Drought expands throughout USA

[Dead_Parrot]

Still reeling from devastating drought that led to at least $10 billion in agricultural losses across Texas and the South in 2011, the nation is enduring more unusually parched weather.

A mostly dry, mild winter has put nearly 61% of the lower 48 states in "abnormally dry" or drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly federal tracking of drought. That's the highest percentage of dry or drought conditions since September 2007, when 61.5% of the country was listed in those categories.

Only two states — Ohio and Alaska — are entirely free of abnormally dry or drought conditions, according to the Drought Monitor.

The drought is expanding into some areas where dryness is rare, such as New England.

More: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/drought/story/2012-04-11/mild-winter-expands-usa-drought/54225018/1

[aquart]

1. Still too dumb to create a national aqueduct system? Oh well.

Yet we manage pipelines for oil and gas.

[FreakinDJ]

2. Where you going to get the water from

here in California its rob peter to water paul

[DCKit]

3. That's not really fair. There's almost always too much water somewhere.

Aquart is proposing a national grid to shift water around, and I've always thought that would be a great idea.

You're thinking too small.

[OnlinePoker]

5. It's worked so well in China and Russia

Mass diversions schemes resulted in the horrendous 3 Gorges Dam and the draining of the Aral Sea. What happens during drought years when there isn't enough to go around? Who decides who needs the water more? Here's an idea. Stop moving to where there's scarce water resources and then begging the rest of the country to bail you out (or should that be bail you in?).

[DCKit]

9. That would be "bail... out". I'm an east-coaster.

Would never live in Vegas, LA or Palm Springs.

I'd say you're wrong, but you're not. They wouldn't stop at simply shifting water from areas that had excess - Too many lucrative, no-bid contracts to be had at our expense building impoundments and fucking up the environment.

When my Grandfather was a child in central PA, there were so many eel, shad and other fish in the rivers, everyone ate nearly for free. Not so much by the time I was born.

[joshcryer]

8. 2.75% of all water is fresh water. 2.05% of that is in glaciers.

The Ogallala Aquifer is on a steep decline and it's already having significant impacts: http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/34646/1/sp04al02.pdf

[pscot]

26. That paper was a little disappointing

It didn't really say much at all about the state of the aquifer. The USGS has a good web site that covers water issues. They DO know what's happening. The information just doesn't seem to filter upwards to the Congress and the Whitehouse. The media, of course, could care less. http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/

[caraher]

4. A national water distribution system would be hugely controversial

For instance, all the states bordering the Great Lakes have agreements about such things, and proposals to divert water elsewhere provoke enormous opposition. Even the least environmentally conscious politicians recognize that water is important and are loathe to give others the right to access "their" water.

I admit that don't know much about the laws on this, apart from knowing they exist, can be complicated, are very important and likely provide a significant barrier to the kind of system you're suggesting...

[NickB79]

6. What energy source are you going to pump that water with?

I recall reading a study published 5-6 yr ago about a proposed pipeline to run water from the Great Lakes to the Southwest (Phoenix, I believe). The study found that we'd need 18-20 coal plants, each 1 GW, built and solely dedicated to pumping that water.

Most people don't seem to realize the amount of energy required to move billions of gallons of water up even a slight incline.

[GliderGuider]

12. There's something deliciously ironic about that image

That many coal plants pumping water across a continent that is being ravaged by drought caused by climate change in the first place.

Can you spell "positive feedback loop" boys and girls?
I knew you could...

[kristopher]

13. Let's try to update our imaginations a bit...

I don't know about the idea of pumping water all the way across the continent, but water that needs to be moved often presents an attractive opportunity for storing excess power produced by variable sources of generation. You might have heard of the problems the Bonneville Power Administration is having with excess wind production and hydro where the contractual commitment to the wind operators requires BPA to pay for all wind power produced. This has been cutting into the opportunities that BPA has to sell their hydro when water is required to be released for purposes other than the generation of electricity.
BPA thinks they have a solution that involves using the irrigation systems they feed to store energy in a manner that also provides the farms with better control over their water.

I haven't heard the details but the point is that we are at a point in time where we are required to rethink old problems starting from some radically different premises.

[Odin2005]

14. Maybe there too many people in desert areas like Las Vegas, Phoenix, and LA.

[dbackjon]

23. And when drought hits the south, like it did recently, they all should move as well?

Or if all those people in the north didn't burn coal, oil and wood to stay warm, we'd have less global warming and more water here.

[Nihil]

24. Those places were desert before anyone started burning coal, oil or large quantities of wood ...

The AGW might well have aggravated the situation but the stupidity of putting
an ever-growing population of water consumers in a desert pre-dates it.

[dbackjon]

25. Phoenix, at least had, and always had a major local water supply

With four good sized (well, pre-dam large) rivers flowing through the metro area.

What has hurt Phoenix is the droughts in the mountains of Arizona - which impacts the run off.

[Rhiannon12866]

7. And yet, here in NE NY, we frequently have flooding...

[bananas]

10. "dawn of the super-interglacial drought"

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/10/26/353997/nature-dust-bowlification-food-insecurity/

<snip>

The coming droughts ought to be a major driver — if not the major driver — of climate policies. Yet few policy-makers and journalists seem to be aware of dust-bowlification and its potentially devastating impact on food security. That’s partly understandable, because much of the key research cited in this article post-dates the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Raising public awareness of, and scientific focus on, the likelihood of severe effects of drought is the first step in prompting action.

I first heard of the risks in a 2005 talk by climatologist Jonathan Overpeck of the Uni- versity of Arizona in Tucson. He pointed to emerging evidence that temperature and annual precipitation were heading in oppo- site directions over many regions and raised the question of whether we are at the “dawn of the super-interglacial drought”.

The idea wasn’t new. As far back as 1990, scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York projected that severe to extreme drought in the United States, then occurring every 20 years or so, could become an every-other-year phenom- enon by mid-century.

<snip>

[DavidDvorkin]

11. But it's rainy and cool in Denver this weekend

Therefore that map must be completely false.

I don't listen to local rightwing radio, but if I did, I suspect that I'd hear that argument being made.

[Odin2005]

16. Ironically, it's been a rainy weekend here in Fargo.

We need it, though.

[Odin2005]

15. We really need fusion.

then we can desalinate all the water we need from the ocean and pump it to where it's needed.

[GliderGuider]

17. The probity of our behaviour with the energy we already have has been so exemplary

I'm quite sure that more will be the answer...

[Odin2005]

20. Why did I know you were going to be the pessimist?

But seriously, There would be no harmful emissions from fusion, and it's waste is itself useful (helium, of which we are running out of).

[GliderGuider]

21. The energy is not the problem, it's what we do with it.

Unless global industrial culture experiences a major shift in direction, more energy = more devastation. Think habitat loss and extinctions, and ecological disruption from energy-driven human activities.

[bananas]

18. We have a fusion reactor, it generates more energy than we could ever use. nt

[Odin2005]

19. But collecting it is a bit of an problem!

[jpak]

22. Dry as a bone here in Maine - fire danger high

not good

yup