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The Two-Way explains that “coral bleaching occurs when living organisms that make up the coral reefs expel the colorful, photosynthetic algae that normally live inside their bodies, and provide them with food. Those algae give coral reefs their color and disappear when the reefs are exposed to stressful climatic conditions, such as temperatures even a few degrees higher than normal.” This sounds like a terrible, rare phenomena that humans would do anything in their power to prevent, in hopes of protecting their beautiful tourist attractions, vacation activities, and sightseeing, right? Wrong.This exact situation has occurred three times in recent years, with the last one being the most shocking and severely damaging to the coral reefs. Scientists had had hopeful hypotheses that the occurrence of one bleaching event would minimize the impact of the next one, but as the 2016 bleaching displayed, this is far from the case. In recent weeks, reports of another bleaching event that is occurring on the Great Barrier Reef has surfaced, and people are becoming more and more alarmed at the severity of the situation. However, the only way to stop these bleachings is to push for global action against the climate change that is prompting these bleaching, making this significantly more complicated.

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In 2016, a mass bleaching event caused unprecedented destruction to the Great Barrier Reef and other coral reefs around the world.

Now, a new study in Nature has concluded that securing a future for coral reefs "ultimately requires urgent and rapid action to reduce global warming."

It finds that local measures, such as protecting reefs and water quality, ultimately yield little protection against bleaching caused by higher water temperatures.

The researchers documented the extent of the damage the reef off the coast of Australia sustained during the 2016 bleaching event, and found that only 8.9 percent of more than 1,000 reefs escaped with no bleaching along a stretch more than 2,300 kilometers long.

That's far worse that the two previous major Great Barrier Reef bleaching events, in 1998 and 2002. In both cases more than 40 percent of the reef escaped bleaching.

James Cook University's Mia Hoogenboom, one of the co-authors of the paper, told Morning Edition that when she went diving to document the reef's condition, it was a shock to see the extent of the damage.

"It's confronting to go from a reef which is colorful, which is swarming with life, to a reef that's covered in dead corals and corals that are covered in a slimy green algae," she said. "So it doesn't feel like the same reef and it doesn't engender that same sense of wonder at the biodiversity that's present in those areas."

The three major bleaching events occurred in different but overlapping areas, which allowed the researchers to test a hypothesis that previous exposure to bleaching may make coral more resilient to the effect of high water temperatures.

Unfortunately, the researchers found that "bleaching in previous years didn't confer any resistance to bleaching in the most recent bleaching event." Hoogenboom said "the bleaching was just as severe on reefs that had previously been bleached than on reefs that hadn't bleached before in that event last year."

The Two-Way has explained how coral bleaching occurs as water temperatures rise:

" Coral bleaching occurs when the living organisms that make up coral reefs expel the colorful, photosynthetic algae that normally live inside their bodies, and provide them with food. Those algae give coral reefs their color and disappear when the reefs are exposed to stressful climatic conditions, such as temperatures even a few degrees higher than normal."

Hoogenboom says the researchers found that other factors can help mitigate the severity of the bleaching. For example, good water flow can reduce the severity of bleaching at a site.

But ultimately, she says, "temperature is really the main driver of these mass coral bleaching events," prompting the team's push for global action against climate change.

In recent weeks, her team received more bad news - they've found that a bleaching event is occurring on the Great Barrier Reef for the second successive year.

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Study: 'Urgent' Action Against Global Warming Needed To Save Coral Reefs

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After another major coral bleaching event, a new study has concluded that securing a future for coral reefs "ultimately requires urgent and rapid action to reduce global warming."

