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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: miraje who wrote (847884)	4/5/2015 5:41:11 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576465

Hot hands: Fingerprints of climate change all over California drought By Jason Samenow April 2 California’s astonishingly low snowpack, a pathetic 5 percent of normal, and the severity of the drought afflicting the state isn’t some fluke. It’s a likely consequence of climate change, specifically the rising temperatures which are intensifying many of the processes causing the state to lose water at an alarming rate. To begin, let’s make clear climate change is best characterized as a drought amplifier rather than the cause of the drought itself. The climate system has enormous natural variability and several studies and analyses have linked the drought to a randomly occurring configuration of Pacific Ocean temperatures that encourages atmospheric winds to steer weather systems away from the Golden State. For three years strong, the atmosphere steering flow has hit a road block along the West Coast (dubbed the “ridiculously resilient ridge”), but connecting that to climate change has proven difficult. Weather pattern over western U.S. has blocked weather systems from coming ashore (Daniel Swain, Stanford) But even as climate change probably isn’t driving the weather pattern behind the drought, it is directing the background temperatures: up. Atmospheric levels of the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide, due to the burning of fossil fuels, have risen about 25 percent since 1958. Carbon dioxide concentration from 1958 to present. (NOAA) Carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases act like a performance-enhancing steroid when it comes to warm weather extremes. They substantially increase the likelihood new records for hot weather are set. Like steroids are suspected for inflating homerun totals in Major League Baseball in the 1990s, the atmosphere’s version of steroids is a prime suspect for exploding hot weather records in California. (Australian Climate Commission) The number of heat records set in California in the last two years is staggering. Here are just a few: * The state had its hottest year on record in 2014 * The state had its hottest winter on record in 2014-2015, shattering the previous record – set just the year before (2013-2014) – by 1.5 degrees. * In March, Los Angeles doubled its record for 90-degree days in that month, logging 6 such days compared to the previous record of 3 (from 1977). * In March, Redding, Sacramento, Fresno, Los Angeles, and San Diego set records for average maximum temperatures in the month. Winter 2014-2015 temperatures (NOAA) The added heat from climate warming acts to intensify the drought in important ways: * When it’s warmer, the evaporation of water speeds up, allowing the ground to heat up faster, which then evaporates more water in a vicious cycle which continues until meaningful rain stops it. * When it’s warmer, the snow season shortens. In other words, snow starts falling later in the fall and stops falling earlier in the spring, and snowpack declines. * When it’s warmer, snow levels rise. In other words, the elevations at which rain changes to snow in the mountains goes up, and snowpack declines. Two skiers and a snowboarder ride up the Knob Hill chairlift at Sugar Bowl Ski Resort on Wednesday, March 18, 2015, in Norden, Calif. In the background is the snowless 7988-foot Donner Peak. Warm Winter weather sped up the closure of several Tahoe area ski resorts – including Sugar Bowl – following a promising start to the season.(AP Photo/The Sacramento Bee, Randy Pench) It’s interesting to note that in 1976-1977, California experienced a similar weather pattern to this year and was also mired in drought. But the drought was not as severe. Consider California’s April snowpack in 1977 was 25 percent of normal compared to 5 percent in 2015. The fact background temperatures in 1977 were not as hot very likely had something to do with the far less dire snowpack situation. Weather pattern in winter 1976-77 looks a lot like the weather pattern over the past year. (Courtesy Cliff Mass, via NOAA) Indeed, research by Stanford professor Noah Diffenbaugh and colleagues has shown that drought potential has ramped up over time due to the effect of rising temperatures. “Of course low precipitation is a prerequisite for drought, but less rain and snowfall alone don’t ensure a drought will happen. It really matters if the lack of precipitation happens during a warm or cool year,” Diffenbaugh said. “We’ve seen the effects of record heat on snow and soil moisture this year in California, and we know from this new research that climate change is increasing the probability of those warm and dry conditions occurring together.” Future projections suggest warming temperatures will continue to tip the scales towards stronger and more frequent drought. “We found that essentially all years are likely to be warm – or extremely warm – in California by the middle of the 21st century,” said Daniel Swain, a graduate student of Diffenbaugh’s. “This means that both drought frequency – and the potential intensity of those droughts which do occur – will likely increase as temperatures continue to rise.” washingtonpost.com Climate Change Makes Droughts in Australia Worse Published: April 5th, 2015 By Oliver Milman, The Guardian Climate change is making drought conditions in southwest and southeast Australia worse, with serious ramifications for people’s health and the agriculture industry, a new paper has warned. The Climate Council report states that since the mid-1990s, southeast Australia has experienced a 15 percent drop in rainfall during late autumn and early winter, with a 25 percent slump in average rainfall in April and May climatecentral.org

To: miraje who wrote (847884)	4/5/2015 6:24:49 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1576465

...researchers have documented multiple droughts in California that lasted 10 or 20 years in a row during the past 1,000 years -- compared to the mere three-year duration of the current dry spell. The two most severe megadroughts make the Dust Bowl of the 1930s look tame: a 240-year-long drought that started in 850 and, 50 years after the conclusion of that one, another that stretched at least 180 years.. Looks to me like those two mega droughts were the anomalies and not the norm. ...Bill Patzert, a research scientist and oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, says that the West is in a 20-year drought that began in 2000. He cites the fact that a phenomenon known as a "negative Pacific decadal oscillation" is underway -- and that historically has been linked to extreme high-pressure ridges that block storms. Up above, the Mercury News calls the current drought a 3 year drought [see in red]. But then later in their article more accurately Patzert says the drought started in 2000 which means CA is in year 15, not 3. Its a very poorly written article that doesn't change the fact that CA's climate is not arid desert as you claimed........at least that portion of CA along the coast where the vast majority of the population lives. .