The smokehouse at Anderson Marsh State Historic Park, one of the buildings that will be stabilized by HistoriCorps volunteers. Photo courtesy of the Anderson Marsh Interpretive Association. LOWER LAKE, Calif. — HistoriCorps has announced that a group of its volunteers will be working at Anderson Marsh State Historic Park to help restore the two historic outhouses and the smokehouse located at the park, as well as doing some repair on the ranch house itself.
The work will occur from Oct. 16 to 21 and Oct. 23 to 28.
While working at the state historic park located in Lower Lake, HistoriCorps volunteers will be camping at Clear Lake State Park, located nearby in Kelseyville.
The Anderson Ranch House is one of the oldest remaining buildings in Lake County, with construction beginning in the mid-19th century.
It has been furnished by State Parks to provide an opportunity for the public to experience what life was like on a working cattle ranch in Lake County between 1850 and 1920.
The preservation work at Anderson Marsh State Historic Park will include stabilizing, reinforcing and painting the three outbuildings located to the north of the Ranch House, as well as painting part of the Ranch House and doing needed repairs on the windows.
HistoriCorps is a nonprofit organization that provides volunteers with a hands-on experience preserving historic structures on public lands across America.
Volunteers work with HistoriCorps field staff to learn preservation skills and put those skills to work saving historic places that may otherwise fall into disrepair.
According to HistoriCorps, there is no cost to volunteer, and HistoriCorps provides all meals, tools, training, equipment and a campsite.
Volunteers are responsible for their own transportation to the campsite, sleeping equipment, work gloves, clothes and boots.
For information about Anderson Marsh State Historic Park, visit www.andersonmarsh.org or contact Anderson Marsh Interpretive Association at either This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 707-995-2658.
Artist’s concept of a Neptune-sized planet, left, around a blue, A-type star. UC Berkeley astronomers have discovered a hard-to-find gas giant around one of these bright, but short-lived, stars, right at the edge of the hot Neptune desert where the star’s strong radiation likely strips any giant planet of its gas. Image credit: Steven Giacalone, UC Berkeley. BERKELEY, Calif. — Over the last 25 years, astronomers have found thousands of exoplanets around stars in our galaxy, but more than 99% of them orbit smaller stars — from red dwarfs to stars slightly more massive than our sun, which is considered an average-sized star.
Few have been discovered around even more massive stars, such as A-type stars — bright blue stars twice as large as the sun — and most of the exoplanets that have been observed are the size of Jupiter or larger. Some of the brightest stars in the night sky, such as Sirius and Vega, are A-type stars.
University of California, Berkeley, astronomers now report a new, Neptune-sized planet — called HD 56414 b — around one of these hot-burning, but short-lived, A-type stars and provide a hint about why so few gas giants smaller than Jupiter have been seen around the brightest 1% of stars in our galaxy.
Current exoplanet detection methods most easily find planets with short, rapid orbital periods around their stars, but this newly found planet has a longer orbital period than most discovered to date. The researchers suggest that an easier-to-find Neptune-sized planet sitting closer to a bright A-type star would be rapidly stripped of its gas by the harsh stellar radiation and reduced to an undetectable core.
While this theory has been proposed to explain so-called hot Neptune deserts around redder stars, whether this extended to hotter stars — A-type stars are about 1.5 to 2 times hotter than the sun — was unknown because of the dearth of planets known around some of the galaxy’s brightest stars.
“It's one of the smallest planets that we know of around these really massive stars,” said UC Berkeley graduate student Steven Giacalone. “In fact, this is the hottest star we know of with a planet smaller than Jupiter. This planet's interesting first and foremost because these types of planets are really hard to find, and we're probably not going to find many like them in the foreseeable future.”
Hot Neptune desert
The discovery of what the researchers term a “warm Neptune” just outside the zone where the planet would have been stripped of its gas suggests that bright, A-type stars may have numerous unseen cores within the hot Neptune zone that are waiting to be discovered through more sensitive techniques.
“We might expect to see a pileup of remnant Neptunian cores at short orbital periods” around such stars, the researchers concluded in their paper.
The discovery also adds to our understanding of how planetary atmospheres evolve, said Courtney Dressing, UC Berkeley assistant professor of astronomy.
“There's a big question about just how do planets retain their atmospheres over time,” Dressing said. “When we're looking at smaller planets, are we looking at the atmosphere that it was formed with when it originally formed from an accretion disk? Are we looking at an atmosphere that was outgassed from the planet over time? If we're able to look at planets receiving different amounts of light from their star, especially different wavelengths of light, which is what the A stars allow us to do — it allows us to change the ratio of X-ray to ultraviolet light — then we can try to see how exactly a planet keeps its atmosphere over time.”
Giacalone and Dressing reported their discovery in a paper accepted by The Astrophysical Journal Letters and posted online on Aug. 12.
According to Dressing, it’s well-established that highly-irradiated, Neptune-sized planets orbiting less massive, sun-like stars are rarer than expected. But whether this holds for planets orbiting A-type stars is not known because those planets are challenging to detect.
