[HN Gopher] There Is No Drought ___________________________________________________________________ There Is No Drought Author : symby Score : 19 points Date : 2021-05-06 20:30 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.latimes.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.latimes.com) | 01100011 wrote: | https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/... | | CA climate has been much drier in the past, even before global | warming. We seem to have this discussion every few years when | there's a drought, but quickly forget. It seems like we do the | same thing with wildfires and earthquakes. | chrisco255 wrote: | But we moved 50 million people there in the past 60 years so | clearly nature must stop the mega drought cycle. | yissp wrote: | During the dry years, the people forgot about the rich years, | and when the wet years returned, they lost all memory of the | dry years. It was always that way. (East of Eden) | benmarten wrote: | I'm so tired of these pseudo science modelers. We have seen where | it leads us with covid. Humans tend to overestimate their | importance. | legitster wrote: | > But we legislated and plumbed this state for a different | climate pattern, when annual winter rains reliably fell on Sonoma | and points north, and a full Sierra snowpack reliably melted | through the spring and summer to feed streams and irrigate | orchards and farm fields. That era is long gone. The snowpack | comes unpredictably, because a warmer climate means water that | formerly stayed in the mountains as snow through the summer now | melts sooner, or falls as rain and rushes westward to the sea in | the winter, when we need it the least. A quick look at any | satellite photo from a heavy-snow year reveals that no number of | new dams could ever replace the snowpack's formerly reliable | volume. | | The headline is the epitome of burying the lede. If you read to | the bottom, the writer clearly lays out the actual thesis: | rainfall is the same - the problem is that snowpack is seriously | declining. Which is kind of like a moisture battery. This is why | climate change can counterintuitively cause both "droughts" and | floods. | | I'll admit that it took the longest time for me to understand the | concept myself. | okareaman wrote: | Desalination of seawater will be the norm in the future and | people then will wonder how we ever got by without it ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-05-06 23:01 UTC)