Possible Causes and Solutions to the California Drought

[Silhouette]

Below are my pet theories. I've included diagrams to help illustrate them. Note the area of highest drought hovers around exactly the area of suspect in the first diagram at "Region Affected" in the whitish overlay on red..the LA Aquaduct in that diagram is roughly located where the black line is indicating the area.

A solution would be to have the City of Los Angeles begin aggressive desalination using solar thermal means of heating/evaporating/distilling.

The draining of the natural water tables has had an effect on the microclimate of the High Sierra, a place where CA relies most heavily for its Central Valley irrigation during the long hot Summers there. Without that water, California is hosed, pardon the pun. The shrinking/disappearing highcountry glaciers that were lasting all through Summer slowly melting is the big problem. So it is a vicious cycle. LA's urban/residential use (not even for agriculture!) is sucking the more and more arid region East of the Sierras drier and drier via the Aquaduct. That area in turn is sucking more and more (or refusing to evaporate more and more water) from/to High Sierra's microclimate weather system & snowpack.

My theory is that the lack of evaporation and Summer storms from the old Owens Lake region is causing Pacific air flow and weather to more rapidly "skip" over the Sierra range, carrying a heavier payload to the Midwest while starving California's agriculture regions of rain and high snowmelt it used to get. No blockade of upward evaporation effect and the air rushes right on past to the East.

It's important to understand that this isn't just some temporary glitch in our nation's biggest money maker. This is a downward spiral. This glacial shrinking has been virtually uninterrupted since the 1950s...just about the time the LA Aquaduct's thirsty straw pushed that microclimate over a tipping point. "Save Mono Lake"... Everyone who has been to California has at one time or another seen that bumper sticker. Owen's Lake is long gone now. It's just an immense dry valley now where much water once stood. Vital water to snowpack 9-14,000 feet above.

It isn't an exaggeration to say that this issue affects the US's only hold left on world power: Food. A tremendous amount of our nation's food to trade is produced in California. Food for oil, food for favors, food for ...etc. etc. So this isn't just a California emergency and downward spiral. It's a national emergency and downward spiral.

**Please don't talk about how illegal aliens are causing the drought. They may be exacerbating it, but they are not causing it by themselves...ridiculous..!

 

[Silhouette]

A twistedly-funny thought just occurred to me: Los Angeles is destroying the United States! Why does that come as no shock to me? That's where Hollywood is also..

 

[Where_r_my_Keys]

Below are my pet theories. I've included diagrams to help illustrate them. Note the area of highest drought hovers around exactly the area of suspect in the first diagram at "Region Affected" in the whitish overlay on red..the LA Aquaduct in that diagram is roughly located where the black line is indicating the area.

A solution would be to have the City of Los Angeles begin aggressive desalination using solar thermal means of heating/evaporating/distilling.

The draining of the natural water tables has had an effect on the microclimate of the High Sierra, a place where CA relies most heavily for its Central Valley irrigation during the long hot Summers there. Without that water, California is hosed, pardon the pun. The shrinking/disappearing highcountry glaciers that were lasting all through Summer slowly melting is the big problem. So it is a vicious cycle. LA's urban/residential use (not even for agriculture!) is sucking the more and more arid region East of the Sierras drier and drier via the Aquaduct. That area in turn is sucking more and more (or refusing to evaporate more and more water) from/to High Sierra's microclimate weather system & snowpack.

My theory is that the lack of evaporation and Summer storms from the old Owens Lake region is causing Pacific air flow and weather to more rapidly "skip" over the Sierra range, carrying a heavier payload to the Midwest while starving California's agriculture regions of rain and high snowmelt it used to get. No blockade of upward evaporation effect and the air rushes right on past to the East.

It's important to understand that this isn't just some temporary glitch in our nation's biggest money maker. This is a downward spiral. This glacial shrinking has been virtually uninterrupted since the 1950s...just about the time the LA Aquaduct's thirsty straw pushed that microclimate over a tipping point. "Save Mono Lake"... Everyone who has been to California has at one time or another seen that bumper sticker. Owen's Lake is long gone now. It's just an immense dry valley now where much water once stood. Vital water to snowpack 9-14,000 feet above.

It isn't an exaggeration to say that this issue affects the US's only hold left on world power: Food. A tremendous amount of our nation's food to trade is produced in California. Food for oil, food for favors, food for ...etc. etc. So this isn't just a California emergency and downward spiral. It's a national emergency and downward spiral.

Yeah... I'm going go with "IT'S A DESERT" theory.

 

[Liminal]

A twistedly-funny thought just occurred to me: Los Angeles is destroying the United States! Why does that come as no shock to me? That's where Hollywood is also..

You won't think it's so funny when the price of food skyrockets this year.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

You'd better do something because you are flat out of water.

 

[Silhouette]

A twistedly-funny thought just occurred to me: Los Angeles is destroying the United States! Why does that come as no shock to me? That's where Hollywood is also..

You won't think it's so funny when the price of food skyrockets this year.

I said "twistedly-funny"...ugh, doesn't anyone read anymore?

 

[Silhouette]

Yeah... I'm going go with "IT'S A DESERT" theory.

Yes, California is a semi-arid/desert state that will be a desert-proper if the cycle is not interrupted in the ways prescribed. Agreed.

 

[ShootSpeeders]

No mystery to it. The cause is 10 million illegal alien squatters in the state and the solution is to make them leave by going after the companies that hire them and by ending their govt benefits such as welfare and free school and free health care

They'll then leave on their own.

 

[eagle1462010]

Desalination plants are used all over the world and in some cases are virtually their only real water source...................It works and can easily pump water to the suburbs for their water.............and lower the needed usage from the mountain runoffs..............