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The mere idea of resurrecting extinct species is baffling, in and of itself. However, according to the New York Times, scientist can accomplish this monumental feat with enough “determination, money, and smarts.” Yes, it would be truly fascinating to see great woolly mammoths (prospectively created by splicing the genes from ancient mammoths into Asian elephant DNA) roaming around the Earth once more, but the real question is, does the Earth and its biomes/habitats hold the capacity to provide adequate resources for the resurrection of the beasts from long ago? A conservation researcher at Carleton University, Joseph Bennett, then raised the question, “Should society devote its limited resources to reversing past wrongs, or on preventing future extinctions?” He then goes on to say that, all in all, the “de-extinction” of species is simply not worth it. He claims that to resurrect an extinct species, you’d be making an ethical decision to bring back one species at the cost of three to eight others, which is ultimately counterproductive.

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An illustration of an extinct rat kangaroo, published in 1825. Researchers recently analyzed the costs and benefits of re-establishing and maintaining 16 species in Australia and New Zealand that went extinct in the last millennium. Credit Credit Florilegius, via Getty Images

With enough determination, money and smarts, scientists just might revive the woolly mammoth, or some version of it, by splicing genes from ancient mammoths into Asian elephant DNA. The ultimate dream is to generate a sustainable population of mammoths that can once again roam the tundra.

But here's a sad irony to ponder: What if that dream came at the expense of today's Asian and African elephants, whose numbers are quickly dwindling because of habitat loss and poaching?

"In 50 years, we might not have those elephants," said Joseph Bennett, an assistant professor and conservation researcher at Carleton University in Ontario. Dr. Bennett has spent his career asking hard questions about conservation priorities. With only so much funding to go around, deciding which species to save can be a game of triage.

Recently, he and a team of colleagues confronted a new question: If molecular biologists can potentially reconstruct extinct species, such as the woolly mammoth, should society devote its limited resources to reversing past wrongs, or on preventing future extinctions?

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A stuffed male passenger pigeon that was offered at auction in 2015. The species is one of three that the group Revive & Restore aims to bring back using biotechnology. Credit Rob Stothard/Getty Images

In a paper published in Nature Ecology & Evolution this month, the researchers concluded that the biodiversity costs and benefits almost never come out in favor of de-extinction.

"If you have the millions of dollars it would take to resurrect a species and choose to do that, you are making an ethical decision to bring one species back and let several others go extinct," Dr. Bennett said. "It would be one step forward, and three to eight steps back."

But his team's findings do not fully resonate with all scientists. Some who are engaged in de-extinction efforts say that Dr. Bennett's analysis, and others like it, are too far removed from actual developments in the field.

One leading group in the field is Revive & Restore, a nonprofit initiative to rescue extinct and endangered species through genetic engineering and biotechnology. The San Francisco-based group is working to bring back the passenger pigeon, woolly mammoth and heath hen.

A woolly mammoth skeleton that was auctioned in 2009. Scientists have proposed splicing mammoth genes into Asian elephant DNA to bring the extinct mammals back to life. Credit Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Conservation is central to Revive & Restore's mission, said Ben Novak, the organization's lead researcher and science consultant, and there could be ecological benefits to restoring lost species. In some cases, he said, living species are endangered partly because of "the lack of an ecological partner or some link in the food web."

"Any de-extinction effort must have long-term benefits that outweigh the costs," Mr. Novak said.

He added that it is not accurate to assume, as Dr. Bennett does, that funding for de-extinction and conservation is a zero-sum game, noting that all of the funding for Revive & Rescue's biotechnologies comes from private donors or institutional grants outside the realm of conservation efforts.

De-extinction may certainly have long-term gains, Dr. Bennett acknowledged, but he fears they are a luxury the world cannot currently afford. By some estimates, 20 percent of species on Earth now face extinction, and that may rise to 50 percent by the end of the century.

In their study, Dr. Bennett and his collaborators tried to approximate the costs of re-establishing and maintaining 16 species that went extinct in the last millennium, including the Lord Howe pigeon and Eastern rat-kangaroo from Australia, and the laughing owl and Waitomo frog from New Zealand. The researchers selected these animals because they could estimate what it would cost to conserve them based on proposed government expenditures to save similar living species that are endangered.