And an A-type star is a different animal from smaller F, G, K and M dwarfs. Close-in planets orbiting sun-like stars receive high amounts of both X-ray and ultraviolet radiation, but close-in planets orbiting A-type stars experience much more near-ultraviolet radiation than X-ray radiation or extreme ultraviolet radiation.
“Determining whether the hot Neptune desert also extends to A-type stars provides insight into the importance of near-ultraviolet radiation in governing atmospheric escape,” she said. “This result is important for understanding the physics of atmospheric mass loss and investigating the formation and evolution of small planets.”
The planet HD 56414 b was detected by NASA’s TESS mission as it transited its star, HD 56414. Dressing, Giacalone and their colleagues confirmed that HD 56414 was an A-type star by obtaining spectra with the 1.5-meter telescope operated by the Small and Moderate Aperture Research Telescope System (SMARTS) Consortium at Cerro Tololo in Chile.
The planet has a radius 3.7 times that of Earth and orbits the star every 29 days at a distance equal to about one-quarter the distance between Earth and the sun. The system is roughly 420 million years old, much younger than our sun’s 4.5-billion-year age.
The researchers modeled the effect that radiation from the star would have on the planet and concluded that, while the star may be slowly whittling away at its atmosphere, it would likely survive for a billion years — beyond the point at which the star is expected to burn out and collapse, producing a supernova.
Giacalone said that Jupiter-sized planets are less susceptible to photoevaporation because their cores are massive enough to hold onto their hydrogen gas.
“There's this balance between the central mass of the planet and how puffy the atmosphere is,” he said. “For planets the size of Jupiter or larger, the planet is massive enough to gravitationally hold on to its puffy atmosphere. As you move down to planets the size of Neptune, the atmosphere is still puffy, but the planet is not as massive, so they can lose their atmospheres more easily.”
Giacalone and Dressing continue to search for more Neptune-sized exoplanets around A-type stars, in hopes of finding others in or near the hot Neptune desert, to understand where these planets form in the accretion disk during star formation, whether they move inward or outward over time, and how their atmospheres evolve.
The work was supported by a FINESST award from NASA (80NSSC20K1549) and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation (2019-69648).
Robert Sanders writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.
Asaf Mazar, University of Pennsylvania and Wendy Wood, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Many people attribute their coffee drinking to the need to feel more alert, but research shows that habit is just as big a driver behind caffeine consumption. Westend61/Getty Images
If you’re like many Americans, you probably start your day with a cup of coffee – a morning latte, a shot of espresso or maybe a good ol’ drip brew.
A common explanation among avid coffee drinkers is that we drink coffee to wake ourselves up and alleviate fatigue.
But that story doesn’t completely hold up. After all, the amount of caffeine in a cup of coffee can vary wildly. Even when ordering the same type of coffee from the same coffee shop, caffeine levels can double from one drink to the next. And yet, we coffee drinkers don’t seem to notice.
So what else might be driving us in our quest for that morning brew?
That’s one question we set out to answer in our recent research. The answer has far-reaching implications for the way we approach major societal challenges such as diet and climate change.
As behavioralscientists, we’ve learned that people often repeat everyday behaviors out of habit. If you regularly drink coffee, you likely do so automatically as part of your habitual routine – not just out of tiredness.
But habit just doesn’t feel like a good explanation – it’s unsatisfying to say that we do something just because it’s what we’re used to doing. Instead, we concoct more compelling explanations, like saying we drink coffee to ease our morning fog.
Habits are formed in specific environments that provide a cue, or trigger, for the behavior.
Unpacking what lies behind habits
To test whether people underestimate the role that habit plays in their life, we asked more than 100 coffee drinkers what they think drives their coffee consumption. They estimated that tiredness was about twice as important as habit in driving them to drink coffee. To benchmark these assumptions against reality, we then tracked these people’s coffee drinking and fatigue over the course of one week.
The actual results starkly diverged from our research participants’ explanations. Yes, they were somewhat more likely to drink coffee when tired – as would be expected – but we found that habit was an equally strong influence. In other words, people wildly overestimated the role of tiredness and underestimated the role of habit. Habits, it seems, aren’t considered much of an explanation.
We then replicated this finding in a second study with a behavior that people might consider a “bad” habit – failing to help in response to a stranger’s request. People still overlooked habit and assumed that their reluctance to proffer help was due to their mood at the time.
The gap between the actual and perceived role of habit in our lives matters. And this gap is key to understanding why people often struggle to change repeated behaviors. If you believe that you drink coffee because you are tired, then you might try to reduce coffee drinking by going to bed early. But ultimately you’d be barking up the wrong tree – your habit would still be there in the morning.
Why habits are surprisingly difficult to change
The reason that habits can be so difficult to overcome is that they are not fully under our control. Of course, most of us can control a single instance of a habit, such as by refusing a cup of coffee this time or taking the time to offer directions to a lost tourist. We exert willpower and just push through. But consistently reining in a habit is fiendishly difficult.
To illustrate, imagine you had to avoid saying words that contain the letter “I” for the next five seconds. Pretty simple, right? But now imagine if you had to maintain this rule for a whole week. We habitually use many words that contain “I.” Suddenly, the required 24/7 monitoring turns this simple task into a far more onerous one.
