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How Ice A Half A World Away Affects Southern California Sea Levels And More Local News

 June 17, 2019 at 2:50 AM PDT

Speaker 1: 00:00 It's Monday, June 17th I'm Deb Welch and you're listening to San Diego news matters coming up a parking lot where people can sleep in RVs and cars overnight opening today and the ice is melting and sea levels are rising. The big sort of holy grail question about both of these ice sheets. It's how much ISO are we going to lose and how fast that's coming up after the break. Speaker 2: 00:24 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 00:33 it's Monday, June 17th I'm Deb Welsh and you're listening to San Diego news matters from KPBS. The court martial for a navy seal accused of war crimes gets underway today with jury selection. KPBS military reporter Steve Walsh says the judge has taken extra steps to negate allegations of spying on the defense, Speaker 3: 00:53 so you'll chief Eddie Gallagher is accused of killing a wounded teenage isis fighter in his custody and bragging about it in a text message sent to fellow seals in 2017 prosecutors are expected to present a photo of Gallagher posing with the body of the dead fighter. The case took a turn when the defense accused prosecutors of spying. The judge removed the lead prosecutor after it was revealed that he sent a email tracker to members of the defense team and a reporter to find this source of media leaks. The judge also took the death penalty off the table. Opening arguments are scheduled to begin later this week. Among the people scheduled to testify are seven of Gallagher's seal teammates, Steve Walsh KPBS news, Speaker 1: 01:37 a parking lot where people can sleep in RVs and cars. Overnight is opening today in Mission Valley KPBS report or Bad Hoffman says this is the third law to the cities safe parking program. Speaker 4: 01:49 The lot off mission village drive is an old overflow parking lot near Stcu stadium. It's the first city sponsored parking lot to accommodate RVs. It will be able to hold up to 80 RVs or 200 cars. The city has contracted Jewish family service to operate the La Daily. The nonprofit will have case managers there with the goal of getting people into housing. The lot will be open for vehicles from 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM daily Jewish family service operates to other city sponsored lots in the Kearny Mesa area, which generally are full every night. Jfs has many of the people sleeping in. The lots are homeless for the first time. Matt Hoffman, k PBS news Speaker 1: 02:26 pollution in the oceans of the world is a major problem. It's also a problem close to shore. KPBS reporter John Carroll says a relatively small invention called the CBN is making a big difference in cleaning San Diego's coastal water. Yeah, Speaker 4: 02:40 the CBN is helping to clean waters in harbors, marinas and ports. Sieben cofounder pizza. Glinsky is in San Diego right now. We're the first to see bins in the u s were installed two years ago at Cabrio Aisle Marina. Now there are 720 of them around the world helping to clean up a of trash every day Speaker 5: 03:00 between the 720 units every day we're collecting around two 2.2 tons of litter and you know if you times that by 365 that starts to really add up. Speaker 4: 03:11 The CBN works just like the filter in a swimming pool that sucks in water and debris, captures it in a fiber bag, then flushes the clean water out the bottom. It's emptied once or twice a day. Each unit costs about $5,000 so Glinsky will soon set off on a journey up the coast taking see Ben's Deportes in La, Ventura and San Francisco. John Carol Kaye Pbs News, Speaker 1: 03:35 residents of an affordable housing complex for seniors in city heights celebrated the reopening of a mini park last week. KPBS reporter Prius rather has the story. The city heights mini park is one of five parks in San Diego with a city imposed curfew. The San Diego City Council voted unanimously in March to imposed curfews after residents complained about vandalism, graffiti, drug and gang activity in the park. Friday, neighbors of the city heights mini park like Karen Murphy celebrated the unveiling of the cleaned up park and the new curfew that went into effect in mid May Speaker 5: 04:11 and uh, it's a breath of fresh air for us. We come out here every read her books and have pad Speaker 1: 04:18 the city heights mini park is now closed from 9:00 PM to 5:00 AM every day. City officials say they've seen less vandalism and illegal activity since the curfews have been imposed. Priya, sure. Either k PBS news. San Diego is generally known for its beautiful mild weather and that's why Uber has chosen America's finest city to take fast food to the wild blue yonder. KPPS is Maya. Trouble see reports Speaker 6: 04:44 fast food is getting even faster. When a new Uber elevate program launches over the summer, you may spot drones flying overhead, delivering Mcdonald's happy meals. The food delivery program was announced a year ago and the company says it's now ready for a commercial launch. The food won't be dropped at your front door. The drones, we'll deliver it to designated landing zones where human couriers, we'll pick up the food and finish the delivery. George belts from SDS use foul or college of business says you have to look at this as a longterm play. Speaker 7: 05:15 I think Uber