smkettner
Well-known member
palmermd said:great shot of Folsom Lake.
The water draw history might also be interesting. Can't imagine water use is dropping or even constant but is possible.
palmermd said:great shot of Folsom Lake.
LTLFTcomposite said:Instead of Keystone XL how about a big pipe from Lake Okeechobee to CA. Better than dumping it and wrecking the St Lucie estuary. That water should be good for agriculture and golf courses, since it already has the fertilizer and pesticide mixed in.
edatoakrun said:More to the point, the human population of California today is over 38,000,000, about 100 times that of the 1860's, when all those poor cattle died...
I was wondering if I was the only one who remembered the '75-'77 drought - Oh, the joys of "If it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down," putting filled containers or bricks in plastic bags in toilet tanks (not really necessary now since CA. has mandated increasingly low-water use toilets since then, ditto for shower heads and faucet aerators), showering with a friend, etc. That was followed in '83 and '84 by snowfalls that shattered records - I remember going up to X-C ski north of Donner Summit on Memorial Day weekend 1983, and seeing pickup trucks that had been parked all winter crushed down until their suspensions broke by the weight of 10'-12' of heavy wet snow in their beds, and carports similarly flattened. Backpacking near Evolution Lake (10,850) mid-July, we were cutting steps and hauling our packs up the 10-15 foot high snowbank at the inflow into the lake, and the Muir Trail was buried from there over Muir Pass and much of the way down LeConte Canyon.Weatherman said:When I was in California during the 1975-1977 drought, there was talk of building a pipeline from western Washington down to Southern California. I don't recall what the people in Seattle thought of that idea, but I'm sure they were just thrilled.LTLFTcomposite said:Instead of Keystone XL how about a big pipe from Lake Okeechobee to CA. Better than dumping it and wrecking the St Lucie estuary. That water should be good for agriculture and golf courses, since it already has the fertilizer and pesticide mixed in.
We killed it in 1982 but unfortunately didn't drive a stake through its heart, and it's back in the form of a proposal for a pair of Peripheral Tunnels - google " peripheral tunnel california ". No messing around this time, the usual suspects have wooden mallets and sharpened stakes ready.Weatherman said:The alternative proposal was something called the "Peripheral Canal", which was supposed to shunt water around the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta (keep water for the ag and urban areas to the south rather than letting it drain into SF Bay). Not sure what happened to that one.
planet4ever said:The North Pacific High has been blocking nearly all precipitation to California for the past twelve months. I have this nightmare fantasy that NOAA will publish a computer simulation showing that it will remain in place whenever the CO2 content of the atmosphere is above about 395 ppm.
Of course, this is only a couple of months after a bill was passed and signed by governor Brown to regulate (not ban) fracking. Based only on our precarious water situation (not just now, but many years) and expanding population fracking makes no sense in California. Is it possible for a politician to be more short-sighted?DaveinOlyWA said:guess this is not a good time to discuss the amount of water needed to effectively go "frack ourselves?"
Stoaty said:Of course, this is only a couple of months after a bill was passed and signed by governor Brown to regulate (not ban) fracking. Based only on our precarious water situation (not just now, but many years) and expanding population fracking makes no sense in California. Is it possible for a politician to be more short-sighted?DaveinOlyWA said:guess this is not a good time to discuss the amount of water needed to effectively go "frack ourselves?"
Yes, there are more people and 'high value' property so this is a factor of one examines only the 'death toll' or 'property damage' columns of a spreadsheet. But your assertion that there "aren't any more extreme weather events today than there were 150 years ago" is incorrect.Weatherman said:edatoakrun said:More to the point, the human population of California today is over 38,000,000, about 100 times that of the 1860's, when all those poor cattle died...
And this is really the crux of the biscuit... There aren't any more extreme weather events today than there were 150 years ago. There are simply more people and property in the way.
Weatherman said:Unless there's an assumption made that the probability of detecting a significant weather event is exactly the same today as it was 150 years ago, it's impossible to conclude that significant weather events are any more likely today than they were, then.
...
Weatherman said:The simplest way to think about a warming atmosphere is that winters will get shorter and summers will get longer. Beyond that, it's all noise.
Weatherman said:How about there are fewer today than there were 150 years ago? Transitioning out of the Little Ice Age would have, certainly, made for some interesting weather.
As an atmospheric scientist, I have no doubt that the atmosphere, as a whole, is warmer today than it was 30 years ago. But to attribute every unusual cold snap, heat wave, drought, flood, earthquake, tsunami, and on, and on, and on, to the increase in global mean temperature is pretty silly.
The simplest way to think about a warming atmosphere is that winters will get shorter and summers will get longer. Beyond that, it's all noise.
And we look forward to hearing from them, just as soon as they get back from being rescued from the ice :lol:AndyH said:'Weatherman' - I'll take my cues on the behavior of the atmosphere from the real scientists studying it. I'll also seek folks tracking extreme events for that bit of info. Thanks anyway.
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