Unseasonable Wildfires are bad.
[Image Source: Twitter May Have Saved Lives During CA Wildfire Tragedy -- dailygalaxy.com ]
Unseasonable Wildfires are bad; so are crops that wither on the vine -- or worse yet, are never planted. For the lack of water to grow them.
California's Drought Could Be the Worst in 500 Years
by Alex Park and Julia Lurie, motherjones.com -- Feb 10, 2014
The Golden State is in the midst of a three-year drought -- and scientists believe that this year may end up being the driest in the last half millennium, according to University of California-Berkeley professor B. Lynn Ingram. Californians are scared, with good reason: Fire danger in the state is high, and drinking-water supplies are low.
But the drought will have repercussions outside the state's borders, as well. California produces a good chunk of the nation's food: half of all our fruits and vegetables, along with a significant amount of dairy and wine.
[...]
You can't water crops -- with water
you don't have.
See Just How Bad the California Drought Is, in One Alarming Image
by Matt Essert, policymic.com -- Feb 26, 2014
[...] NASA recently released these side-by-side images of Folsom Lake, a reservoir in Northern California located 25 miles northeast of Sacramento.
The first image shows the lake, which is formed by the Folsom Dam, on July 20, 2011 at 97% total capacity and 130% of its historical average for that date. In the Jan. 16, 2014 shot, the lake was at 17% capacity and 35% of its historical average. When the Jan. 16 image was captured, water levels were so low that the remains of a Gold-Rush era mining town -- which had been flooded when the dam was completed in 1956 -- were uncovered. It doesn't take a scientist or meteorologist to tell you there's something wrong with this.
[...]
NASA Shows Just How Bad The California Drought Is
by UnofficialNetworks -- Jan 15, 2014
The Snow Water Equivalents in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California is at a historic low for this time of year, as can be seen in this image comparing 2013 to 2014. The Sierra Nevada mountains are experiencing Extreme Drought with no relief in sight.
[...]
You can't fill our water reservoirs of the West -- with Snow-packs
that aren't there.
One of America's great resources is our ability to produce abundant, affordable food. One of the reasons for that, is California's once-bountiful farmland.
California's Drought Ripples Through Businesses, Then To Schools
by NPR Staff; All Things Considered -- Apr 20, 2014
[...]
Running On Empty
Nearly half of the country's fruits, nuts and vegetables come from California, a state that is drying up. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the entire state is considered "abnormally dry," and two-thirds of California is in "extreme" to "exceptional" drought conditions.
Earlier this year, many farmers in California found out that they would get no irrigation water from state or federal water projects. Recent rains have helped a little. On Friday, government officials said there was enough water to give a little more to some of the region's farmers -- 5 percent of the annual allocation, instead of the nothing they were getting.
[...]
Many fields remain fallow or are growing a placeholder crop to keep the soil from eroding. Thanks to the drought, much of Michael's wheat crop isn't suitable for human use, so it's already been cut to make hay for livestock. Michael says because of this, they're also buying less equipment, like big tractors that can cost upward of $400,000.
[...]
Economists say it's too early to accurately predict the drought's effect on jobs, but it's likely as many as 20,000 will be lost.
[...]
You can't grow abundant affordable crops -- with abundant water
that isn't there.
Fields and farm jobs dry up with California's worsening drought
by Kirk Siegler, NPR -- Aprl 22, 2014
[...]
Perez says he and his family have been living here since 1983 and have never seen a drought this bad. A man next to him says he may head back to Mexico soon. He's heard the farms there have more water right now.
You hear a lot of these stories up and down California's Central Valley. Everything that everyone has been warning about over the past few months is starting to happen. Workers are getting laid off as prized fruit and nut trees are going unwatered, and fields are going fallow.
As droughts have worsened in recent years, federal authorities have released less and less water from a web of reservoirs and canals in northern California that feeds farms and cities in the arid south. For the first time in six decades, most farmers on the east side of this valley have been told they will get no federal irrigation water.
[...]
Since our water resources are provided by Climate's seasonal patterns -- changes to our Climate's stability -- especially to those all-important "rainy season" patterns -- can
directly lead to dramatic changes in our year-round water resources. And our food resources.
Parched: California Braces for Drought Without End in Sight
by John Roach, NBCnews.com -- Feb 24th 2014
[...]
And even if a new mega-drought is here, he added, no one knows if the impacts would be as devastating as the droughts "700 years ago that moved entire societies out of regions," Fuchs said. "Are we able to offset some of that impact because of the developed water systems and technology? That's even a tough question to ask."
But variations of the question are nevertheless being asked across the state where, at last count, 10 communities have less than 60 days of water, forest fires flare up almost daily, water deliveries to 750,000 acres of farmland and 25 million people have been halted, cattle are starving on wilted rangelands, and homeowners are drilling thousands of wells to suck water from aquifers they only hope won't go dry.
"It is hard to know how bad this drought is going to get … but the climate is changing. We know that droughts are becoming more frequent and more intense, so we need to begin thinking about the possibility of longer, more intense droughts in the future," Heather Cooley, co-director of the water program at the Pacific Institute, an Oakland-based environmental think tank, told NBC News.
[...]
It not like the long-term drought gripping the western U.S.,
is a secret -- it's just that it's not newsworthy to a country and a media, that is losing its grip on the importance of Scientific information.
Infographic: California Drought In Motion -- 10 Dry Years Animated Infographic (2003-2014)
circleofblue.org -- 14 Feb 2014
[For the animated GIF showing 10 years of California Drought, click the above Infographic link.]
This GIF map was created by Aubrey Ann Parker, news editor and data analyst for Circle of Blue. Contributors include Brett Walton and Codi Yeager-Kozacke of Circle of Blue, with images pulled from the U.S. Drought Monitor.
You know what they say about the weather ...
Just wait a week, a year, a DECADE -- and it's all liable to change -- only not likely for the better. Unstable Climates usually translate into unstable livelihoods, and steeply rising costs-of-living.
Four Bad Things We Learned About The Epic California Drought This Week
by Joe Romm, thinkprogress.org -- April 19, 2014
[...]
Second, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported a stunning loss of snowpack due to extreme warmth:
Another dry week over much of the western United States … and in California, temperatures were 9-12 degrees above normal. This was detrimental to the low snowpack as some areas of California lost half of the snow water equivalence (SWE) in a single week….
[...]
Fourth, as Climate Progress reported Tuesday, a major new study found “a traceable anthropogenic warming footprint in the enormous intensity of the anomalous ridge [of high pressure] during winter 2013-14, the associated drought and its intensity.” If this result stands up, it suggests future California droughts will keep getting longer and stronger if we don’t reverse carbon pollution emissions trends ASAP.
The only bright spot in recent news is that we still appear headed towards an El Niño, which “may suggest wet conditions in California later this year.” [...]
On second thought, maybe California's Drought
is really more than America's Problem ... maybe it is also the World's ...
Since it is a forerunner of the Bigger Interwoven Changes to come, due to Climate Extremes becoming all the more common ... becoming are our "new normal." All with sparse time to effectively adapt to our new -- and very persistent -- water-deficit baselines.
Just ask the struggling California farmer -- if years-long droughts are good for your business? ... and then check your frig, and project out that new scarcity -- project it out a decade or two.
And then ask, What Then?
You can't have a healthy diet -- without quality and abundant foods -- foods that far too many will no longer be able to afford. That too, may become our "new normal" -- food becoming as scarce as water.