The United States suffers the world’s second-highest toll from
major weather disasters, according to a new analysis — even
when numbers are adjusted for the country’s wealth. The report
released late last month by Zurich-based reinsurance giant
Swiss Re, which analyzed the vulnerability and damages of 36
different countries, suggests that weather disasters may become
a heavy drag on the U.S. economy — especially as insurers
increasingly pull out of hazardous areas. Those disasters are
driving up insurance rates, compounding inflation and adding to
Americans’ high cost of living. … Some insurers have
stopped offering home insurance policies in California, which
has seen numerous large wildfires in the past few years.
What if the looming calamities of climate change, plastic
pollution, the energy crisis and our whole environmental
doom-scroll are symptoms of just one malady and it’s something
we actually can fix? That’s right, the planet is fighting a
single archvillain: Waste. Americans live in the most wasteful
civilization in history. … Waste is so deeply embedded in our
economy, products and daily lives that it’s hard to see
clearly, or to see at all. … How is it “normal”
that 40% of what our industrial farm and food system
produces ends up as garbage? … The average American
throws out three times more trash today than in 1960. Pin much
of that garbage growth on plastic waste, so pervasive now that
tiny bits of it are in food, water, beer and even human hearts,
lungs and newborn babies’ poop. -Written by Edward Humes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist. His latest book, “Total Garbage: How We Can Fix Our
Waste and Heal Our World,” will be published in April.
In January, the Sierra Nevada snowfall outlook was bleak.
California’s snowpack sat at levels less than half of normal,
and more sand than snow lined the shores of Lake Tahoe. Across
the West, experts voiced concern about snow drought. But, in
California, prospects turned around the following month as a
steady stream of storms added to the snowpack, culminating in
an epic blizzard. Things played out quite differently in other
parts of the country — large swaths of the U.S., including the
Midwest, lack healthy snow levels. … In the future,
snowy winters producing well above-normal snowpack like last
year may still occur, but “those kinds of winters are going to
become less common in a warming world,” said Brian
Brettschneider, a climate scientist at the National Weather
Service Alaska Region.
The Biden administration will be allocating more than $120
million to tribal governments to fight the impacts of climate
change, the Department of the Interior announced Thursday. The
funding is designed to help tribal nations adapt to climate
threats, including relocating infrastructure. Indigenous
peoples in the U.S. are among the communities most affected by
severe climate-related environmental threats, which have
already negatively impacted water resources, ecosystems and
traditional food sources in Native communities in every corner
of the U.S. “As these communities face the increasing
threat of rising seas, coastal erosion, storm surges, raging
wildfires and devastation from other extreme weather events,
our focus must be on bolstering climate resilience …”
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of
Laguna, said in a Wednesday press briefing.
The rain and snow that have drenched California and much of the
American West over the last few months — at least relative to
some of the hellishly dry years we’ve gotten recently — are a
blessing not just for water supplies, but for energy. Or maybe
they’re a curse (for energy, not for water). It depends on whom
you ask. Much of the electricity powering our lights and
refrigerators and cellphones comes from rivers, their once
free-flowing waters backing up behind dams and trickling
through hydropower turbines.
The European Commission said on Wednesday it was taking Greece
to the EU’s top court for failing to revise its flood risk
management plans, a key tool for EU countries to prepare
themselves against floods. The action comes five months
after the worst rains in Greece flooded its fertile
Thessaly plain, devastating crops and livestock and raising
questions about the Mediterranean country’s ability to deal
with an increasingly erratic climate. Under EU rules,
countries need to update once in six years their flood
management plans, a set of measures aimed to help them mitigate
the risks of floods on human lives, the environment and
economic activities. Greece was formally notified by the
Commission last year that it should finalise its management
plans but the country has so far failed to review, adopt or
report its flood risk management plans, the Commission said in
a statement.
Climate change is driving up the thirst of crops
significantly in California’s San Joaquin Valley, new research
shows, adding to the critical water challenges faced by one of
the world’s leading agricultural regions. The total water
demand of orchards, vineyards and row crops in the area is up
4.4% over the past decade compared with the prior 30 years
because of hotter, drier conditions, and it’s likely to
continue growing, according to a federally funded study
published this week. In 2021, the water demand of crops was up
an astonishing 12.3%, the study shows. While the warming
atmosphere has long been known to dry out plants and soil, the
new research identifies the impact specific to the
San Joaquin Valley.
A new study by Cal State Fullerton researchers shows evidence
of two epic floods that occurred within the past 500 years in
Southern California during the Little Ice Age. Their
research is the first-ever, land-based, flood-event evidence
from 1450 to 1850 — a documented period of above-average
wetness in Southern California, said Matthew E. Kirby,
professor of geological sciences. According to scientists,
floods — not earthquakes — represent California’s single most
significant socioeconomic natural hazard risk.
… Climate models predict that the frequency of
large flood-producing precipitation events will increase in the
21st century due to climate change.
Giant sequoia trees, imported to the UK 160 years ago, are
flourishing despite the dramatically different climate to their
native California, a new study has found. The huge trees, which
are declining in numbers in California due to increasing heat,
are now adapting well to the UK’s climate and growing taller, a
study conducted by UCL researchers says. “The growth here
in the UK seems to be suited to our wetter climate, so there’s
far less chance of water stress here than in the Sierras in
California,” lead author of the study and professor of
geogrpahy, Mat Disney, told The Independent.
A powerful winter storm buried the Sierra last weekend, with
wet weather continuing for days in the Bay Area and Central
Coast. Thunderstorms Wednesday drenched Salinas, dropping
an entire inch in just 25 minutes. After historic weather last
year, intense California storms have persisted this winter,
with strong downpours causing widespread flooding in San Diego
and damaging landslides in places like Los Angeles. Many
ingredients contribute to extreme storm activity, but
scientists agree that climate change is already amping up
winter rains — and may bring even wilder weather in the
future.
California has set ambitious climate goals, including phasing
out the use of fossil fuels and becoming carbon neutral by
2045. Our guest today is here to talk about the role nature can
play in meeting those goals. Laurie Wayburn is the co-founder
and president of the Pacific Forest Trust and the chair of the
California Natural and Working Lands Expert Advisory Committee.
She was also the lead author of a recent report suggesting the
state should invest “as much in nature-based climate solutions
as it has in clean energy and transportation.” With proper
forest management, California could capture 400 million tons of
carbon each year, lower wildfire risk and vastly improve flood
protection in the state.
A report released by the Navy confirmed concerns that for years
have been hanging over the radiological cleanup of San
Francisco’s Hunters Point Shipyard: that rising seawater
levels, and other environmental factors resulting from climate
change, could cause toxic materials that have long been buried
at the site to surface. The study, called Climate
Resilience Assessment, was included in an ongoing review
process that the Navy must undertake every five years to
evaluate its remediation plan for the former shipyard, which
has long been a designated Superfund site. The shipyard is
also slated for redevelopment into a new neighborhood, with
cleaning efforts by the Navy and its contractors underway for
more than a decade to prepare it for reuse. The report is
the first time that the Navy has studied the impacts of climate
change in relation to the shipyard, which spans hundreds of
acres and contains radioactive waste and other contaminants.
The oil and gas industry could be on the hook for billions of
dollars as a growing number of states consider making the
sector pay for climate impacts such as floods and sea-level
rise. At least four states are debating legislation, modeled on
the federal Superfund program for contaminated land, that would
hold major fossil fuel companies liable for damage caused by
the historical emissions of their products. In Vermont, which
saw record flooding last year, a majority of the House and a
supermajority of the Senate have signed onto the proposal, all
but ensuring it will pass. Similar bills have been introduced
in New York — where it already has passed the Senate — as well
as Massachusetts and Maryland.
As an endorheic—or terminal—lake with no outlet, Mono Lake
loses water naturally only through evaporation. Evaporation is
a complex process, influenced by radiation, wind, temperature,
and humidity. The rate of evaporation varies across seasons and
over the lake’s surface. With no long-term observational data
of evaporation at Mono Lake, the effect of evaporation on the
water balance is not well understood. Longtime Mono Lake
Committee hydrogeographer Peter Vorster studied evaporation
here for a short period in the early 1980s. He determined Mono
Lake loses nearly four vertical feet of water to evaporation
each year. With a more current understanding of evaporation
specifically at Mono Lake, the Committee can better estimate
lake level fluctuation.
The planet has experienced its ninth consecutive month of
record-breaking warmth, with a simmering February rounding out
the Northern Hemisphere’s hottest meteorological winter on
record, international climate officials announced this week.
