The L.A. Times scare headline: “Will global warming turn L.A. into San Bernardino? Map models climate change in 60 years.”
As if the prospect of turning into San Bernardino weren’t horrifying enough for our friends out west, the Times’ photo depicts not the majestic arrowhead in the mountains, but the bleak view through the window of an abandoned Mojave Desert school in Amboy.
It’s as if San Bernardino, population 226,541, the 18th-largest city in California, were Needles. (More on Needles in a moment, though.)
Actually, the Times didn’t literally mean San Bernardino but a lesser-known neighbor. According to the new mapping tool created by researchers at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, which prompted the story, Los Angeles will be like Rialto.
How so? Is L.A. getting a Cracker Barrel?
No. If emissions in 2080 are the same as today, L.A. summers will be about 7.7 degrees warmer and winters 5.6 degrees warmer, “with the overall climate more akin to current conditions in Rialto,” the Times wrote.
I suppose it’s up to me to do the obvious and see what Rialto and San Bernardino might be like in 2080.
I typed each city’s name into the mapping tool — find it at https://fitzlab.shinyapps.io/cityapp/ — and found that conditions in Rialto and San Bernardino, and Riverside too, will resemble those of Ahwahnee, California, which is in the Sierra Nevada in Madera County, east of Stockton.
Our cities would average 9 degrees warmer in the summer and 7 degrees warmer in the winter. That sounds uncomfortable, especially since Tuesday’s high in Rialto was 102 and San Bernardino and Riverside were 104.
I don’t know what it was like in Amboy.
Needles (cont’d)
In related news, Needles dethroned Phoenix as the hottest city in the U.S. during July, with the San Bernardino County hamlet averaging 103.2 degrees for the month, thanks to nighttime lows in the 90s. Phoenix, the leader for July 2023 at 102.7 degrees, had a 101.1-degree average this July for second place in this dubious sweepstakes.
Two Riverside County cities weren’t far behind, according to a post on X from the Arizona State Climate Office. Blythe (100.7 degrees) and Palm Springs (100.0 degrees) for the first time also averaged triple-digit temperatures.
“Welcome?” joked the Climate Office.
(When cities are that hot, you hate to give too warm a welcome.)
Needles isn’t included in the mapping tool, nor is Blythe. But by 2080, Palm Springs — which just had its hottest month ever, July, and hottest-ever day, 124 degrees on July 5 — is expected to average 8 degrees warmer during summers and 6.6 degrees warmer during winters.
Good news for snowbirds, but not so good for anyone else.
Not a mirage
I’ve seen “Lawrence of Arabia” three times over the years, always on a big screen in L.A., such as the Cinerama Dome, which gives the nearly four-hour epic all the more impact. If this widescreen classic has screened in the Inland Empire in the past two decades, it’s slipped past me.
Now, the 1962 Best Picture winner will be shown at Regal and AMC theaters in Riverside, San Bernardino, Ontario and La Verne at 1 and 7 p.m. Sunday (Aug. 11) and 7 p.m. Monday (Aug. 12) courtesy of Fathom Events.
It’ll also play those same times at the Laemmle Claremont 5, one of the few independent theaters in the region. I emailed Laemmle president Greg Laemmle about it.
“The plan is to have the film in one of the large auditoriums,” Laemmle replies, “and it should look SPECTACULAR on the big screen.”
We’ll know “Lawrence of Arabia” was an immersive experience if we leave with desert sand in our shoes.
Climate (cont’d)
Back to the climate mapping tool. Its conclusions are predicated on us not doing anything significant regarding lowering carbon emissions in the next 56 years. Come now, that hardly seems likely, does it?
Granted, we haven’t done anything significant yet. Also, if half of our Opinion page contributors and half the old people on Facebook have anything to say about it, we won’t.
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So what if 2023 was the hottest year since global record-keeping began in 1850, or if the 10 warmest years on record have all been since 2010, or if July was California’s hottest month since at least 1895? Old-timers remember hot days when they were young and that’s all there is to it. Their grandchildren will just have to suck it up and carry portable fans.
Never mind my earlier optimism. We’re probably toast (literally).
David Allen sweats Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on X.
