California drought

Marine Conservation.

Makes them harder to harvest.

 

Makes me wonder if the Aussi tried to grow alfalfa?

Bob Wilson

 

Looking for something else, stumbled across this:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150409143041.htm

A long-lived patch of warm water off the West Coast, about 1 to 4 degrees Celsius (2 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal, is part of what's wreaking much of this mayhem, according to two University of Washington papers to appear in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

"In the fall of 2013 and early 2014 we started to notice a big, almost circular mass of water that just didn't cool off as much as it usually did, so by spring of 2014 it was warmer than we had ever seen it for that time of year," said Nick Bond, a climate scientist at the UW-based Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean, a joint research center of the UW and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Bond coined the term "the blob" last June in his monthly newsletter as Washington's state climatologist. He said the huge patch of water -- 1,000 miles in each direction and 300 feet deep -- had contributed to Washington's mild 2014 winter and might signal a warmer summer.

Ten months later, the blob is still off our shores, now squished up against the coast and extending about 1,000 miles offshore from Mexico up through Alaska, with water about 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than normal. Bond says all the models point to it continuing through the end of this year.
. . . ​

Bob Wilson

 

An underwater forest reveals the story of a historic megadrought (The forest at the bottom of the lake) — High Country News

More evidence of medieval drought.

 

One of the best things the paleoclimate records did was to inspire today's climate models. Many of them have been run against the earlier periods to replicate the results. So this is a good thing because it leads to further verification of the models. Indeed, this is what Dr. Graham Kent of the Nevada Seismological Laboratory cited in the article had to say:

. . .
Tree-ring records and submerged paleoshoreline geomorphology suggest a Medieval low-lake level of Fallen Leaf Lake lasted more than 220 years. More than 80 trees were found lying on the lake floor at various elevations above the paleoshoreline.

“Although the ancient cycle of megadroughts seems to occur every 650 to 1150 years and the last one was 750 years ago, it is uncertain when the next megadrought will occur. With climate change upon us, it will be interesting to see how carbon dioxide loading in the atmosphere will affect this cycle,” Kent said.

- See more at: University of Nevada, Reno scientists confirm Sierra Nevada Medieval megadroughts | Newsroom for Journalists, University of Nevada, Reno
​

And in another article:

"So take the great Dust Bowl and extend it from 10 years to 200 and some years," explains Kent. "And just wonder how the economies of California and Nevada are going to be affected by it."

Kent says the long Sierra drought happened naturally a thousand years ago. But he and other top researchers believe human-caused global warming might bring on another severe drought even faster in the future. If that happens, Fallen Leaf Lake could be the proverbial canary in the coal mine.

"This is the lake that's going to start feeling the effects of the next drought, whenever that happens, much more than any other lake in the area," he says. ​

Climate change often comes with regional effects that in some cases are greater than, equal to, or less than what we may see today. But it is 'jumping to conclusions' to claim or imply that past droughts are what is going on now. In contrast, we have solid data showing CO{2} is changing our climate, making it warmer and there can be consequences.

This 'three year' drought in California seems associated with a big blob of warm water off the coast. That much is in the record. Then others point out La Nina, a little further south may have reduced California rainfall. Still, there is one heck of an El Nino brewing up in the past two months so we'll be able to see that hypothesis tested, again.

Regardless, Dr. Kent certainly sounds like a scientists curious about what is going on. If only our climate deniers had some.

Bob Wilson

 

"But it is 'jumping to conclusions' to claim or imply that past droughts are what is going on now. In contrast, we have solid data showing CO{2} is changing our climate, making it warmer and there can be consequences."

Bob if drought is a natural occurrence in California (and it is) .
Then the media ,Obama ,Gov Brown ,and the scientific community (you included) are bold faced liars.

Warmers claim that recent California drought is unprecedented .Then warmers imply this unprecedented event is caused by CO2 global warming.
Liar Liar Liar.

Youll only snag the already brainwashed AGW believers with your lies,yourself included .

 

"In contrast, we have solid data showing CO{2} is changing our climate, making it warmer and there can be consequences."
Solid data?
Climate model predictions initially and continuously failed for the past 18 years.
No Atmospheric "Hot Spot" as predicted as proof of CO2 warming.
What is your supposed solid data?

 

Oh, I thought I had posted the reference for 'missing tropospheric hotspot had been found'. Have to keep you all in suspense though, it's time to do some Dragon Boat Festival stuff.

For previous climate change matters, I have presented information that cleared up the misconception. 800-year CO2 lag after T, each decade warmer than the previous, no demonstrated +CO2 warming of the atmosphere. All were later disregarded by my honorable foil here.

the hotspot may have to get added to that list.

 

Are you being careful to separate the warmers who believe the California drought is unprecedented, from the warmers who make no such claim and readily discuss past CA megadroughts?

Or are you implying that there are no warmers in the later camp?

 

So let's review the facts and data. The regional drought in California has several climate related events. For example, the unusually slug of warm water that was on the West coast the past couple of years:


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150409143041.htm

A long-lived patch of warm water off the West Coast, about 1 to 4 degrees Celsius (2 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal, is part of what's wreaking much of this mayhem, according to two University of Washington papers to appear in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

"In the fall of 2013 and early 2014 we started to notice a big, almost circular mass of water that just didn't cool off as much as it usually did, so by spring of 2014 it was warmer than we had ever seen it for that time of year," said Nick Bond, a climate scientist at the UW-based Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean . . .​

But this was not the first time some of us have noticed it as 18 months ago, January 2014:
Where is it hot? | PriusChat


The history of this Pacific hotspot can be replayed here:
Index of /archive/sst

It looks like it started around July 2013:

To claim the current 'drought is a natural occurrence' without any evidence is called "jumping to a conclusion":

Jumping to conclusions (officially the jumping to conclusions bias, often abbreviated as JTC, and also referred to as the inference-observation confusion[1]) is a psychological term referring to a communication obstacle where one "judge or decide something without having all the facts; to reach unwarranted conclusions".[2][3] In other words, "when I fail to distinguish between what I observed first hand from what I have only inferred or assumed".[1] Because it involves making decisions without having enough information to be sure you are right, this can result in badly made or rash decisions. . . .
Source: Wikipedia​

This flawed, impulsive, non-thinking behavior explains the 'tantrum' that followed.