The global surface temperature in February was 56.4 degrees —
about 0.2 degrees warmer than the previous February record set
in 2016, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate
Change Service. … While much of the Northern hemisphere,
including the United States, experienced its warmest
meteorological winter on record, parts of Southern California
and Los Angeles saw temperatures below their historical
average, according to a report from AccuWeather. The state
ended the month with a major winter blizzard that dumped
up to 10 feet of snow across portions of the Sierra
Nevada.
Sprawl development built far from city centers carries direct
and indirect costs that pull resources away from existing
neighborhoods, harming communities and natural habitats,
according to a new report published by the Center for
Biological Diversity. The True Cost of Sprawl analyzed the
environmental harms — including pollution, wildfire risks and
public health threats — that come with poor land-use decisions.
It found that suburban and exurban housing developments
increase per capita infrastructure costs by 50%, pulling public
funds from schools, parks, public transportation and other
needs in existing communities for things like new roads and
sewer systems.
To adapt to climate extremes and become more water resilient in
California, modernizing the state’s water data—including the
way it is collected, stored, shared and used—may lead to more
informed decisions. Improving data practices to best manage
California’s water resources helped drive discussions last week
as state and local water managers, farmers, environmentalists
and others gathered in Sacramento for the 62nd annual
California Irrigation Institute Conference. … With a
theme of “Fluid Futures: Adapting to Extremes,” the Feb. 26-27
event focused on leveraging information and data technology to
help with water-management decisions. Erin Urquhart, water
resources program manager for the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, offered insights on the benefits of
Earth-observing missions that gather water data from space.
The Watershed Protection and Forest Recovery Act would create a
new Emergency Forest Watershed Program at the U.S. Department
of Agriculture to aid and streamline watershed recovery efforts
on U.S. Forest Service lands. The bill is intended to help
communities protect their water supply after natural disasters
on U.S. Forest Service lands. The bill was introduced by U.S.
Senators Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Mitt Romney, R-Utah alongside
U.S. Representatives Joe Neguse, D-Colo., Celeste Maloy,
R-Utah, Yadira Caraveo, D-Colo. and John Curtis, R-Utah.
According to a press release sent by Bennet’s office, following
the East Troublesome Fire, water providers faced obstacles that
limited their ability to protect drinking water supplies for
communities downstream of the fire.
U.S. utility-scale renewable electricity generation fell in
2023 due to weather patterns that reduced output from wind
farms and drought that affected hydropower. Data released by
the Energy Information Administration shows a decrease of 0.8
percent compared to the prior year. This is a stunning result,
considering that utility-scale renewables have been a
fast-growing part of the electricity mix and are a crucial
resource for the country’s transition away from fossil fuels.
… Hydropower plants generated 239,855 gigawatt-hours,
down 5.9 percent from 2022. The main reason for the decrease
was a drop in water levels at hydroelectric dams in
areas experiencing drought.
America’s rivers are changing rapidly due to climate change,
and fish are getting confused as a result, a new study has
found. The study, published in the journal Science by
scientists at the University of Leeds in the U.K., found that
climate change is disrupting the seasonal flows of rivers
around the world, which is posing a serious threat to water
supply and ecosystems. Rivers and their reservoirs provide
water for human use, whether for drinking or agricultural
purposes, meaning that changes to their flows can greatly
affect everyday life. … Climate change is also causing
more extreme weather patterns. An example of this can be seen
in California. The state was in the grips of a severe drought
for years, until last year the prolonged dry period was broken
by a deluge of intense storms. These storms caused severe
flooding and landslides that greatly disrupted local
communities.
Audubon California and partners released their San Francisco
Bay Eelgrass Habitat Suitability Model, a powerful new tool
that highlights future-resilient locations within the bay most
suitable for restoration of eelgrass, a linchpin species for
long-term bay health. The project was developed as a
collaboration between Audubon California, Merkel & Associates,
Inc., and Dr. Katharyn Boyer (Interim Director, Estuary and
Ocean Science Center, San Francisco State University), funded
by a grant from the California Ocean Protection Council.
… San Francisco Bay hosts an estimated 17% of
California’s eelgrass. Eelgrass (Zostera marina)
plays a critical role in the marine food web and bay ecosystem.
Not only does it provide home and food to a vast quantity of
marine life, including waterbirds like Surf
Scoters, Buffleheads, and Western Grebes - its
dense growth along the seafloor traps sediment and substrate, a
crucial factor in preventing coastal erosion.
When Allison Dodds hit the slopes at June Mountain Ski Resort
this past winter the mountain looked a little different than it
had in past years. Not only was there extra snow from 2023’s
historic precipitation, but there was also extra space between
the trees, making it easier for her to maneuver (and shred) her
way down the mountain. Why the extra space? Over the past
two years, CalTrout and Inyo National Forest have been working
together to restore and remove infested and dead whitebark pine
trees on June Mountain. Dodds works as a Project Manager for
CalTrout’s Sierra Headwaters region, and she leads the June
Mountain Forest Health Project. After a century of fire
suppression, forests across the state have become densely
packed and overloaded with dead wood that is primed to burn
intensely and causes fires to spread quickly.
There is a solar-powered revolution going on in the fields of
India. By 2026, more than 3 million farmers will be raising
irrigation water from beneath their fields using solar-powered
pumps. With effectively free water available in almost
unlimited quantities to grow their crops, their lives could be
transformed. Until the water runs out. The desert state of
Rajasthan is the Indian pioneer and has more solar pumps than
any other. Over the past decade, the government has given
subsidized solar pumps to almost 100,000 farmers. Those pumps
now water more than a million acres and have enabled
agricultural water use to increase by more than a quarter. But
as a result, water tables are falling rapidly. There is little
rain to replace the water being pumped to the surface. In
places, the underground rocks are now dry down to 400 feet
below ground.
Pacific Coast Highway closing during high tides or heavy
rainstorms near the Bolsa Chica wetlands is a common problem
for drivers in the area, and Caltrans officials say they are
looking to address the flooding problems in the future. When
asked if Caltrans had plans to address the flooding concerns
along that stretch of road at a recent Huntington Beach City
Council meeting, Caltrans District 12 Asset Manager Bassem
Barsoum said officials are working on a plan. Storms earlier
this month forced a 93 hour closure of the road in town to
traffic.
Scientists are sounding the alarm that a crucial component of
the planet’s climate system is in gradual decline and could one
day reach a tipping point that would radically alter global
weather patterns. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning
Circulation, or AMOC, is a system of ocean currents that
circulate water in the Atlantic Ocean like a conveyor belt,
helping to redistribute heat and regulate global and regional
climates. New research, however, warns that the AMOC is
weakening under a warming climate, and could potentially suffer
a dangerous and abrupt collapse with worldwide consequences.
… Considering the AMOC is the workhorse of the Atlantic,
the consequences of such a collapse would result in “hugely
chaotic changes in global weather patterns” that extend far
beyond the Atlantic, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist
with UCLA who was not involved in the study.
One of Colorado’s leading urban water conservation strategies —
turf replacement — could require up to $2.5 billion to save
20,000 acre-feet of water, according to a recent report
commissioned by the state’s top water policy agency. Colorado
communities are facing a drier future with water shortages and
searching for ways to cut down water use. … This
turf-focused strategy has gained new momentum since 2020 and
2021, when the water crisis in the Colorado River Basin became
shockingly apparent (to more than just water experts)
as two enormous reservoirs, lakes Mead and Powell, fell to
historic lows.
In October, CSU Monterey Bay received a $1.13 million grant
from the U.S. Geological Survey to support their ongoing role
in a project called OpenET. The tool uses satellites to
calculate how much water is lost to the air after being applied
to farmland. “There are still gaps in the information and
understanding between how much water we need and how much we
are actually using,” said Dr. AJ Purdy, a senior research
scientist at CSUMB working on the project. “This project fills
a big gap.” OpenET uses satellites from NASA, USGS, and others
to measure evapotranspiration, or the amount of water that
evaporates from soil combined with the water that transpires
through plants — traveling from the roots and evaporating off
the leaves. The satellites measure reflectance — energy from
the sun that bounces off the Earth, which hits the satellites
in different wavelengths that correspond to color. OpenET
measures plant coverage, so it looks for green.
On a late autumn day, a team of forestry workers spreads out
among the burned trunks of giant sequoia trees. The
1,000-year-old trees in the grove are dead but still standing,
killed in an extreme wildfire that raced through Sequoia and
Kings Canyon National Parks. In the shadow of one of the trees,
the crew gets to work, pulling tiny, 4-inch seedlings out of
bags clipped to their belts and tucking them into the dirt.
… Over only two years, about one-fifth of all giant
sequoias have been killed in extreme wildfires in California.
