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Warming is Shifting Napa’s Wine Growing Season

/in , , /by /Water News Network / Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diegoby Alex Fox

The start of wine grape growing season in California’s Napa Valley now comes nearly a month earlier than it used to because of the region’s warming climate, according to a new study from a team led by UC San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography researcher Dan Cayan.

The research, published online in the International Journal of Climatology on June 29, is based on an analysis of local temperature records spanning 1958-2016 that charts the effects of natural climate variations such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the growing influence of human-caused climate change upon the seasonal rhythms and shorter term temperature extremes in Napa Valley.

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40 Million People Share the Shrinking Colorado River. Here’s How That Water Gets Divvied Up.

/in , , /by /The Colorado Sunby Shannon Mullane

The Colorado River provides water for millions of people, including Coloradans from the Western Slope to the Eastern Plains. But much of the river system is overallocated, its waters are overused and its flows are shrinking. “It’s not a rosy picture. We’ve been in a drought for a very long time,” said Kevin Reidy, senior state water efficiency specialist with the Colorado Water Conservation Board, the state’s top water agency. “Really, what we’re looking at is aridification across the state, across the Southwest.”

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Tucson’s Storm to Shade Program is a Model for Drought-Stricken Areas

/in , , /by /KGUN 9by Matt Vasilogambros

There are no lush green lawns among the rows of single-family homes that line a quiet boulevard a mile west of the University of Arizona campus. Instead, small lizards scurry across gravel to the shade of cacti, shrubs and trees native to the Southwestern desert, as cicadas drone and backyard chickens cluck in the triple-digit heat now common here in July.

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Inside a Plan to Completely Drain Lake Powell

/in , , /by /Newsweekby Anna Skinner

Lake Powell will cease to exist if one group’s plan to restore Glen Canyon as the “heart of the Colorado River” comes to fruition.

An above-average snowfall and excessive precipitation in the spring have bolstered the water levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead, but Glen Canyon Institute Executive Director Eric Balken told Newsweek that he doubts that Lake Mead will ever return to full capacity

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Lorelei Cloud Makes History in a Critical Time as First Tribal Council Member on the Colorado Water Conservation Board

/in , , /by /CPR Newsby Tom Hesse

Lorelei Cloud joined the Colorado Water Conservation Board in March as the first tribal council member to serve in the position.

Cloud, the vice chair of the Southern Ute Tribal Council, was appointed to the position by Gov. Jared Polis. She joins the board at a critical time for water not just in Colorado, but across the American West.

As the representative for the San Miguel-Dolores-San Juan drainage basin, she represents land that covers not just the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute reservations, but also 10 counties in southwestern Colorado.

She spoke to Colorado Matters about including Indigenous voices in water discussions and the challenges ahead for the Colorado River.

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The City of Monterey is Entertaining a Plan to Import Water. It’s Not Without its Critics.

/in , /by /Monterey County Weeklyby David Schmalz

One thing that’s not in dispute is that the City of Monterey needs water. What is in question is where that water comes from. On Aug. 1, the Monterey City Council discussed the possibility of teaming up with the Marina Coast Water District for an agreement that would potentially deliver whatever water the city needs to make proposed housing developments a reality (like on Garden Road, for example, wherein office buildings near the airport would be converted to apartments).

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Maui’s Fire Became Deadly Fast. Climate Change, Flash Drought, Invasive Grass and More Fueled It

/in , /by /AP Newsby Claire Rush, Seth Borenstein, Jennifer McDermott

Hawaii went from lush to bone dry and thus more fire-prone in a matter of just a few weeks — a key factor in a dangerous mix of conditions appear to have combined to make the wildfires blazing a path of destruction in Hawaii particularly damaging.

Experts say climate change is increasing the likelihood of these flash droughts as well as other extreme weather events like what’s playing out on the island of Maui, where dozens of people have been killed and a historic tourist town was devastated.

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Water-Short Cities in the West Want to Use Every Last Drop, Even When it Comes from Sewage

/in , , /by /KUNCby Alex Hager

It looks like a normal glass of water. It’s clear, cold and tasteless. But just a few hours ago, it was raw sewage.

That water is the end product of a process and technology known as water recycling, or direct potable reuse.

In the Western U.S., there’s more demand for water than there is supply, particularly in the Colorado River basin. While the region’s policy makers are mired in standoff about how to fix that imbalance at a broad level, cities with finite water supplies are finding creative new ways to stretch out the water they already have. In some places, that means cleaning up sewage and putting it right back in the pipes that flow to homes and businesses.

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Battle Rages Over ‘Sweetheart Deal’ Between Trump Administration and Giant Water District

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ian James

Critics call it a “sweetheart deal” between the Trump administration and the Central Valley’s largest agricultural water district, and they claim it unfairly lines the pockets of major farm owners while imperiling California salmon and other fish species.

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Scientists Look Beyond Climate Change and El Niño for Other Factors That Heat Up Earth

/in , /by /AP Newsby Seth Borenstein

Scientists are wondering if global warming and El Niño have an accomplice in fueling this summer’s record-shattering heat.

The European climate agency Copernicus reported that July was one-third of a degree Celsius (six-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit) hotter than the old record. That’s a bump in heat that is so recent and so big, especially in the oceans and even more so in the North Atlantic, that scientists are split on whether something else could be at work.

Scientists agree that by far the biggest cause of the recent extreme warming is climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas that has triggered a long upward trend in temperatures. A natural El Niño, a temporary warming of parts of the Pacific that changes weather worldwide, adds a smaller boost. But some researchers say another factor must be present.

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