Global Warming: Experts say dearth of rain in Western states 'historic' -- Regime Change in Washington

From: Psalm 110 (Melchizedek_at_USA.com)
Date: 07/28/04 

Date: 27 Jul 2004 22:30:54 -0700

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20040630-9999-2m30drought.html

Worst drought in 500 years?
Experts say dearth of rain in Western states 'historic'

Low water levels at Morena Lake, brought on by a lack of rainfall,
have caused part of its bed to dry up. According to the city of San
Diego's Water Department, as of Sunday, the reservoir north of Campo
had a depth of 95 feet. Its depth when full would be 157 feet.

Lakes are drying up, water districts are ramping up conservation
efforts and farmers are searching the skies in vain for drops of rain.

As the official rain season ends today, San Diego County is in the
grip of a drought that is being felt throughout the Western United
States.

Some experts are saying this could be the worst drought in 500 years.

"We're in a drought perhaps as deep as the Dust Bowl" of the 1930s,
said William Patzert, a researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, which is run by the California Institute of Technology for
NASA.

Water district officials say there's enough water to meet demand for
at least a couple of more years. But no one, not even the experts,
knows how long the dry spell will last.

"The bottom line is we are dry and it is a historic drought," said
Douglas Le Comte, a senior meteorologist and drought specialist for
the federal Climate Prediction Center.

How dry are we? This dry:

Through Friday, the county has had 5.18 inches of rain for the season,
as measured by the National Weather Service at Lindbergh Field. That's
less than half the average rainfall of 10.77 inches from a period of
July 1 the previous year to June 30.

And the region has been below its average rainfall amount for the past
five seasons.

"That's what's called a drought," Patzert said.

Several lakes and reservoirs in the county are below their water
levels, ranging from 7.7 percent full at Lake Sutherland, near Ramona,
to 84.7 percent full at San Vicente Reservoir in Lakeside.

San Diego and the Southern California region are not alone. Eight
Western states have been suffering through periods of drought or
extreme drought.

A U.S. Geological Survey report released this month said that based on
water levels of the Colorado River basin, the drought "may be
comparable to or more severe than the largest-known drought in 500
years."

The flow at a spot along the Colorado River traditionally used for
measurements has been an average of 5.4 million acre-feet from 2001 to
2003. During the Dust Bowl years of 1930 to 1937, it averaged 10.2
million acre-feet.

Experts say the drought started in late 1999 or 2000. Several factors
are believed to have caused it, including a large high pressure system
that has kept a jet stream north of the Western states, preventing
rain and moisture from the area.

Although scientists have studied droughts, knowledge is still so
limited that long-range forecasts are not made for droughts.

The longest forecast is that much of California and other Western
states will have drought conditions through September. Beyond that,
experts say they don't know how long it could last. However, droughts
seldom persist for longer than a decade.

"(There are) a lot of theories about climate changes and all these
things going on," said Bill Jacoby, a water resources manager for the
San Diego County Water Authority. "We do know we're at the mercy of
nature."

There are indications of a wetter fall and winter because of a mild El
Niņo phenomenon. But even that is unclear.

"We just don't see a strong signal one way or the other," Le Comte
said.

For California, droughts are not unusual. And water officials say the
state and region can handle this dry period because they've prepared
for it by building up water reserves and launching strong conservation
efforts.

"Right now, there's adequate storage for Southern California's needs
for the next couple of years without a problem," said John Liarakos, a
spokesman for the county water authority.

The county relies mostly on imported water and uses about 650,000
acre-feet per year. One acre-foot is enough water, on average, to
supply two families for a year.

Local and regional water officials have pushed voluntary conservation
efforts, such as low-flow toilets and shower heads. In recent weeks,
the county water board adopted several conservation methods, including
water budgets for commercial users and vouchers for irrigation
controllers that can sense the weather and determine whether
sprinklers should be turned on.

Despite the adequate supplies, water officials warn that this is no
time for consumers and businesses to get complacent about
conservation.

"Every drop of water that we save today is a drop of water that we can
use for drier times," said Adan Ortega, vice president for external
affairs for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
"We have enough water today to sustain us for the foreseeable future
so long as we continue to pursue conservation."

