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NASA Scientist Warns "California Has One Year Of Water Left"
Zero Hedge ^ | 3-13-2015 | Jay Famiglietti - Tyler Durden

Posted on 03/13/2015 11:09:46 AM PDT by blam

Tyler Durden
03/13/2015

Authored by NASA Senior Water Scientist Jay Famiglietti, originally posted Op-Ed at The LA Times.

Given the historic low temperatures and snowfalls that pummeled the eastern U.S. this winter, it might be easy to overlook how devastating California's winter was as well.

As our “wet” season draws to a close, it is clear that the paltry rain and snowfall have done almost nothing to alleviate epic drought conditions. January was the driest in California since record-keeping began in 1895. Groundwater and snowpack levels are at all-time lows. We're not just up a creek without a paddle in California, we're losing the creek too.

Data from NASA satellites show that the total amount of water stored in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins — that is, all of the snow, river and reservoir water, water in soils and groundwater combined — was 34 million acre-feet below normal in 2014. That loss is nearly 1.5 times the capacity of Lake Mead, America's largest reservoir.

Statewide, we've been dropping more than 12 million acre-feet of total water yearly since 2011. Roughly two-thirds of these losses are attributable to groundwater pumping for agricultural irrigation in the Central Valley. Farmers have little choice but to pump more groundwater during droughts, especially when their surface water allocations have been slashed 80% to 100%. But these pumping rates are excessive and unsustainable. Wells are running dry. In some areas of the Central Valley, the land is sinking by one foot or more per year.

(snip)

(snip)

(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: california; climate; drought; tylerdurden; tylerdurdenmyass; water; zerohedge
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To: reg45
If California dries up and blows away, where will the people go?

Hopefully, most of them will swim to China.

61 posted on 03/13/2015 12:03:19 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks ( _\\//)
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To: blam

The Northeast has terrible winters, high taxes, corrupt Dem politicians, and NYS actually is losing population.

But there’s lots of water.


62 posted on 03/13/2015 12:07:33 PM PDT by 1Old Pro
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To: bravo whiskey

No, no, no. Don’t you worry about those very useful trains! The water drought will be used to control the masses. We have exemptions for the correct persons! And we will charge extra from the people who have jobs. /s lol

All those windmills are probably changing the weather patterns.


63 posted on 03/13/2015 12:07:42 PM PDT by US_MilitaryRules (The last suit you wear has no pockets!)
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To: blam

I am imagining a mass exodus from California to Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Carolinas soon.


64 posted on 03/13/2015 12:08:36 PM PDT by realcleanguy
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To: blam

You know what they say — the problem with Enviro-Socialism is that you eventually run out of Other People’s Water.


65 posted on 03/13/2015 12:08:56 PM PDT by Opinionated Blowhard ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
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To: realcleanguy
I am imagining a mass exodus from California to Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Carolinas soon.

Hopefully, those states will be sane enough to turn them right back around to go back and clean up their mess . . . or swim to China.

66 posted on 03/13/2015 12:12:44 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks ( _\\//)
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep

Those farmers are some of the “elitist a$$holes” to which I was referring.

A farmers who thinks HIS farm shouldn’t have to live by the laws of nature IS an elitist as far as I am concerned.


67 posted on 03/13/2015 12:13:12 PM PDT by WayneS (Barack Obama makes Neville Chamberlin look like George Patton.)
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To: tcrlaf

Good point.


68 posted on 03/13/2015 12:14:12 PM PDT by WayneS (Barack Obama makes Neville Chamberlin look like George Patton.)
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To: kosciusko51
At this point, I’m not opposed to letting Alta California become part of Mexico again.

A lot of California patriots gave the last full measure of service to their country and their home state in American wars. They're buried all over that land.

Are you going to explain to them that they died in vain?

p.s. All four of my grandparents and some of my great grandparents are also buried there.

69 posted on 03/13/2015 12:14:24 PM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: Texan5

Yeah, and building houses with materials brought in from out of state, let’s stop that too. Heck, God didn’t give us houses so let’s live in caves. And clothes, God didn’t give us those either so that’s out. And no using electricity generated anywhere but your hometown. Of course if you’re living in a cave maybe you won’t need any power.


70 posted on 03/13/2015 12:15:06 PM PDT by SoCal Pubbie
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To: BookmanTheJanitor

Next year will be wet! And there will be rain in April.


71 posted on 03/13/2015 12:18:20 PM PDT by Forward the Light Brigade (Into the Jaws of H*ll Onward! Ride to the sound of the guns!)
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To: blam; AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...

Originally published as an op-ed, and then reprinted as an op-ed.


72 posted on 03/13/2015 12:19:09 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (What do we want? REGIME CHANGE! When do we want it? NOW!)
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To: Red Badger; blam
Dust Bowl in Reverse...........................

LOL, I was just thinking that. Dust Bowl Okies migrated to California, the land of fruits and nuts. Now if California's drought continues, as its likely to do, you water-rich states had better start preparing for an influx of us "Californies." We're not all liberal kooks, by the way.

73 posted on 03/13/2015 12:20:22 PM PDT by Bernard Marx
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To: blam

Instead of spending billions of dollars for a high speed rail that will travel at low speed from nowhere to nowhere we should build a pipeline from Canada to California for water. But what do I know? I am not smart like Jerry Brown and the liberal democrat elites of California.


74 posted on 03/13/2015 12:20:44 PM PDT by forgotten man
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To: blam

Almond futures?


75 posted on 03/13/2015 12:23:33 PM PDT by Hugin ("Do yourself a favor--first thing, get a firearm!")
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To: blam

Until it rains.


76 posted on 03/13/2015 12:31:10 PM PDT by minnesota_bound
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To: gwgn02

Some good data here

http://www.shastalake.com/shastalake/


77 posted on 03/13/2015 12:36:00 PM PDT by Lurkina.n.Learnin (It's a shame nobama truly doesn't care about any of this. Our country, our future, he doesn't care)
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To: Windflier

The world is littered with the bodies of those who fought what was right, and their sacrifice is never in vain. But many of those fought for countries long forgotten and abandoned by their progeny.

What California is now is no longer what you family fought for. For that matter, what our country is now is no longer what you family fought for.

The great divorce will come soon. Whether peaceably, or with rancor, it will come.


78 posted on 03/13/2015 12:36:54 PM PDT by kosciusko51
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To: Organic Panic

“If California ever put desalination plants on line (which will never happen) the water would be pumped in to the San Joaquin river for the Delta Smelt. But don’t worry. Malibu will always have green lawns.”

If you did more research before posting, you would learn the Poseidon desal plant will go online in Carlsbad (San Diego County) later this year, and another is well along for approvals in Huntington Beach (Orange County).

There is an existing desal plant in Morro Bay (San Luis Obispo County), as well. Those span 3 counties along the central southern coast. San Diego County, Orange County, Ventura County and San Luis Obispo County all voted Republican before Obama. That is four out of the six most southern coastal counties of California.

San Diego County, Duncan Hunter, Jr., Darrel Issa
Orange County, Dana Rohrabacher
San Luis Obispo County, Tom McClintock old district location


79 posted on 03/13/2015 12:40:15 PM PDT by truth_seeker
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To: blam

Is this the same NASA that told us the Poles are melting and used a Mars rock with phony fossils to get additional funding?


80 posted on 03/13/2015 12:42:09 PM PDT by attiladhun2 (The Free World has a new leader--his name is Benjamin Netanyahu)
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