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swchandler
Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588
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 Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2017 9:40 pm Post subject: |
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Mat-ty, I'm only giving a very brief picture of what is in California. If I were to ask you what kind of stress has been placed on Massachusetts in the last 100+ years, what would you say? Surely fisheries would come into play. What does winter have to offer?
Life is always about the details. |
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GURGLETROUSERS
Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 2643
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| Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 4:09 am Post subject: |
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Yawn! Ah yes, the old computer prediction of extreme weather ploy. Extremes and changes never ever happened pre global warming predictions, did they!
Bogsman, I take your word and experience that what is currently happening on 'your patch' is quite spooky. But against that, I think that what is happening (and has been) in Europe is also in the realm of 'doing its own thing', and no, it does not easily fit rhe global warming agenda.
As SWC says, the long term effects are far from certain, and, given that climate changes always have been, inevitable, it is a very brave or arrogant man who thinks he has all the pat answers! (Rubbish in the mind, rubbish out, you may think!)
If MY computer (back to its old skipping things trick), is anything to go by, I rest my case. So many edits!!!! |
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techno900
Joined: 28 Mar 2001
Posts: 4182
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| Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 11:05 am Post subject: |
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For Mac's benefit. An article from 2012:
| Quote: | Snowfall in the Sierra Nevada has remained consistent for 130 years, with no evidence that anything has changed as a result of climate change, according to a study released Tuesday.
The analysis of snowfall data in the Sierra going back to 1878 found no more or less snow overall - a result that, on the surface, appears to contradict aspects of recent climate change models.
John Christy, the Alabama state climatologist who authored the study, said the amount of snow in the mountains has not decreased in the past 50 years, a period when greenhouse gases were supposed to have increased the effects of global warming.
The heaping piles of snow that fell in the Sierra last winter and the paltry amounts this year fall within the realm of normal weather variability, he concluded.
"The dramatic claims about snow disappearing in the Sierra just are not verified," said Christy, a climate change skeptic and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. "It looks like you're going to have snow for the foreseeable future." |
http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Study-Sierra-snowfall-consistent-over-130-years-3331631.php
Just saying that there is NOT universal agreement on the snow pack/global warming issue in California. |
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techno900
Joined: 28 Mar 2001
Posts: 4182
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nw30
Joined: 21 Dec 2008
Posts: 6485
Location: The eye of the universe, Cen. Cal. coast
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| Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 12:26 pm Post subject: |
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| GURGLETROUSERS wrote: |
As SWC says, the long term effects are far from certain, and, given that climate changes always have been, inevitable, it is a very brave or arrogant man who thinks he has all the pat answers! |
Or the power to control it. |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17774
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 12:42 pm Post subject: |
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| techno900 wrote: | For Mac's benefit. An article from 2012:
| Quote: | Snowfall in the Sierra Nevada has remained consistent for 130 years, with no evidence that anything has changed as a result of climate change, according to a study released Tuesday.
The analysis of snowfall data in the Sierra going back to 1878 found no more or less snow overall - a result that, on the surface, appears to contradict aspects of recent climate change models.
John Christy, the Alabama state climatologist who authored the study, said the amount of snow in the mountains has not decreased in the past 50 years, a period when greenhouse gases were supposed to have increased the effects of global warming.
The heaping piles of snow that fell in the Sierra last winter and the paltry amounts this year fall within the realm of normal weather variability, he concluded.
"The dramatic claims about snow disappearing in the Sierra just are not verified," said Christy, a climate change skeptic and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. "It looks like you're going to have snow for the foreseeable future." |
http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Study-Sierra-snowfall-consistent-over-130-years-3331631.php
Just saying that there is NOT universal agreement on the snow pack/global warming issue in California. |
Thanks for the link Techno, I had missed this when it came out. Unlike most of the conservatives here you give your sources. But I think you have to be careful about how far you take this particular effort, quite apart from the issue that the author is a skeptic. First, as the article points out:
| Quote: | Mike Dettinger, a climatologist and research hydrologist at the Scripps Institute of the U.S. Geological Survey, said Christy is picking and choosing data while misleading people about what climate change scientists are actually saying.
For one, he said, snow depth is not as good a measure of the winter weather conditions as water content and density.
The number of inches or feet of snow on the ground can mean a variety of things, he said, depending on if it is fluffy powder or compacted, wet snow.
Recent studies by Scripps scientists have found that over the last 50 years the southern Sierra snowpack has gotten larger while the northern Sierra pack has shrunk. Although they have predicted the overall state snowpack would decrease over time as a result of climate change, nobody has claimed that it has happened yet, Dettinger said.
