A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
June 25, 2009
2. Supply –
El Nino could signal drought's end;
But scientists, water officials caution against getting hopes up
Bay Area water hypocrisy exposed
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El Nino could signal drought's end;
But scientists, water officials caution against getting hopes up
By Dave Downey
Just as residents of
Climate scientists say conditions are ripe for the formation of an El Nino over the Pacific Ocean, an intermittent weather condition that brings wet winters to the southern
And that means there is a good chance
It also means Mother Nature may dump huge amounts of snow on the
"There are no guarantees, but we're unlikely to have another dry winter," said Dave Pierce, climate researcher at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in a recent telephone interview.
Even if a flurry of storms were to deepen the snow drifts in the Sierra, there are no guarantees that watering rules would be lifted for summer 2010, local water officials said. That's because court-ordered restrictions on water deliveries from
Still, there is reason to look forward to the weather phenomenon that tends to return every five years or so.
"It generally means significant drought relief for Southern California when you have an El Nino," said Doug LeComte, a drought expert with the National Weather Service's
"It greatly increases the odds for heavy rains in the southern part of the state next winter," he said.
Careful what you wish for
The emerging conditions in the central Pacific also could trigger a thickening of the Sierra snowpack in the northern part of the state, after three consecutive winters of below-normal snowfall.
But LeComte said the impact on snow amounts will depend on how large the El Nino becomes.
If it gets to be a monster like the one in 1997-98 that dumped more than 30 inches of rain on parts of
A moderate El Nino, on the other hand, might only increase precipitation in
Of course, the fledgling El Nino could do more than replenish reservoirs.
"Be careful what you wish for: You could get lots of flooding from El Nino, too," LeComte said.
Indeed, some of the region's worst floods occurred during storms spun off from El Ninos. An example was the massive January 1993 flood that left Old Town Temecula under 4 feet of water and mud.
El Nino is essentially a heating-up of ocean water along the equator, off the west coast of
But the condition begins building long before then.
And the equatorial waters have been warming for the past five months, said Michelle L'Heureux, a meteorologist at the national climate center.
At the start of the year, our weather was controlled by a La Nina condition that is marked by cooler-than-normal ocean water and gives us dry weather. By early June, the water along the equator had warmed by a half-degree Celsius ---- 1 degree Fahrenheit ---- above normal.
If the water continues to warm, and if prevailing easterly winds along the equator weaken in response, L'Heureux said, later this summer the climate center will declare that an El Nino has arrived.
The ocean's temperature is important because the central Pacific is the engine for the North American jet stream. The jet is a narrow column of air six miles above the earth where winds blow extremely hard and funnel storms into areas along its path.
Strong El Ninos tend to pump moisture into the jet stream and steer it south of its normal track, across the southern tier of the
That tends to funnel storms right through
Even a normal winter is welcome
But while it is easy to get excited about more rainfall in a drought, Bill Patzert, a climate scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
"This is a long shot," Patzert said. "If we compare it to the El Nino of '97-'98, this one is pretty puny. We're definitely hungry for a wet winter. But at this point it looks like El Wimpo."
To be sure, the emerging El Nino has the look of a moderate one, said Pierce, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
"But it's better than a La Nina," Pierce said. "At this point, I think we'd be OK with a normal winter."
John Liarakos, a spokesman for the San Diego County Water Authority, which distributes the bulk of water that
But don't expect watering restrictions to disappear anytime soon.
"The restrictions are going to be in place for at least the next year, regardless," he said.
The problem, said Peter Odencrans, spokesman for Riverside County's Eastern Municipal Water District, is that rain can help only so much. That's because much of the reduction in water deliveries from
"We do not have just a weather drought, but a regulatory drought as well," Odencrans said.
And the regulatory drought is forecast to continue.
Bay Area water hypocrisy exposed
One of these days, a water-starved farmer will walk into federal court and demand that O'Shaughnessy Dam come down, finally restoring glacial
Such a lawsuit wouldn't get the farmer more water. But it would expose the hypocrisy of Bay Area environmentalists who depict
Hetch Hetchy -- the twin to
But the only way the dam falls is if a federal judge orders it. And no environmental group will sue. Why?
They say it's better handled with cooperation and education. My explanation is simpler: it's because the dam holds some of the best drinking water on earth -- granite-filtered water reserved mostly for the allegedly environmentally conscious folks of
Amazing, isn't it?
Environmentalists sue to restore the Owens River and
But they won't unleash their lawyers on Hetch Hetchy, one of the world's great wonders, or demand that
Can I prove that environmental groups are picking other battles to avoid a backlash among their Bay Area supporters? No. But it sure looks that way.
Here in the Valley, east-side farmers are giving up, on average, 170,000 acre-feet of water each year for the reintroduction of salmon into the
Shouldn't Bay Area residents forfeit a similar amount -- about half of Hetch Hetchy's storage capacity -- to recharge the Tuolumne, the San Joaquin and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta with cold Yosemite water?
Shouldn't we enjoy
San Franciscans beg to differ. They claim that the dam has created a beautiful lake and
Three years of drought and the dramatic degradation of the Delta are hog-tying west-side farmers. They are trying to survive with a fraction of their usual water deliveries.
What are San Franciscans giving up? Not their precious Hetch Hetchy tap water.
Let's give the
http://www.fresnobee.com/columnists/mcewen/story/1495408.html
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