We make a similar error when we try to control unwanted habits and form new, desirable ones. Most of us can achieve this in the short run – think about your enthusiasm when starting a new diet or workout regimen. But we inevitably get distracted, tired or just plain busy. When that happens, your old habit is still there to guide your behavior, and you end up back where you started. And if you fail to recognize the role of habit, then you’ll keep overlooking better strategies that effectively target habits.
The flip side is also true: We don’t recognize the benefits of our good habits. One study found that on days when people strongly intended to exercise, those with weak and strong exercise habits got similar amounts of physical activity. On days when intentions were weaker, however, those with strong habits were more active. Thus, strong habits keep behavior on track even as intentions ebb and flow.
It’s not just willpower
American culture is partly responsible for the tendency to overlook habits. Compared with residents of other developed nations, Americans are more likely to say that they control their success in life.
Accordingly, when asked what stops them from making healthy lifestyle changes, Americans commonly cite a lack of willpower. Granted, willpower is useful in the short term, as we muster the motivation to, for example, sign up for a gym membership or start a diet.
But research shows that, surprisingly, people who are more successful at achieving long-term goals exert – if anything – less willpower in their day-to-day lives. This makes sense: As explained above, over time, willpower fades and habits prevail.
If the answer isn’t willpower, then what is the key to controlling habits?
Changing habits begins with the environments that support them. Research shows that leveraging the cues that trigger habits in the first place can be incredibly effective. For example, reducing the visibility of cigarette packs in stores has curbed cigarette purchases.
Another path to habit change involves friction: in other words, making it difficult to act on undesirable habits and easy to act on desirable ones. For example, one study found that recycling increased after recycle bins were placed right next to trash cans – which people were already using – versus just 12 feet away.
Effectively changing behavior starts with recognizing that a great deal of behavior is habitual. Habits keep us repeating unwanted behaviors but also desirable ones, even if just enjoying a good-tasting morning brew.
A map of the United States plotted with significant climate events that occurred during July 2022. Please see the story below as well as the full climate report highlights at http://bit.ly/USClimate202207.
July 2022 will go down in the history books as the third-hottest July on record for the U.S., according to scientists from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.
From drought to deluge, the nation saw remarkable extremes last month. Drought conditions intensified or expanded across parts of the U.S., while others were hit by historic rainfall that led to catastrophic flooding.
Below are more takeaways from NOAA’s latest monthly U.S. climate report.
Climate by the numbers:
July 2022
The average temperature across the contiguous U.S. last month was 76.4 degrees F (2.8 degrees above average), making July 2022 the third-hottest July in the 128-year climate record. Only July 1936 (first) and July 2012 (second) were hotter.
Texas felt the brunt of the heat, reporting its hottest July, May-July and April-July on record. Near-record warmth also covered locations from the Pacific Northwest to the south-central U.S., and across parts of the Northeast. Oregon had its fourth-hottest July on record, with Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Rhode Island sweltering through their top-five warmest Julys on record.
The average July precipitation was 2.74 inches (0.04 of an inch below average), ranking in the middle third of the historical record. Kentucky saw its fourth-wettest July due to record rainfall during the last week of the month. Elsewhere, Rhode Island saw its second-driest July while Texas had its fifth driest.
Year to date (January through July 2022)
The year-to-date (YTD) average temperature for the contiguous U.S. was 52.7 degrees F (1.4 degrees above the average), ranking in the warmest-third YTD on record. Temperatures were above average from Oregon to the Gulf Coast and northward to New England. California and Florida each ranked sixth warmest on record for the YTD.
The first seven months of 2022 saw an average precipitation of 16.58 inches (1.51 inches below average), which ranked in the driest third of the record. Precipitation was below average across much of the West, central Plains and Deep South for this YTD period. California had its driest January-July on record, while Nevada and Texas saw their second driest and Utah saw its fourth driest.
Other notable climate events
Catastrophic flooding ravaged communities: On July 26, several locations in and around St. Louis, Missouri, received more rainfall than any other day on record. A stalled weather system combined with tropical moisture resulted in precipitation totals that rivaled daily records set by the remnants of the Galveston Hurricane of 1915. St. Louis’ Lambert International Airport reported 8.64 inches and St. Peters, Missouri, measured 12.34 inches of rain from this event. The extreme rainfall caused flash flooding, resulting in at least one fatality as well as extensive damage to homes and businesses.
Flash flooding from the same system impacted portions of eastern Kentucky on the early morning of July 28. Heavy rain, enhanced by the hilly terrain, accumulated rapidly — trapping many residents in their homes. Four-to-eight inches of rain were widespread across eastern Kentucky and the Kentucky River crested to an all-time high in both Whitesburg and Jackson, Kentucky. The flooding resulted in at least 37 fatalities.
Drought increased in coverage and intensity: According to the August 2 U.S. Drought Monitoroffsite link report, 51.4% of the contiguous U.S. was in drought, up about 3.7% from the end of June. Drought conditions expanded or intensified across portions of the Northeast, with flash drought rapidly expanding in the southern and central Plains, Ozarks and the mid-Mississippi Valley. Drought decreased or was eliminated across portions of the Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, northern Rockies as well as Alaska and Puerto Rico.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The ongoing negotiations between Adventist Health and the insurance company Anthem Blue Cross of California have come to a successful conclusion, the two organizations reported on Friday.
