California - Why So Dry?

California Drought Caused By Climate Change

Human released greenhouse gas pollution changes the climatic system through a variety of mechanisms. Trade winds and jet streams change their patterns of movement, and the distribution of moisture in the air changes, with precipitation either lacking more than usual or being more abundant than usual. The patterns of movement of major air masses and the increased bifurcation of air masses into more wet than usual and more dry than usual can result in long periods where region experiences excess precipitation or a lack of precipitation. When the latter happens, there can be a drought.

Increasingly, the California drought is being seen as an effect of climate change. Air masses that should have contributed precipitation in the form of mountain snow, which in turn feed the western ground water system, have been kept away. Increased temperature has increased evaporation. Other factors related to climate change have contributed. The result is an historic drought over California that shows at present no sign of stopping any time soon. There was hope that last winter there would be additional precipitation, and there was some, but not enough. Read More

Growing Irrigation Concern - Oily Water

Central Valley's growing concern: Crops raised with oil field water

Here  in California's thirsty farm belt, where pumpjacks nod amid neat rows of crops, it's a proposition that seems to make sense: using treated oil field wastewater to irrigate crops.

Oil giant Chevron recycles 21 million gallons of that water each day and sells it to farmers who use it on about 45,000 acres of crops, about 10% of Kern County's farmland.

State and local officials praise the 2-decade-old program as a national model for coping with the region's water shortages. As California's four-year drought lingers and authorities scramble to conserve every drop, agricultural officials have said that more companies are seeking permits to begin similar programs. The heightened interest in recycling oil field wastewater has raised concern over the adequacy of safety measures in place to prevent contamination from toxic oil production chemicals. Read More.

Not Salad Oil

Water Crisis: Will #California Soon Close Its Golf Courses?

California regulators urge 35 percent reduction in water use for some areas

Future Farmland?

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — In an aggressive push to reduce water usage statewide, California regulators are proposing that the biggest urban water users cut consumption by as much as 35 percent over the next year.

The State Water Resources Control Board's plan, unveiled Tuesday, would place the heaviest conservation burden on cities and towns with the highest rates of per-capita water consumption, which would include small rural communities as well as affluent enclaves like Newport Beach and Beverly Hills.

Cities that have the lowest per-capita water use — including East Los Angeles, Santa Cruz and Seal Beach — would be required to cut just 10 percent.

Agencies that don't comply with the rules could face fines of up to $10,000 a day. Read More.

Golf Courses Under Pressure

#HEATWAVE - Seriously, Can #California Survive? - #Bloomberg Article

California's New Era of

Heat Destroys All

Previous Records

Sadly, this is only the beginning

By Tom Randall

The California heat of the past 12 months is like nothing ever seen in records going back to 1895. The 12 months before that were similarly without precedent. And the 12 months before that? A freakishly hot year, too. 

Where's The Polar Vortex - Extremes Everywhere? 

What's happening in California right now is shattering modern temperature measurements—as well as tree-ring records that stretch back more than 1,000 years. It's no longer just a record-hot month or a record-hot year that California faces. It's a stack of broken records leading to the worst drought that's ever beset the Golden State.  Read More

  

REMEMBER 

Unbelievably Sad, With Drought Comes Intenser Fire Seasons

Worst Drought Ever Alters #Yosemite National Park

Drought Alters Familiar Landscape In Yosemite National Park

"Where's the waterfall?"

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK — Yosemite National Park is bracing for its driest year on record, with visitor bureaus downplaying the allure of the park's most famous waterfall and instead touting the park as a destination for hiking, bicycling and photography.Yosemite Falls will probably go dry in June — two months earlier than usual, parks officials say. The Merced River, which powers the spectacular Nevada and Vernal falls before meandering across the Yosemite Valley floor, will probably slow to a shallow stream about the same time.

And with the drought enabling western pine bark beetles to kill large areas of forest, the park is preparing for a bad fire season."Visitors bureaus are saying they're not going to promote Yosemite Falls as much this year," said Scott Gediman, assistant superintendent for public and legislative affairs at the park. "My response: No problem. We have to be realistic." Read more

The Wrong Kind of Changes?

California's Extreme #Wildfires Raging Beyond Control?