Revive & Restore also aims to bring back the extinct Heath hen. "Any de-extinction effort must have long-term benefits that outweigh the costs," said Ben Novak, the organization's lead researcher. Credit C. Horwitz

Based on the price of conserving the endangered Chatham Island warbler from New Zealand, for instance, they determined that managing a new population of the extinct Chatham bellbird would cost $360,000 in the first year.

Because the price of genetically reconstructing extinct species is still unknown (although it could cost tens of millions of dollars), the scientists focused on how much it would cost just to reintroduce and maintain these particular species in the wild once they had already been engineered.

In New Zealand, the researchers calculated, the funds required to conserve 11 extinct species would protect three times as many living species. In New South Wales, reviving five extinct species was similar to saving more than eight times as many living species.

The problem with this analysis, said Stewart Brand, co-founder of Revive & Restore, is that "these are all species that would never be considered seriously for de-extinction in the first place," either because their ecological roles can be approximated by another living species or because the benefits of restoring them are not great enough to warrant the costs.

An illustration of an extinct huia, once found in New Zealand. The researchers who analyzed reviving extinct species found that many more living species could be conserved for the same cost. Credit Encyclopaedia Britannica, via Getty Images

He argued that Revive & Restore strictly assesses its de-extinction projects, through its own criteria and international guidelines, to ensure that they are worth doing and consistent with preserving existing biodiversity.

The passenger pigeon, for instance, was a keystone species that helped regenerate Eastern deciduous forests by landing on trees in giant flocks, breaking down their branches and excreting layers of rich fertilizer that allowed new trees to grow - a role that other birds likely cannot fill. On top of that, Mr. Brand said, the passenger pigeon has unique symbolic value as "one of the great stories of extinction."

But other scientists agree with Dr. Bennett that spending money on de-extinction is wasteful, even for a case like the passenger pigeon. Paul Ehrlich, president of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University, and author of the controversial book "The Population Bomb," said that conservation is vastly underfunded and there is no guarantee that restoring extinct species will work.

To restore the passenger pigeon, Dr. Ehrlich said, you would need a large breeding population - with possibly more genetic diversity than can be gleaned from the 1,500 or so pigeons preserved in museum collections - and even then there may "not be enough habitat left for them anyway."

Dr. Bennett said "he wouldn't want to close the door on de-extinction forever." There may be some instances where it is worthwhile, he acknowledged, and pursuing it will advance research on genetic technologies.

"If someone wants to work on de-extinction because it's technically fascinating, that's fine," he said. "But if the person is couching de-extinction in terms of conservation, then she or he needs to have a very sober look at what one could do with those millions of dollars with living species - there's already plenty to do."

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page D3 of the New York edition with the headline: A Steep Price for Bringing Animals Back. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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We Might Soon Resurrect Extinct Species. Is It Worth the Cost?

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Scientists disagree about whether bringing extinct species back from the dead will result in a net loss of global biodiversity.

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Overturning of Obama-Era Alaskan Bears and Wolves Law

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Overturning of Obama-Era Alaskan Bears and Wolves Law

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The purpose of national wildlife refuges has almost always been as the name suggests; it provides a safe and protected area for the conservation of animals that should and need  to be protected. One of these such refuges is located in Alaska, and under Obama’s administration, a federal law was passed to prevent the hunting of bears, wolves, and other predators in these national wildlife refuges. However, it is now 2017, and we have a new president-- President Trump, the only man who has the ability to approve Congress’ overturning of the “Obama-era federal law,” which could mean big trouble for Alaska’s wildlife refuges. Recently, the rule passed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with Obama’s approval, was voted to be appealed in the House, with a 32 voting margin for those in favor of appealing the law. As of right now, the law prevents hunters from shooting or trapping wolves in their dens, or using helicopters, wire snares and food baits to scout, trap and point-blank kill grizzly bears. Curbing certain species in national wildlife refuges has always been a factor in maintaining their populations, but there is a thin line that can cross into unethical cruelty that the overturning of this federal law would allow, concerning many environmentalists and animal activists alike.

