California drought: Scientists to probe cause

[Auggie]

Source: sfgate.com

Washington -- California's drought will be one of the extreme weather events that the American Meteorological Society will examine later this year to determine whether the cause is natural variability or human-caused climate change, a federal official said Tuesday.

The American Meteorological Society's study will be similar to one the group undertook of extreme weather events of 2012. In September, the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society released a report finding that a 2012 Midwestern drought was mainly due to natural variation in weather, but that climate change was a factor in U.S. heat waves that spring and summer.

Scientists have not yet linked the California drought directly to climate change, Thomas Karl, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center, said Tuesday in announcing the latest study. "I'm sure there's a way, but we haven't done it yet," he said.

Last year's peer-reviewed study was conducted by 18 research teams from around the world, and examined the causes of a dozen extreme events that occurred on five continents and in the Arctic during 2012. Three of the four lead editors on the report were NOAA scientists. The next report is due in September.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/California-drought-Scientists-to-probe-cause-5163948.php

[boomer55]

1. I'm gonna guess lack of rain. :P

[tclambert]

6. Oh, you beat me to it.

[Scairp]

25. LOL

Yeah, I guess we are all scientists without actual degrees in climatology. Gimme a break.

[Herself]

2. Air stream changes

I remember when the weather predictions would be blue sky, no rain for days.

The space shuttle went up, abrupt changes in weather. Mostly rain.

Nasa denied the allegations, then finally admitted it.

Now we have changing weather patterns. I don't know why, I don't know that the public knows, but I'm sure governments know.

Could mass windturbines of giant size have something to do with it? I don't know.
One by it's self, not an issue,but when you have them grouped like in Europe, does it have an affect?

Questions, not allegations.

[Bandit]

9. Extremely high concentrations of CO2 in atmosphere might have something to do with it

[JDPriestly]

21. I'm in California. On a walk yesterday, I noticed that the air felt very heavy yesterday.

Of course that has no scientific value whatsoever because it is a strictly very subjective opinion.

We have had forest fires on the edges of Los Angeles. So the drought is a big threat to our area. Our trees look very thirsty, especially the avocados. We have had a number of dry years recently, but this winter is the driest and the warmest I remember in all my years in Los Angeles.

[Scairp]

26. It's so dry

I have noticed that the water in the animal's bowls is evaporating so quickly I have to check at least twice a day to make certain they have some. It usually isn't like that, even in the summer. No moisture in the air at all right now.

[xiamiam]

30. it is scary..monterey bay area..the hills and mts are dry, should be lime green

i haven't seen anything like this ever and i've been here almost 4 decades..fires will happen and food prices are definitely going to rise. Yesterday, worrying about it kicked into high gear. Why cant they just seed the clouds? or something? Isn't this what Haarp was created to help with.

[Herself]

32. SC went thru years of drought, now we are saturated, tree's falling over, roots pulled from earth.

The maestro's know. You can't plan war's without it.

[JDPriestly]

33. Yes. We have years of drought but not like this one.

And then we get a year with a lot of rain, and our hillsides erode.

Tree roots can prevent erosion, but only if they are healthy and the rain does not come suddenly and too fast.

Watering hillside trees is probably more important than showering every day. That is if you have to choose, protect your trees, and just take sponge baths between showers. Preserve water.

[CreekDog]

40. the same jet stream that is routing unusually strong pushes of Arctic air into our Midwest and East

is doing the opposite on the West Coast, routing storms to our north.

[tclambert]

10. Chinese butterflies. Chaos theory. Ian Malcolm.

Has anyone considered that the Chinese may be TRAINING those butterflies? We must not ALLOW a trained butterfly gap!

[arcane1]

24. NASA denied what allegations?

[truedelphi]

28. Nice to see someone questioning the event.

A few short years ago, there was a massive drought in Australia, and among the benefactors of that drought were the Big Ag firms who could then go in and buy up land cheaply.

Dennis Kucinich stated that governments have the ability to control the weather, and CIA reports from the early Nineties warned us that over the next ten years, governments that were anathema to the American cause would be doing just that.