'This is extreme': Wildfires strike early, hard in Southern California

By Greg Botelho, Michael Martinez, and Paul Vercammen

Carlsbad, California (CNN) – Thousands of homes, a university campus, a nuclear plant, a Legoland and parts of one of the military's biggest and busiest bases: All have been evacuated due to a rare confluence of fast-moving wildfires scorching Southern California. 

Cal Fire Division Chief Dave Allen said nine fires have burned 9,095 acres.

The Golden State has seen many such blazes before. But these are different because they sprung up so quickly, spread so fast, and hit months before the traditional height of wildfire season, making them menacing in the short- and long-term. 

CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray forecasts what the area might expect as the summer gives way to fall: "This is only going to get worse."

San Diego County district supervisor Bill Horn said Wednesday evening that eight fires were burning in the region, seven of which popped up that day. 


Investigators haven't yet determined the cause of these fires. But Horn hasn't seen anything like this -- so many fires, so quick, all of them separate -- in at least 20 years. That this is happening in May, not July or October, is even more confounding to him. 

"I'm sure it could be by chance," the clearly skeptical supervisor said. "… I just think there's too much of a coincidence here." […] 

Carlsbad alone has issued 23,000 evacuation notices. Thousands of students won't have classes on Thursday due to the continuing threat; California State University-San Marcos canceled all activities through Friday, including commencement. Numerous roads have been shut down, while others have become clogged with people trying to escape. […] 

Read More 

More Coverage 

 

Doc's Comments:

 

This is very early in the season so the road ahead is not promising. Add on to this that the state faces the worst drought in decades. Could they run out of water? Then there's that radioactive water coming from Japan - all too scary and frightening.

 

Dr. Peter G Kinesa

May 19, 2014

Ocean Acidification Destroys #California Ecosystem

Limacina helicina shell dissolution as an indicator of declining habitat suitability owing to ocean acidification in the California Current Ecosystem

By Jeremy Hance

(mongabay.com) – It could be the plot of a horror movie: humans wake up one day to discover that chemical changes in the atmosphere are dissolving away parts of their bodies. But for small marine life known as sea butterflies, or pteropods, this is what's happening off the West Cost of the U.S. Increased carbon in the ocean is melting away shells of sea butterflies, which are tiny marine snails that underpin much of the ocean's food chain, including prey for pink salmon, mackerel, and herring.

"We did not expect to see pteropods being affected to this extent in our coastal region for several decades," said William Peterson, Ph.D., an oceanographer at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Northwest Fisheries Science Center who co-authored the findings in a paper for the journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 



Sampling sea butterflies in the species Limacina helicina off California, Washington, and Oregon in the summer of 2011, researchers found that over 50 percent of onshore sea butterflies suffered from "severe dissolution damage," according to the paper. Offshore, 24 percent of individuals showed such damage.

More Story...

Read More

Wells Run Dry - California

Its most unsettling threat yet: It could run out of water by summer.

By ADAM NAGOURNEY


LAKE OF THE WOODS, California (The New York Times) –  People in this mountain town straddling the San Andreas Fault are used to scrapping for water. The lake for which it is named went dry 40 years ago. But now, this tiny community is dealing with its most unsettling threat yet: It could run out of water by summer.

As of last week, just two of the five wells drilled into the dry lake bed that serve its 300 homes were producing water. The mountains of the nearby Los Padres National Forest got their first dusting of snow — and it was a light one — last week; it is the winter snow that feeds the wells come spring. People are watering trees with discarded dishwater, running the washing machine once a week, and letting their carefully tended beds of flowers and trees wither into patches of dusty dirt.

There are scenes all across California that illustrate the power of the drought. A haze of smog, which normally would be washed away by winter rains, hung over Los Angeles this week. Beekeepers near Sacramento said the lack of wildflowers has deprived bees of a source of food, contributing to a worrisome die-off. Across the rich farmland of the San Joaquin Valley, fields are going unplanted.
 

But for 17 small rural communities in California, the absence of rain is posing a fundamental threat to the most basic of services: drinking water. And Lake of the Woods, a middle-class enclave 80 miles from downtown Los Angeles, a mix of commuters, retirees and weekend residents, is one of the most seriously threatened. Signs along its dusty roadways offer stark red-on-white warnings of a “Water Emergency” and plead for conservation.  (Read More)

More News