Over the summer, Adventist Health had notified patients with Anthem Blue Cross that if negotiations failed their insurance would no longer be accepted at Adventist Health facilities.
Negotiations had been set to expire in the middle of July and were extended to earlier this month, as Lake County News has reported.
On Friday, the health care system and insurance company announced they had reached a new contract agreement.
The agreement, which goes into effect immediately, provides Anthem health plan members with continued in-network access to hospital-based services at Adventist Health facilities.
“We are pleased to have reached a mutual agreement with Adventist Health that provides our members with continued access to care at Adventist Health facilities,” said John Pickett, regional vice president, Anthem Blue Cross. “The successful resolution of our discussions builds on our long-term partnership and shared commitment to providing access to high-quality care for those in the communities we serve.”
“We are pleased to continue our long working relationship with Anthem Blue Cross,” said Todd Hofheins, chief operating officer, Adventist Health. “Our mission calls us to provide high quality care to patients in our communities and we’re excited to continue caring for Anthem Blue Cross members.”
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
The 200-foot-tall (60-meter-tall) front of the Getz Ice Shelf in Antarctica is scored with cracks where icebergs are likely to break off, or calve, in this 2016 photo. The first estimate of Antarctic calving has found that since 1997 ice shelves have lost as much ice from calving as from melting. Credits: NASA/GSFC/OIB. New research on Antarctica, including the first map of iceberg calving, doubles the previous estimates of loss from ice shelves and details how the continent is changing.
The greatest uncertainty in forecasting global sea level rise is how Antarctica’s ice loss will accelerate as the climate warms. Two studies published Aug. 10 and led by researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California reveal unexpected new data about how the Antarctic Ice Sheet has been losing mass in recent decades.
One study, published in the journal Nature, maps how iceberg calving – the breaking off of ice from a glacier front – has changed the Antarctic coastline over the last 25 years. The researchers found that the edge of the ice sheet has been shedding icebergs faster than the ice can be replaced. This surprise finding doubles previous estimates of ice loss from Antarctic’s floating ice shelves since 1997, from 6 trillion to 12 trillion metric tons. Ice loss from calving has weakened the ice shelves and allowed Antarctic glaciers to flow more rapidly to the ocean, accelerating the rate of global sea level rise.
The other study, published in Earth System Science Data, shows in unprecedented detail how the thinning of Antarctic ice as ocean water melts it has spread from the continent’s outward edges into its interior, almost doubling in the western parts of the ice sheet over the past decade. Combined, the complementary reports give the most complete view yet of how the frozen continent is changing.
“Antarctica is crumbling at its edges,” says JPL scientist Chad Greene, lead author of the calving study. “And when ice shelves dwindle and weaken, the continent’s massive glaciers tend to speed up and increase the rate of global sea level rise.”
Most Antarctic glaciers flow to the ocean, where they end in floating ice shelves up to 2 miles (3 kilometers) thick and 500 miles (800 kilometers) across. Ice shelves act like buttresses to glaciers, keeping the ice from simply sliding into the ocean. When ice shelves are stable, they have a natural cycle of calving and replenishment that keeps their size fairly constant over the long term.
But in recent decades, the warming ocean has been destabilizing Antarctica’s ice shelves by melting them from below, making them thinner and weaker. Satellite altimeters measure the thinning process by recording the changing height of the ice, but until this study, there hasn’t been a comprehensive assessment of how climate change might be affecting calving around the continent.
That’s partly because satellite imagery has been challenging to interpret. “For example,” said Greene, “you can imagine looking at a satellite image and trying to figure out the difference between a white iceberg, white ice shelf, white sea ice, and even a white cloud. That’s always been a difficult task. But we now have enough data from multiple satellite sensors to see a clear picture of how Antarctica’s coastline has evolved in recent years.”
For the new study, Greene and his co-authors synthesized satellite imagery of the continent in visible, thermal infrared (heat), and radar wavelengths since 1997. Combining these measurements with an understanding of ice flow gained from an ongoing NASA glacier-mapping project, they charted the edges of ice shelves around 30,000 linear miles (50,000 kilometers) of Antarctic coastline.
Losses from calving have outpaced natural ice-shelf growth so greatly that the researchers think it’s unlikely Antarctica can grow back to its pre-2000 extent by the end of this century. In fact, the findings suggest that greater losses can be expected: Antarctica’s largest ice shelves all appear to be headed for major calving events in the next 10 to 20 years.
Mapping 36 years of ice loss
In the complementary study, JPL scientists have combined almost 3 billion data points from seven spaceborne altimetry instruments to produce the longest continuous data set on the changing height of the ice sheet — an indicator of ice loss — from as early as 1985.
They used radar and laser measurements of ice elevation, accurate to within centimeters, to produce the highest-resolution monthly maps of change ever made of ice loss.
