California is drying out

And there is no relief in sight.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/12/27/3104861/california-driest-year/

 

We're about 75 miles north of SF and the water issues are starting to mount. One large reservoir is down 30%, another is down 70%, one feeding Calistoga is dry, the Russian River is at a trickle right now, in the past six months we have about 1" of rain when it should be 20" with no rain forecasted in the next 30 days, private wells are bringing up mud, unless something changes there won't be frost protection for vineyards, fish cannot travel the streams, snow-pack is non-existent or at a minimum, temperatures are spring-like, and we have very high fire danger.

The wine grape industry is about $13 billion/year and most of the tourism in our area depends on the wine industry.

Separately, the Central Valley of CA is a major producer of produce for CA and the world. Snow-pack in the Sierra's accounts for 60% of the water needs.

IMO these types of water issues are the ones which many of us pay close attention to while the masses do not...therefore the problems which arise will seem to surprise the masses when they are asked to reduce water consumption...and eventually mandated by law to reduce consumption. If it gets to this point, it begins to negatively effect the economy, and we know how tentative the economy remains.

Lastly, we don't have a substitution for our water supplies...we have what we have and when it runs out we won't have anything...

 

Welcome to our world - we had a complete failure of the monsoon last year and this year looks to be so dry the trees are whistling the dogs.

When the rain does come it will be a flood

Wonderful!!!

But of course Climate change is not happening………….

 

We went from less than 25% of water in our dams to a major flood within a couple of months - such is climate change. We actually put in Desalination plants to meet the needs - and then it flooded and we all looked like fools. I always thought it was a grave mistake not to use barge type sea water purifiers - that way we could have on sold the bloody things to you

 

In CA there are ongoing debates about desalinization but IMO at some point in the future the collective we must desalinate via whatever process and distribute via pipeline and canal. The sooner we get started the less pain and stress we'll have in the future. Regarding your barges...just label them 'military' and the US will buy them...

 

Different story here...rain ...rain...and more rain. Too bad we can't send y'all some.

 

Drought only became a problem for humans when they decided to stop moving to pastures greener and wetter.

When resources are drained, it's time to move on, or ... whine.

 

More of your usual hypocritical its only climate change when you say it is.

 

Best start thinking about de-salinization plants, but I know Republicans would rather die of thirst than pay an extra dollar in taxes.

I just went over the Hoover Dam and I can tell you Lake Mead is WAY down.

 

Caused by?

 

Probably too much cotton farming downstream and a lack of snow and snow-melt from the Rocky Mountains. And, the dam itself has to blow so much water through its turbines to keep the lights on in Vegas.

 

If Lake Mead is well below where it should be, and if we don't get a ton of snow pack quickly, about 40 million people in the SW are going to be in big trouble...which directly effects their economy...which directly effects the economy in the rest of the US and the world...

 

I'm not a hydrologist but Mead looks low to me. 30-40 feet low based on the high water lines on the sides of the canyon. But I've given up beating my head against a wall over environmental issues. People don't want to know about high water lines, thermometers, 90-year old levees, dry Nebraska aquifers, etc. God will provide. Or the Invisible Hand.

 

http://mead.uslakes.info/Level.asp

http://www.arachnoid.com/NaturalResources/

Looks like the lake level is below draught level...

 

And probably still going down. We haven't had any significant rain or snow our here in a long time.

 

Welcome to what has been happening in the rest of the world

"Droughts and flooding rains"

This is what has been predicted for climate change - because of the higher average temps we will see faster evaporation - which impacts on our dams at the same time we will get rains that are like vertical rivers and even, yes, unusual weather patterns like Blizzards where we have never seen them before

 

In my area they won't commit that climate change is the culprit...they will only say that these types of weather events are indicative of climate change scenarios. They indicated that hot and dry will get hotter and dryer while wet and cold might get wetter and colder until eventually an average global temperature trending up.

The problem with climate change is it requires people to not only understand the potential but also to understand it's not an overnight event and that frigid weather like we had in the US recently is not a sign of global cooling...this requires thinking with an open mind which is very rare...

 

Care to point to any time in history that droughts and floods were not occuring?

This isn't science its bad fortune telling. Saying bad things will happen doesn't make you right when they happen. Predicting the obvious isn't prediction at all. Its a con.

 

Hmmmmmmm - yes, that is true for a given value of "true" however what you are NOT saying is interesting. See the word here is MORE. There will be more adverse effects. THAT is measurable and the insurance industry is keeping tabs

 

in calif its a large high pressure system built up over the pacific ocean right now..also know as el nino...we usually get wetter rain in feb and march in these years which are wetter and warmer..this weather pattern has been going for the last 200 years that people have been recording it..this is normal for us its not caused by global warming..oops i mean co2...oops i meant carbon emissions..or what ever term is the flavor of the year

 

Good. If California invested in its water supply infrastructure instead of using the tax revenues to buy votes by overpaying civil servants and teachers and the like, they could have avoided this. Instead they want to steal water from other states and continue to not invest in its own infrastructure in a systematic and sensible fashion. I hope southern California completely dries up if that is the price of the left wing mobsters learning you cannot have your cake and eat it too.

 

So, in your opinion, is it due to overpopulation, AGW, natural causes, or what?

 

Weather is not indicative of climate. It's not when the anti-GW crowd claim record snowfall means GW isn't happening, it's not when the pro-GW crowd claim record low rain means GW is happening. This is aside from deciding who has caused it. A lot of anti-AGW peeps think climate change is happening, but that humans aren't responsible.

Don't get me wrong, you might have a point about the long term trends (I've never really bothered to look into it beyond what I learned in high school) - but you should state that instead if that's such a strong case.

 

That's one part of your post I don't agree with.

Weather is very indicative of climate.
There's very little cold weather or snow in the tropics, indicating a hot climate, whereas there's not much warm weather at the poles.
A temperate climate has hot and cold, but less extreme weather.

Sceptics think humans are probably responsible for some climate change, but as we've only added 127 ppm CO2 to the atmosphere over the last 160 years, we don't thing humans are responsible for much climate change.

 

What I meant was that averages matter, not isolated incidents.