The numbers shocked ecologists, since the enormous trees can
live more than 2,000 years and have evolved to live with
frequent, low-intensity fires in the Sierra Nevada. Recent
fires have burned bigger and more intensely than sequoias are
accustomed to, a result of the way humans have changed the
forest.
On a mid-winter morning in central California, Alyson Hunter
and Bruce Delgado gathered at the Marina State Beach parking
lot, the sea raging in the distance. Heavy rolling waves gushed
toward shore, crumbling before the dune. The temperature was in
the high 40s, though the morning sun was strong and the air was
nearly still. … Without a coordinated state-wide
plan for sea level rise, however, cities and towns have arrived
at vastly different approaches to their shared problem. This
lack of coordination along the coast could present additional
challenges down the line, sparing certain areas at first but
ultimately worsening the impacts of sea level rise for more
economically and environmentally vulnerable communities.
It has been far too dry for far too long in Mexico as a
combination of drying reservoirs and increasing population has
caused concerns of a water crisis. According to data from
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, most
of Mexico, including areas around and to the north of Mexico
City, are in a long-term drought. … Local media
reports that reservoirs could completely be out of water
by late August if conditions don’t improve. … Elizabeth
Carter, an assistant professor of civil engineering and earth
sciences at Syracuse University … notes … that the U.S
engineering projects in rivers that feed many of Mexico’s
northern freshwater sources run dry before reaching Mexico. She
cites the Hoover Dam, Glen Canyon Dam, and the Central Arizona
Project (Colorado River) as examples.
A local community health organization and a national
environmental group said they are negotiating with the
developer of the Hell’s Kitchen lithium and geothermal power
projects and have won an extension of at least 15 days to
appeal Imperial County approvals of Controlled Thermal
Resources’ first phase construction near the Salton
Sea. ”Comite Civico del Valle and Earthworks have reached
an agreement with CTR to extend the filing deadline for
litigation and we are currently in negotiations,” Luis Olmedo,
executive director of Comite Civico del Valle based in Brawley,
said in a statement Thursday. Earthworks, headquartered in
Washington, D.C., focuses on helping communities end fossil
fuel use while ensuring a safe and equitable transition to
clean energy.
We know that greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide
should increase rainfall. The emissions heat the atmosphere,
causing a one-two punch: warmer oceans make it easier for water
to evaporate, and warmer air can hold more water vapor, meaning
more moisture is available to fall as rain. But for much of the
20th century, that increase in precipitation didn’t clearly
show up in the data. A new study led by researchers at the
Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
(Berkeley Lab) finds that the expected increase in rain has
been largely offset by the drying effect of aerosols –
emissions like sulfur dioxide that are produced by burning
fossil fuels, and commonly thought of as air pollution or
smog.
Forests in the coolest, wettest parts of the western Pacific
Northwest are likely to see the biggest increases in burn
probability, fire size and number of blazes as the climate
continues to get warmer and drier, according to new modeling
led by an Oregon State University scientist. Understanding how
fire regimes may change under future climate scenarios is
critical for developing adaptation strategies, said the study’s
lead author, Alex Dye. Findings were published today in JGR
Biogeosciences. … Forests in all of the affected areas
are linchpins of multiple socio-ecological systems in the
Northwest, Dye said, meaning more fire will likely put pressure
on everything from drinking water sources and timber resources
to biodiversity and carbon stocks.
Former Hurricane Hilary was actually no longer a tropical storm
but essentially had the same impact when its destructive
remnants entered California last August, according to a new
National Hurricane Center report. Damage from Hilary was
estimated at $900 million in the United States. Three deaths
were directly related to the storm, including two in Mexico and
one that occurred in California when a woman was washed away in
her home. Hurricane Hilary moved north off Mexico’s Pacific
coast and weakened to a tropical storm before making landfall
in northern Baja California in Mexico, where its center became
less defined as it encountered mountainous terrain and other
atmospheric conditions, the report said.
As California continues to adapt to the impacts of a changing
climate, the State must work to identify future sources of
safe, reliable water for all. This week, the Department of
Water Resources (DWR) released a report identifying future
planned desalination projects to help meet the brackish water
supply goals identified in California’s Water Supply Strategy:
Adapting to a Hotter, Drier Future. As a key strategy in the
Water Supply Strategy, desalination is the process of removing
salts and minerals from brackish water and seawater to produce
water suitable for drinking water, irrigation and other supply
needs. Brackish water is a mix of freshwater and saltwater and
occurs in a natural environment that has
more salinity than freshwater, but not as much
as seawater. In 2020, over 100,000 acre-feet of brackish
water was desalinated for drinking water, which was two-thirds
of the desalinated water produced and used in California.
At the dawn of the new year in 1997, the Truckee River
transformed. The winter season had thus far been great for
snow, but when a subtropical storm from near the Hawaiian
Islands rolled in, it carried with it unseasonably warm rain.
The warm rainfall combined with snowmelt to swell the rivers,
with the Truckee burying much of downtown Reno under water. Two
people were killed amidst the nearly $1 billion disaster, and
it wasn’t the first nor the last time that warm rains triggered
severe flooding in the area. These types of storms, called
“rain-on-snow” storms, can produce river flows 50-80% higher
than typical spring snowmelt. Nevada cities nestled against the
dramatic peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains are at
particularly high risk from these storms: Reno and Carson City
have records of flooding linked to these storms as early as
1862 and as recent as 2017.
In the quest to bolster domestic lithium production, a county
in Southern California is emerging as a crucial player. The
Salton Sea, a salty lake located in Imperial County three hours
east of Los Angeles, contains some of the world’s largest
lithium deposits. According to a Department of Energy report
published last November, there are approximately 18 million
tons of lithium here—enough to meet the demand for 375 million
EV batteries, significantly more than all EVs currently on
American roads. But there’s a catch. Extracting lithium
from the Salton Sea involves a special extraction method that
hasn’t been proven yet, leaving uncertainty about its
commercial viability.
More than 70 percent of Nevadans consider water supply and
lowering river levels a serious issue, but only a little more
than half believe climate change is, a Colorado College poll
released Wednesday shows. Water continues to be a hot-button
issue for voters who are looking for leaders who can best
address diminishing water availability as the Colorado River
faces historic challenges. Nevada, the driest state in the
nation, is second only to Arizona among Western states for
concern about water. … Though water appears to be at the
top of most Nevadans’ priority lists, only 56 percent of state
residents feel climate change is an extremely or very serious
problem.
Rapidly rising seas are wreaking havoc on Louisiana’s
coastal wetlands, and could devastate three-quarters of
the state’s natural buffer against hurricanes in the
coming decades, scientists found in a study published
Thursday. The new research documents how a sudden
burst of sea level rise over the past 13 years — the type
of surge once not expected until later this century — has left
the overwhelming majority of the state’s coastal wetland sites
in a state of current or expected “drowning,” where the seas
are rising faster than wetlands can grow. … The news is
dire for a state that has already lost over 2,000 square
miles of wetland area since 1932, bringing the ocean ever
closer to New Orleans and other population centers and leaving
them more vulnerable to storms.
Another company has given up on trying to develop oil shale in
the Uinta Basin, faced with legal battles, environmental
concerns and money going down the drain. Estonia’s national
energy company announced that it was wrapping up its fruitless
oil shale venture in Utah at the end of last month. Estonia
Finance Minister Mart Võrklaev said that the company’s project
in Utah was “neither profitable nor promising” in a news
release. … Oil shale is a hard sedimentary rock that can
be heated to release synthetic crude oil. It’s a thirsty and
expensive process that threatens air quality, water quality and
endangered species, and exacerbates global warming, according
to nonprofit Grand Canyon Trust staff attorney
Michael Toll.
Superstorms, abrupt climate shifts and New York City frozen in
ice. That’s how the blockbuster Hollywood movie “The Day After
Tomorrow” depicted an abrupt shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean’s
circulation and the catastrophic consequences. While
Hollywood’s vision was over the top, the 2004 movie raised a
serious question: If global warming shuts down the Atlantic
Meridional Overturning Circulation, which is crucial for
carrying heat from the tropics to the northern latitudes, how
abrupt and severe would the climate changes be? Twenty years
after the movie’s release, we know a lot more about the
Atlantic Ocean’s circulation. Instruments deployed in the ocean
starting in 2004 show that the Atlantic Ocean circulation has
observably slowed over the past two decades, possibly to its
weakest state in almost a millennium.
The coastal town of Pacifica is toeing a fine line, balancing
Coastal Commission regulations on sea-level rise and erosion,
which favors strict remodel standards and minimizing armoring
in threatened areas, with residents’ desire to protect property
and homes with physical barriers and redevelopment. Scientists
refer to a gradual pullback from the coastal shoreline to move
development out of harm’s way as “managed retreat” — a term the
Pacifica City Council rejected outright when preparing a 2020
draft of their Local Coastal Land Use Plan, a document which
regulates land use, resource protection and development along
the coast.