The unparalleled detail in the new record reveals how long-term trends and annual weather patterns affect the ice. It even shows the rise and fall of the ice sheet as subglacial lakes regularly fill and empty miles below the surface.
“Subtle changes like these, in combination with improved understanding of long-term trends from this data set, will help researchers understand the processes that influence ice loss, leading to improved future estimates of sea level rise,” said JPL’s Johan Nilsson, lead author of the study.
Synthesizing and analyzing the massive archives of measurements into a single, high-resolution data set took years of work and thousands of hours of computing time on NASA’s servers. Nilsson says it was all worth it: “Condensing the data into something more widely useful may bring us closer to the big breakthroughs we need to better understand our planet and to help prepare us for the future impacts of climate change.”
Carol Rasmussen works for NASA.
Changes in elevation of the Antarctic ice sheet from 1985 to 2021 are shown. Ice height diminishes (red) as the ice sheet melts by contact with ocean water; it rises (blue) where accumulation exceeds melting. Ice shelves are shown in gray. The missions that supplied data are listed at bottom. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control has many more dogs needing new homes this week.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of catahoula leopard dog, dachshund, German shepherd, Great Pyrenees, hound, husky, Labrador retriever, pit bull, Rottweiler, shepherd, terrier and treeing walker coonhound.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption.
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online for information on visiting or adopting.
This 5-year-old male Labrador retriever mix is in kennel No. 8, ID No. LCAC-A-3737. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male Labrador retriever mix
This 5-year-old male Labrador retriever mix has a short gold coat.
He is in kennel No. 8, ID No. LCAC-A-3737.
This 2-year-old female pit bull terrier is in kennel No. 9, ID No. LCAC-A-3856. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female pit bull terrier
This 2-year-old female pit bull terrier has a black and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 9, ID No. LCAC-A-3856.
This 1-year-old male pit bull terrier is in kennel No. 10, ID No. LCAC-A-3855. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male pit bull terrier
This 1-year-old male pit bull terrier has a gray and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 10, ID No. LCAC-A-3855.
This male Rottweiler-shepherd mix puppy is in kennel No. 13, ID No. LCAC-A-3851. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male Rottweiler-shepherd mix
This male Rottweiler-shepherd mix puppy has a short black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 13, ID No. LCAC-A-3851.
This 2-year-old female husky is in kennel No. 14, ID No. LCAC-A-3852. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female husky
This 2-year-old female husky has a gray and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 14, ID No. LCAC-A-3852.
This 2-year-old female catahoula leopard dog mix is in kennel No. 18, ID No. LCAC-A-3768. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female catahoula leopard dog mix
This 2-year-old female catahoula leopard dog mix has a short brindle coat.
She is in kennel No. 18, ID No. LCAC-A-3768.
This 1-year-old female hound mix is in kennel No. 19, ID No. LCAC-A-3766. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female hound mix
This 1-year-old female hound mix has a short brown and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 19, ID No. LCAC-A-3766.
This 1-year-old male hound mix is in kennel No. 20, ID No. LCAC-A-3767. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male hound mix
This 1-year-old male hound mix has a short black and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 20, ID No. LCAC-A-3767.
This young female treeing walker coonhound is in kennel No. 22, ID No. LCAC-A-3776. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female treeing walker coonhound
This young female treeing walker coonhound has a short black brindle coat.
She is in kennel No. 22, ID No. LCAC-A-3776.
This 1-year-old female German shepherd is in kennel No. 24, ID No. LCAC-A-3780. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female German shepherd
This 1-year-old female German shepherd has a short black and tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 24, ID No. LCAC-A-3780.
This 7-year-old female Labrador retriever mix is in kennel No. 26, ID No. LCAC-A-3821. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female Labrador retriever
This 7-year-old female Labrador retriever mix has a short gold coat.
She is in kennel No. 26, ID No. LCAC-A-3821.
This 1-year-old male shepherd mix is in kennel No. 28, ID No. LCAC-A-3796. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male shepherd mix
This 1-year-old male shepherd mix has a black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 28, ID No. LCAC-A-3796.
This 2-year-old male Labrador retriever-black and tan coonhound mix is in kennel No. 29, ID No. LCAC-A-3849. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Labrador retriever-hound mix
This 2-year-old male Labrador retriever-black and tan coonhound mix has a short black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 29, ID No. LCAC-A-3849.
This young female Great Pyrenees is in kennel No. 30, ID No. LCAC-A-3790. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female Great Pyrenees
This young female Great Pyrenees has a gray and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 30, ID No. LCAC-A-3790.
This young male Great Pyrenees is in kennel No. 31, ID No. LCAC-A-3791. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male Great Pyrenees
This young male Great Pyrenees has a short white coat.
He is in kennel No. 31, ID No. LCAC-A-3791.
“Maya” is a 2-year-old female German shepherd in kennel No. 32, ID No. LCAC-A-2598. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Maya’
“Maya” is a 2-year-old female German shepherd with a short black and tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 32, ID No. LCAC-A-2598.
This 3-year-old female dachshund is in kennel No. 33, ID No. LCAC-A-3863. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female dachshund
This 3-year-old female dachshund has a short black and tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 33, ID No. LCAC-A-3863.