envisions a future where this is going to become a big business. There may be commercial kitchens where you will have a number of companies, not just the McDonald's but other restaurants cooking food for delivery. Speaker 6: 05:27 The delivery service is waiting on approval from the FAA, which named San Diego is one of 10 us locations where commercial drone services can be tested. Maya trouble, C K PBS news. Speaker 1: 05:39 The southern California coast is facing some potentially drastic changes as the level of the ocean rises in coming decades from our climate change desk. KPBS environment reporter Eric Anderson finds that a warming climate is already affecting change and San Diego's ocean waters as have found Speaker 8: 05:58 at the end of script's pier Speaker 8: 06:03 once a day for more than a hundred years. Someone on this day, Sean Bruise has come here, opened the door and dropped a sample tube. So right now we collect two samples into the water below. You take a sea surface sample and a bottom sample temperatures taken here last summer where the highest ever recorded an oceanographer. Melissa Carter says that isn't just a seasonal aberration. What we found is since 2004 we've actually had quite a bit of warming. A warming ocean is changing the underwater environment. Some species that used to thrive here are having a tougher time and scripts institution of oceanography researcher Helen Fricker says it's also one of three main causes of sea level rise. Speaker 9: 06:49 The temperature of the ocean, the average temperature of the ocean is increasing and because of that, the entire ocean volume is expanding and there's only one way for that to go because the basins are all fixed then so it just rises up. Speaker 8: 07:02 Water from melting glaciers in the world's highest mountain ranges is another source pushing up sea levels and sea levels are going up because two great reservoirs of ice, Greenland and Antarctica are melting. Fricker has studied the Antarctica ice for 25 years and she surprised at what's happening there. Now Speaker 9: 07:21 the changes that we're seeing in, um, in the untaught take and Greenland ice sheets have really kicked in in the last decade or two. We are now seeing signals that appear to be starting to accelerate. We're getting an increase in the amount of mass coming off the ice sheets. Yeah. Speaker 8: 07:38 And the potential impact is massive. The frozen continent holds enough eyes to push up worldwide sea levels by about 180 feet. Think of the kissing statue sculpture near the USS Midway, seven of them stacked on top of each other are just under 180 feet. Add the ice on Greenland and sea levels could rise another 20 feet. Scripts or researcher [inaudible] Studies, Greenland, which is much warmer than the southern continent. Speaker 5: 08:07 Greenland is changing faster right now. Antartica accounts are about 10% of global sea level rise. Greenland is about twice step 20% but in terms of potential longterm contribution and tied Tikka holds about 10 times as much ice or water Speaker 8: 08:27 stray. No says the pace of change is a surprise for researchers. Glacial change no longer means very long time scales and that has scientists in a race to catch up. She says tracking and understanding those changes can be dangerous work. Speaker 5: 08:41 What we really need is measurements as close as we can get to where the ice meets the ocean. But that's probably one of the most challenging places where to get observations on the planet. The edge of these glaciers that flow into the ocean is a really dramatic plays. Big icebergs breaking off. Speaker 10: 09:01 Let me take the cap off. Okay. Speaker 8: 09:04 No, and Fricker and scientists around the world are working to understand the changing conditions and the pace of change. They want to know how a warmer air and warmer ocean temperatures are contributing to the situation. Speaker 9: 09:18 That's the big sort of holy grail question about both of these ice sheets. That's how much ice are we going to lose and how fast or how quickly are we going to lose that ice? Because when you start to think about half a meter, one meter of sea level rise over the next several decades, it really matters how many decades we're talking about and how many sort of tens of centimeters we're talking about. Because if you think about cities and planning and people living near the ocean, um, it's going to affect a lot of communities. And we need to know for planning purposes how quickly we need to start making these changes. Speaker 8: 09:53 Fricker says even a change of a few feet can have significant economic impacts. Coastal properties can be swamped and low lying airports in San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, all face threats from rising ocean levels. Erik Anderson, Kpbs News, Speaker 5: 10:11 I'm Deb Welsh. Thanks for listening to the San Diego News matters podcast. Find more local news online@kpbs.org.

Two Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers are studying the changes in different parts of the world, about the change that could affect local oceans. Plus, cleaning up the ocean — hear how a locally invented contraption called a “Seabin” is working to collect everything from microplastics to oil; and the court-martial for Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher, who is accused of war crimes, gets underway Monday in San Diego with jury selection.