Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought California. Has the best climate in the country?
It does but most of california has been destroyed by pollution, toxic waste and trash.
"Most"
California declared drought free for first time in seven years
111–120 of 242 posts
Re: California declared drought free for first time in seven years
#112And yet we won't be building any more water storage. As a result, we have about the same water capacity to survice the next drought as we had in the 1970s. There were half as many residents then, and climate change wasn't a concern...
The best water storage solution would be to repair damaged agricultural soil, which propagates further erosion and runoff. On top of that, conventional farming drains fields of water, diverting rainfall off the fields in ditches. Then, in the drier months they tap reservoirs (to irrigate). It’s a totally bonkers way of doing things.
Re: California declared drought free for first time in seven years
#113Does this account for the massively depleted aquifers thoughout the state?
Thank you for voicing this question. I think there's an excess of celebration for one wet year, when the long-term damages of drought are far from healed.
Re: California declared drought free for first time in seven years
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the clinical discussion around environmental droughts. As usual such technical views ignore the on-the-ground experience for people to provide context for the language you’re criticizing. Yes, to the ecosystem itself, in a vacuum, it’s not bad. To human existence there it’s been problematic. Emotions are up over it. Perhaps that’s an alternative argument you’re not considering? This is like telling people…
The problem is that California has the flu and people think its cancer. Getting the flu sucks but you're probably not gonna die. I remember forest fires as well as mudslides in CA back in the 1970s. Perhaps the last few years were an extreme, but note that going to that extreme and back took about a decade. Most people haven't been there long enough to know what normal is and just buy in to all the media hype.
Sorry, but this is just flat out wrong. Yes, drought and fire have always been a fact of life for California. But if you map the frequency and severity of fires alone, it’s on a remarkably upward trajectory over the past two decades. It’s climate change.
Re: California declared drought free for first time in seven years
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually agree with the core sentiment of your post, but find you playing a victim without yet being victimized in any way with "Let the downvotes flow..." to be really counter productive.
Could you rephrase the core sentiment of the post that you agree with? I can't understand what it's saying at all, other than expressing anger at the reporting of climate issues.
There is a trend where all climate events are said by news sources to be indicative of climate change. Abnormally warm winters => climate change. Abnormally cold winters => climate change. Drought => climate change. Hurricanes => climate change. As is typical on many topics, some news organizations are apt to over-state the certainty of scientific evidence. For example, the link between climate change and hurricanes is commonly cited in news sources (see https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hurricane+climate+change+huff+post...). While the link has a reasonable theoretical mechanism (warm air seems to make hurricanes stronger, global warming => more warm air), it hasn't actually been observed in practice - we had an average number of hurricanes last decade and an abnormally small number the decade prior. Nevertheless, some news sources publish articles along the lines of "most damaging hurricane ever, is it because of global warming?"
Depending on where you sit, this is either evidence that global warming is a massive hoax and not happening at all OR evidence that news sources sometimes get a little carried away trying to publish the most alarmist and exotic things that they can find, but that the underlying science of global warming is valid and with uncertain impacts.
Re: California declared drought free for first time in seven years
#116The experience here in Orange County over the last few months has been nuts. Being able to hang out down near the ocean and see the San Gabriel mountains just decked out in snow is surreal: https://i.redd.it/kueaye5p6si21.jpg Another photo: https://i.redd.it/vy7dlavrh0f21.jpg Anaheim hills, an area that rarely gets snowed on: https://i.redd.it/trbf198kb6i21.jpg Then we roll right into the poppy/wildflower superbloom…
I thought California. Has the best climate in the country?
No, that's just my home, Redwood City. We don't have A/C or a house fan, and the need for heat is fairly minimal, relatively speaking. (It's been a cold winter, though, I think it was 36f this morning!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redwood_City,_California#Sloga...
Re: California declared drought free for first time in seven years
#117Santa Barbara county still reports "stage 3 drought condition": https://www.santabarbaraca.gov/gov/depts/pw/resources/system...
https://www.drought.gov/drought/states/california which was updated 3 days ago. No drought, simply 6.6% "D0-Abnormally dry".
This one is pretty good too. Essentially the same info: https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonito...
Re: California declared drought free for first time in seven years
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
This quote gets me thinking about how snow is treated in this system. It isn't like water in a stream because it stays where it is. It isn't like a reservoir or aquifer because the water isn't trivially dispatchable. I suppose it depends where the snow is, some could be 'permanent', some seasonal melt, some gone by next week. So really we should be differentiating the different types of snow?
It all melts. I trust that the experts know the difference between permanent snow and annual melting. They use satellite pictures to determine how much water will be available after it melts. Edit: If someone knows more about the planning process than I do, please chime in.
To be pedantic:
You say "It all melts", and then "I trust that the experts know the difference between permanent snow....".
I hypothesised satellite photos, I'm not sure if depth of snow is relevant for more than just volume, and whether you could get good estimates of depth (and density???) from a satellite.
Re: California declared drought free for first time in seven years
#119To first order, California's water problem is agricultural. And that's because there's no market in that water that would curtail what is a very low value use of it. Fix that, or resort to fractional measures that just paper over the underlying dysfunction.
I always cringe when I hear markers and water in the same sentence. I’m not sure what exactly you mean by “markets” but the history of water rights in CA is a great lesson highlighting how spectacularly “markets” can fail to handle water.
Re: California declared drought free for first time in seven years
#120And yet we won't be building any more water storage. As a result, we have about the same water capacity to survice the next drought as we had in the 1970s. There were half as many residents then, and climate change wasn't a concern...
Building more water storage doesn't address the fundamental problem that California uses more water than is actually provided by nature (on average).
I came here to just say 'drought' implies abnormal lack of rainfall. For California the issue is there is nothing abnormal about years of little rainfall.
There is a comment from Charles Bowden the rings to true to me. Talking about the Civilization in the Arizona Desert; the desert will win eventually because you can't take what it doesn't have. With California the real question is how much damage will we do while losing the battle.