Northern California's mountains received heavy snowfall during
December and February but warm, dry weather hit in March, prompting an
early thaw and runoff.

Even with the shift in March, precipitation accumulation in the
Northern Sierra Nevada was 96 percent of average. The state relies
heavily on the Sierra Nevada snowpack to provide water through the
summer.

"The precipitation was much less when you got south of Sacramento,"
said state climatologist Bill Mork, who works for the state Department
of Water Resources.

Mork said the governor has not declared a statewide drought. Overall,
he said, the state has enough water in storage to meet the demands of
water customers.

The San Diego County Farm Bureau estimated 5,000 farmers rely heavily
on conservation to get them through droughts because they have to buy
more water during droughts, said Eric Larson, executive director of
the bureau.

"They can't afford to have high water bills so the farmers manage
their water very, very closely," Larson said.

Larson said the area's farmers are surviving the drought, but praying
for more rain.

The drought will end eventually, experts say. Le Comte said his gut
instinct is more rain will arrive later this year. But then again,
that's not always a good thing.

"You better watch out what you pray for, because California goes from
one extreme to the other," he said.

Here are the Global Warming counterfacts (partial list):

    * 1992 -- "Warning to Humanity" petition circulates, signed by
1,700 working CREDIBLE scientists.
    * 1992 -- Oil, Coal, pollution-industries counter-attack at Rio
conference, fake Heidelberg Appeal circulates with their funding,
using their paid-science-traitors, like the documented corrupt Fred
Singer, documented corrupt Fred Seitz, documented corrupt Bruce N.
Ames.
    * 1997-1998 -- hottest ocean temperatures ever recorded in human
history.
    * 1998 -- hottest year in recorded human history.
    * 1998 -- 86% of all corals bleached, came 2 degrees from known
heat-death of species, and 10 days away from known heat-associated
digestion failure starvation deaths. No fossil record shows such
massive simultaneous incident ever in global geologic history other
than 5 mass extinction incidents.
    * 1999 -- strongest super-cyclone (310km/h winds) in human
recorded history hits Orissa, India. 1.9 million houses damaged or
destroyed, 10,000 people swept out to drown at sea.
    * 2002 -- Severe droughts on five continents simultaneously -- at
one moment the crops to feed one sixth the human race are threatened
by brutal killing weather.
    * 2002-2003 -- Worst drought in Australia recorded human history
leads to wildfires invading Austrialian capital city and burning down
hundreds of city blocks. At one moment not long afterwards a 250
kilometer firefront threatened to engulf the entire largest city in
that country, Sydney.
    * 2003 -- More people displaced by flooding than any year in
recorded human history, over twice the geographical area flooded than
second-worst flood disaster year in recorded human history.
    * 2003 -- 562 tornadoes sweep the USA in ten days -- largest swarm
of tornadoes ever recorded in US history, almost 50% worse than
previous historical record, and nearly three times worse than any May
in US history.
    * 2003 -- Largest hailstone in human recorded history falls in
Nebraska, 18 inches diameter, "cannonball size" which denialists say
is impossible according to THEIR understanding of physics.
Canteloupe-sized, softball-sized, baseball-sized, golf ball-sized all
fell in 2003 hell storms.
    * 2003 -- Weeks of unrelenting pounding of constant storms finally
break northeast US power grid, 50,000,000 utility customers blacked
out in US and Canada. Indiana governor, Frank O'Bannon, dies of heart
attack from stress of one declared sequential "state of emergency"
after another. Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Toronto
especially hit hard.
    * 2003 -- Worst forest firestorms in Portugal's recorded human
history, blamed on excessive heat and changed air currents denying
rainfall.
    * 2003 -- 20,000 forest fires in Russia, 16,000 of them before the
heat of summer, the largest number in human recorded history.
    * 2003 -- 1,400 heat-stroke deaths in Andhra Pradesh, India from
sustained heat wave and delayed monsoon -- largest mass heat-killing
in local recorded human history.
    * 2003 -- 35,000 excess heat-stroke deaths across Europe, largest
mass heat-killing in European recorded history.

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