Winter snowpacks are an important source of water in the West,
and their size can impact fire seasons. But researchers are
finding that wildfires themselves can impact snowpack. Bright,
white fresh snow has a high albedo, meaning it reflects much of
the sun’s light. But wildfires, which are increasing in size
and frequency, can substantially reduce the reflective power of
snow for years. Blazes can also burn off the tree canopy,
exposing snow to more sun. “Following a fire, snow
disappears four to 23 days earlier and melt rates increase by
up to 57%,” reads the opening of a 2022 paper that
University of Nevada Reno geography professor Anne Nolin
co-authored. A 2023 paper she also co-authored looked
at burns in California and had similar findings.
For many Southern Californians, [flooding and landslides are]
the new normal. Homes once prized for hillside views and
apartment complexes on low-lying urban streets alike are
increasingly under threat from severe flooding, mudslides and
heavy winds. Wildfires and earthquakes have long been the focus
of concern, but the consequences of wet storms are only now
beginning to generate similar levels of alarm. The Rivases [a
family in West Hills] had renters insurance when they
lived in a house a few doors down. But when they moved in
November, they couldn’t get a policy because of the location.
What’s been called the “disaster insurance gap” has become an
increasingly dire concern in recent years. Even those who have
insurance but live in imperiled places are often unable to
secure sufficient policies to protect their residences and
belongings.
Nearly three years after Gov. Gavin Newsom directed it,
California’s oil and gas industry regulator kickstarted a
process to outright ban hydraulic fracturing, the fossil fuel
extraction method known as ‘fracking.’ Fracking permits have
not been issued in the state since 2021, but environmentalists
celebrated the move as a win in the fight against climate
change. Oil industry groups called it yet another example of
regulatory overreach and argued it could lead to higher oil
prices. … As the practice exploded in the
mid-2000s, research gave fracking a reputation for pollution
and public health dangers. Fracking not only is water
intensive, it releases potent greenhouse gases such as methane
and benzyne and can contaminate groundwater basins with
chemical additives.
Lawmakers want Californians to have the chance to vote on a new
measure they believe would save the Bay from future flooding.
On Friday, lawmakers and climate advocates on the Peninsula
proposed a vote to help protect people, homes and businesses
near the water. “Low-lying communities are all at risk but the
impacts of sea level rise will soon be felt by all residents of
the Bay Area,” said Assemblymemebr Damon Connolly.
Specifically, they’re pushing for a $16 billion climate
resiliency bond. It covers many issues, including wildfire
prevention, and clean energy – but it would also fund some of
the projects that non-profit Save the Bay says are urgently
needed.
Last May, a Bay Area company curiously named Montezuma Wetlands
submitted an application to the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency to build a “CarbonHub” in Solano County’s Montezuma
Wetlands. According to the proposal, the project would involve
drilling a well for carbon injection and establishing an
extensive expansion of submerged pipelines across San Francisco
Bay. Almost immediately the project rightfully came under fire
from our organization and many others due to the reality that
such a venture would threaten public health, degrade the local
environment and stall legitimate climate action. Indeed, carbon
capture and sequestration (CCS) — the process of trapping and
storing climate pollution before it enters the atmosphere — has
never worked in the real world and, in an ironic twist, has
mostly been embraced by major polluters who see it as a way to
claim they are cleaning up their act without changing
anything. -Written by Chirag Bhakta, California director of Food
& Water Watch.
The Bureau of Reclamation today published an overview of
historical natural losses along the lower Colorado River. The
Mainstream Evaporation and Riparian Evapotranspiration report
looks at water surface evaporation, soil moisture evaporation,
and plant transpiration. It will be used by Reclamation as a
source of data as it manages regional water operations and to
improve the agency’s modeling efforts. … The report
provides an overview of average mainstream losses from both
river and reservoir evaporation, as well as the evaporation and
transpiration associated with vegetation and habitats along the
river. The report states that approximately 1.3-million-acre
feet of losses occur annually along the lower Colorado River
mainstream. Based on data from 2017 to 2021, approximately
860,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water is lost to
evaporation occurring annually from Lake Mead to the border
with Mexico. A further 445,000 acre-feet is lost to evaporation
and transpiration from natural vegetation and habitats.
A bipartisan team of lawmakers from Colorado and Utah are
urging Congress to help safeguard the nation’s watersheds by
considering a new bill aimed at expediting the cleanup of
contamination caused by wildfires. The Watershed
Protection and Forest Recovery Act, co-sponsored by
Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Mitt
Romney (R-Utah), would accelerate watershed recovery
efforts on federal land, while also protecting private property
and water resources downstream.
The current El Niño is now one of the strongest on record, new
data shows, catapulting it into rare “super El Niño” territory,
but forecasters believe that La Niña is likely to develop in
the coming months. … But this so-called super El Niño’s
strength won’t last long – it has reached its peak strength and
is headed on a downward trend, said Michelle L’Heureux, a
climate scientist with the Climate Prediction Center.
… A La Niña watch is now in effect, meaning conditions
are favorable for a La Niña to form within the next six months,
according to a forecast released by the CPC Thursday.
The moment Daniel Swain wakes up, he gets whipped about by
hurricane-force winds. “A Category 5, literally overnight, hits
Acapulco,” says the 34-year-old climate scientist and
self-described weather geek, who gets battered daily by the
onslaught of catastrophic weather headlines: wildfires,
megafloods, haboobs (an intense dust storm), atmospheric
rivers, bomb cyclones. Everyone’s asking: Did climate change
cause these disasters? And, more and more, they want Swain to
answer. … His ability to explain science to the masses—think
the Carl Sagan of weather—has made him one of the media’s go-to
climate experts. He’s a staff research scientist at UCLA’s
Institute of the Environment and Sustainability who spends more
than 1,100 hours each year on public-facing climate and weather
communication, explaining whether (often, yes) and how climate
change is raising the number and exacerbating the viciousness
of weather disasters.
The laws of thermodynamics dictate that a warmer atmosphere can
hold more water vapor, but new research has found
that atmospheric moisture has not increased as expected over
arid and semi-arid regions of the world as the climate has
warmed. The findings are particularly puzzling because climate
models have been predicting that the atmosphere will become
more moist, even over dry regions. If the atmosphere is drier
than anticipated, arid and semi-arid regions may be even more
vulnerable to future wildfires and extreme heat than projected.
The authors of the new study, led by the U.S. National Science
Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), are
uncertain what’s causing the discrepancy.
The California sea otter, once hunted to the edge of
extinction, has staged a thrilling comeback in the last
century. Now, a team of scientists has discovered that the
otters’ success story has led to something just as remarkable:
the restoration of their declining coastal marsh habitat. “To
me, it’s quite an optimistic message,” says Christine Angelini,
a coastal ecologist at the University of Florida and one of the
authors of the study published in the journal Nature. It’s a
demonstration, she says, “that the conservation of a top
predator can really enhance the health and the resilience of a
system that’s otherwise under a large portfolio of stress.”
… Elkhorn Slough in Monterey Bay, California is
the second largest estuary in the US. For decades, it
was falling apart. ”They opened up a new harbor in the
1940’s that created this full permanent opening to the ocean,”
says Brent Hughes, a marine ecologist at Sonoma State
University. “And so all this new tidal energy was eroding away
the marshes.”
Starting Feb. 10, beavers will have more eyes on them as the
SLO Beaver Brigade and the Atascadero City Council team up to
celebrate their contributions to California’s ecosystem.
Beginning at 9 a.m. at the De Anza Trailhead in front of the
Atascadero wastewater treatment facility, the Central Coast
organization will unveil a new interpretive panel. SLO Beaver
Brigade Executive Director Audrey Taub told New Times that two
new interpretive panels and kiosks along the Juan Bautista De
Anza Trail will display information on beaver habits.
… Taub said these wetlands are a refuge for the local
animals and serve as firebreaks for cities and towns along the
Salinas River. To help fund these new interpretive panels,
Taub said SLO Beaver Brigade received a Whale Tail
Grant of a little more than $40,000 from the California
Coastal Commission.
Two months after its release in November 2022, OpenAI’s ChatGPT
had 100 million active users, and suddenly tech corporations
were racing to offer the public more “generative A.I.” Pundits
compared the new technology’s impact to the Internet, or
electrification, or the Industrial Revolution — or the
discovery of fire. Time will sort hype from reality, but one
consequence of the explosion of artificial intelligence is
clear: this technology’s environmental footprint is large and
growing. A.I. use is directly responsible for carbon emissions
from non-renewable electricity and for the consumption of
millions of gallons of fresh water, and it indirectly boosts
impacts from building and maintaining the power-hungry
equipment on which A.I. runs. As tech companies seek to embed
high-intensity A.I. into everything from resume-writing to
kidney transplant medicine and from choosing dog food to
climate modeling, they cite many ways A.I. could help reduce
humanity’s environmental footprint.