This 3-year-old female dachshund is in kennel No. 33, ID No. LCAC-A-3863. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female Great Pyrenees
This young female Great Pyrenees has a short white coat.
She is in kennel No. 34, ID No. LCAC-A-3789.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lake County Registrar of Voters Office reported Friday that the nomination period to file for candidacy for certain elective offices for the upcoming Nov. 8 general election has been extended due to some incumbent office holders not filing to seek reelection.
The original deadline, which was 5 p.m. Friday, has been extended to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 17, for seats on the boards of 10 school and special districts.
The offices for which the deadlines have been extended are as follows.
Mendocino-Lake Community College District: Trustee Area No. 6, one vacancy, four-year term.
Lake County Board Of Education: Trustee Area No. 4, one vacancy, four-year term.
Lucerne Elementary School District: Two vacancies, four-year term.
Middletown Unified School District: Three vacancies, four-year terms; one vacancy, one two-year unexpired term.
Lake County Fire Protection District: Four vacancies, four-year terms.
South Lake County Fire Protection District: Two vacancies, four-year terms.
Callayomi County Water District: Three vacancies, four-year terms.
Konocti County Water District: Three vacancies, four-year terms.
Upper Lake County Water District: Two vacancies, four-year terms.
Villa Blue Estates Water District: three vacancies, four-year terms; three vacancies, two-year terms.
Interested persons desiring information regarding filing for any of the elective offices that have been extended until Aug. 17 are advised to contact the Lake County Registrar of Voters office at 707-263-2372, 325 N. Forbes St., Lakeport, during regular office hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. prior to the deadline.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Clearlake Planning Commission on Tuesday evening voted unanimously to grant permits to allow an anti-abortion group to begin operating a clinic in the city.
The Pregnancy Counseling Center of Ukiah, doing business as Mendo Lake Women’s Clinic, will be located within an existing commercial building built in 1980 that previously housed an eye clinic, located at 14595 Olympic Drive, Suite C.
The center’s administration sought the conditional use permit, sign permit and an environmental categorical exemption for the 2,000-square-foot licensed medical clinic.
The staff report said the Mendo Lake Women’s Clinic is a nonprofit organization, with its parent clinic located in Ukiah.
Nonprofit filings show that the Pregnancy Counseling Center of Ukiah also is known as The Center for Life Choices.
Cathy Hoyt, chair of the board of directors of the Center for Life Choices, said the center is the funding agency for the new clinic, which she directs.
The Pregnancy Counseling Center’s stated mission is, “To erase the need for abortion by effectively serving pregnant, at-risk women by transforming their fear into confidence.”
Internal Revenue Service filings from 2017 to 2019 showed the organization received contributions and grants totaling around $300,000 annually.
City planning documents state that the proposed outpatient clinic will provide limited services at no charge to women with unplanned pregnancy. Services include pregnancy testing, prenatal vitamin provision, limited ultrasounds, options consultation, sexually transmitted infection testing and limited treatment and an abortion pill recovery treatment program.
The outpatient clinic will operate from 12:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Thursdays, and staffed by up to four employees. A maximum of five patients per day is expected, with a total of 200 patients a year.
Staff recommended approval of the project.
“We are excited about the opportunity to serve the women of Lake County as we have served Mendocino County for over 35 years,” Hoyt said.
Hoyt said the organization is not new to Lake County, and operated as a mobile clinic from October 2012 to January 2019. After the demise of the mobile clinic, they planned to establish a permanent setting, resulting in this project, Hoyt said.
She said their services include recovery for post-abortion syndrome which is a form of PTSD. “Contrary to the common narrative, abortion can be a traumatic event for many women and men, as well as family and friends, and we plan to address this silent mental health thief with an outreach that heals and brings hope.”
Hoyt said they also provide treatment for women who begin the abortion pill procedure and then regret it. When the process is started quickly enough, Hoyt claimed it has favorable results.
“The medically underserved county of Lake will benefit greatly from the presence of this clinic,” not only from the services but from referrals, she said.
Hoyt said they offer their services for free, which is made possible by their donors.
She questioned several city requirements because she said they would increase their cost to operate and delay their opening, including parking, lighting and landscape plans, explaining their renovations are for the building’s interior only.
Other requirements she asked to be waived included a requirement for a trash enclosure and a cultural resource consultant.
Senior Planner Mark Roberts explained many of those requirements were boilerplate, and in the case of some of them — for new curb and gutter on the Buckeye Street side of the building and the cultural resource consultant — the commission was willing to waive them.
However, City Manager Alan Flora cautioned against removing conditions in case things come up, explaining there are obligations from the state and federal government on some of the items, particularly if the ground is disturbed during the project.
During public comment, the project’s contractor questioned what the city’s regulations were accomplishing.
Real estate agent Dave Hughes, a former city planning commissioner representing the building’s owner at the meeting, asked why a use permit process was necessary for the new clinic. “To me this is totally unnecessary, and a waste of staff and applicant time.”
Hughes said it was an undue hardship on the property owner and applicant, suggesting the city was abusing the use permit process. He said the city also had raised its permit fees $2,200.
