Valley has record temperature
The weather was visibly warm during last week’s Thanksgiving holiday, a weather pattern seen locally and across different parts of the country.
According to the National Weather Service, the median temperature for Thanksgiving in the Imperial County is 74 degrees, but a new record was set this year reaching 90 degrees.
Across the southwest, a vast number of records were broken. The Los Angeles Times reported that within the L.A. metropolitan area, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Lancaster, Palmdale, Oxnard and Santa Barbara all set new record highs this year.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the city tied its record high for the holiday at 87 degrees, while El Cajon and Escondido, with previous highs in the mid-80s, broke records by reaching 93 and 92 degrees respectively.
Elsewhere, the city of Phoenix also tied its record high at 87 degrees; Las Vegas set a new record at 80 degrees.
Although most of the record-high temperatures occurred in the southwest, it wasn’t the case with all. The city of Fort Collins, located north of Denver, broke its local high when the thermometer reached 69 degrees, surpassing a century-long record.
The Coloradoan reported the unusually high temperature was 15 degrees warmer than usual. Seattle also set a new mark at 59 degrees, Des Moines, Iowa, which averages 43 degrees, experience a 70-degree weather the day after Thanksgiving and Great Falls, Mont., broke its record by five degrees by peaking at 68 degrees. Del Mar’s plan
For the past couple of years, the city of Del Mar in San Diego County has been working on a plan to combat sea-level rise as a result of climate change.
The city recently released a draft plan last week which provides a framework for the city to manage risks and take actions based on specific triggers and monitoring of Sea-level rise and its effects.
According to a conservative estimate, Del Mar can expect a foot of sea-level rise by 2050, and as much as three feet by the end of the century.
As part of its plan, the city identifies three high priority adaptations measures which include the relocation of the city’s fire station, the public works yard, and flood-proofing the sewer lift station along the beach.
KPBS reported that when the city released a draft plan, it included a controversial strategy known as managed retreat which refers to a possible relocation of private property, which didn’t sit well with homeowners who felt their properties could devalue. Since then, the city has removed the managed retreat component. Reducing methane American company Exxon Mobil, along with seven other energy companies from across the world, announced last week they would join efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions, particularly methane emissions in the natural gas sector.
Methane is the primary component of natural gas, and the surging gas production from the shale boom has given rise to increased methane emissions throughout much of the past 15 years. The energy sector - including oil and gas production and coal mining - is the largest source of U.S. methane emissions, which are a major contributor to the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
Methane is approximately 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas.
The list of companies which also includes BP, Eni, Repsol, Shell, Statoil, Total and Wintershall agreed to take necessary measures to reduce methane emissions by a variety of means such as to push for improvements through the sector, including pipelines and power plants; to improve the accuracy of emissions data; to push for sound policies and regulations that reduce emissions without eliminating gas production; and to increase public transparency.
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