Like many places across the West, two things are on a collision
course in Utah’s southwest corner: growth and water. Washington
County’s population has quadrupled since 1990. St. George, its
largest city, has been the fastest-growing metro area in the
nation in recent years. And projections from the University of
Utah say the county’s population — now at nearly 200,000 people
— could double again by 2050. The region has essentially
tapped out the Colorado River tributary it depends on now, the
Virgin River. So, the big question is: where will the water for
all those new residents come from? … The district’s
20-year plan comes down to two big ideas: reusing and
conserving the water it already has.
Los Angeles County’s Byzantine flood control system has thus
far absorbed near-record precipitation — a feat that officials
say was made possible by extensive preparations, including the
massive dredging of key debris basins and clearing of storm
drains in areas deemed most susceptible to flooding. But as the
most intense period of rain passed into history Monday, the
concern among local engineers and officials was whether flood
infrastructure built over the last 100 years and based on 20th
century hydrologic records can continue to keep up with
increasingly frequent extreme weather events propelled by
climate change. … From Sunday and into Monday, the
sprawling network of 18 dams, 487 miles of flood-control
channels, 3,300 miles of underground storm drain channels and
dozens of debris basins managed to steer countless gallons of
water and flowing debris away from communities in historic
flood plains.
Two far-flung corners of the world, known for their temperate
climates, are being buffeted by deadly disasters. Wildfires
have killed more than 120 people as they swept the forested
hillsides of Chile, and record-breaking rains have swelled
rivers and triggered mudslides in Southern California. Behind
these risks are two powerful forces: Climate change, which can
intensify both rain and drought, and the natural weather
phenomenon known as El Niño, which can also supersize extreme
weather. In California, meteorologists had been warning
for days that an unusually strong storm, known as an
atmospheric river, was gathering force because of
extraordinarily high Pacific Ocean temperatures.
When you drive through parts of rural Arizona, it’s hard to
imagine that cattle ranchers once came here for the grass. But
Eduardo Pagan, a history professor at Arizona State University,
says the state looked different a couple of centuries ago. …
Cattle ranching helped shape rural Arizona into what it is
today. It was one of the five C’s that once formed the backbone
of the state’s economy, along with copper, citrus, cotton and
climate. But many ideas we have about the history of
grazing are wrong, and researchers say that cattle have emerged
as a major driver of climate change. Conservationists say it’s
time to re-examine grazing on public lands. … Ranching
has changed the way wildfire moves across the landscape.
Ranching also helped introduce invasive plants, as new grasses
were planted to offset overgrazing. Grasslands have been turned
into deserts. Streambeds that once nourished shady cottonwoods
and willows bake in the sun after cows eat the young trees.
Wildfires burn bigger and hotter.
State health officials know that extreme heat can cost lives
and send people to the hospital, just like wildfire smoke. Now,
new research finds that when people are exposed to both hazards
simultaneously — as is increasingly the case in California —
heart and respiratory crises outpace the expected sum of
hospitalizations compared to when the conditions occur
separately. … The study joins a growing body of research
about the intersection of different climate risks. Last month,
California-based think-tank the Pacific
Institute published a report about how converging
hazards — including wildfires, drought, flooding, sea level
rise and intensifying storms — are harming access to drinking
water and sanitation in California and other parts of the
world. The deadly 2018 Camp fire in Butte
County impacted an estimated 2,438 private wells, the
report said.
After more than two decades of
drought, water utilities serving the largest urban regions in the
arid Southwest are embracing a drought-proof source of drinking
water long considered a supply of last resort: purified sewage.
Water supplies have tightened to the point that Phoenix and the
water supplier for 19 million Southern California residents are
racing to adopt an expensive technology called “direct potable
reuse” or “advanced purification” to reduce their reliance on
imported water from the dwindling Colorado River.
The climate-driven shrinking of the
Colorado River is expanding the influence of Native American
tribes over how the river’s flows are divided among cities, farms
and reservations across the Southwest.
The tribes are seeing the value of their largely unused river
water entitlements rise as the Colorado dwindles, and they are
gaining seats they’ve never had at the water bargaining table as
government agencies try to redress a legacy of exclusion.
Every five years the California Department of Water Resources
updates its strategic plan for managing the state’s water
resources, as required by state law.
The California Water Plan, or Bulletin 160, projects the
status and trends of the state’s water supplies and demands
under a range of future scenarios.
A new but little-known change in
California law designating aquifers as “natural infrastructure”
promises to unleash a flood of public funding for projects that
increase the state’s supply of groundwater.
The change is buried in a sweeping state budget-related law,
enacted in July, that also makes it easier for property owners
and water managers to divert floodwater for storage underground.
The states of the Lower Colorado
River Basin have traditionally played an oversized role in
tapping the lifeline that supplies 40 million people in the West.
California, Nevada and Arizona were quicker to build major canals
and dams and negotiated a landmark deal that requires the Upper
Basin to send predictable flows through the Grand Canyon, even
during dry years.
But with the federal government threatening unprecedented water
cuts amid decades of drought and declining reservoirs, the Upper
Basin states of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico are
muscling up to protect their shares of an overallocated river
whose average flows in the Upper Basin have already dropped
20 percent over the last century.
They have formed new agencies to better monitor their interests,
moved influential Colorado River veterans into top negotiating
posts and improved their relationships with Native American
tribes that also hold substantial claims to the river.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
This special Foundation water tour journeyed along the Eastern Sierra from the Truckee River to Mono Lake, through the Owens Valley and into the Mojave Desert to explore a major source of water for Southern California, this year’s snowpack and challenges for towns, farms and the environment.
Growing up in the shadow of the
Rocky Mountains, Andrew Schwartz never missed an opportunity to
play in – or study – a Colorado snowstorm. During major
blizzards, he would traipse out into the icy wind and heavy
drifts of snow pretending to be a scientist researching in
Antarctica.
Decades later, still armed with an obsession for extreme weather,
Schwartz has landed in one of the snowiest places in the West,
leading a research lab whose mission is to give California water
managers instant information on the depth and quality of snow
draping the slopes of the Sierra Nevada.
When the Colorado River Compact was
signed 100 years ago, the negotiators for seven Western states
bet that the river they were dividing would have ample water to
meet everyone’s needs – even those not seated around the table.
A century later, it’s clear the water they bet on is not there.
More than two decades of drought, lake evaporation and overuse of
water have nearly drained the river’s two anchor reservoirs, Lake
Powell on the Arizona-Utah border and Lake Mead near Las Vegas.
Climate change is rendering the basin drier, shrinking spring
runoff that’s vital for river flows, farms, tribes and cities
across the basin – and essential for refilling reservoirs.
The states that endorsed the Colorado River Compact in 1922 – and
the tribes and nation of Mexico that were excluded from the table
– are now straining to find, and perhaps more importantly accept,
solutions on a river that may offer just half of the water that
the Compact assumed would be available. And not only are
solutions not coming easily, the relationships essential for
compromise are getting more frayed.
With 25 years of experience working
on the Colorado River, Chuck Cullom is used to responding to
myriad challenges that arise on the vital lifeline that seven
states, more than two dozen tribes and the country of Mexico
depend on for water. But this summer problems on the
drought-stressed river are piling up at a dizzying pace:
Reservoirs plummeting to record low levels, whether Hoover Dam
and Glen Canyon Dam can continue to release water and produce
hydropower, unprecedented water cuts and predatory smallmouth
bass threatening native fish species in the Grand Canyon.
“Holy buckets, Batman!,” said Cullom, executive director of the
Upper Colorado River Commission. “I mean, it’s just on and on and
on.”
Managers of California’s most
overdrawn aquifers were given a monumental task under the state’s
landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act: Craft viable,
detailed plans on a 20-year timeline to bring their beleaguered
basins into balance. It was a task that required more than 250
newly formed local groundwater agencies – many of them in the
drought-stressed San Joaquin Valley – to set up shop, gather
data, hear from the public and collaborate with neighbors on
multiple complex plans, often covering just portions of a
groundwater basin.
Momentum is building for a unique
interstate deal that aims to transform wastewater from Southern
California homes and business into relief for the stressed
Colorado River. The collaborative effort to add resiliency to a
river suffering from overuse, drought and climate change is being
shaped across state lines by some of the West’s largest water
agencies.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
Climate scientist Brad Udall calls
himself the skunk in the room when it comes to the Colorado
River. Armed with a deck of PowerPoint slides and charts that
highlight the Colorado River’s worsening math, the Colorado State
University scientist offers a grim assessment of the river’s
future: Runoff from the river’s headwaters is declining, less
water is flowing into Lake Powell – the key reservoir near the
Arizona-Utah border – and at the same time, more water is being
released from the reservoir than it can sustainably provide.