Commissioner Terry Stewart said he thought Hughes raised valid points and asked if the use permit process could be bypassed.
“The city municipal code says that this use requires a use permit. In fact, Mr. Hughes was on the zoning committee that recommended approval of this very zoning ordinance,” said Flora.
While the council recently had approved new fees, Flora said it didn’t impact the clinic project, and added the city’s fees are still the lowest in Lake County and the region.
“We need a consistent standard. It’s my belief that the city is extremely business friendly,” said Flora. “But you can drive around this town and see the impact that the good old boys network has had on development in the city over the years, and those days need to stop.”
Commissioner Erin McCarrick agreed that the city is a business friendly environment, with staff working on each project specifically. She said they could push the project off for two weeks to look at it more closely but added that she didn’t want to do that and delay it.
Flora encouraged the commission to approve it and move forward. If there are areas in the zoning ordinance that the commissioners have concerns about, Flora said staff is not resistant to a more streamlined process.
“We can streamline it so much that the commission has absolutely nothing to do if that’s what you and the city council would like,” but that’s a different discussion, Flora said.
He said he’s happy to take any recs from the commission to the council to streamline it. However, he said they need to make sure there are conditions of approval, and regulations are followed and that there’s “an orderly and consistent development pattern in the city moving forward.”
Commissioner Fawn Williams moved to adopt the conditional use permit, sign permit and categorical exemption to authorize the clinic’s operation. Commissioner Robert Coker seconded and the commission approved the motion 5-0.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
New research estimates that the Arctic may be warming four times faster than the rest of the world. Netta Arobas/Shutterstock
The Earth is approximately 1.1℃ warmer than it was at the start of the industrial revolution. That warming has not been uniform, with some regions warming at a far greater pace. One such region is the Arctic.
A new study shows that the Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the rest of the world over the past 43 years. This means the Arctic is on average around 3℃ warmer than it was in 1980.
This is alarming, because the Arctic contains sensitive and delicately balanced climate components that, if pushed too hard, will respond with global consequences.
Why is the Arctic warming so much faster?
A large part of the explanation relates to sea ice. This is a thin layer (typically one metre to five metres thick) of sea water that freezes in winter and partially melts in the summer.
The sea ice is covered in a bright layer of snow which reflects around 85% of incoming solar radiation back out to space. The opposite occurs in the open ocean. As the darkest natural surface on the planet, the ocean absorbs 90% of solar radiation.
When covered with sea ice, the Arctic Ocean acts like a large reflective blanket, reducing the absorption of solar radiation. As the sea ice melts, absorption rates increase, resulting in a positive feedback loop where the rapid pace of ocean warming further amplifies sea ice melt, contributing to even faster ocean warming.
This feedback loop is largely responsible for what is known as Arctic amplification, and is the explanation for why the Arctic is warming so much more than the rest of the planet.
Numerical climate models have been used to quantify the magnitude of Arctic amplification. They typically estimate the amplification ratio to be about 2.5, meaning the Arctic is warming 2.5 times faster than the global average. Based on the observational record of surface temperatures over the last 43 years, the new study estimates the Arctic amplification rate to be about four.
Rarely do the climate models obtain values as high that. This suggests the models may not fully capture the complete feedback loops responsible for Arctic amplification and may, as a consequence, underestimate future Arctic warming and the potential consequences that accompany that.
How concerned should we be?
Besides sea ice, the Arctic contains other climate components that are extremely sensitive to warming. If pushed too hard, they will also have global consequences.
One of those elements is permafrost, a (now not so) permanently frozen layer of the Earth’s surface. As temperatures rise across the Arctic, the active layer, the topmost layer of soil that thaws each summer, deepens. This, in turn, increases biological activity in the active layer resulting in the release of carbon into the atmosphere.
Arctic permafrost contains enough carbon to raise global mean temperatures by more than 3℃. Should permafrost thawing accelerate, there is the potential for a runaway positive feedback process, often referred to as the permafrost carbon time bomb. The release of previously stored carbon dioxide and methane will contribute to further Arctic warming, subsequently accelerating future permafrost thaw.
A second Arctic component vulnerable to temperature rise is the Greenland ice sheet. As the largest ice mass in the northern hemisphere, it contains enough frozen ice to raise global sea levels by 7.4 metres if melted completely.
The Greenland ice sheet contains enough frozen ice to raise global sea levels by 7.4 metres if completely melted.MainlanderNZ/Shutterstock
When the amount of melting at the surface of an ice cap exceeds the rate of winter snow accumulation, it will lose mass faster than it gains any. When this threshold is exceeded, its surface lowers. This will quicken the pace of melting, because temperatures are higher at lower elevations.
This feedback loop is often called the small ice cap instability. Prior research puts the required temperature rise around Greenland for this threshold to be be passed at around 4.5℃ above pre-industrial levels. Given the exceptional pace of Arctic warming, passing this critical threshold is rapidly becoming likely.
Although there are some regional differences in the magnitude of Arctic amplification, the observed pace of Arctic warming is far higher than the models implied. This brings us perilously close to key climate thresholds that if passed will have global consequences. As anyone who works on these problems knows, what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. — There are several new dogs waiting to be adopted at Clearlake Animal Control.