What is most interesting is the extent of Pacific Ocean heating:

• El Nino clearly forming off the West coast of South America
• Notice that wisp of warm water in the gap between South America and Antarctica
• West coast of North America still covered by a blob of warm water

Even the climate deniers admit CO{2} heats the earth but ignore the amplification of water vapor. Nothing like a warm ocean to make water vapor, another greenhouse gas. Nature doesn't care what humans think as the machinery of God ticks on.

Bob Wilson

 

Most recently mojo seems to call people who realize that California has had (strong) droughts before, not liars. That would certainly include Ed Cook of Columbia LDEO.

But is this not the same mojo who said ‘that guy Cook’ talks about future droughts becoming stronger as a ploy to obtain more funding? Apparently whether Cook is or is not lying depends on whether he agrees with mojo.

Let there be no doubt that Cook of Columbia LDEO has been successful in obtaining grant funding. I think this is because he has used a lot of paleoclimatic proxies to develop drought atlases for North America, South Asia, and perhaps others I have not read. I do not think that this funding success depends on Cook’s opinions about how droughts may go in the future. A fella is entitled to his own opinions, right? I could not name anyone at PriusChat (myself included) whose opinions have such factual support.

I’d be OK with treating each new scientific insight entirely on its own merits, without regard to who says so. Ad hominems go out the window, because there is no ‘hom’. But I detect that mojo is not with me on this, because of his apparent pleasure in declaring that XXX scientist(s) made expansive claims, so nothing coming ever from that source in the future merits consideration.

So, perhaps here we are stuck with considering ‘both the science and the person’. If so, opinions of people who actually do the work carry more weight than others who only write about it for affinity websites. This is my opinion.

 

I think we are 'at sea' in deciding whether the current west coast drought has

(a) nothing
(b) a bit
(c) a lot
(d) whoa Nelly!

to do with +CO2 and its attendant issues.

The facts on the ground are

(a) it's now very dry
(b) not much rain is possible before autumn
(c) local human enterprise (agriculture, thermal power generation, residential) depends on water
(d) now just the front end of fire season.

It would seem appropriate to deal with those things, before delving into whether the next drought could be more mega.

Play the ball, not the man (Mann )

 

Not sure if this is entirely accurate:

OCO-2 may provide insights about local CO{2} effects and regional heating.

A 10 year Alaska study directly observed CO{2} re-radiation. Then there are the speculated, 'heat island' effects of CO{2} in urban areas. It remains an interesting area of investigation.

The local pollution that collected in California because of the mountains certainly has been well documented. The California efforts to reduce the pollution have worked. But the same local climate, the mountains, would also work to keep California CO{2} concentrated over the populated areas.

Bob Wilson

 

I should have added that one aspect of a drought is water loss from evaporation. Higher local temperatures dries the soil and evaporates open water. The water vapor becomes an amplifier for CO{2} heating. Then this same warmer temperature raises the snow line and makes another contribution to the drought.

I appreciate that California agriculture plays a part but somehow, I doubt it showed up suddenly, just in time, for the drought. Neither did the CO{2} forced global warming or some unknown concentration in California and the Pacific Ocean.

I am used to dealing with physical systems that have threshold events, triggers that suddenly drive a system from one state to another. Usually we understand them AFTER the fact leads to a painful reality.

Bob Wilson

 

As I mentioned, the snow line goes higher with the warmer temperatures. But have I asked you to take your rose-colored denialist glasses off?

List the papers and show you actually have something behind the claims. Here are a couple that directly apply to CO{2} effects:

Source:​

Since the modern era of thermometers? Perhaps the 25 years of satellite records? The reason I bring this up is the paleorecords don't have the technical details for a modern climate model.

To claim the current drought is just continuation of a 'much dryer california' is called jumping to conclusion because it lacks the physical models we can make today. Models based upon physics, chemistry, and observations with modern instruments.

The problem with your analysis is it does not explain the physical characteristics that led to past droughts because modern instruments did not exist. One might as well lay the blame on 'evil spirits' for the past droughts. But today, we have what was not available centuries ago.

'Megadroughts are normal for california' without the same modern instruments and modeling skills . . . well we might has well revert to rain dances. Our species has advanced with very sophisticated and accurate metrics. The excuse that 'it is nature' is just jumping to conclusion and 'dark ages' thinking.

Today's science, not a dusty history, tells us what is going on. It is why we treat diseases with drugs and techniques more advanced than calling polio, smallpox, and cholera as simply 'natural' and by implication that nothing can be done.

Bob Wilson

 

CAlifornia agriculture had been a contributor in more ways than you think: increased water consumption, water evaporation, methane CO2 emissions, etc. Beyond agriculture when you add heat generated by cities, roads, deforestation.. How could you say that human activity had nothing to do with drought is beyond me.

Now global CO2 levels may not have been a major contributor, and it is arguable how much impact human activity actually had on drought, but to say it had no impact is very much indefensible position to take on.