Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Climate

San Diego Got a Month's Worth of Rain in 3 Hours

On flooding in California, roomy EVs, and why spider webs might get bigger

San Diego Got a Month's Worth of Rain in 3 Hours
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Wildfires are raging around the Colombian capital of Bogotá • Storm Isha is moving away from the U.K., but Storm Jocelyn is approaching • It’s 35 degrees Fahrenheit and cloudy in New Hampshire, where voters will head to the polls in the first presidential primary of 2024.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Extreme rainfall floods San Diego

San Diego’s mayor declared a state of emergency Monday after the city experienced its wettest January day on record. More than a month’s worth of rain fell in just three hours, flooding streets, washing away cars, and inundating homes. “The whole house is, like, under mud,” resident Lara Lockwood toldThe New York Times. “It is very overwhelming. I don’t even know where to start.” At least 24 people had to be rescued from nearby rivers. Researchers say climate change is making rain storms more intense. “When it’s raining, it’s raining more,” climate scientist Ryan Harp toldThe Washington Post.

X/lewivuittonn

2. Reviewers give thumbs up to Kia EV9’s novel third row

First-drive reviews are trickling in for Kia’s EV9, “an all-electric SUV with three rows that many believe will bring a whole new batch of EV customers into the market,” said Kirsten Korosec at TechCrunch. It’s super quiet, feels nice on the road, and looks incredibly cool. But what about that third row? The consensus seems to be: It’s nice to have, but it could be bigger.

  • “I wouldn’t want to spend hours back there, but it’s totally workable for a quick ‘everybody pile in to go to dinner’ situation.” –Arstechnica
  • “The EV9 delivered much more room than most third rows I’ve ever experienced, especially in EVs. … Younger people looking to start families and go electric have been waiting for a vehicle like this, and I don’t think it will disappoint.” –Electrek
  • “The third row isn’t exactly spacious, but certainly better than many three-row SUVs I have been in.” – TechCrunch
  • “The third row wants for leg room but not head room, and the middle row slides to mitigate some of that.” –Autocar

KIA

3. VP Harris touts Biden's $1 trillion in climate spending

The Biden administration wants to drum up enthusiasm about its climate track record ahead of Election Day 2024, and it seems to have landed on an unusual strategy: Boast about how much money it has spent. Vice President Kamala Harris has been telling crowds that she and Biden have invested $1 trillion in climate initiatives. The figure “doesn’t align with one of the chief metrics observers have used to measure the administration’s climate agenda: $369 billion,” reportedE&E News. So where did it come from? Simple arithmetic, the White House said. “She is referencing all of the clean energy, resilience, environmental justice, and innovation funding that is part of our historic effort to address the climate crisis, increase resilience, advance environmental justice, and build a clean energy economy,” a White House spokesperson told E&E News. While right-wing critics say the spending has been excessive, the administration is hoping it will show climate-oriented voters that Biden cares, and motivate them to vote.

4. Report: Benefits of storing carbon in soil ‘too good to be true

The carbon sequestration benefits of regenerative farming have been overexaggerated, reports the Financial Times, as agribusiness giants look for new ways to offset their emissions. Regenerative agriculture aims to improve soil quality by avoiding pesticides and fertilizers, planting cover crops, and leaving fields untilled. Healthier soil can store more carbon, which is why big polluters in food production are committing money and land to regenerative practices. But the soil sequestration movement is undermined by murky measurements and a lack of clear guidelines and definitions from the agrifood industry: Just 18 of the 50 projects using regenerative agriculture offered quantitative targets, the FT reported. Industries seem to be ignoring the fact that soil can only hold so much carbon before emissions rise again, and that carbon stored in soil isn’t trapped forever.

Get Heatmap AM directly in your inbox every morning:

* indicates required
  • 5. Scientists are worried about missing Arctic climate data from Russia

    A lack of scientific data out of Russia is limiting our understanding of how climate change is altering the Arctic, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change. Nearly half of the Arctic’s landmass is located in Russia, and after the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow stopped sharing data from its Arctic monitoring stations. “This has potentially global consequences for important processes such as permafrost thawing, shifts in biodiversity, or even greenhouse gas emissions,” said the study’s lead author Efren Lopez-Blanco. The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet, and monitoring what happens in the region can help researchers predict how global warming will affect the globe.

    THE KICKER

    Global warming may cause some spider species to increase the size of their webs by around 80%.

    Yellow

    You’re out of free articles.

    Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
    To continue reading
    Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
    or
    Please enter an email address
    By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
    Climate

    AM Briefing: How Clean Energy Fared in Q1

    On earnings, a DOJ memo, and flying cars

    How Clean Energy Fared in Q1
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

    Current conditions: Yosemite could get 9 inches of snow between now and Sunday Temperatures will rise to as high as 104 degrees Fahrenheit in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, as Central and Southeast Asia continue to bake in a heatwave Hail, tornadoes, and severe thunderstorms will pummel the U.S. Heartland into early next week.

    THE TOP FIVE

    1. Tariffs, uncertainty were the themes of the week in clean energy Q1 calls

    It was a busy week of earnings calls for the clean energy sector, which, as a whole, saw investment dip by nearly $8 billion in the first three months of the year. Tariffs — especially as they impact the battery supply chain — as well as changes to federal policy under the new administration and electricity demand were the major themes of the week, my colleague Matthew Zeitlin wrote.

    Keep reading...Show less
    Yellow
    Sparks

    The First Sign the U.S. Oil and Gas Sector Is Pulling Back

    Three weeks after “Liberation Day,” Matador Resources says it’s adjusting its ambitions for the year.

    Money and an oil rig.
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

    America’s oil and gas industry is beginning to pull back on investments in the face of tariffs and immense oil price instability — or at least one oil and gas company is.

    While oil and gas executives have been grousing about low prices and inconsistent policy to any reporter (or Federal Reserve Bank) who will listen, there’s been little actual data about how the industry is thinking about what investments to make or not make. That changed on Wednesday when the shale driller Matador Resources reported its first quarter earnings. The company said that it would drop one rig from its fleet of nine, cutting $100 million of capital costs.

    Keep reading...Show less
    Yellow
    Climate Tech

    Rise and Grind Through the Apocalypse

    At San Francisco Climate Week, everything is normal — until it very much isn’t.

    San Francisco.
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

    San Francisco Climate Week started off on Monday with an existential bang. Addressing an invite-only crowd at the Exploratorium, a science museum on the city’s waterfront, former vice president and long-time climate advocate Al Gore put the significance and threat of this political moment — and what it means for the climate — in the most extreme terms possible. That is to say, he compared the current administration under President Trump to Nazi Germany.

    “I understand very well why it is wrong to compare Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich to any other movement. It was uniquely evil,” Gore conceded before going on: “But there are important lessons from the history of that emergent evil.” Just as German philosophers in the aftermath of World War II found that the Nazis “attacked the very heart of the distinction between true and false,” Gore said, so too is Trump’s administration “trying to create their own preferred version of reality,” in which we can keep burning fossil fuels forever. With his voice rising and gestures increasing in vigor, Gore ended his speech on a crescendo. “We have to protect our future. And if you doubt for one moment, ever, that we as human beings have that capacity to muster sufficient political will to solve this crisis, just remember that political will is itself a renewable resource.”

    Keep reading...Show less
    Green