Oldtimers call it valley haze

The Press - Enterprise

June 21, 2003

by Mark Muckenfuss

I don't know about you, but I'm having a little trouble seeing things clearly these days.

And I'm not talking about all the murky business of our current foreign policy.

It's the stuff in the air.

June gloom. Marine layer, Haze.

Call it what you will, it comes around about this time every year, thickening up the air and, on warmer days, mixing with the air pollution to create the Brown Blanket of Death. (That's not exactly an official term used by the scientific community. But maybe it ought to be.)

For newcomers to the Inland Empire, the brown gunk can be disconcerting, even frightening -- "How do you breathe this stuff? With a spoon?"

Veterans will often try to brush it off, saying, "Well, you know, it's not so much smog as it is haze."

Of course, when the veterans say this, the newcomers look at them as if they will next begin detailing the stockpiles of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Even many veterans have lost faith in the optimistic chant. But there is some truth to it.

Recently, I was plowing through some photographs of the San Bernardino. One in particular struck me. It was a view looking east down Third Street from Arrowhead Avenue. Judging by the shadows, it was taken about midday. And while the buildings in the foreground were clearly visible, those only a few blocks away began to fade into a feathery haze.

Normally, I would have attributed the invisibility to industrial emissions. But the photo was taken in the late 1800s. A horse and buggy were parked on the dirt street.

There is a story that the American Indian name for the San Bernardino Valley referred to this indigenous haze.

"I've heard it called Valley of Smoke or Misty Valley or Smoky Valley," says Robin Laska, assistant curator of anthropology at the San Bernardino County Museum. "I've heard it, but it's mainly third or fourth hand sources."

Despite searches by Laska and some other local authorities, no one could pin down a specific reference. So, the tale maybe apocryphal.

That doesn't make its point any less valid.

Charlie Zender, an assistant professor of Earth systems science at UC Irvine, says the inland valleys of Southern California are uniquely situated for the formation of a natural haze. The nearby ocean, a frequent inversion layer and the mountains all combine to fog up the landscape.

"Things can't disperse vertically because of the inversion," Zender says. And, because of the mountains, "they can't be blown to the east. Things accumulate rather than disperse."

In addition, Zender says, the area is ripe with aerosols -- particles suspended in the air. Dust from the desert and emissions from plants, Zender says, litter the air.

"The humidity of the ocean is able to grab onto these particles and swell them," he adds, something he calls hydroscopic growth. The aerosols, he says, essentially act as sponges and the ocean moisture swells them into a range where they become visible.

Zender agrees with a recent study by the Jet Propulsion Lab in La CaAnada that says the haze will become worse over the next 20 years, but he attributes it more to global warming than ocean cooling.

Whatever the reason, prepare to be gloomed. Break out the Prozac if you have to.