refuge.

The count starts in December and must be completed in 21 days by the Nesting Albatross Census Team, which tracks two species of seabirds on the island: the black-footed albatross and the Laysan albatross.

The charter plane Caruso took from Honolulu to the islands landed in the dark of night to avoid the birds. The group was picked up in golf carts and bunked in old military barracks. After breakfast early the next morning they rode bikes along gravel paths to get their gear and start counting.

The gear included snow shoes because another of the island’s birds, the Bonin petrel, burrows deep tunnels into the ground to nest.

“Every step you take, you could fall into a hole up to your waist,” Caruso said. “Then you’d have to get up and dig the bird out.”

To start the count, the volunteers, who came from different backgrounds and from across the nation, formed a line standing five feet apart and systematically moved along, passing nesting adults and counting each nest with a clicker.

“We’d get to the endpoint and then go back the other way,” Caruso said. “We covered the entire islands and I walked 196 miles.”

After 21 days – volunteers got Sundays, Christmas, and New Year’s Day off – the census group had counted 29,562 black-footed albatross and 498,448 Laysan albatross nests for a total of 528,010 nests. About 80% of the eggs typically hatch, but only about 30% of fledglings survive.

An estimated 1.5 million albatross visit the atoll, which once was three islands but two merged as geography shifted, said Dan Cullinane, a retired biology and chemistry teacher from – coincidentally – Midway City, who lead the count this time.

This was Cullinane’s third time participating in the census count.

“It’s nice to be able to walk among the albatross, and you’re counting more than 500,000 nests,” he said, adding that since the birds have no natural predators on land, they are not fearful of humans. Heat and dehydration – if chicks can’t be found when the parents return to feed them – are the biggest enemies of the chicks growing into fledglings.

“It’s hard for the people on the island to see so many birds die,” he said of the 40 or so refuge staff members, contractors, and volunteers who live on the islands year-round.

Doing the albatross dance

Caruso, Cullinane and the others were treated to a show by the albatross – the seabirds’ mating dance.

Young birds do not return to land until their third year after fledging. When they return, they don’t breed at first, but instead learn to perfect their dance moves, build nests and look for a possible mate. Birds first breed between 5 and 8 years of age.

The dance is done to identify their mate of choice; the better the dance, the more coveted they become. The dances are complex with several moves.

Once mated, they finetune the dance and use the moves to identify their partner when returning to Midway to mate again, Cullinane said.  After a chick fledges, the pairs separate for the rest of the year and return to Midway when it’s time to breed, he said.

Birds who lose a mate, either because it doesn’t return to Midway or suffers some other fate, have to go through a new courting process.

Such is the case with Midway’s oldest bird, Wisdom, said Cullinane. Famous among birders, Wisdom was first banded by scientists in 1956. She was seen dancing again, on the prowl for her third mate. But age becomes her well, Cullinane said, because she looks physically no different than younger birds.

Sharing the experience

While Caruso was wowed by the albatross’s fascinating life and how the seabird has evolved over millions of years, a sad discovery was the tremendous amount of trash and debris she and others picked up from around bird nests and beaches. Along with litter washing ashore, the seabirds often pick up plastics from the ocean.

She had bags of litter with her when she recently took her presentation to eighth-graders at Vista View Middle School in Fountain Valley. She said many were “slack-jawed” by what she shared, especially by the albatross dance moves.

“The students really loved the ones where the birds put their beaks into their armpits,” she said.”They were attentive and amused.”

But, even more thrilled was Daryth Morrisey, who teaches science and marine biology to the middle schoolers. Eliminating single-use plastic is a message she said she wants to deliver loud and clear to her students.

“I start off the year with a plastic pollution unit,” she said. “To actually have Nancy see those incredible birds is amazing. To gift me a piece of regurgitated plastic from an albatross is a priceless teaching tool.”