The lower Colorado River has virtually every drop allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
For more than 20 years, Tanya
Trujillo has been immersed in the many challenges of the Colorado
River, the drought-stressed lifeline for 40 million people from
Denver to Los Angeles and the source of irrigation water for more
than 5 million acres of winter lettuce, supermarket melons and
other crops.
Trujillo has experience working in both the Upper and Lower
Basins of the Colorado River, basins that split the river’s water
evenly but are sometimes at odds with each other. She was a
lawyer for the state of New Mexico, one of four states in the
Upper Colorado River Basin, when key operating guidelines for
sharing shortages on the river were negotiated in 2007. She later
worked as executive director for the Colorado River Board of
California, exposing her to the different perspectives and
challenges facing California and the other states in the river’s
Lower Basin.
Land and waterway managers labored
hard over the course of a century to control California’s unruly
rivers by building dams and levees to slow and contain their
water. Now, farmers, environmentalists and agencies are undoing
some of that work as part of an accelerating campaign to restore
the state’s major floodplains.
Stretching 450 miles long and up to
50 miles wide, the Sierra Nevada makes up more than a quarter of
California’s land area and forms its largest watersheds,
providing more than half of the state’s developed water supply to
residents, agriculture and other businesses.*
Water is flowing once again
to the Colorado River’s delta in Mexico, a vast region that
was once a natural splendor before the iconic Western river was
dammed and diverted at the turn of the last century, essentially
turning the delta into a desert.
In 2012, the idea emerged that water could be intentionally sent
down the river to inundate the delta floodplain and regenerate
native cottonwood and willow trees, even in an overallocated
river system. Ultimately, dedicated flows of river water were
brokered under cooperative
efforts by the U.S. and Mexican governments.
This tour guided participants on a virtual journey deep into California’s most crucial water and ecological resource – the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The 720,000-acre network of islands and canals support the state’s two major water systems – the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project. The Delta and the connecting San Francisco Bay form the largest freshwater tidal estuary of its kind on the West coast.
Las Vegas, known for its searing summertime heat and glitzy casino fountains, is projected to get even hotter in the coming years as climate change intensifies. As temperatures rise, possibly as much as 10 degrees by end of the century, according to some models, water demand for the desert community is expected to spike. That is not good news in a fast-growing region that depends largely on a limited supply of water from an already drought-stressed Colorado River.
On average, more than 60 percent of
California’s developed water supply originates in the Sierra
Nevada and the southern spur of the Cascade Range. Our water
supply is largely dependent on the health of our Sierra forests,
which are suffering from ecosystem degradation, drought,
wildfires and widespread tree mortality.
This tour ventured into the Sierra to examine water issues
that happen upstream but have dramatic impacts downstream and
throughout the state.
As California’s seasons become
warmer and drier, state officials are pondering whether the water
rights permitting system needs revising to better reflect the
reality of climate change’s effect on the timing and volume of
the state’s water supply.
A report by the State Water Resources Control Board recommends
that new water rights permits be tailored to California’s
increasingly volatile hydrology and be adaptable enough to ensure
water exists to meet an applicant’s demand. And it warns
that the increasingly whiplash nature of California’s changing
climate could require existing rights holders to curtail
diversions more often and in more watersheds — or open
opportunities to grab more water in climate-induced floods.
Twenty years ago, the Colorado River
Basin’s hydrology began tumbling into a historically bad stretch.
The weather turned persistently dry. Water levels in the system’s
anchor reservoirs of Lake Powell and Lake Mead plummeted. A river
system relied upon by nearly 40 million people, farms and
ecosystems across the West was in trouble. And there was no guide
on how to respond.
Radically transformed from its ancient origin as a vast tidal-influenced freshwater marsh, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta ecosystem is in constant flux, influenced by factors within the estuary itself and the massive watersheds that drain though it into the Pacific Ocean.
Lately, however, scientists say the rate of change has kicked into overdrive, fueled in part by climate change, and is limiting the ability of science and Delta water managers to keep up. The rapid pace of upheaval demands a new way of conducting science and managing water in the troubled estuary.
Practically every drop of water that flows through the meadows, canyons and plains of the Colorado River Basin has reams of science attached to it. Snowpack, streamflow and tree ring data all influence the crucial decisions that guide water management of the iconic Western river every day.
Dizzying in its scope, detail and complexity, the scientific information on the Basin’s climate and hydrology has been largely scattered in hundreds of studies and reports. Some studies may conflict with others, or at least appear to. That’s problematic for a river that’s a lifeline for 40 million people and more than 4 million acres of irrigated farmland.
Sprawled across a desert expanse
along the Utah-Arizona border, Lake Powell’s nearly 100-foot high
bathtub ring etched on its sandstone walls belie the challenges
of a major Colorado River reservoir at less than half-full. How
those challenges play out as demand grows for the river’s water
amid a changing climate is fueling simmering questions about
Powell’s future.
This event explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
The islands of the western
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are sinking as the rich peat soil
that attracted generations of farmers dries out and decays. As
the peat decomposes, it releases tons of carbon dioxide – a
greenhouse gas – into the atmosphere. As the islands sink, the
levees that protect them are at increasing risk of failure, which
could imperil California’s vital water conveyance system.
An ambitious plan now in the works could halt the decay,
sequester the carbon and potentially reverse the sinking.
Shortly after taking office in 2019,
Gov. Gavin Newsom called on state agencies to deliver a Water
Resilience Portfolio to meet California’s urgent challenges —
unsafe drinking water, flood and drought risks from a changing
climate, severely depleted groundwater aquifers and native fish
populations threatened with extinction.
Within days, he appointed Nancy Vogel, a former journalist and
veteran water communicator, as director of the Governor’s Water
Portfolio Program to help shepherd the monumental task of
compiling all the information necessary for the portfolio. The
three state agencies tasked with preparing the document delivered
the draft Water Resilience Portfolio Jan. 3. The document, which
Vogel said will help guide policy and investment decisions
related to water resilience, is nearing the end of its comment
period, which goes through Friday, Feb. 7.
The Colorado River is arguably one
of the hardest working rivers on the planet, supplying water to
40 million people and a large agricultural economy in the West.
But it’s under duress from two decades of drought and decisions
made about its management will have exceptional ramifications for
the future, especially as impacts from climate change are felt.
Many of California’s watersheds are
notoriously flashy – swerving from below-average flows to jarring
flood conditions in quick order. The state needs all the water it
can get from storms, but current flood management guidelines are
strict and unyielding, requiring reservoirs to dump water each
winter to make space for flood flows that may not come.
However, new tools and operating methods are emerging that could
lead the way to a redefined system that improves both water
supply and flood protection capabilities.
It’s been a year since two devastating wildfires on opposite ends
of California underscored the harsh new realities facing water
districts and cities serving communities in or adjacent to the
state’s fire-prone wildlands. Fire doesn’t just level homes, it
can contaminate water, scorch watersheds, damage delivery systems
and upend an agency’s finances.
California is chock full of rivers and creeks, yet the state’s network of stream gauges has significant gaps that limit real-time tracking of how much water is flowing downstream, information that is vital for flood protection, forecasting water supplies and knowing what the future might bring.
That network of stream gauges got a big boost Sept. 30 with the signing of SB 19. Authored by Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa), the law requires the state to develop a stream gauge deployment plan, focusing on reactivating existing gauges that have been offline for lack of funding and other reasons. Nearly half of California’s stream gauges are dormant.
The Colorado River Basin’s 20 years
of drought and the dramatic decline in water levels at the
river’s key reservoirs have pressed water managers to adapt to
challenging conditions. But even more extreme — albeit rare —
droughts or floods that could overwhelm water managers may lie
ahead in the Basin as the effects of climate change take hold,
say a group of scientists. They argue that stakeholders who are
preparing to rewrite the operating rules of the river should plan
now for how to handle these so-called “black swan” events so
they’re not blindsided.
The majestic beauty of the Sierra
Nevada forest is awe-inspiring, but beneath the dazzling blue
sky, there is a problem: A century of fire suppression and
logging practices have left trees too close together. Millions of
trees have died, stricken by drought and beetle infestation.
Combined with a forest floor cluttered with dry brush and debris,
it’s a wildfire waiting to happen.
Fires devastate the Sierra watersheds upon which millions of
Californians depend — scorching the ground, unleashing a
battering ram of debris and turning hillsides into gelatinous,
stream-choking mudflows.