And now the scientists in Scandinavia are saying that our black op weather programs are causing weather changes, not randomly but deliberately.

And if the bottom drops out of California crop lands, as drought destroys the 2014 harvest, the will of farming communities to say no to the Natural gas, and fracking crowd will definitely diminish.

[JDPriestly]

34. Fracking requires water -- which we do not have in California.

And the fracking will endanger the quality of our water. I think a lot of people will be more opposed to fracking because of the drought. It won't be left up to the individual landowners.

1
CALIFORNIA CONSITUTION ARTICLE 10 WATER
SEC. 2.
It is hereby declared that because of the conditions prevailing in this State the general welfare
requires that the water resources of the State be put to beneficial use to the fullest extent of which they are capable, and that the waste or unreasonable use or unreasonable method of use of water be prevented, and that the conservation of such waters is to be exercised with a view to the reasonable and beneficial use thereof in the interest of the people and for the public welfare.

The right to water or to the use or flow of water in or from any natural stream or water course in this State is and shall be limited to such water as shall be reasonably required for the beneficial use to be served, and such right does not and shall not extend to the waste or unreasonable use or unreasonable method of use or unreasonable method of diversion of water.

Riparian rights in a stream or water course attach to, but to no more than so much of the flow thereof as may be required or used consistently with this section, for the purposes for which such lands are, or may be made adaptable, in view of such reasonable and beneficial uses;
provided, however, that nothing herein contained shall be construed as depriving any riparian owner of the reasonable use of water of the stream to which the owner's land is riparian under reasonable methods of diversion and use, or as depriving any appropriator of water to which the appropriator is lawfully entitled. This section shall be self-executing, and the Legislature may also enact laws in the furtherance of the policy in this section contained.

(The following is a comment by the author of the article I am quoting.)
Rights to use water are subject to State government’s obligation under the Public Trust Doctrine as trustee of certain resources for Californians. The Public Trust Doctrine is a legal doctrine that imposes responsibilities on State agencies to protect trust resources associated with California's waterways, such as navigation, fisheries, recreation, ecological preservation
and related beneficial uses. In National Audubon Society v. Superior Court of Alpine County, the
California Supreme Court concluded that the public trust is an affirmation of the duty of the State to protect the people’s common heritage of streams, lakes, marshlands, and tidelands, surrendering such protection only in rare cases when the abandonment of that right is consistent with the purposes of the trust. Thus, California agencies have fiduciary obligations to the public when they make decisions affecting trust assets.

http://www.waterplan.water.ca.gov/docs/cwpu2009/0310final/v4c01a06_cwp2009.pdf

[truedelphi]

35. Material you' re quoting is a valuable resource.

Thank you for posting it all.

I was enheartened to read headlines a few weeks back that Jerry Brown has some ideas on the fracking, but now I am hearing those ideas are not very effective. In any event, because this fracking started out such a while back, there is now plenty of testimony as to how disastrous it is. that means there are activists who are on the ball, and will help people unite and get things done.

On the other hand, the other side has the money and the media. (Sigh)

[kairos12]

3. According to Rethugs the cause is Benghazi

[Helen Borg]

18. Fukushima!

...

[Cleita]

29. No it's because of Obama care! I heard it on Rush today, that and unemployment. n/t

[philosslayer]

4. How about because we're screwing up the planet?!?

n/t

[Dopers_Greed]

5. Clearly...

God is punishing those left-coast liberals.

[tclambert]

7. I'm sure that certain televangelists will blame the gays.

[Xithras]

8. Drought is a regular part of the west coast weather cycle. GCC just worsens it.

There are multiple shorelines several hundred feet below the surface of Lake Tahoe that attests to it. Research seems to suggest that California has experienced "megadroughts" on a cycle of 500-1000 years since the end of the last ice age, and that most of the megadroughts last for decades...and some last for centuries.

The last one was 760 years ago. Just yesterday two bits of related research came out that struck a bit of fear into those paying attention. The first said that this now appears to be the worst drought in 500 years based on tree ring data, and the second said that rainfall data throughout the three year drought shows that we're still in a drying pattern (e.g. we may not even be to the worst part yet).

