Climate of opinion – An Irishwoman’s Diary on California’s crazy weather

‘The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in . . .!”Stop! Don’t say it! Don’t quote what Mark Twain said about San Francisco’s foggy summers.

It’s what goose-bumped tourists groaned while fleeing to Fisherman’s Wharf to buy a fleecy (in every sense) Giants sweatshirt.

Even Pope John Paul II complained. On his September 1987 visit, he zipped past Geary’s Irish pubs in the Popemobile at 65 mph, pausing only for spicy Hot and Sour Cambodian takeaway. Then he fled (the gay protesters, maybe?)

Fact is, nobody’s quoting Twain now.

Fires have been raging. Upstate and down: the Valley, Butte, Rough, Shasta-Trinity and Happy Camp blaze. Thirsty wildlife wandered everywhere. Two bears were found in an elementary school, a mountain lion paced a bus stop in Seacliff, a posh San Francisco suburb. Our drought is in its fourth year. Small farmers despaired. When Harbin, a legendary nudist hot springs, was incinerated, so did many more.

Extreme weather

Back in the good old 20th century, extreme-weather phenomenon known as El Niño brought torrential rains. I humped sandbags and climbed the roof with buckets of tar. Yet for two weeks in October we dug out tragic muumuus and flopped about like Scarlett O’Hara at the Summer of Love.

El Niño’s torrential rains are predicted again, but right now we’re buying fans. My neighbours bust out shorts in March and tank tops in May. Whatever next? Sundresses, tank tops, deodorants, oh my!

Not only is it hotter than Hades, but nature itself is out of whack. With any luck we’ll be swimming in the bay in our birthday suits while ocean warming is giving us a whole new menagerie to play with, thanks to The Blob.

The Blob, I hear you ask?

The Blob is a shapeless patch of hotter water a thousand miles offshore that pulls in warm-water marine life. Think of it as an oceanic hot tub with Jacuzzi tendencies. Species who like cold-water living swim further north. Other kinds swarm The Blob.

Nobody knows where The Blob comes from, other than global warming. State climatologist Nicholas Bond puts it this way: “The waters along the entire west coast from Mexico up to Alaska and into the Bering are considerably warmer than normal. In places, more than three degrees Celsius.” Take that, climate change deniers!

Seals

Meanwhile cold-water mammals like seals swim father north for the cooler zooplankton. Last spring they abandoned their babies to chase the food. Hundreds of baby seals landed on beaches, weak and starving.

Yet as my boss was kayaking off Highway 1 at Moss Landing the other day, the waves were black, she says, with “whatever those tiny fish are called...”

My boss is a cool-headed, outdoorsy straight talker. But she’d run out of words. “An enormous school of dolphins – several dozen – pounded right in front of us out of nowhere, and one of us counted 60 or more of them.”

Were those frisky dolphins interested in playing, I inquired? Jeanne laughed. “Only thing they cared about was those tiny fish.”

Anchovies! Canaries of the deep! Vast schools of them! Humpback and grey and blue and orca whales, and seals and pelicans followed with feeding frenzies. Shore life too – red pelagic crabs from Mexico, bright purple blobs.

They’re swarming into Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, a protected underwater canyon of kelp-rich waters ever since 1962.

During Big Blue Live – a BBC-PBS live sea-cam next to world-renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium – an 80ft blue whale circled a kayaker around the harbour last week.

Whales

Viewers and reporters yelped with mingled anxiety and joy as it swam beneath the kayak, confirming suspicions that whales are as fascinated by humans as vice versa, as Gulliver was fascinated by Lilliputians. Whales sing, echo-communicate, interact with other species. Their big enemy is an occasional rudder, and many have injuries if they beach as many did this summer – or were they just lost?

Well, they’re all protected since the 1962 Marine Protection Act, so this is ground zero, is what most marine biologists say.

But anchovies are the kickstart. Anchovies normally hang out off Peru where they stabilise the economy. Thanks to 10-degree warmer water and The Blob, the Pacific catch moved north, with half of marine creation.

By the way, and this is apropos I swear, I have dived in Monterey Bay’s kelp forest and don’t advise it. It’s hard to tell which direction you’re swimming and tough getting out of the steeply shelving shore. Swimming with seals is a delight, though – they like playing catch and scratching you with their whiskers, yet are careful not to hit you.

Ah, where was I? Oh yes, El Niño – named for the infant Jesus because it arrives at Christmas.

One morning recently we awoke to a light mist that turned into a drizzle. Early El Niño!

“I’ve heard of this stuff,” said my neighbour. “They say it’s called ‘rain’.” By next day it stopped. We were in the nineties and he was back in shorts.

People talk of the “upwelling of faunal strength”, the resurgence in the formerly endangered species. I just wish I knew what to do about raccoons. I came home the other night to find four washing in my cats’ water bowl.

“Get out!” I shouted, brandishing a baseball bat as my cats looked elsewhere. Then I trod on a spiky Jerusalem cricket, which was way worse.