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Hunters could once again go after bears, wolves and other predators in national wildlife refuges across Alaska if an Obama-era federal law is overturned by Congress and gets the president's approval.

Supporters of repealing the rule, which was issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in August, got a boost Thursday when the House voted 225-193, mostly along party lines, to undo the law.

Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, is behind the resolution to strip away some of the federal government's control over Alaska's 76 million acres worth of federal wildlife refuges. Under the federal law, hunters are prohibited from shooting or trapping wolves while at their dens with cubs, using airplanes to scout for potential grizzly bear targets, trapping bears with wire snares and luring bears with food to get a point-blank kill.

But essentially, hunters could once again kill such predators from the air or in dens if the law is overturned.

Aerial shooting has been deemed necessary in the past in order to curb predator populations that eat moose, deer and other animals that some Alaskans consume for food.

Young argued in the House that the rule seized authority away from the state of Alaska and is a clear violation of federal law.

"We have to recognize this is not about the little polar bears, the little grizzly bears or wolves on television, this is about the state's right to manage - not allowing the federal government to do so," Young said. "We want to be able to take and manage our fish and game for the sustainable yield - so that our fish and game will be there forever."

The House resolution - H.J. Res. 69 - is set to advance to the GOP-controlled Senate, and then will be given to President Donald Trump to sign into law. His administration has not commented on the issue.

The office of Alaska Gov. Bill Walker, a political independent, could not immediately be reached for comment by NBC News.

Animal rights group The Humane Society aired a TV commercial in the Washington, D.C., area on Wednesday and Thursday in an effort to urge lawmakers to vote against Young's resolution.

"What the House did today should shock the conscience of every animal lover in America," Wayne Pacelle, The Humane Society's CEO, said in a statement. "If the Senate and President concur, we'll see wolf families killed in their dens [and] bears chased down by planes."

Prior to the hearing on the resolution, multiple House members took sides on Twitter, denouncing the resolution - or celebrating the reversal of an Obama-era policy.

LIVE FROM HOUSE FLOOR--We just blew up another Obama-era bad regulation! HJ Res 69 passed on bipartisan basis. One more in a few mins. #MAGA
- Rep. Bill Flores (@RepBillFlores) February 16, 2017

The Fish and Wildlife Service said last year the rule will help maintain sustainable populations of bears, wolves and coyotes on national wildlife refuges in Alaska, The Associated Press reported.

For instance, Denali National Park in Alaska's interior wilderness released data showing wolf populations declined substantially up until Obama's law was instituted.

In 2015, Denali had 112 wolves - a steady decline from the average mean of 200 wolves, according to park officials. In 2016, the number rose slightly - to 127 wolves.

But it was unclear whether the federal law played a role in the uptick. Still, Denali officials have asked to extend buffer zones around its park to better protect wolves outside the federal refuge.

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Bill would allow hunters to target bears, wolves in Alaska

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Animal rights groups worry that hunters could once again kill these predator animals from the air or in dens if the law is overturned.

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A 31 year old Russian architect by the name of Alexei Umarov has lived in the city of Khabarovsk, a city that shares a border with China. He has a plan for a project, called the HyperFilter skyscraper, whose purpose is to clean the polluted air surrounding it. The building is to look like a huge tree, and will suck in and purify the city’s polluted air. Many other architects share the same vision of using different technological materials to remove smog and impurities from the surrounding air to improve its quality to make it suitable for breathing. One of these kindred architects is a widely-known Dutch architect, Daan Roosegaarde. Roosegaarde has attempted to make towers such as the HyperFilter in Beijing, but as of right now, no evidence stands to prove that constructions such as these have made an actual impact in the reduction of pollution; but that hasn’t stopped ambitious architects such as Roosegaarde and Umarov.

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A Russian architect hopes to realise his dream of a skyscraper that can filter dirty air - but is it just a pipe dream? BBC Russian finds out.

