Much has been made of the analogy that climate change is like steroids for our weather. But what if we’ve got the thing backwards? Here’s baseball sage Tim McCarver: It has not been proven, but I think ultimately it will be proven that the air is thinner now, there has been climactic changes over the …
Continue reading ‘The climate change-steroids analogy in reverse?’ »
The authors acknowledge that the result when they looked at the effect of piñon die-off from the Four Corners drought a decade ago seems counterintuitive: Basins with the most tree die-off showed a significant decrease in streamflow over several years following die-off, and this decrease was not attributable to climate variability alone. The results are counterintuitive …
Continue reading ‘drought kills seem to be reducing streamflow in the arid southwest’ »
Humans here in the West use and therefore value water for basically three sorts of reasons: for domestic use (cooking, bathing, drinking, flushing away waste) for economic purposes (agriculture being the most obvious, but also things like computer chip manufacturing) for environmental purposes (water in the river to look at and enjoy, for recreation, or …
Continue reading ‘Should we embrace the Bellagio Fountain?’ »
Phil Isenberg, head of California’s Delta Stewardship Council, gets to the heart of the matter in the discussion of the possibility that California needs more water storage capability: The council agrees with Assemblyman Logue that water storage is a critical component of any solution to meet the state’s water supply and environmental needs. Over the …
Continue reading ‘Isenberg: you want more storage? who’s gonna pay?’ »
There’s this old joke. Two economists are walking down the street when one points to the ground and says, “Look, a ten dollar bill!” The second economist replies, “That’s crazy. If that was a ten dollar bill someone would have picked it up already.” I love it because there’s a really interesting dynamic in it …
Ed Kandl from USBR: If you want the one-word synopsis, it’s going to suck pretty bad.
In southern California, the Metropolitan Water District is cranking up the rate meter, squeezed in the conservation v. cost vice: As more people conserve water, MWD sells less water, and that means revenues go down. But MWD’s costs of delivering that water remain essentially the same: Thus, prices go up.
I’d love to have been in on the meetings that lead to this paper. “I agree, we really need a better way to get to the question of whole-ecosystem metabolism and basin-scale carbon budgets. Lava Falls will be critical.”
I had to laugh when I looked at today’s long-lead precipitation forecasts from the Climate Prediction Center. Those little splotches of color are forecasts. All that white is what the forecasters call “equal chances”, which basically means they have no idea other than historical climatology what might happen. In other words, it could be wet, …
We’ve got a fascinating border water fight going on between Mexico and irrigators in the United States over water from the Rio Grande right now. But rather than the usual issue – who gets how much – this one’s over when the water is used. Under US-Mexico treaty, Mexican irrigators are entitled to a set …
Continue reading ‘A border water fight – not over how much, but rather when’ »