[HN Gopher] There Is No Drought
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       There Is No Drought
        
       Author : symby
       Score  : 19 points
       Date   : 2021-05-06 20:30 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.latimes.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.latimes.com)
        
       | 01100011 wrote:
       | https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/...
       | 
       | CA climate has been much drier in the past, even before global
       | warming. We seem to have this discussion every few years when
       | there's a drought, but quickly forget. It seems like we do the
       | same thing with wildfires and earthquakes.
        
         | chrisco255 wrote:
         | But we moved 50 million people there in the past 60 years so
         | clearly nature must stop the mega drought cycle.
        
         | yissp wrote:
         | During the dry years, the people forgot about the rich years,
         | and when the wet years returned, they lost all memory of the
         | dry years. It was always that way. (East of Eden)
        
       | benmarten wrote:
       | I'm so tired of these pseudo science modelers. We have seen where
       | it leads us with covid. Humans tend to overestimate their
       | importance.
        
       | legitster wrote:
       | > But we legislated and plumbed this state for a different
       | climate pattern, when annual winter rains reliably fell on Sonoma
       | and points north, and a full Sierra snowpack reliably melted
       | through the spring and summer to feed streams and irrigate
       | orchards and farm fields. That era is long gone. The snowpack
       | comes unpredictably, because a warmer climate means water that
       | formerly stayed in the mountains as snow through the summer now
       | melts sooner, or falls as rain and rushes westward to the sea in
       | the winter, when we need it the least. A quick look at any
       | satellite photo from a heavy-snow year reveals that no number of
       | new dams could ever replace the snowpack's formerly reliable
       | volume.
       | 
       | The headline is the epitome of burying the lede. If you read to
       | the bottom, the writer clearly lays out the actual thesis:
       | rainfall is the same - the problem is that snowpack is seriously
       | declining. Which is kind of like a moisture battery. This is why
       | climate change can counterintuitively cause both "droughts" and
       | floods.
       | 
       | I'll admit that it took the longest time for me to understand the
       | concept myself.
        
       | okareaman wrote:
       | Desalination of seawater will be the norm in the future and
       | people then will wonder how we ever got by without it
        
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       (page generated 2021-05-06 23:01 UTC)