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California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

latimes.com

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Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#191

Post by dangero »

Animats wrote: post #185
dangero wrote: post #133

It’s important to note that rainfall in CA is not 100% natural. The state actively funds cloud seeding. https://www.grants.ca.gov/grants/gfo-23-311-advancing-precip... Example of a recent $2.5M grant. This information is often buried in budgets under applied research grants. I suspect they obscure this information because it could create liabilities, for example, if gov funded rain seeding creates flooding and human…

Santa Clara County had an active cloud-seeding program from 1954 through 1994.[1] Santa Clara County used to be a major agricultural area. The goal is not to create rain, but to move it. Get the clouds to dump over the agricultural areas instead of the inland mountains. It worked, a little. But there was a concern that it was making wildfires worse, by doing what it was intended to do and thus making the inland fores…

To my point, liability concerns are listed on that pdf as a reason why Santa Clara County stopped.

Cloud seeding can definitely increase rain over California even by your logic. Clouds don't respect state boundaries.

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#192

Post by dangero »

Dig1t wrote: post #157
spiderfarmer wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re truly interested in the subject, contact the organizations actually doing research in the subject. Leave your tinfoil hat at home.

There are companies that do cloud seeding: https://www.rainmaker.com/ >Though cloud seeding has been in use around the world for 80 years, we recognize that people have valid questions about how the technology works. Nothing tinfoil about it.

Thank you. Every time I talk about cloud seeding in CA people have a strongly negative response without any facts and I'm not really sure why

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#193

Post by akdor1154 »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #190
vee-kay wrote: post #188

Isn't this the same state where the rich people water their plush lawns even in the peak of summer during drought? And where 90% of the water for its huge capital city-district (Los Angeles) is not even sourced locally (say, by desalination of seawater, as it is a coastal city), but it's instead piped from hundreds of miles away, while banning the villages at the source locations from using the local rivers/lakes as…

Desalination uses a lot more energy and is higher cost

In the era of solar power saturating the grid in daytime, the energy cost is far less of an issue - At least, I assume California has similar characteristics to Australia in this regard.

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#194

Post by arbitrary_name »

jdross wrote: post #147
b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much of an effect human activity has on these cycles. Obviously, there are cycles within nature that don't include human activity but is this particular "equilibrium" (if we could call it that) the result of human settlements and all that entails or have they always happened this way but without a huge chunk of the population being in the midst of these modulations to witness it and be affected by it.

This might be a good time to recommend you all read the first 5 pages of East of Eden by George Steinbeck. It’s about how the Salinas valley goes through flood and draught cycles, and how every time they’re in one cycle they forget the other one ever happened

*John?

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#195

Post by guelo »

vee-kay wrote: post #188

Isn't this the same state where the rich people water their plush lawns even in the peak of summer during drought? And where 90% of the water for its huge capital city-district (Los Angeles) is not even sourced locally (say, by desalination of seawater, as it is a coastal city), but it's instead piped from hundreds of miles away, while banning the villages at the source locations from using the local rivers/lakes as…

"villages"? You're not from here are you? Makes me wonder if internationally you're getting general anti-American propaganda or if Republican anti-California propaganda is leaking worldwide.

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#196

Post by ryanjshaw »

soperj wrote: post #181
willturman wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, of course, those natural wildfires started by downed power infrastructure [1], bullets [2], and campfires on red flag days [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Fire [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldor_Fire [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis_Fire

Most of the actual wild fires just get put out. The big ones are happening because the build up is too big since all the smaller ones have been put out. It's all in service of the forestry industry.

Veritasium has a great video showing an intuitive simulation of this: https://youtu.be/HBluLfX2F_k?t=1168&si=7IwK98FnIcYV9HnH

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#197

Post by dragonwriter »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #124
alephnerd wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bay Area is the size of Massachusetts. Depends on where in the Bay.

I guess I'm wrong. It was south of the Bay area. I live in NY, but I remember hearing from friends in CA that it got very bad. I think this story is only the latest one: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/more-rain-expec...

That article is about flooding that is about as far from the Bay Area as Suffolk, VA is from New York City.

It's in California but California is...large. Especially along the North-South axis.

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#198

Post by aidenn0 »

kyboren wrote: post #113
bdamm wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California has already invested a lot into reservoirs. In fact, as a pilot, I recall noticing that nearly all lakes in California are actually man-made reservoirs. I doubt there is much room left for economically building more; all the easy ones have been taken, and more. Surely the cost benefit of just investing a lot into desalination must be getting close.

Well, the California Coastal Commission put the kibosh a few years ago on a decades-long desalination project: https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/05/california-desali... I haven't heard of any new desalination projects making headway since. The cost-benefit analysis may favor it, but I'm not sure the politics do. Of course, those politics will probably change in 10-15 years in our next big drought cycle, and the…

We only have one because the Coastal Commision issued one for a plant around 1990 in a previous drought. The permit was maintained through to the current drought, at which point the Coastal Commission tried to get it shut down, but they lost since it was already permitted. Note that maintenance on the plant during the wet years was contentious; I don't know how it polled, but there were vocal people complaining about it, since it was barely used. Had those people prevailed, water would have been much dearer in the most recent drought.

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#199

Post by clarionbell »

guelo wrote: post #195
vee-kay wrote: post #188

Isn't this the same state where the rich people water their plush lawns even in the peak of summer during drought? And where 90% of the water for its huge capital city-district (Los Angeles) is not even sourced locally (say, by desalination of seawater, as it is a coastal city), but it's instead piped from hundreds of miles away, while banning the villages at the source locations from using the local rivers/lakes as…

"villages"? You're not from here are you? Makes me wonder if internationally you're getting general anti-American propaganda or if Republican anti-California propaganda is leaking worldwide.

The point raised is valid however. Los Angeles in particular notoriously bad track record when it comes to managing water resources and depriving upstream communities of them.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_water_wars

Re: California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years

#200

Post by weird-eye-issue »

akdor1154 wrote: post #193
weird-eye-issue wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desalination uses a lot more energy and is higher cost

In the era of solar power saturating the grid in daytime, the energy cost is far less of an issue - At least, I assume California has similar characteristics to Australia in this regard.

There's still cost involved, and solar seems to be around 30% of the total
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