This could get really, really bad. Population-altering bad. Global Climate Change is just adding more gas to the fire.

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. Increased food prices, including milk.

Drought not limited to Cal.
Beef and milk will continue to go up, esp. as speculators are trading milk futures now.

I think we have given up beef.
We have a local organic beef farmer, but for past 2 years he has not had enough beef for sale, cites cost of feed as a problem.
It ain't gonna get any cheaper.

[notemason]

13. Maybe

Not to diminish the problem in any way but can you really predict consistency from the data once GW has been added to the mix? Just saying this might not have the same lasting qualities as what previous tree ring data reflects. (Hopefully).

[Auggie]

14. And that is exactly what the American Meteorological Society will study

[Xithras]

23. First, it's GCC, not GW. Second, the dominant feature of GCC is to amplify natural weather patterns.

Global Climate Change won't made a drought where there was none before, but WILL turn a natural "mild" drought into a major one. It won't create new hurricanes, but it will make them stronger. It will turn a minor storm into a major one. Etcetera. Etcetera. The dominant impact of global climate change is an amplification of natural weather events.

Paleoclimatological studies have long made it clear that megadroughts are a normal part of the western landscape, and that isn't even new news. Living in California, I learned about the western megadrought cycle three decades ago when I was in junior high. It's regular, it's predictable...and we're due. If global climate change has any impact on it, it will be to amplify its intensity.

The real indicator of a megadrought is that the west has seen a long term rainfall decline for over a decade. Short term droughts tend to behave predictably. You get regular rainfall for a few years, and then a few years of dry weather, and then the rain comes back again. Normal droughts start and stop randomly, but relatively rapidly.

Paleoclimatologists established many years ago that this isn't the case with megadroughts. They start of slowly and worsen year after year for decades, until they gradually start to reverse (taking years or decades to return to normal again).

The western US has been in a gradually worsening drought for 12 years. While not every year has been below normal, the overall trend has been less rain year after year. These past three years simply represent an acceleration of the trend. The data is not consistent with a short term drought, but is a perfect match to megadrought patterns seen by paleoclimatologists. Most serious climatologists will tell you that the western U.S. has almost unquestionably been in a megadrought since the year 2000. The only real debate has been over whether this will be a "minor" megadrought that won't last long, or an ecosystem altering megadrought that could destroy a lot of population centers in the western U.S. and stick around for decades. The weather patterns seen during the past three years are suggesting the latter, and that it's still worsening.

During the last megadrought, which began around the year 800, sedimentary cores taken from lakes and rivers suggest that there may have been periods where there was virtually NO rain for nearly a decade, interspersed with periods where rainfall was still far below normal. Grasslands turned to deserts. Forests died off. Natural many natural lakes simply ceased to exist. Deeper mountain lakes like Tahoe saw their water levels fall by hundreds of feet. Mono Lake nearly ceased to exist. There's no question that it WILL happen again, and that it will be a catastrophe when it does. The only question is whether our current weather cycle is consistent with the beginning of a long term megadrought, and the further we get into it, the more it matches the severe megadrought pattern.

[Scairp]

27. Such cheery news

We can't do decades without rain. It would devastate California.

[truedelphi]

36. Now that we here in Calif. are all so dried out,

Please don't say "gas to the fire!"

[jwirr]

12. Good I have always wondered if cutting down all the rainforests might have something to do with the

climate changes we are having.

[tofuandbeer]

15. I've lived in So Cal all my life....and yes we have droughts—too many—

but the past few years we seem to be getting either dry Santa Ana weather, or the humid weather from south of us (instead of rain).
I stepped outside yesterday morning (January 21), and seeing it was cloudy I put on a sweater. It was 73. It felt like a late September day. In fact, this whole month has been pretty much 80's or close to it.

My hope is (as has been the case this past decade, we get a deluge of rain late in the year (March-April)...but that won't help the snow pack, so the drought will still be an issue).

