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New Study Shows Global Warming Intensifying Extreme Rainstorms Over North America

June 3, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /InsideClimate Newsby Bob Berwyn

New research showing how global warming intensifies extreme rainfall at the regional level could help communities better prepare for storms that in the decades ahead threaten to swamp cities and farms.

The likelihood of intense storms is rising rapidly in North America, and the study, published Monday in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, projects big increases in such deluges.

“The longer you have the warming, the stronger the signal gets, and the more you can separate it from random natural variability,” said co-author Megan Kirchmeier-Young, a climate scientist with Environment Canada.

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Australia’s Water Is Vanishing

June 3, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Bloomberg Greenby Matthew Campbell

The early afternoon sun was pounding the parched soil, and Gus Whyte was pulling on his dust-caked cowboy boots to take me for a drive. We’d just finished lunch—cured ham, a loaf of bread I’d bought on the trip up, chutney pickled by Whyte’s wife, Kelly—at his house in Anabranch South, which isn’t a town but rather a fuzzy cartographic notion in the far west of New South Wales, a seven-hour drive from Melbourne and half as far again from Sydney.

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Improving Atmospheric Forecasts with Machine Learning

June 3, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /EOSby Kate Wheeling

An efficient, low-resolution machine learning model can usefully predict the global atmospheric state as much as three days out.

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Klamath Farmers Protest Early Water Cutoff

June 3, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /Ag Alertby Christine Souza

In two weeks or less, farmers and ranchers near the California-Oregon border will see their water supplies run dry, after operators of the federal Klamath Water Project unexpectedly cut allocations in response to concerns about protected fish.

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Mexico Poised to Breach 75-Year Water Treaty with US

June 3, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /bnamericas

Mexico is at risk of breaching a 75-year old water treaty with the US if it does not come up with a new strategy to deliver 457,800 acre-feet (565 million cubic meters – Mm3) of water to its northern neighbor by October 24.

That amount represents 350,000 acre-feet of water that the Latin American country is expected to deliver annually under the US-Mexico water treaty of 1944, in addition to making up for the delayed delivery of around 108,000 acre-feet that it has postponed during the 2015-20 cycle.

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San Diego and Tijuana’s Shared Sewage Problem has a Long History

June 2, 2020/in Home Headline, Media Coverage, San Diego County /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /The Washington Postby Kevan Q. Malone

In January, President Trump signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) into law, replacing the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The new trade pact is set to go into full effect July 1. Thanks to House Democrats from Southern California, the legislative act governing its implementation in the United States will provide $300 million for infrastructure to stop the chronic flow of sewage across the international border from Tijuana, Mexico — an ecological peril highlighted on a recent episode of “60 Minutes.”

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U.S. EPA Moves to Curb State Powers to Deny Permits for Energy Projects

June 2, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /Reutersby Valerie Volcovici

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler signed on Monday a rule limiting state powers to block energy infrastructure projects, setting up a fight with some Democratic governors who say Washington is stripping their ability to protect their states’ interests and combat climate change.

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Officials Worry About Wildfires as More People Enjoy Nature After Coronavirus Lockdowns

June 2, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /The Weather Channelby Jan Wesner Childs

Parts of the West are already in extreme drought ahead of wildfire season, and officials in some areas are worried about an uptick in fire action as more people emerge from coronavirus-related lockdowns and resume outdoor activities like hiking and camping.

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New Front Opens in the Fight Over the Lake Powell Pipeline

June 2, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /The Salt Lake Tribuneby Brian Maffly

The water rights behind the proposed Lake Powell pipeline are not actually coming from the project’s namesake lake, but rather from the major reservoir upstream on the Green River.

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