Posted on 01/18/2016 1:29:16 PM PST by nickcarraway
It's an El Niño winter, and the news is full of rain, sleet, and snow. If only California was as well.
Precipitation so far in this wet winter that is supposed to save us from the worst drought of our lifetimes is only slightly above "normal" — and in some parts of California, including the southern Sierra, precipitation is still below normal.
Think about that. The long-awaited wet weather event has, so far, just barely pushed things to around what's supposed to be "normal."
This may be a hard fact to fathom this weekend, as you drive through more rain in order to reach the snowed-in approaches to Lake Tahoe — lucky you; drive safely — but other scientists agree. The four-year drought that's seen reservoirs and groundwater supplies dry up is not over — not unless several more El Niños follow on this one's heels.
In fact, according to one U.C. Berkeley researcher, the state may never recover from the drought. First, let's take a peek at conditions as of now.
That dark red splotch of the worst-possible drought conditions? That's most of us.
As for the dire prediction that very dry may be the new normal, that's from Berkeley professor B. Lynn Ingram, one of the two authors of a book, The West Without Water, which predicts just such a dire, dry future.
Ingram thinks that rainfall for the 2015-2016 water year — the rainy period that normally runs from October to April — will be at 170 percent of normal. That's wet — very wet. But that won't make up for the four preceding exceptionally dry years, and it also won't help next year, when some scientists believe a dry La Niña will appear.
"We’re in a water deficit of at least two years in most of California," Ingram told Berkeley News's Anne Brice. "This means we would need more than a year of precipitation like this."
"It’s not likely we’ll come out of this drought. With climate change, California and the Southwest are predicted to get drier overall with warmer weather and, subsequently, more evaporation," she added. "Even with a wetter season this year, even next year, the climate is very likely to continue to be drier."
The idea that a dry future is connected to climate is gaining traction.. in some circles. This week, President Barack Obama announced a temporary halt to new leases to coal miners wishing to dig on federal lands.
Climate change was, predictably and unfortunately, utterly absent from last night's Republican presidential debate.
I still support desalinization plants, and the state should try to herd localities to invest in them.
Israel is headed toward a large portion of their fresh water coming from the Mediterranean. If they can do it...
The author is an a$$hole.
Just send all of the fracking wastewater to California.
Two problems solved.
Yep, you live in a desert you get no dessert.
1. Climate changes. It happens, with or without human involvement.
2. California is a desert. The only reason it’s as green & fruitful as it is, is because much of the water supply of the surrounding states has been practically stolen, relocated to where sunlight & shipping make it a profitable combination. Eventually (A) too much demand on that water reduces the per-capita supply to unsustainable, and (B) climate change to any degree will literally evaporate what little water there is to unsustainable levels.
Go read/watch “Cadillac Desert”. A bit old, but an excellent documentary on the creation of the CA water system...and how tenuous its existence is.
Next year they will be crying about too much rain and mudslides.
According to historical sources I’ve seen, this is cyclic...in other words, normal.
CA is for all intents and purposes, a desert...but it hasn’t stopped the building permits for new single family homes from being approved.
Gotta keep that tax revenue rolling in.
In a “normal” El Nino weather pattern, the drenching rains we received in Seattle should have hit much further south in California.
We already get enough “fracking wastewater” from all the okies and dokies.
Stay where you are, and keep in-breeding unigovmedia squirrels.
Everyday we are having rain here. Already 100%.
Good glad to hear it.
“May” & “Never”
Two exceptionally precise ‘scientific’ terms!
Like “Monkeys MAY fly out of my butt.”
I’ve lived in CA all my (too long) and I’ve noticed that the difference in extra wet years is usually not the early rainfall amounts, it’s that the rain continues later, through March and April. Of course the climate scaremongers don’t want the drought to end.
The weather systems are purposely bypassing California for the reason that it’d be taxed out of existence.
NEVER! (hopefully!)
Most of California has always been a desert or semi-desert.
Get rid of all the illegals and their demands on the water supply and it will go back to normal.
The professor should just look at the geological history of the state.
Or you get your just deserts.
Sooner or later some LIBERAL from the bastion of Southern Calif LIBERALS will propose legislation to NO longer SHOWER or use water for cooking. /s
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