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that I don't think this is a typical Southern California weather pattern. It seems like something's changed.

[olddad56]

16. at this point, anyone who doesn't recognize that the extreme weather is a result of climate change..

caused by global warning has their head up their ass.

[Jesus Malverde]

17. Lack of snowpack

[Helen Borg]

19. Less white, less green...

Some of the white in 2013 was due to clouds though.

[Brother Buzz]

20. You can almost see the glaciers on California's Mt. Shasta growing

Glaciers on California's Mt. Shasta keep growing

By Samantha Young, Associated Press Writer
7/8/2008


MOUNT SHASTA, Calif. — Reaching more than 14,000 feet above sea level, Mt. Shasta dominates the landscape of high plains and conifer forests in far Northern California.

While it's not California's tallest mountain, the tongues of ice creeping down Shasta's volcanic flanks give the solitary mountain another distinction. Its seven glaciers, referred to by American Indians as the footsteps made by the creator when he descended to Earth, are the only historical glaciers in the continental U.S. known to be growing.

With global warming causing the retreat of glaciers in the Sierra Nevada, the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere in the Cascades, Mt. Shasta is actually benefiting from changing weather patterns over the Pacific Ocean.

"When people look at glaciers around the world, the majority of them are shrinking," said Slawek Tulaczyk, an assistant professor of earth sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "These glaciers seem to be benefiting from the warming ocean."

<more>

[reddread]

22. the cause is nothing next to the effect

when feed prices curtail meat production and water availability stifles agriculture, we will be in a bad new world.
dust bowl chickens coming to roost.

[thefool_wa]

31. There are signs all over SoCal

That talk about selective drought conditions that have started to occurr over the past decade due to the political powers that be in Cal (Pelosi, Feinstein, et al) not negotiating a new interstate water use treaty over the Colorado River, causing it to be closed of for use in California Agriculture.

I saw MASSIVE nut tree orchards that were dead and lined with these signs all down I-5. I live in WA so I don't really know anything about it, but could this still be a problem there as well?

When I looked it up 2 years ago the prevailing theory was that it was to force collapse and sale of smaller farms to national and international food concerns, but again, I know almost nothing about it.

[Xithras]

37. The signs are mostly rightwing anti-environmentalist BS

Basically, it's farmers who took a chance and made a bad investment, and are now angry about losing.

First, as to the Colorado River thing. The Colorado River compact splits water rights to the Colorado river in half, with the three "Upper Basin" states getting half, and three "Lower Basin" states getting the other half. California also gets to take any "excess" water out of the river that is left over after everyone takes their shares. California and Arizona now want to renegotiate the compact so they can take MORE than half of the water...stripping water rights from Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico. Those states have understandably told Arizona and California where to shove that idea, so Arizona and rightwing Californians are trying to get the federal government to force a renegotiation. John McCain loves the idea

As to the other bit. What you saw was the Westlands district, which is a relatively small part of the Central Valley. Until the late 1960's this was a desert area that was mostly cattle ranches with the occasional well-irrigated farm. In the 1960's they struck a deal with the federal government that gave them the right to use any excess water left over in the federal water projects after all of the existing water rights holders had taken their shares. It was understood at the time that the agreement meant that Westlands would go dry from time to time. What's happened, unfortunately, is that the Westlands farmers planted water-intensive crops like almonds that need constant watering. As water exports from the Delta declined due to a combination of environmental and drought factors, they are suddenly facing massive losses as their water is cut off. They knew what the original agreement was, but they planned poorly anyway, and are now making a huge media case (and putting those signs along I-5) because they don't want to abide by the original contracts that they signed and agreed to. They want the government to take water away from OTHER farmers and give it to them (the current proposal to divert more Delta water to Westlands, or to build the bypass pipes for the same purpose, will destroy countless thousands of acres of Delta farms as the Delta becomes more saline).

[pothos]

38. very informative!

thank you!

[thefool_wa]

41. Very interesting

Like i said I knew almost nothing about it, thanks for the info.

[olddad56]

39. Lets don't rule out the governments geoengineering program.