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Low Mississippi River Limits Barges Just as Farmers Want to Move Their Crops Downriver

/in , , /by /APby Scott McFetridge

A long stretch of hot, dry weather has left the Mississippi River so low that barge companies are reducing their loads just as Midwest farmers are preparing to harvest crops and send tons of corn and soybeans downriver to the Gulf of Mexico.

The transport restrictions are a headache for barge companies, but even more worrisome for thousands of farmers who have watched drought scorch their fields for much of the summer. Now they will face higher prices to transport what remains of their crops.

Farmer Bruce Peterson, who grows corn and soybeans in southeastern Minnesota, chuckled wryly that the dry weather had withered his family’s crop so extensively they won’t need to worry so much about the high cost of transporting the goods downriver.

“We haven’t had rain here for several weeks so our crop size is shrinking,” Peterson said. “Unfortunately, that has taken care of part of the issue.”

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Once-Exposed Boats in Lake Mead Covered by Water Again, but Progress is Minimal Amid Record Drought

/in , , /by /Fox 5 Vegas by Jaclyn Schultz

Boats at the bottom of Lake Mead that were exposed by dwindling lake levels are finally underwater again, but the recovery is relatively small compared to the severity of the drought.

In the summer of 2022, folks flocked to a upright boat in Lake Mead. YouTubers “Sin City Outdoors” documented the dramatic fall of lake levels as it dwindled to a historic 1,040 feet. FOX5 covered their efforts to document the numerous boats that emerged from the deep, including a historic WWII vessel.

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El Niño-NOAA-Northern Hemisphere-Winter

El Niño Anticipated to Continue Through the Northern Hemisphere Winter

/in , , /by /Water News Networkby NWS Climate Prediction Center

El Niño is anticipated to continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter (with a greater than 95% chance through January – March 2024). An El Niño Advisory remains in effect.

In August, sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were above average across the equatorial Pacific Ocean [Fig. 1], with strengthening in the central and east-central Pacific. All of the latest weekly Niño indices were in excess of +1.0°C: Niño-4 was +1.1°C, Niño-3.4 was +1.6°C, Niño-3 was +2.2°C, and Niño1+2 was +2.9°C [Fig. 2]. Area-averaged subsurface temperatures anomalies increased compared to July [Fig. 3] in association with anomalous warmth in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean [Fig. 4]. Tropical atmospheric anomalies were also consistent with El Niño. Over the east-central Pacific, low-level winds were anomalously westerly, while upper-level winds were anomalously easterly. Convection was slightly enhanced around the International Date Line, stretching into the eastern Pacific, just north of the equator. Convection was mostly suppressed around Indonesia [Fig. 5]. The equatorial Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and the traditional station-based SOI were both significantly negative. Collectively, the coupled ocean-atmosphere system reflected El Niño.

El Niño Winter

The most recent IRI plume indicates El Niño will persist through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2023-24 [Fig. 6]. Despite nearly the same ensemble mean amplitude as last month, the shorter forecast horizon means that the odds of at least a “strong” El Niño (≥1.5°C for the November-January seasonal average in Niño-3.4) have increased to 71%. However, a strong El Niño does not necessarily equate to strong impacts locally, with the odds of related climate anomalies often lower than the chances of El Niño itself (e.g., CPC’s seasonal outlooks). In summary, El Niño is anticipated to continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter (with greater than 95% chance through January – March 2024; [Fig. 7]).

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Will Lake Mead Water Levels Rise Again? What We Know About El Niño

/in , , /by /Newsweek by Anna Skinner

Last week, Lake Mead water levels started to even out after experiencing a steep increase for the last five months, but it isn’t expected to last for long.

After years of drought, Lake Mead, which is in Nevada and Arizona, reached drastically low levels last summer, prompting fears that a dead pool—the point where water levels are too low to flow downstream—would occur much sooner than originally thought.

