Climate disruption has arrived, bringing challenges that once seemed unimaginable: wildfires so large and hot that they create their own weather, record-breaking heat waves and a vanishing Sierra snowpack.
Against that backdrop, hundreds of University of California scientists and researchers are working to help people across the state cope, with innovations to fight fire, protect precious water supplies and accelerate the transition to a clean energy future.
State and federal leaders are critical partners in UC's efforts, providing essential funding and support. Gov. Gavin Newsom's proposed state budget includes a $185M investment in UC's climate resilience work. If approved, the funds would provide seed grants for promising research; expand regional innovation incubators focused on climate solutions; and support new workforce training and development hubs for climate-focused jobs.
Here are some of the climate resilience efforts already making a difference in Californian's lives:
Wildfire response
Wildfires in California are getting bigger, hotter and harder to contain, with seven of the largest wildfires in state history occurring in just the last four years. UC researchers are responding to this new reality on multiple fronts, deploying technologies to aid first responders, creating disaster-proof building materials, providing guidance on more resilient forests, and offering resources — like this primer on how to fire-harden your home — to help families cope.
Eyes where we need them
UC San Diego's Neal Driscoll, in concert with CAL FIRE and other partners, has deployed a network of more than 840 high-tech infrared cameras across rugged, fire-prone regions of the state to help firefighters respond at the first sign of smoke. The cameras are so powerful that they can detect a fire from more than 70 miles away. The expanding ALERTWildfire network lets first responders know what's happening on the ground, even before they get there.
“It used to take 20 to 30 minutes for our commanders to get to fires and make decisions, and now with the cameras, we are reacting within seconds of the first report,” CAL FIRE San Diego County Unit Chief Tony Mecham told Triton magazine. “That extra time is significant when it comes to moving resources or starting evacuations. It's making a difference. I can't even put into words how important those first few minutes are.”
Anticipating wildfire's path
Scientists have also unleashed the power of artificial intelligence and supercomputing to aid embattled firefighters. At the UC San Diego Supercomputer Center, Chief Data Science Officer Ilkay Altintas leads the WIFIRE Lab, which crunches huge volumes of data to give fire officials real-time models for predicting a fire's trajectory. Known as “Firemaps,” the models draw on data from the point of origin, topography, weather and wind conditions, vegetation and more to chart what's to come.
“For incident commanders, the WIFIRE Firemap is one of the most progressive decision-making tools developed in the last decade,” said L.A. Fire Department Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas. “Firemap gives the commanders accurate and real-time data to help make command decisions when prioritizing resource allocation or which communities to evacuate.”
Disaster-proof housing
UC Davis structural engineer Michele Barbato is developing new ways to build affordable homes that can withstand most of what the planet throws their way. Co-director of the UC Davis Climate Adaptation Research Center, he is focused on a very ancient solution — something that's been around for more than 10,000 years. That “technology” is mud, or rather an engineered form of it called compressed and stabilized earth blocks.
When engineered correctly, compressed and stabilized earth blocks can withstand magnitude 7 earthquakes, Category 5 hurricanes and rate-3 tornadoes. They also appear to be impervious to fire: when Barbato's team tested the technology in a furnace at nearly 2,200 degrees F, the earth blocks reacted much as they would in a kiln, becoming more like red brick.
Although more research is needed before earth block homes start popping up, they could become a viable solution that is cost-effective, environmentally-friendly and able to withstand the unpredictable conditions of our changing climate.
“If we're building back better, we need to design not for wind loads or fire loads that are here now, but for the ones we think our structures will have to survive in the future,” Barbato said.
Learn more about the house that doesn't burn
Resilient forests
For more than five decades, UC Berkeley forestry scientists have used a 4,000-acre experimental forest in the northern Sierra Nevada as a living laboratory to study how different land management practices can reduce the risk of severe wildfire and improve forest resilience to climate change.
Prescribed burns are now one of the primary tools that researchers at the Blodgett Forest Research Station use to maintain biodiversity, reduce the risk of severe wildfire and increase the amount of water available to trees during periods of drought.
Researchers have also come to recognize that decades of fire suppression — and the myth that forests do best when left untouched — have created dangerously overgrown conditions in much of the Sierra Nevada. California's Indigenous people were using fire to care for the land long before Europeans arrived. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=i6kKwsA1B3U&feature=emb_logo