A new government study casts doubt on predictions of severe continental-scale droughts plaguing the planet because of global warming.
It turns out, climate models predicting mega-droughts from increased warming may be wrong since “such drying seems inconsistent with observations of dryland greening and decreasing pan evaporation,” according to government scientists.
Colorado’s average snowpack across the state shot up to 201 percent of normal during May thanks to cold, wet weather, the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service reported Tuesday. The statewide snowpack sat at about 95 percent of last year’s level as of June 1, the agency reported.
The Colorado River Basin, which includes the Roaring Fork River watershed, was at 204 percent of normal and 99 percent of last year’s snowpack as of June 1, according to the conservation service.
Low-elevation snowpack across the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada and the Cascades will disappear in the coming decades if global warming continues unabated, according to a new study. The changes will cause water shortages in the region and dry out forests and grasslands, the study’s authors say.
According to the research, the snow line—the altitude above which it snows, and below which it rains—will climb as much as 800 feet in the Colorado Rockies, and 1,400 feet in the Rockies of Idaho and Wyoming by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate.
Southern California’s largest water supplier was temporarily blocked from buying sprawling farmland that could be used to help build twin tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a court ruled Tuesday.
The state’s 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento granted a temporary restraining order the day before escrow was set to close on Metropolitan Water District’s $175 million deal for 20,000 acres. The ruling delays the district’s purchase by no more than a few weeks, Metropolitan attorney Catherine Stites said.
A state panel on Tuesday dismissed a $1.55 million fine it levied last year against a Delta-area agency accused of ignoring an order to stop diverting water during the drought.
State water regulators alleged last June that Byron-Bethany Irrigation District in the southern Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta defied a state order issued to dozens of senior water rights holders. The order told them to stop pulling water from streams and rivers due to extremely dry conditions.
Delta smelt have hovered close to extinction for years, but biologists say they’ve never seen anything like this spring.
“There’s nothing between them and extinction, as far as I can tell,” said Peter Moyle, a U.C. Davis biologist who has studied smelt and other Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta fish species for nearly four decades. Last week, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife released the results of spring trawling surveys that track adult delta smelt. The surveys found just handfuls of fish across the huge area where they are known to spawn.
A state appellate court has temporarily blocked the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s $175 million purchase of five islands in the heart of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. On Tuesday, the 3rd District Court of Appeal granted a temporary stay preventing the sale from closing.
Last month, a San Joaquin County judge refused to grant a request for a preliminary injunction filed by environmental groups, local water districts, and San Joaquin and Contra Costa counties. Those groups sued in April, aiming to halt the sale pending an environmental review.
Southern California’s largest water supplier was temporarily blocked from buying sprawling farmland that could be used to help build twin tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a court ruled Tuesday.
The state’s 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento granted a temporary restraining order the day before escrow was set to close on Metropolitan Water District’s $175 million deal for 20,000 acres. The ruling delays the district’s purchase by no more than a few weeks, Metropolitan attorney Catherine Stites said.
Now in the fifth year of an epic drought, Californians have explored ways to save water and wring it out of typical and atypical sources. The search has spanned the gamut from funding research, investing in expensive solutions like desalination plants, toying with the idea of recycling wastewater, imposing water-use restrictions, letting lawns go dry and experimenting with irrigation efficiency techniques for the crops that feed the country.
Thirsty crops, a burgeoning population and below-average precipitation have also led to seriously overdrawn groundwater sources that took a very long time to fill up.
Sure enough, Clinton sprinkled a number of mentions of water into her standard stump speech, promising the crowd that if she’s elected president, “we’re going to get to work on water.”
Her proposals were vague. She noted the “water systems here [were] built before our time,” before pledging to invest anew in infrastructure. New water projects have been a top priority for Fresno’s agriculture industry, which has struggled to adapt to the state’s lingering drought. In another nod to the local industry, Clinton changed her standard riff promising to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