"When I read the news about people selling oxygen in canisters in Chinese cities... I think some time as early as 2025, my project will be realised," says Russian architect Alexei Umarov, 31, the man behind the idea of a skyscraper which he says could clean the polluted air surrounding it.

Mr Umarov lives in the Russian city of Khabarovsk on the border with China. He says that his project, the HyperFilter skyscraper, looks something like a giant tree, which he claims can suck in and purify the city's polluted air.

He is not the only visionary to be seduced by the desire to construct smog-eating buildings.

Many architects have been attracted to the idea of using materials and devices which could play a part in removing impurities to improve the air we breathe.

One of the most high-profile is the Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde, who has created towers in cities like Beijing which have been billed as filtering impurities in the air.

The fact that no serious evidence exists that such constructions can make a significant dent in pollution levels has not stopped architects from taking out their pens and getting down to the design board.

When Mr Umarov started to contemplate his project for an international architectural contest, he knew what he wanted to focus on.

"Having assessed the situation in the world, having read some statistics, I chose air pollution, because I think it's really important," he explained.

"Every big city in the world suffers under this problem - and it's getting worse - excessive heat, polluted air, metals in the air, excessive levels of carbon dioxide. So I tried to solve the problem my way, the architectural way and to some extent in a technological way."

The HyperFilter consists of a skeleton, a porous shell and long pipes with filters inside. The designer's vision is for air to be be sucked in through the pipes, cleaned and cooled, while harmful substances are separated and accumulated on the lower levels of the building for further recycling.

Back in 2014, Mr Umarov sent his project to an international architectural contest organised by a magazine. He did not make it to the final three, but the jury remarked that his idea was an interesting one.

Other skyscraper projects in the contest looked fascinating, futuristic, but they all had a traditional interior: offices, apartments, shops. Mr Umarov's design was the only one without flats or offices - only a giant air filter.

Despite the lack of evidence, Mr Umarov is convinced that his skyscraper is the future.

"I know it looks rather futuristic, but technically, my project can be partially realized even now. Since I composed it in 2014, the technologies have developed, there are 3D printing, drones and robots used in the construction, and it seems to me that my project is gradually becoming more and more important - and more and more plausible," says Mr Umarov.

The architect acknowledges it would be rather difficult and costly to assemble all the pipes without the help of drones.

Alexei Umarov is still hoping that a big international company will eventually develop his project and start to build the HyperFilters in cities like Mexico, Delhi, Beijing or Moscow.

Even if Mr Umarov's dream is not realised, such designs and other so-called smog-eating towers can help raise awareness of air pollution, even if they do little to reduce it.

So I Can Breathe

A week of coverage by BBC News looking at ways to cut air pollution.

Five ways to avoid air pollution

Gasping in the French Alps

Can trees cut pollution?

About the So I Can Breathe season

See more from So I Can Breathe

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A Russian architect's dream to clean the air

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Russian architect Alexei Umarov thinks his HyperFilter building could be a pollution solution.

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China's Severe Winter Haze Tied to Effects of Global Climate Change

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China's Severe Winter Haze Tied to Effects of Global Climate Change

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China’s air and water pollution has always been an enormous environmental problem, and has contributed to a thick, perpetual fog that hangs over China’s cities year-round. This smog has caused reports of not being able to stay outside for more than twenty minutes without feeling dizzy, as well as the creation of bottled and canned air. According to Yuhang Wang, a professor in China, “Emissions in China have been decreasing over the last four years, but the severe winter haze is not getting better.” He goes on to cite reasons for this haze, and says that it is mainly due to a rapid change in the poles, where the sea ice is melting and snowfall is increasing, preventing the cold air from reaching China where it can flush out the air pollution. This is interesting, because the melting of the polar ice is mainly because of global warming as a result of CO2 emissions, which China is known to produce the most of. This perpetual haze has created reasonable alarm in China, causing the Chinese government to create strict regulations and targets for reducing emissions from industries and factories.