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Opinion: Water Rights Reformers Scored Only a Minor Victory in the Legislature

/in , , /by /Cal Mattersby Dan Walters

A centerpiece of California’s perpetual political and legal wrangling over allocation of water is the complex array of rights that stretch back to the earliest years of statehood in the 19th century.

Simply put, those who claimed water before 1914, when the state assumed legal control, have “senior rights” that traditionally have entitled them to virtually unlimited supplies even when other users face cutbacks during drought.

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Future Ancestors of Freshwater Fishes in California

/in , , /by /California WaterBlog by Peter B. Moyle

We are living in the Anthropocene, an era being defined by global mass extinctions caused by humanity. While on-going and impending extinctions of birds and other terrestrial vertebrates gain the most attention, the situation with freshwater fishes (and other freshwater organisms) is as bad or worse, partly because many freshwater extinctions are nearly invisible events, hidden by murky waters (Moyle and Leidy 2023).

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Earth Just Had its Warmest August — and Summer — on Record, Spurring Dire Warnings

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Haley Smith

Amid a backdrop of extreme weather events and devastating wildfires, federal and international officials this week issued dire warnings about record-setting temperatures and the worsening effects of climate change.

Last month was the planet’s warmest August on record, and the Northern Hemisphere experienced its hottest meteorological summer, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday.

“Global marine heat waves and a growing El Niño are driving additional warming this year, but as long as emissions continue driving a steady march of background warming, we expect further records to be broken in the years to come,” read a statement from NOAA chief scientist Sarah Kapnick.

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EPA Bolsters States’ Control of Water, Infrastructure Permitting

/in , , /by /E&E Newsby E.A. Crunden

The Biden administration is restoring significant state and tribal authority over water resources and expanding their leverage on infrastructure permitting decisions, including for pipelines.

With a final rule announced Thursday, EPA reversed Trump-era limitations on state permit approvals, a move the agency said would bolster state and tribal abilities to protect their waters. In addition to restoring certain oversight powers, the move also gives states, tribes and territories a direct role in determining the duration of review processes.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement that the rule would support “economically secure, healthy, and sustainable communities” and foster the relationship between the federal government and its lower-level partners.

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‘Salton Sea Conservancy’ Bill Stalls in California Legislature Amid Bureaucracy Concerns

/in , /by /Palm Springs Desert Sunby Erin Rode

Would a proposed Salton Sea Conservancy help efforts in the troubled region? Elected officials and local organizations are split, with some saying it will just add another layer of bureaucracy to already mired efforts.

California Senate Bill 583, authored by state Sen. Steve Padilla, D-San Diego, and coauthored by Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, would create the Salton Sea Conservancy, “tasking it with coordinating management of all conservation projects in the region to restore the shrinking sea and reducing the negative health impact the Sea imposes,” according to Padilla’s office. There are currently 10 similar state conservancies under the California Natural Resources Agency, including the local Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy.

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Pumped Storage Hydropower is the Greenest Renewable Energy Technology, Study Says

/in , , /by /OPBby Monica Samayoa

Pumped storage hydropower is the greenest renewable energy technology for large-scale energy storage, a new study suggests.

Researchers with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory said closed-loop pumped storage hydropower will have a lower carbon footprint throughout the lifecycle of the technology, from construction to decommissioning, than other renewable energy storage technologies like lithium-ion batteries. Portland Business Journal first reported the study.

Closed-looped pumped storage hydropower uses two water reservoirs located at different elevations, one higher than the other, that generate power as water flows or gets pumped, from one reservoir to another. Closed-looped pumped storage hydropower is not connected to continuously naturally flowing water sources.

As the nation continues to push forward to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition from using fossil fuels to limit the effects of climate change, storing renewable energy in batteries or pumped storage hydropower has come up as a possible solution for creating cleaner energy at a large scale. Other grid-scale technologies have proven difficult to create, from gathering essential minerals to finding an area large enough to place these technologies. Researchers said closed-looped pumped storage hydropower could be the answer.

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