Climate Alarmists Swing From Megadrought to El Niño - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Climate Alarmists Swing From Megadrought to El Niño
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We haven’t heard much lately from climate changists about the megadrought — trumpeted as the worst drought in the last 1,200 years — that has been afflicting the West for the past two decades and imperiling the day-to-day existence of all who reside there. Or about the possibility of drilling holes in Glen Canyon Dam to let the Colorado River through, to accumulate behind Hoover Dam instead, and to prevent Lake Mead from receding to “deadpool” level. Or about discovering human remains on the newly dried bottom of the aforementioned Lake Mead. Or about piping Mississippi River water across the continental divide to save the thirsty Southwest.

You know why?

Because it rained.

As is the wont of the ancient, millennia-old hydrologic cycle. As has occurred since the creation of the world. And as has seemingly slipped the mind of the many climatistas who have been exploding into end-of-the-world paroxysms of hysteria during the most recent dry period.

But it’s the way it is. It’s dry for a while, then it rains. You could almost call it a pattern.

Atmospheric Rivers Affect the Climate

Thirty-one giant waves of precipitation-bearing clouds, called “atmospheric rivers,” roared across the Pacific and onto the mainland this winter, dumping more water on California than the state has received in one season in decades. They delivered a snowpack in the Sierras deeper than what has been deposited in over 70 years. There’s more water in that snow — 30 million acre-feet — than there is in Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir. Some reservoirs in Arizona — whose rim country had the second-snowiest season in the last 30 years — have been filled by the recent storms, as have those in northern California that were at 30 percent capacity a few months ago. Lake Powell, heretofore threatening “minimum power pool,” is expected to rise by 50 feet by October, from last year in October; Lake Mead, by 22 feet.

What had been reckoned as extreme drought in parts of California and the West last November has been downgraded to no drought or “abnormally dry.” Snowpack in the Rockies is up, in some places by over 200 percent.

Climatologists warn that rarely do wet winters follow in succession — “We’ve never had two good winters in a row,” said one Arizona water official — and it would take two duplications of the past winter’s deluge to fill Lakes Powell and Mead — and that’s with no water usage downstream. But filling them again — as they were shortly after their respective dams’ construction — is a pipe dream, a quixotic notion precluded by a burgeoning regional population with its attendant, and equally burgeoning, water needs. 

Keeping them as potent sources of energy, recreation, and water is the goal. Doing that depends on the health of the main artery of the region, the Colorado River. Although surging from the winter’s precipitation, the river is still overallocated, and states in its watershed are parlaying on who makes the necessary cutbacks to ensure its viability, and by how much. A recent proposal put forth by the three lower basin states — California, Nevada, and Arizona — would require usage reductions of 13 percent for the next three years. Of course, those reducing consumption get paid to do so — to the tune of $1.2 billion — because the water allocations are scribed into law. The federal government will be paying off cities, farmers, Indian tribes, and irrigation districts not to use the water they are owed.

Of more immediate concern is the snow left from the winter’s storms in the Sierras — 12-foot banks in the Lake Tahoe area, for example. That snow melts and roars down the mountainsides, filling the reservoirs and, tragically, flooding low-lying areas.

And rushing unimpeded, and uncaptured, into the Pacific Ocean. California, were it of a mind and a will to do so, could solve the Colorado River water crises by updating its aging infrastructure and utilizing its rainwater and snowpack for agricultural, commercial, and residential usage. It could sign off totally — or nearly totally — to all river usage and make life much more bearable for the six other Colorado Basin states, if it wanted to.

“But to do that,” opines water expert Edward Ring in the Wall Street Journal, “the state Legislature would have to stand up to a powerful environmentalist lobby that views humans as parasites and demands rationing as the only acceptable policy.”

He continues:

Unlike anywhere else in the American Southwest, California can rely on so-called atmospheric rivers that saturate the state with enough rain to supply the state’s farms and cities with adequate water. Even in drought years, these storms blow in from the Pacific, hit the ramparts of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and dump tens of millions of acre-feet of runoff into the streams and rivers….

If Californians were willing to harvest additional millions of acre-feet from storm runoff in the Sacramento-San Joaquin watershed, and had the means to do so, they might not need any water from the Colorado River.

Adds The American Spectator’s Steven Greenhut, “State officials seem to embrace water restrictions and conservation as ends in themselves — and seem less interested in boosting water storage and policies that promote abundance.” He says that while 40 percent of the Golden State’s water goes to agriculture and 10 percent to urban users, “50 percent of the state’s available water supplies go toward environmental purposes — i.e., flowing unimpeded to the Pacific Ocean.” He recommends storing more water during wet years for use during dry ones:

That means expanding our reservoir systems, building new off-stream storage, increasing groundwater recharge, permitting privately funded desalination projects, building stormwater capture systems, and moving quickly with recycling (don’t call it “toilet to tap”) projects.

A New Threat for Climate Alarmists

With the threat of drought somewhat diluted after a watery winter, climate scare-mongery has turned to a new threat.

Too much rain.

El Niño approaches.

Experts are saying there’s an 80 percent chance of a moderately strong El Niño and a 55 percent chance of a strong one. As reported in the Los Angeles Times, “a strong El Niño could bring a second consecutive winter of above-average precipitation, accompanied by landslides, floods and coastal erosion.”

The climate changists can delete their “megadrought” macros on their word processors and install their El Niño ones.

Because it’s always something in the world of climate change.

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