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China's severe winter air pollution problems may be worsened by changes in atmospheric circulation prompted by Arctic sea ice loss and increased Eurasian snowfall -- both caused by global climate change.

Modeling and data analysis done by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology suggest that sea ice and snowfall changes have shifted China's winter monsoon, helping create stagnant atmospheric conditions that trap pollution over the country's major population and industrial centers. Those changes in regional atmospheric conditions are frustrating efforts to address pollution through emission controls.

"Emissions in China have been decreasing over the last four years, but the severe winter haze is not getting better," said Yuhang Wang, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. "Mostly, that's because of a very rapid change in the high polar regions where sea ice is decreasing and snowfall is increasing. This perturbation keeps cold air from getting into the eastern parts of China where it would flush out the air pollution."

To be reported March 15 in the journal Science Advances, the research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and Environmental Protection Agency. The paper presents a clear example of how large-scale perturbations caused by global climate change can have significant regional impacts, and is believed to be the first to link sea ice and snowfall levels to regional air pollution.

Haze problems in the East China Plains -- which include the capital Beijing -- first gained worldwide attention during the winter of 2013 when an instrument at the U.S. embassy recorded extremely high levels of PM 2.5 particles. The haze prompted the Chinese government to institute strict targets for reducing emissions from industry and other sources.

Though these emission controls appear to be working, the haze during December and January continues. So Wang and colleagues Yufei Zou, Yuzhong Zhang and Ja-Ho Koo wondered if other factors may be playing a role.

Long-term air quality measurements aren't available in China, so the researchers had to piece together estimates based on visibility measures and satellite data. To analyze the historical records, they created a new Pollution Potential Index (PPI) that used air temperature gradient anomalies and surface wind speeds as a proxy for ventilation conditions over eastern China.

"Once we generated the PPI and combined it with the visibility data, it was obvious that January 2013 was well beyond anything that had ever been seen before going back at least three decades," said Wang. "But in that month emissions had not changed, so we knew there had to be another factor."

The East China Plains consist of interconnected basins surrounded by mountain ranges to the west and the ocean to the east, a mirror image of the polluted Southern California. Pollution generated by industry and vehicles can be removed effectively only by horizontal dispersion or by vertical mixing in winter, and when those processes fail to move out stagnant air, pollution builds up. It seemed likely that something was preventing the ventilation that would have kept the air cleaner.

The researchers next looked at climate features such as sea ice, snowfall, El Niños, and Pacific Oscillations. They conducted principal component and maximum covariance analyses and found correlations of stagnant air conditions over China to Arctic sea ice -- which reached a record low in the fall of 2012 -- and snowfall in the upper latitudes of Siberia, which had reached a record high earlier in the winter. They then used atmospheric model simulations to study how those factors change large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns and pollution ventilation over eastern China.

"The reductions in sea ice and increase in snowfall have the effect of damping the climatological pressure ridge structure over China," Wang said. "That flattens the temperature and pressure gradients and moves the East Asian Winter Monsoon to the east, decreasing wind speeds and creating an atmospheric circulation that makes the air in China more stagnant."

The results of the model were consistent with observations that Korea and Japan had been unusually cold that winter, while eastern China had been unusually warm -- both suggesting that the cold center had moved.

The winter of 2017 saw the same factors, with low levels of Arctic sea ice in September 2016, high snowfall -- and severe haze. Wang says those factors are likely to continue as the global climate change disrupts the normal structure of the atmosphere.

"Despite the efforts to reduce emissions, we think that haze will probably continue for the future," he said. "This is partly climate-driven now, so it probably won't get much better in the winter. Emissions are no longer the only driver of these conditions."

Wang hopes to continue the study using new data from China's air quality monitoring network. The impact of global climate change, he said, may be unique to China because of its geography and sensitivity to changes in atmospheric circulation structure. Though the problem is now manifested in air pollution, he said the results of the study should encourage the nation to continue addressing climate change.