Even as stakeholders in the Colorado River Basin celebrate the recent completion of an unprecedented drought plan intended to stave off a crashing Lake Mead, there is little time to rest. An even larger hurdle lies ahead as they prepare to hammer out the next set of rules that could vastly reshape the river’s future.
Set to expire in 2026, the current guidelines for water deliveries and shortage sharing, launched in 2007 amid a multiyear drought, were designed to prevent disputes that could provoke conflict.
One of California Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s first actions after taking office was to appoint Wade
Crowfoot as Natural Resources Agency secretary. Then, within
weeks, the governor laid out an ambitious water agenda that
Crowfoot, 45, is now charged with executing.
That agenda includes the governor’s desire for a “fresh approach”
on water, scaling back the conveyance plan in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta and calling for more water recycling, expanded
floodplains in the Central Valley and more groundwater recharge.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs is the focus of this tour.
Silverton Hotel
3333 Blue Diamond Road
Las Vegas, NV 89139
Although Santa Monica may be the most aggressive Southern California water provider to wean itself from imported supplies, it is hardly the only one looking to remake its water portfolio.
In Los Angeles, a city of about 4 million people, efforts are underway to dramatically slash purchases of imported water while boosting the amount from recycling, stormwater capture, groundwater cleanup and conservation. Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014 announced a plan to reduce the city’s purchase of imported water from Metropolitan Water District by one-half by 2025 and to provide one-half of the city’s supply from local sources by 2035. (The city considers its Eastern Sierra supplies as imported water.)
Imported water from the Sierra
Nevada and the Colorado River built Southern California. Yet as
drought, climate change and environmental concerns render those
supplies increasingly at risk, the Southland’s cities have ramped
up their efforts to rely more on local sources and less on
imported water.
Far and away the most ambitious goal has been set by the city of
Santa Monica, which in 2014 embarked on a course to be virtually
water independent through local sources by 2023. In the 1990s,
Santa Monica was completely dependent on imported water. Now, it
derives more than 70 percent of its water locally.
The growing leadership of women in water. The Colorado River’s persistent drought and efforts to sign off on a plan to avert worse shortfalls of water from the river. And in California’s Central Valley, promising solutions to vexing water resource challenges.
These were among the topics that Western Water news explored in 2018.
We’re already planning a full slate of stories for 2019. You can sign up here to be alerted when new stories are published. In the meantime, take a look at what we dove into in 2018:
As stakeholders labor to nail down
effective and durable drought contingency plans for the Colorado
River Basin, they face a stark reality: Scientific research is
increasingly pointing to even drier, more challenging times
ahead.
The latest sobering assessment landed the day after Thanksgiving,
when U.S. Global Change Research Program’s Fourth National Climate
Assessment concluded that Earth’s climate is changing rapidly
compared to the pace of natural variations that have occurred
throughout its history, with greenhouse gas emissions largely the
cause.
In the universe of California water, Tim Quinn is a professor emeritus. Quinn has seen — and been a key player in — a lot of major California water issues since he began his water career 40 years ago as a young economist with the Rand Corporation, then later as deputy general manager with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and finally as executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. In December, the 66-year-old will retire from ACWA.
Just because El Niño may be lurking
off in the tropical Pacific, does that really offer much of a
clue about what kind of rainy season California can expect in
Water Year 2019?
Will a river of storms pound the state, swelling streams and
packing the mountains with deep layers of heavy snow much like
the exceptionally wet 2017 Water Year (Oct. 1, 2016 to Sept. 30,
2017)? Or will this winter sputter along like last winter,
leaving California with a second dry year and the possibility of
another potential drought? What can reliably be said about the
prospects for Water Year 2019?
At Water Year
2019: Feast or Famine?, a one-day event on Dec. 5 in Irvine,
water managers and anyone else interested in this topic will
learn about what is and isn’t known about forecasting
California’s winter precipitation weeks to months ahead, the
skill of present forecasts and ongoing research to develop
predictive ability.
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
Amy Haas recently became the first non-engineer and the first woman to serve as executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission in its 70-year history, putting her smack in the center of a host of daunting challenges facing the Upper Colorado River Basin.
Yet those challenges will be quite familiar to Haas, an attorney who for the past year has served as deputy director and general counsel of the commission. (She replaced longtime Executive Director Don Ostler). She has a long history of working within interstate Colorado River governance, including representing New Mexico as its Upper Colorado River commissioner and playing a central role in the negotiation of the recently signed U.S.-Mexico agreement known as Minute 323.
Sixty percent of California’s developed water supply
originates high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Our water
supply is largely dependent on the health of our Sierra forests,
which are suffering from ecosystem degradation, drought,
wildfires and widespread tree mortality.
We headed into the foothills and the mountains to examine
water issues that happen upstream but have dramatic impacts
downstream and throughout the state.
GEI (Tour Starting Point)
2868 Prospect Park Dr.
Rancho Cordova, CA 95670.
Our annual Water Summit, being held Sept. 20, will
feature critical conversations about water in California and
the West revolving around the theme: Facing
Reality from the Headwaters to the
Delta.
As debate continues to swirl around longer-term remedies for
California’s water challenges, the theme reflects the need for
straightforward dialogue about more immediate, on-the-ground
solutions.
Nowhere is the domino effect in
Western water policy played out more than on the Colorado River,
and specifically when it involves the Lower Basin states of
California, Nevada and Arizona. We are seeing that play out now
as the three states strive to forge a Drought Contingency Plan.
Yet that plan can’t be finalized until Arizona finds a unifying
voice between its major water players, an effort you can read
more about in the latest in-depth article of Western Water.
Even then, there are some issues to resolve just within
California.
Brenda Burman, commissioner of the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, will give the keynote lunch address
at our 35th annual conference, the Water
Summit, to be held Sept. 20 in Sacramento.
The daylong event will feature critical conversations about water
in California and the West revolving around the
theme: Facing Reality from the Headwaters to the
Delta.
We explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop
of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad
sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and
climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs was the focus of this tour.
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118
Learn what new tree-ring studies in
Southern California watersheds reveal about drought, hear about
efforts to improve subseasonal to seasonal weather forecasting
and get the latest on climate change impacts that will alter
drought vulnerability in the future.
At our Paleo
Drought Workshop on April 19th in San Pedro, you will hear
from experts at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, University of
Arizona and California Department of Water Resources.
Dramatic swings in weather patterns
over the past few years in California are stark reminders of
climate variability and regional vulnerability. Alternating years
of drought and intense rain events make long-term planning for
storing and distributing water a challenging task.
Current weather forecasting capabilities provide details for
short time horizons. Attend the Paleo Drought
Workshop in San Pedro on April 19 to learn more about
research efforts to improve sub-seasonal to seasonal
precipitation forecasting, known as S2S, and how those models
could provide more useful weather scenarios for resource
managers.
California’s 2012-2016 drought
revealed vulnerabilities for water users throughout the state,
and the long-term record suggests more challenges may lie ahead.
An April 19
workshop in San Pedro will highlight new information about
drought durations in Southern California watersheds dating
back centuries.
Every day, people flock to Daniel
Swain’s social media platforms to find out the latest news and
insight about California’s notoriously unpredictable weather.
Swain, a climate scientist at the Institute of the
Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, famously coined the
term “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge” in December 2013 to describe
the large, formidable high-pressure mass that was parked over the
West Coast during winter and diverted storms away from
California, intensifying the drought.
Swain’s research focuses on atmospheric processes that cause
droughts and floods, along with the changing character of extreme
weather events in a warming world. A lifelong Californian and
alumnus of University of California, Davis, and Stanford
University, Swain is best known for the widely read Weather West blog, which provides
unique perspectives on weather and climate in California and the
western United States. In a recent interview with Western
Water, he talked about the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge, its
potential long-term impact on California weather, and what may
lie ahead for the state’s water supply.
Sixty percent of California’s developed water supply
originates high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Our water
supply is largely dependent on the health of our Sierra forests,
which are suffering from ecosystem degradation, drought,
wildfires and widespread tree mortality.
This three-day, two-night tour explored the lower Colorado River
where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand
is growing from myriad sources — increasing population,
declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs is the focus of this tour.
Best Western McCarran Inn
4970 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89119
Evidence shows that climate change is affecting California with
warmer temperatures, less snowfall and more extreme weather
events. This guide explains the causes of climate change, the
effects on water resources and efforts underway to better adapt
to a changing climate. It includes information on both California
water and the water of the Colorado River Basin, a widely shared
resource throughout the Southwest.
