Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink
I moved to San Francisco six months ago and my umbrella hasn’t left its dusty sleeve yet. Scientists and politicians, everyone agrees: California is in deep trouble. As the state enters its fourth year of drought and the soil has never been drier. Some look at the sky with hope that El Niño will bring much needed rain. But most are starting to wonder if this is just the beginning. Are we entering a mega-drought that could last for more than a decade?
Agriculture, one of California’s strongest pillars, has taken the biggest hit: the drought will cost at least $2.2 billion in agricultural losses this year alone. Fields of dead almond trees and dried-out crops are a common sight in central California these days. Central Valley towns are also growing desperate. Many have been forced to install porta-potties in their backyards or even steal water from fire hydrants.
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Despite the tremendous efforts for saving water, most Californians are still not aware of the magnitude of the problem.
Many believe that the drought can’t be that bad if water still comes out of everyone's tap, right?
California is borrowing most of this water, either from neighboring states or depleting ground water reservoirs. But experts say this will come back to haunt Californians.
Mark Cowin, director of the California Department of Water Resources, told the Los Angeles Times that our current ground water withdrawal levels are so dangerous that "We are essentially borrowing on tomorrow’s future. We’ll pay that price over time."
Global warming link?
A recent study headed by climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh of Stanford University linked the drought with human-made global warming and climate change. The paper concludes that "extreme atmospheric high pressure in this region--which is strongly linked to unusually low precipitation in California--is much more likely to occur today than prior to the emission of greenhouse gases that began during the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s."
Diffenbaugh and his colleagues used computer simulations and statistical analysis to show that "a persistent region of high atmospheric pressure over the Pacific Ocean–one that diverted storms away from California–was much more likely to form in the presence of modern greenhouse gas concentrations."
But could this go on for decades?
Mega-droughts, which last decades, are what Cornell University scientist Toby Ault calls the "great white sharks of climate: powerful, dangerous and hard to detect before it’s too late," dubbing them "a threat to civilization.:
And he told USA Today that he’s "not optimistic" about the Southwestern U.S. avoiding a mega-drought.
"As we add greenhouse gases into the atmosphere -and we haven’t put the brakes on stopping this - we are weighting the dice for mega-drought conditions."
If does become a mega-drought, Ault warned it could be "even worse than anything experienced by any humans who have lived in that part of the world for the last few thousand years."
What can the state of California do to prepare?
Experts say that while water conservation is important, it won’t be enough. The state must also invest in new technologies like water desalinization plants."If California suffered something like a multi-decade drought, the best-case scenario would be some combination of conservation, technological improvements (such as desalinization plants), multi-state cooperation on the drought, economic-based water transfers from agriculture to urban areas and other things like that to get humans through the drought," said University of Arizona climate scientist Gregg Garfin.
Continue Reading at Mongabay.com
Drought Via Shutterstock