so what could be the contributing factor for high pressure ridge forming off the West Coast? perhaps rise of Arctic temperatures?
There has been a 'blob' of high pressure and temperature in the Northern Pacific for the past couple of years. So far, no one has stood up to cite a cause. But there is something else going on, El Nino. Now I'm not an expert in El Nino but the Aussi take it serious and they are already calling El Nino as on. NOAA is still at little more cautious '90% certain'. So let's just say it is an area getting a lot of eyes. Bob Wilson
I feel like Im having a discussion with children who believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny and AGW. Jesus H Mohammed ! I cant make a correlation from a drought graph without having to prove the existence of the Medieval Warm Period? Its like arguing with a "LUDDITE" Come up to speed already . The MWP is on both poles and the rest of the planet proven by hundreds of "peer reviewed" studies. C3: Climate History Bob Wilson this Arctic melt season will disappoint you so far. Greenland Land ice isnt melting this year as it has in the past decades.Actually its rather shocking. Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Mass Budget: DMI .Arctic Sea ice thickness has grown.Sea temps must be falling due to AMO. Nothing is due to rising CO2 btw. Ocean currents and Solar activity may prove you to be totally wrong in your predictions of ice free Arctic. Will you formally apologize when you are proven to be wrong on your predictions, or will it get real quiet?
BTW Regarding relocated Native Americans, go to Canyon De Chelly in Arizona . Its a deep riverbed with no water . "Pueblos" are built in 200 ft cliffs. Obviously they once lived on riverbanks of a 200 ft deep river. IMHO
"Obviously they once lived on riverbanks of a 200 ft deep river." This is why we come to PC! Novel ideas unencumbered by scientific insight. Yatahey. Is there even a hint of this in the literature? I could not find. Anasazi cliff dwellings are rather widespread in the area. Did they all have unknown megarivers? Besides dendrochronology, paleoclimates in the southwest are informed by packrat middens. I understand the concordance of evidence to be rather good, but lacking such massive shifts in hydrology. Tocahtihu, the Hopi hummingbird Kachina is curious about this.
Evidence of climate shifts are abundantly documented, and with several independent techniques. They vary in timing, direction, intensity and duration across regions. This is why the Medieval Warm Period has been more recently (and more properly) called the Medieval Climate Anomaly. Climate got much more variable in time and space. No general mechanism has been identified, AFAIK. It was weird. The notion that climates across the globe became both warmer and dryer, and stayed that way for a long time, is not concordant with the evidence. The evidence to which (I suppose) mojo airily refers. Clausius and Clapeyron (may they rest in peace) might take a dim view of such a thing. Those guys were all about physical mechanisms.
"...this Arctic melt season will disappoint you so far." Or maybe not: Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis | Sea ice data updated daily with one-day lag "Greenland Land ice isnt melting this year as it has in the past decades." I think the dmi link is very good to add, but aren't they describing mass balance on top, not the outflow? Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Mass Budget: DMI (same link as mojo's) Don't we have an Arctic thread for this? Here is CA drought.
It has to be something more than El Nino, drought wasn't as bad previous cycles. I am so jealous of you! children, Santa, Easter Bunny.. good company! When we are dealing with you we feel like well we're dealing with moron. Blind deaf moron. No Christmas unfortunately no Easter hunt too.
i read yesterday that the state is restricting water use by northern farmers. sounds like higher food prices coming.
I think you are mischaracterizing NOAA here. The NOAA report was that human ghg did not make the blob or triple R (ridiculously Resilient ridge). Everyone seems to agree that the formation which looks like it is breaking up, which means the drought should end the next rainy season is the cause. 3 papers, 2 say that ghg did not make the weather formation more likely 1 that did say it was more likely, 3x more which is that that great. In NOAA analysing the texas drought they thought the ghg made it 20x more likely. Does global warming make droughts worse? Sometimes. In the case of california though we have 2 different hypothesis. First warming will cause more evaporation over the ocean and thus bigger clouds and more california rain, or B warmer temperatures will dry the soil and evaporate the lakes/rivers/reservoirs more than the increased rain. One thing that all the scientists agree that t the 20th century was an unusually wet one in california compared to average in the last millennium California is likely to regress to this drier state. Agricultural policies during this wet phase are likely unsustainable and need to change, but the politics of water in california is rather nasty right now.
This is actually misleading. There was excess of precipitation from 1890 to 1950, but from 1950 on it is average. So it has already reverted to "this drier state" 60 years ago.
Thanks for the reference we've passed withing striking distance from De Chelly, but never been there. Will put it on todo list. Not all Pueblos built in cliffs. As the matter of fact many were not. They were built around waterholes, dry lakes and naturally occurring surface indentations which tend to collect water and stay wetter longer. Just enough to sustain agriculture.
+1 I don't know if it is misleading or not, or how good the paleo data is, but there were droughts that lasted over a century for the central Valley in the past. If the second half of the twentieth century was normal and the first half wet, that does go along with what I read that the entire century is wet, and we should not look at the 20th century average as normal. If the stanford team is right these megadroughts, lasting a decade, have a 10% each century. They thought that ghg made this over 50% by the end of this century. Its probably much easier and cheaper to change agriculture policies before the next medadtought. California also gets a great deal of power from hydroelectric, which will drop a great deal in a megadrought. They have a lot of ineffiecient old steam natural gas plants, these could be mothballed and replaced with ore efficient ccgt plants that work better with renewables. I don't think the politicians have yet accepted that california's new reality may be the old one of megadroughts.
I did visit there a few years ago, and suspect you will get quite a laugh out of the 'obviously' claim. I can't image the water getting that high in archeologically recent times without a Bretz- or Missoula-type flood.
I won't get all scientific....but quite frankly it's been a little chilly and overcast down here in So. Cal this past week!! Or so say all the locals, I am quite content with a consistent 68-70 high and low 60 as the low. I'm on a 10 day beach vac down here from killadelphia and what's funny (not for friends and family back home) is that it's a 100 deg record breaking heat wave in the Philly Region yet for my "sunny so cal" trip it's "overcast and chilly" Anyways, off to snorkel in Cali's Plentiful Pacific now... What's the deal with desalinisation plants? Seems like a simple enough solution..? Am asking as I have no clue..
The big deal is energy cost. At this point for most of the region, water efficiency improvements are still much cheaper.
