sokolow

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/06/22/americas-recent-drought-history-animated/ Check out the animated drought map.

Probably everyone has read through and gotten heartily sick of the Tol-Cook showdown over the Cook (2013) consensus paper. However, and regardless of your stake (if you have one) on that argument, Dan Kahan at the Yale rhet-scicomm project on cultural cognition has a series of posts up challenging Cook & co's consensus angle on the grounds of whether or not its a worthwhile approach. Fascinating analysis of how rhetorical strategy is employed & recieved in a climate science conflict context: http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2014/6/20/response-an-externally-valid-approach-to-consensus-messaging-1.html What is the *message* of real-world "scientific consensus" messaging? Cook offers a reply: http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2014/6/20/response-an-externally-valid-approach-to-consensus-messaging-1.html

Haven't had a chance to sit down and look but I wonder how much they attribute to coast and delta saltwater intrusion.And yeah the general case seems to be that industrialization, universal secondary / widespread tertiary education, contraception, and women gaining social and legal equality push birthrates to replacement or slightly below. Has been true across a diverse array of countries including some with extemely pro-reproductive national religious identities (Italy, Austria. Both well below replacement and showing an increasing tendency to late marriage and first child) and turns out to be largely true for immigrant populations via rapid generational change. Interestingly enough, survey data has suggested that for women and their partners in some of the Eurozone countries, actual family size is less than stated ideal family size. As in, they'd like to have more children but don't find it socially or financially feasible. Edit the upshot is like you say there really isn't a "population bomb" because bithrate drops with elimination of poverty, access to education, medical care, contraception, female equality &c

Latest IPCC WG II report is out. Report notes potential negative impacts are global but unsurprisingly will be greatest for the global south and regions that are already impoverished. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/31/science/earth/panels-warning-on-climate-risk-worst-is-yet-to-come.html Edit: wunderground rundown. Most important parts are food and freshwater security, and their follow-ons http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2656

In short rapid AGW needs to be a part of the conversation for CA because first because it is already incredibly vulnerable to drought & heat. With AGW well, that would be "real real bad". We don't need that risk. Doing the adaptation and decarbonization now is worth it. Second because it is a major leader in broader US policy what we do matters outside the state; in fact its CO2 emissions per capita are already among the lowest in the nation. late edit: to be slightly more specific about the risks (and given the limitations of regional climate models) using a conservative emissions & sensitivity scenario by late century that would mean perhaps a doubling of heat waves, half again the number of dry water years, a 25% increase in blockbuster fires, a cut in Sierra snowpack by 25% or more, a cut in Peninsular / Transverse range snowpack by yet more; extreme heat days are expected to be yet more frequent in the LA area ranges at altitude. Move all the mountain ecozones up by 300 meters or so. Anticipate a population of 60 million; figure on more pressure on groundwater supply when flows in the Colorado drop by 10% or more. Decide which habitat refurbishment projects in the Delta & elsewhere are going to get scrapped. Start right now and shell out five billion dollars to rehab the Salton Sea.

Yes. Many many people in rural CA are redstate as all get out and either believe climate change is a lie made up by Al Gore or don't give a crap about it. Its not like we don't think about water or fire or aren't educated about it -- lots of rural semirural men and women in CA are seriously involved in their water district or are out there wielding chainsaws and pulaskis. Its a paradox that we don't think on the multibillions & ecological alterations it took / takes -- the immense tax hit and legislative priority! The huge opportunity costs! The elaborate bureaucracy! -- to build and maintain the water projects and wildland management we already have, developed in response to droughts we already experienced, and we don't care to do the accounting projecting that forward in best, likely, bad, and catastrophically bad AGW exacerbated scenarios.

The trick is, like skierinvermont says, is that OK, drought in CA has been bad historically. In fact, paleoclimate indicates it may have been much worse.In fact as is sorta a cliche by now, we had the great misfortune from a planning perspective to have allocated the Colorado's water after a decade of flow measurements done during an abnormally wet decade. And CA has 38 million people and a rather large economy locked in a precarious relationship with water already. As the CA water blog points out, historically bad drought in CA has spurred policy change and infrastructure development: http://californiawaterblog.com/2014/01/21/california-droughts-precipitate-innovation/ After a century of this and multibillions of private, muni, county, State, and Federal dollars getting spent on water and fire we're starting to hit limits of what can be done with surface & groundwater. Even absent climate change. Again, as skier says, the best guess on what AGW means for CA is notably drier and hotter. So when we get events like the current drought, CA elected officials need to be hammering home for the electorate that as we do policymaking, economic development, land use, individual habit, and so on in the current drought we need to spend one dang minute thinking 30 or 40 years out at the prospect of more people, combined with more (and more) diverse commitments of water, and less water to go around. That conversation has got to be pessimistic about climate impacts for CA and aggressive about being conservative -- because if it turns out that Mike Mann and James Hansen are frauds and charlatans or just plain wrong or whatever and water availability remains much as it is, fine. CA can go back to building tickytacky semirural ranch houses in seismically active burn zones and accept those risks that we're already used to and eventually it will no longer be feasible costwise to waste water on stupid crap and we'll stop that kind of expansion. If they're right, then you got millions of people and billions of dollars of investment sunk into economic activity and infrastructure that is no longer tenable and suddenly its people getting displaced and industry shutting down. If they're right, ... 30, 40 years from now boy will our faces be red.

Have a look at the two blogs mentioned, Weather West and this Tahoe OpenSnow summary: http://www.weatherwest.com/ Nothing like a bunch of skiers to give Lakes snow lovers a run for capacity to be disappointed: http://opensnow.com/dailysnow/post/1999 That 8-station index: http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/precip/PLOT_ESI Anyhow here's hoping CA gets a thorough soaking through February and March.

Jonger there's a whole thread in Central/Western about the drought and you could get some Bear Flag perspectives on whether the drought out there merits Masters posting about it. http://www.americanwx.com/bb/index.php/topic/41953-california-drought/#entry2662447