Lake Tahoe is one of the world’s most beautiful yet vulnerable
lakes. Renowned for its remarkable clarity, Tahoe straddles the
Nevada-California border, stretching 22 miles long and 12 miles
wide in a granitic bowl high in the Sierra Nevada.
Tahoe sits 6,225 feet above sea level. Its deepest point is 1,645
feet, making it the second-deepest lake in the nation, after
Oregon’s Crater Lake, and the tenth deepest in the world.
Drought and climate change are having a noticeable impact on the
Colorado River Basin, and that is posing potential challenges to
those in the Southwestern United States and Mexico who rely on
the river.
In the just-released Winter 2017-18 edition of River
Report, writer Gary Pitzer examines what scientists
project will be the impact of climate change on the Colorado
River Basin, and how water managers are preparing for a future of
increasing scarcity.
Rising temperatures from climate change are having a noticeable
effect on how much water is flowing down the Colorado River. Read
the latest River Report to learn more about what’s
happening, and how water managers are responding.
This issue of Western Water discusses the challenges
facing the Colorado River Basin resulting from persistent
drought, climate change and an overallocated river, and how water
managers and others are trying to face the future.
The atmospheric condition at any given time or place, measured by
wind, temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, cloudiness and
precipitation. Weather changes from hour to hour, day to day, and
season to season. Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as
the average weather, during a period of time ranging from months
to thousands or millions of years.
Variations in the statistical analysis of the climate on all time
and space scales beyond that of individual weather events is
known as natural variability. Natural variations in climate over
time are caused by internal processes of the climate system, such
as El Niño, and
phenomena such as volcanic activity and variations in the output
of the sun.
California agriculture is going to have to learn to live with the
impacts of climate change and work toward reducing its
contributions of greenhouse gas emissions, a Yolo County walnut
grower said at the Jan. 26 California Climate Change Symposium in
Sacramento.
“I don’t believe we are going to be able to adapt our way out of
climate change,” said Russ Lester, co-owner of Dixon Ridge Farms
in Winters. “We need to mitigate for it. It won’t solve the
problem but it can slow it down.”
California had its warmest winter on record in 2014-2015, with
the average Sierra Nevada temperature hovering above 32 degrees
Fahrenheit – the highest in 120 years. Thus, where California
relies on snow to fall in the mountains and create a snowpack
that can slowly melt into reservoirs, it was instead raining.
That left the state’s snowpack at its lowest ever – 5 percent on
April 1, 2015.
Because he relays stats like these, climate scientist Brad Udall
says he doesn’t often get invited back to speak before the same
audience about climate change.
This 30-minute documentary, produced in 2011, explores the past,
present and future of flood management in California’s Central
Valley. It features stories from residents who have experienced
the devastating effects of a California flood firsthand.
Interviews with long-time Central Valley water experts from
California Department of Water Resources (FloodSAFE), U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, Central Valley Flood
Management Program and environmental groups are featured as they
discuss current efforts to improve the state’s 150-year old flood
protection system and develop a sustainable, integrated, holistic
flood management plan for the Central Valley.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
20-minute DVD that explains the problem with polluted stormwater,
and steps that can be taken to help prevent such pollution and
turn what is often viewed as a “nuisance” into a water resource
through various activities.
Water truly has shaped California into the great state it is
today. And if it is water that made California great, it’s the
fight over – and with – water that also makes it so critically
important. In efforts to remap California’s circulatory system,
there have been some critical events that had a profound impact
on California’s water history. These turning points not only
forced a re-evaluation of water, but continue to impact the lives
of every Californian. This 2005 PBS documentary offers a
historical and current look at the major water issues that shaped
the state we know today. Includes a 12-page viewer’s guide with
background information, historic timeline and a teacher’s lesson.
Water as a renewable resource is depicted in this 18×24 inch
poster. Water is renewed again and again by the natural
hydrologic cycle where water evaporates, transpires from plants,
rises to form clouds, and returns to the earth as precipitation.
Excellent for elementary school classroom use.
Redesigned in 2017, this beautiful map depicts the seven
Western states that share the Colorado River with Mexico. The
Colorado River supplies water to nearly 40 million people in
Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
and the country of Mexico. Text on this beautiful, 24×36-inch
map, which is suitable for framing, explains the river’s
apportionment, history and the need to adapt its management for
urban growth and expected climate change impacts.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Water Rights Law, recognized as
the most thorough explanation of California water rights law
available to non-lawyers, traces the authority for water flowing
in a stream or reservoir, from a faucet or into an irrigation
ditch through the complex web of California water rights.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the State Water Project provides
an overview of the California-funded and constructed State Water
Project.
The State Water Project is best known for the 444-mile-long
aqueduct that provides water from the Delta to San Joaquin Valley
agriculture and southern California cities. The guide contains
information about the project’s history and facilities.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to Integrated Regional Water
Management (IRWM) is an in-depth, easy-to-understand publication
that provides background information on the principles of IRWM,
its funding history and how it differs from the traditional water
management approach.
The Colorado River provides water to 40 million people and 4
million acres of farmland in a region encompassing some 246,000
square miles in the southwestern United States. The 32-page
Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River covers the history of the
river’s development; negotiations over division of its water; the
items that comprise the Law of the River; and a chronology of
significant Colorado River events.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Central Valley Project
explores the history and development of the federal Central
Valley Project (CVP), California’s largest surface water delivery
system. In addition to the project’s history, the guide describes
the various CVP facilities, CVP operations, the benefits the CVP
brought to the state and the CVP Improvement Act (CVPIA).
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Delta explores the competing
uses and demands on California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Included in the guide are sections on the history of the Delta,
its role in the state’s water system, and its many complex issues
with sections on water quality, levees, salinity and agricultural
drainage, fish and wildlife, and water distribution.
Climate change involves natural and man-made changes to weather
patterns that occur over millions of years or over multiple
decades.
In the past 150 years, human industrial activity has accelerated
the rate of change in the climate due to the increase in
greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide,
among others). Scientific studies describing this climate change
continue to be produced and its expected impacts continue to be
assessed.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at California
groundwater and whether its sustainability can be assured by
local, regional and state management. For more background
information on groundwater please refer to the Foundation’s
Layperson’s Guide to Groundwater.
This printed issue of Western Water This issue of Western Water
looks at climate change through the lens of some of the latest
scientific research and responses from experts regarding
mitigation and adaptation.
This issue of Western Water looks at the BDCP and the
Coalition to Support Delta Projects, issues that are aimed at
improving the health and safety of the Delta while solidifying
California’s long-term water supply reliability.
This printed issue of Western Water features a
roundtable discussion with Anthony Saracino, a water resources
consultant; Martha Davis, executive manager of policy development
with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency and senior policy advisor
to the Delta Stewardship Council; Stuart Leavenworth, editorial
page editor of The Sacramento Bee and Ellen Hanak, co-director of
research and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of
California.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the issues
associated with the State Water Board’s proposed revision of the
water quality Bay-Delta Plan, most notably the question of
whether additional flows are needed for the system, and how they
might be provided.
This printed issue of Western Water explores the
historic nature of some of the key agreements in recent years,
future challenges, and what leading state representatives
identify as potential “worst-case scenarios.” Much of the content
for this issue of Western Water came from the in-depth
panel discussions at the Colorado River Symposium. The Foundation
will publish the full proceedings of the Symposium in 2012.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
Colorado River drought, and the ongoing institutional and
operational changes underway to maintain the system and meet the
future challenges in the Colorado River Basin.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at the energy
requirements associated with water use and the means by which
state and local agencies are working to increase their knowledge
and improve the management of both resources.
This printed copy of Western Water examines climate change –
what’s known about it, the remaining uncertainty and what steps
water agencies are talking to prepare for its impact. Much of the
information comes from the October 2007 California Climate Change
and Water Adaptation Summit sponsored by the Water Education
Foundation and DWR and the November 2007 California Water Policy
Conference sponsored by Public Officials for Water and
Environmental Reform.
Perhaps no other issue has rocketed to prominence in such a short
time as climate change. A decade ago, discussion about greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions and the connection to warming temperatures
was but a fraction of the attention now given to the issue. From
the United Nations to local communities, people are talking about
climate change – its characteristics and what steps need to be
taken to mitigate and adapt to the anticipated impacts.
This issue of Western Water looks at climate change and
its implications on water management in a region that is wholly
dependent on steady, predictable wet seasons to recharge supplies
for the lengthy dry periods. To what degree has climate change
occurred and what are the scenarios under which impacts will have
to be considered by water providers? The future is anything but
clear.
The inimitable Yogi Berra once proclaimed, “The future ain’t what
it used to be.” While the Hall of Fame baseball player was not
referring to the weather, his words are no less prophetic when it
comes to the discussion of a changing climate and its potential
impacts on water resources in the West.