"The very rapid change in polar warming is really having a large impact on China," he said. "That gives China an incentive to not only follow through on air pollutant emission reductions, and also to look at the potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Our research shows that cutting greenhouse gases would help with the winter haze problem."

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climate; environmental issues; global warming; air pollution; environmental awareness; environmental science; air quality; pollution

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China's severe winter haze tied to effects of global climate change

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China's severe winter air pollution problems may be worsened by changes in atmospheric circulation prompted by Arctic sea ice loss and increased Eurasian snowfall -- both caused by global climate change.

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A super bloom is described as a “sea of flowers,” by Los Angeles geologist, Janet Gordon. This beautiful phenomenon is currently occurring in California deserts, thanks to California’s recent unseasonably wet winter. California has been experiencing years of drought, and because of the amount of water being provided to the deserts, they are currently in a prosperous period of lush vegetation. Super blooms such as these are extremely rare, and therefore, the super bloom in California is causing an enormous amount of tourist attraction. Tourists from Europe, Africa, and Asia, as well as local residents, are venturing out into the deserts and National Parks just to witness the beauty. There are miles and miles of fields of flowers, ranging into areas that rarely see flowers, such as the badlands, home to snakes, bobcats, and coyotes, according to park ranger Steve Bier. The most intriguing thing about the super bloom is that a majority of the flowers that are blooming are coming from seeds that had been buried for thousands of years.

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In some parts of the country, cold weather is threatening crops. Meanwhile, California has been so unseasonably wet that its deserts are experiencing what's called a "super bloom." After years of drought, the normally arid desert is lush.

"It just looks like a sea of flowers," says Janet Gordon, a geologist from Los Angeles.

"You got purple, red, yellows and blues," adds Joe Sheidness, visiting from San Diego.

"It's fantastic," says Dennis Brian, from Reno, Nev., who says he was a flower child in the 1960s. "You don't see this very often. The little flowers look so delicate, but yet they're prolific. They're everywhere."

"It's neat to see so much color on something that's usually so tan and stone color with all the rocks," says Andrea Smith, who brought her 16-month-old baby here in the 90 degree heat at high noon on Wednesday.

These were just a few of the many people flocking to see the colors blanketing the hills and valleys of Anza-Borrego. It is California's largest state park, in the desert south of Palm Springs, a nearly four-hour car drive from Los Angeles.

Visitors are coming from as far as Europe, Africa and Asia. This super bloom is so rare, so special, that looky-loos are causing traffic jams, getting lost in the hillsides and fainting from dehydration - just to take in the beauty.

"I'm looking at a whole field of this bluish purple phacelia. And in this foreground of the Coyote Mountains, that's nothing but poppies going 5, 6 miles up-canyon," says park ranger Steve Bier.

He says this is a really big deal; there are flowers in places where you usually don't see them, like in the badlands that are home to snakes and bobcats and coyotes.

There are desert sunflowers and dune evening primrose, sand verbena, ghost flowers, monkey flowers and wild Canterbury bells. The ocotillo and beavertail cactus are beginning to bloom.

Bier says this year's conditions were perfect for such a phenomenon: long steady rain throughout the winter - a remarkable 6 inches in all here - that soaked into the ground. And temperatures that were not too hot.

"Some of these seeds have been underground for maybe decades, if not a century or more, we just don't know," he says. "Some of these places have not seen water in 10, 15, 20 years, and now they're a blanket of flowers."

In other words, they are survivors.

"You have to be tough to be out in the desert. That's for sure," Bier says. "And these are an ephemeral resource, so what you're looking at today could be gone tomorrow. It just depends on how hot we get today, and how hungry the caterpillars get."

Bier says anyone who wants to see this super bloom had better get there before those sphinx moth caterpillars eat up all the flowers.

Don't forget your camera, sunscreen and water.

Lots of water.

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California Deserts In 'Super Bloom' Thanks To A Wet Winter

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A rainy winter has brought an early spring to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in Southern California. Wildflowers are in bloom. How can seeds survive years of drought and then put on such a display?