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? 

This is part 3 of a series on external validity problems with climate-science-communication studies.The problem, in sum, is that far too many researchers are modeling dynamics different from the ones that occur in the real world, and far too many communicators are being induced to rely on these bad models.

In my first post, I described the confusion that occurs when pollsters assert that responses to survey item that don't reliably or validly measure anything show there's "overwhelming bipartisan support" for something having to do with climate change.

In the second, I described the mistake of treating a laboratory "messaging" experiment as better evidence than 10 yrs of real-world evidence on what happens when communicators expend huge amounts of resources on a "scientific consensus" messaging campaign.

This post extends the last by showing how much different real-world scientific-consensus "messaging" campaigns are from anything that is being tested in lab experments.

Cook offers a reply:

http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2014/6/20/response-an-externally-valid-approach-to-consensus-messaging-1.html

That's a ballsy prediction with the fact that global food production keeps going up and up.

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

“Throughout the 21st century, climate-change impacts are projected to slow down economic growth, make poverty reduction more difficult, further erode food security, and prolong existing and create new poverty traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and emerging hotspots of hunger,” the report declared.

The report also cites the possibility of violent conflict over land or other resources, to which climate change might contribute indirectly “by exacerbating well-established drivers of these conflicts such as poverty and economic shocks.”

...

The warning about the food supply in the new report is much sharper in tone than any previously issued by the panel. That reflects a growing body of research about how sensitive many crops are to heat waves and water stress.

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.

Hansen can be completely full of crap and CA could still have horrible droughts...global warming at a steep rate and CA drought are not connected at the hip.

This is the problem with climate change debate in general. Everyone has to debate who is "right" and who is "wrong"...rather than, say, the science itself. Climate science isn't black and white.

The southwest U.S. is very vulnerable to longer term drought...with or without rapid AGW. It is definitely ignorant to assume good decades of rainfall like the late 20th century would continue...and continue reliably. Heck, short memory for planning bureaucrats to forget the terrible southwest drought at the turn of 19/20th century. Being conservative on land use and water allocation is a very important part of sustaining a growing population...especially in the arid regions.

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.

It was also bad plenty of times in the past. Blaming global warming on everything is the biggest problem. When you blame it on warm, cold, wet , dry, etc, most people don't give a crap anymore and feel it is complete b.s.

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,

Jerry Brown may have declared a drought emergency statewide and called for rationing, but that didn’t stop a homeowners association in San Lorenzo from fining residents for having dead lawns, KTVU reported.

John Glisar, 55, told the station he doesn’t want to water his lawn, but faces fines of between $100 to $1,000 if he doesn’t after receiving a second warning from the San Lorenzo Village Homes Association.

“I’m going to water as much as I possibly can,” Glisar said.

... 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