Climate science told by the people doing it.
This University of California Television feed collects recorded talks and events on climate and the ocean, with researchers, a photographer and a reporter presenting their own work. The subjects run from atmospheric rivers and sea level rise on the California coast to shipping noise around marine mammals, kelp loss and how oil companies discuss climate on earnings calls.
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Climate Change (Audio) is a University of California Television feed of recorded talks, book events and conversations about a changing climate and ocean. Its main asset is who is speaking. The people explaining the science are, for the most part, the ones producing it: a Scripps postdoctoral researcher, a presenter reporting a research center's work on atmospheric rivers, a speaker who has worked on oil politics for almost two decades, an underwater photographer, and a Los Angeles Times coastal environment reporter who wrote a book. Atmospheric rivers come up in more than one talk. The Pineapple Express turns out to be one kind, the storms are tied to a large share of flood damage, and the most extreme of them may grow more extreme because the atmosphere can hold more moisture. Forecasting is part of the thread as well, from a field team collecting observations to reconnaissance that gathers data inside the rivers themselves to improve models. One talk addresses a San Diego audience directly and shows how variable precipitation is in Southern California, more so than in the rest of the state. The ocean gets its own voices. Vanessa Zobel explains how shipping, drilling and navy operations inject noise that can mask marine mammal communication, comparing it to holding a conversation at a rock concert rather than in a kitchen. The effect is hard to study, she notes, because the ocean so rarely goes quiet; the halt in East Coast shipping after 9/11 was one of the few chances. The kelp event joins research with photography. A photographer describes chasing an evenly lit image of giant kelp from top to bottom, then having to swim farther and farther from shore just to find kelp after the 2014 and 2015 marine heat wave. Sea level rise comes through a book event for 'California Against the Sea', where its author is joined by other speakers. Their conversation covers tracking change until risk crosses the thresholds where relocating infrastructure comes into play, and a January 2019 king tide that peaked a day early but was forecast well enough for a city to get sandbags out. Politics has a place too. In 'How to Get Big Oil to Take Climate Change Seriously', the oil politics speaker lays out how earnings calls were parsed for keywords across six areas, from the end of fossil fuels and acceptance of climate science to carbon pricing, the Paris Agreement, national laws and carbon capture and storage. The talk closes on the case for new policy that levels the playing field for alternative energies. Because these are event recordings, speakers sometimes point to maps, satellite images and pie charts that were on a screen in the room. The register is explanatory, closer to a public lecture than a produced broadcast. Start with the atmospheric river talks for the physical science, or with the ocean noise conversation and the oil talk for the human side of the problem.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants climate science explained by researchers in their own words, especially as it plays out along the California coast, and who is comfortable with recorded talks that sometimes refer to slides.
What sets it apart: It hands the talking to the people doing the research and reporting, and its range runs from storm physics and kelp ecology to the language oil companies use on earnings calls.
Climate change is here; it's happening. Find out what that means, why scientists are so sure and what we need to do now.
The perfect kelp photo has a terrible backstory, if you like your science with the stakes visible.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded look at the sky-borne rivers shaping Southern California rain, forecasts, and flood awareness.
UCTV gives the familiar phrase Pineapple Express a concrete shape, tracing it to atmospheric rivers: long, narrow bands of concentrated water vapor moving from warm Pacific waters toward the coast.
A measured look at how ocean noise stresses whales, with useful caution around the fixes.
Ocean noise comes through as one of the modern sea's quieter costs. Vanessa Zobel, a postdoctoral researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, lays out how shipping, drilling, fishing, energy demand, and navy activity can disrupt marine mammals that depend on sound in a…
A clear, grounded episode on how atmospheric rivers are measured, modeled, and tested against observations.
Atmospheric rivers are framed here as measurable weather systems, not loose labels: long, narrow corridors defined by their length, width, water vapor, and winds, with integrated water vapor transport giving researchers a practical way to measure the flow.
Sea level rise feels concrete when forecasts, records, and public choices meet.
California's shrinking coastline takes shape through Rosanna Shaw's reading from California Against the Sea and her conversation with Laura Ingerman, a coastal resilience specialist with the Center for Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation at Scripps and California Sea Grant.
A fallen kelp forest turns climate pressure into a close-up view of ecological change.
A kelp forest becomes a record of climate pressure in this measured single-episode review, tracing the speaker's move from baby market squid and ocean warming to the harder work of reaching kelp after hot years.
Books, systems, and the questions that unlock them.
Coastal science, patiently and beautifully reported.
Soil life, climate repair, practical regeneration.
University of California Television's “Figuring Out Atmospheric Rivers” explains how long, narrow bands of Pacific water vapor produce rainfall, snowfall, and flooding across California.
["Vanessa Zobel, a postdoctoral researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Scripps Machine Listening Lab, says 90% of the ocean is pitch black and sound becomes the main way marine animals communicate.", "She explains that hydrophones can stay in the ocean for more than a year, recording whales, dolphins, ships, and other sounds continuously so researchers can build species catalogs.", "The middle of the lecture compares orcas, short-beaked common dolphins, sperm whales, humpbacks, minke whales, and fin whales, including the claim that sperm whales can be the loudest animals on Earth.", "Zobel then turns to the Santa Barbara Channel and the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, where shipping lanes, speed-reduction programs, Maersk retrofits, and route modeling are being used to cut ocean noise."]
Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow corridors of water vapor measured with integrated water vapor transport, and the speaker says they are responsible for about 84% of western United States flood damages.
Climate Change (Audio) presents Rosanna Shaw's California Against the Sea alongside Laura Ingerman's explanation of how California communities communicate and prepare for sea-level rise.
["Mo says climate change has touched every project since 2013, and he points to La Jolla's 2015 El Nino collapse, when more than 90% of the local kelp disappeared.", "He defines kelp forests as dense cold-water habitats that support food webs, fisheries, tourism, and products from toothpaste to ice cream through kelp's natural thickener.", "Mo's San Diego project tracks seasonal canopy change, genomic diversity, heat-stress tolerance, and transplant restoration with collaborators at UCSD, Salk Institute, UCLA, and the University of Tasmania.", "Oriana Poindexter turns that same forest into cyanotype art after a July 2018 Encinitas dive, and Megan Dickerson closes by asking how Catherine Hayhoe's rational hope fits alongside climate grief."]
A political scientist who has studied oil politics for almost two decades argues that 90 fossil fuel companies produced 63% of global emissions since the Industrial Revolution.
Environmental economist Edward Miguel examines Cape Town’s Day Zero drought crisis, when reservoir levels threatened municipal water service for roughly four million residents.
University of California San Diego professor Neil Driscoll presents Alert California, a program using more than 1,054 pan-tilt-zoom cameras, lidar, imagery, and artificial intelligence to detect fires and assess landscape risk.
At the University of California Television Keeling Lecture, geographer Susie Moser examines the social and psychological consequences of climate change.
A lecture on ocean ecosystems and the power of adaptation, featuring marine biologist Dr.
A talk about the vast scale of the planetary microbiome and how human modification of microbiomes affects our bodies and the planet.
California's leadership in climate adaptation and action, featuring state officials discussing policies and initiatives.
An interview with NOAA Administrator Dr.
An interview with soil biogeochemist Dr.
A professor discusses grand challenges of the 21st century, focusing on climate change and its impacts on water and air.