What's significant in terms of global warming, he said, is the fact that the snowpack has declined over three quarters of the western United States, an area that includes Montana, Wyoming and New Mexico. Scripps researchers, in coordination with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists, have concluded that 60 percent of that downward trend is due to greenhouse gases.
"There is a popular conception that the snowpack has declined everywhere, but that is not what the science says," Dettinger said. "What we're saying broadly is that across western North America there have been declines in spring snowpack." |
Second, while it is not clear without peer review whether Christy has used the data selectively, he has combined data sources of different precision. I am certainly in favor of using all available data sources, at least qualitatively. (When climate scientists first began using tree rings and ice cores from glaciers, deniers scoffed at the lack of precision. Subsequent refinements of analytical tools have enabled ice cores to be used with far greater precision.) Great caution needs to be used when taking anecdotal data from the historic record, particularly when the annual variation is so great.
Third, the data set stops in 2010, and has been weighted, perhaps unduly, by older records before climate change impacts became measurable. Even now, weighing the changes in persistence of the snow pack over the last twenty years against a 100 year record can easily average out perceptible changes that are apparent when more sophisticated and appropriate statistical tools are used.
Fourth, climate scientists and water managers, as I pointed out when you first posted data from high in the Sierra's, are not concerned about changes in total snowfall, or levels high in the Sierra. Most models actually predict increased precipitation because a warmer climate means that storms will carry more water. The issue for California--and a multi-billion dollar issue--is that the snow pack will be at higher elevations, and storms like the current one will melt parts of the snow pack. This will mean that reservoirs will need to be operated with a greater flood control pool to anticipate higher and earlier runoff, and that the effective storage at lower elevations will disappear. California has developed all of its cost-effective reservoir sites, no matter what Dishonest Don claims. Those new sites under consideration provide only a very small amount of new storage (less than 1 million acre-feet), at a cost of about $2000 per acre foot--nearly 100 ties current supplies. The loss of storage from warmer climate has been estimated to total perhaps 1/3 of all storage.
It is great to have skeptics that make us think. It is even more critical to have their material subject to rigorous peer review. |
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boggsman1
Joined: 24 Jun 2002
Posts: 9137
Location: at a computer
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| Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 1:20 pm Post subject: |
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| GURGLETROUSERS wrote: | Yawn! Ah yes, the old computer prediction of extreme weather ploy. Extremes and changes never ever happened pre global warming predictions, did they!
Bogsman, I take your word and experience that what is currently happening on 'your patch' is quite spooky. But against that, I think that what is happening (and has been) in Europe is also in the realm of 'doing its own thing', and no, it does not easily fit rhe global warming agenda.
As SWC says, the long term effects are far from certain, and, given that climate changes always have been, inevitable, it is a very brave or arrogant man who thinks he has all the pat answers! (Rubbish in the mind, rubbish out, you may think!)
If MY computer (back to its old skipping things trick), is anything to go by, I rest my case. So many edits!!!! |
Yeah, I'm certainly not smart enough to make a strong case for anything on this subject, but things are wacky in the past 5 years... Ocean temps, and Sierra weather is dramatically different than the past. |
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techno900
Joined: 28 Mar 2001
Posts: 4182
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| Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 1:56 pm Post subject: |
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mac,
I was aware when I posted that just detailing the snowpack stats did not include water content. I found it interesting that there were dozens and dozens of articles talking about current/recent trends being below or above average, but finding what "average" was not easy. I don't know when snow moisture content became a measurable factor for record keeping, but I don't imagine that it was long ago.
It appears that "global warming" will increase the moisture in California, but less will be stored as frozen water because of the warming. I guess Calif. just has to bite the bullet and build more storage/reservoirs, but I guess the "greenies" won't have any part of that. Either that or build more desalinization plants. You guys have a ton of tax money - go for it. |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17774
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 4:22 pm Post subject: |
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Dear snarky Techno. You finally got the physics right. More of the precipitation will fall as rain, and can't be stored because reservoirs also serve as flood control facilities. But you didn't read for content. New reservoirs have nothing to do with biting bullets--an appropriate analogy for the paranoid. They have to do with cost. I wrote that the water cost would be more than $2,000/af. At that price there would be no agriculture in California. Ag users are currently unwilling to pay their share of Jerry's twin tunnels. Ag uses 80% of the water in California.
Reclaimed water and conservation are both much cheaper than new reservoirs. The most feasible option is to use groundwater storage to replace lost snow pack storage. But that requires adjudication of the groundwater basin, public ownership of the overlying lands where water can be percolated, or legislative changes to allow/encourage private water marketing. Not going to happen cheaply or soon.
Nothing like a little knowledge of a big and complicated field to make a conservative commenter need to resort to snark. |
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MalibuGuru
Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9304
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