The City of Clearlake Animal Association also is seeking fosters for the animals waiting to be adopted.
Call the Clearlake Animal Control shelter at 707-273-9440, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to inquire about adoptions and schedule a visit to the shelter.
Visit Clearlake Animal Control on Facebook or on the city’s website.
The following dogs are available for adoption. The newest additions are at the top.
“Groucho.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Groucho’
“Groucho” is a male Chihuahua-miniature pinscher mix with a short tricolor coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 49651597.
“Sparkles.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Sparkles’
“Sparkles” is a female terrier mix with a short brindle coat.
Shehas been spayed.
She is dog No. 50592729.
“Willie.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Willie’
“Willie” is a male German shepherd mix with a black and tan coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50596003.
“Andy.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Andy’
“Andy” is a male American pit bull mix with a short gray and white coat.
He is dog No. 48995415.
“Bear.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Bear’
“Bear” is a male Labrador retriever-American pit bull mix with a short charcoal and fawn coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 48443153.
“Betsy.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Betsy’
“Betsy” is a female American pit bull mix with a short white coat.
She has been spayed.
She is dog No. 50236145.
“Bluey.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Bluey’
“Bluey” is a male retriever mix with a short black coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50552999.
“Big Phil.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Big Phil’
“Big Phil” is a 13-year-old male American pit bull terrier mix with a blue coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 49951647.
“Colt.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Colt’
“Colt” is a male Rhodesian Ridgeback mix with a short rust and black coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 49812106.
“Hakuna.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Hakuna’
“Hakuna” is a male shepherd mix with a tan coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50176912.
“Kubota.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Kubota’
“Kubota” is a male German shepherd mix with a short tan and black coat.
He has been neutered.
Kubota is dog No. 50184421.
“Luna.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Luna’
“Luna” is an 8-month-old Labrador retriever-terrier mix with a black and white coat.
She is dog No. 50339254.
“Mamba.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Mamba’
“Mamba” is a male Siberian husky mix with a gray and cream-colored coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 49520569.
“Matata.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Matata’
“Matata” is male shepherd mix with a tan coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50176912.
“Newman.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Newman’
“Newman” is a 1-year-old male American pit bull terrier mix with a black and white coat.
He has been neutered.
Newman is dog No. 49057809.
“Sadie.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Sadie’
“Sadie” is a female German shepherd mix with a black and tan coat.
She has been spayed.
She is dog No. 49802563.
“Terry.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Terry’
“Terry” is a handsome male shepherd mix with a short brindle coat.
He gets along with other dogs, including small ones, and enjoys toys. He also likes water, playing fetch and keep away.
Staff said he is now getting some training to help him build confidence.
He is dog No. 48443693.
“Tiramisu.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Tiramisu’
“Tiramisu” is a female Alaskan husky mix with a short brown and cream coat.
She is dog No. 49652833.
“Ziggy.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Ziggy’
“Ziggy” is a male American pit bull terrier mix with a short gray and white coat.
He has been neutered.
Ziggy is dog No. 50146247
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKEPORT, Calif. — Due to temporary staffing shortages at the Lakeport Police Department, Clearlake Police officers will begin working patrol overtime shifts in the city of Lakeport beginning Friday, Aug. 12.
The arrangement is the result of a supplemental law enforcement services agreement approved by the city councils of Clearlake and Lakeport in recent weeks.
The agreement also allows for Lakeport Police officers to work in Clearlake should that city ever need the assistance in the future. The city of Lakeport is paying the full cost for this assistance.
“We have a longstanding relationship with Clearlake and have provided each other mutual aid on many occasions,” the Lakeport Police Department said in a Thursday statement. “We have virtually the same policies, procedures and training and do not expect any differences in service provided to our community. We are also members of the same California Intergovernmental Risk Authority which simplifies the process of one agency's staff operating as agents of the other.”
Clearlake Police officers are expected to work a few shifts per week over the next few months, Lakeport officials reported.
Officers will always be wearing the Clearlake Police uniform and generally driving city of Clearlake vehicles although at times they may be in a Lakeport Police vehicle.
There will never be a time when there is not a Lakeport Police officer on duty while Clearlake Police officers are working in the city, officials said.
The arrangement supplements Lakeport’s staffing in order to provide for sufficient officer safety and continued appropriate police services to the Lakeport community, the city reported.
Should a member of the public need to request police records related to work done by Clearlake officers in Lakeport, they shall contact the Lakeport Police Department where all those records will be maintained.
“We also want the public to be aware that this arrangement will not affect the staffing at Clearlake, that is their staffing levels to the Clearlake community will not be shorted to provide coverage here. Clearlake Police officers are only working voluntary overtime when available,” the Lakeport Police Department reported.
Lakeport Police reported that it expects its current staffing to be increased to sufficient levels within the next few months. The most significant reason for the current staffing situation is that four new officers are in training and unable to staff a patrol position. As the public may be aware, for over the past 5 or more years police recruitment and retention has been a significant problem in our state and country. However, we continue to look for innovative ways to address it locally.
How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