Using Solar power to do so would not be cost effective for the energy needed to do so..............There are limits to it's power per square area, and it would increase the cost............as by putting in these plants you would add to the cost of water for the residents of southern California.

 

[Silhouette]

Desalination plants are used all over the world and in some cases are virtually their only real water source...................It works and can easily pump water to the suburbs for their water.............and lower the needed usage from the mountain runoffs..............

Using Solar power to do so would not be cost effective for the energy needed to do so..............There are limits to it's power per square area, and it would increase the cost............as by putting in these plants you would add to the cost of water for the residents of southern California.

Agreed. If the desalination was working year-round, replenishing local Southern California reservoirs, active and dried up in the past, the Owens Valley water table could be restored. If this happened I can virtually guarantee the cycle would be reversed.

 

[Silhouette]

People need to understand how microclimates affect macroclimates and distant lands IMHO. This is especially true in California's case since this is where a lot of US weather phenomenon are affected by with the direction of the jetstream.

 

[Silhouette]

Until the beginning of the 1900s, Owens Lake in the eastern Sierra Nevada was a robust body of water up to 12 miles long and 8 miles wide with an average depth of 23 to 50 feet. In 1913, the waters that fed into Owens Lake were diverted by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) into the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Water levels quickly dropped in Owens Lake until they reached current levels — mostly dried up. Today, Owens Lake is a shallow (just three feet deep), much-reduced shadow of its pre-diversion self. LADWP shallowly floods 27 square miles of dried-up lake bed to reduce the number of dust storms, which can cause respiratory problems for nearby residents. 7 lakes and rivers that are drying up Owens Lake MNN - Mother Nature Network

 

[bodecea]

No mystery to it. The cause is 10 million illegal alien squatters in the state and the solution is to make them leave by going after the companies that hire them and by ending their govt benefits such as welfare and free school and free health care

They'll then leave on their own.

Don't worry...about 80% of the water in CA is used in agriculture. Once there's no food to pick, the illegals will leave.

 

[HenryBHough]

Don't worry...about 80% of the water in CA is used in agriculture. Once there's no food to pick, the illegals will leave.

And give up their welfare checks, Obamaphones, Medicaid?

What in Hell ARE you smoking?

 

[eagle1462010]

The solution is simply and well tested.............Not cheap though..................but after all this is a liberal State and making possible common sense solutions on certain items can be a problem for the leaders there..............

You wouldn't need to pump water to the lake, you could produce water from the sea to sell to large populations so they would no longer need to drain the natural resources..............

But I guess a High Speed Rail is more important than water..............or a park is more important than water.............

What drives the priorities of these politicians running the show.

 

[Silhouette]

The solution is simply and well tested.............Not cheap though..................but after all this is a liberal State and making possible common sense solutions on certain items can be a problem for the leaders there..............

You wouldn't need to pump water to the lake, you could produce water from the sea to sell to large populations so they would no longer need to drain the natural resources..............

But I guess a High Speed Rail is more important than water..............or a park is more important than water.............

What drives the priorities of these politicians running the show.

They would be well advised to not get in a big war with the City of LA and instead just reassure the rich & powerful developers there/city fathers that they could still maintain some sort of emergency rights to draw off the Owens Valley. Then if old Uncle Sam would step in with some federal infrastructure dinero to help build the desalination plants, that might oil the skids.

Every dollar saved litigating this solution would be one they could sink into the project.

 

[Shrimpbox]

Nation s largest ocean desalination plant goes up near San Diego Future of the California coast - San Jose Mercury News

This has always been a pipe dream but I hope and expect that technology if not necessity will make it commonplace in the next twenty years. A bigger question might be why can't they use recycled water in a big way for AG?

 

[Silhouette]

Nation s largest ocean desalination plant goes up near San Diego Future of the California coast - San Jose Mercury News

This has always been a pipe dream but I hope and expect that technology if not necessity will make it commonplace in the next twenty years. A bigger question might be why can't they use recycled water in a big way for AG?

That plant unfortunately uses reverse osmosis which as I understand is energetically expensive. And the points you just made make me suspect it is another pre-emptive slap at desalination (proxy for a slap at solar thermal alternative to reverse osmosis) because this project will prove out to be "too expensive to justify"...

...just like the shadow-backers of the failed Solyndra project designed it to fail on purpose...

...there is so much wile and craft and BS going on with big money monopolies that have looked into the future an seen all sorts of applications for solar thermal energy (a different way to de-salt ocean water at a fraction of the cost) that this San Diego project smells fishy.

RED FLAG and case in point from the article:

Will California -- like Israel, Saudi Arabia and other arid coastal regions of the world -- finally turn to the ocean to quench its thirst? Or will the project finally prove that drinking Pacific seawater is too pricey, too environmentally harmful and too impractical for the Golden State? "Everybody is watching Carlsbad to see what's going to happen," said Peter MacLaggan, vice president of Poseidon Water, the Boston firm building the plant. Nation s largest ocean desalination plant goes up near San Diego Future of the California coast - San Jose Mercury News

And the minute the numbers are out, you will see Big Energy screaming from the mountaintops how this is not a cost effective way to de-salt water...how it won't work for California.

But solar thermal will work.

 

[Shrimpbox]

Water Use in California PPIC Publication

Another neat factoid. I am not an expert on this but I do believe studies and tests have shown many farmers how to get by on much less water. Between vineyards, nut orchards (not nut jobs), and other high maintenance but not necessarily high need crops the water usage has skyrocketed. I wonder if the one per centers own most of these high water maintenance farms. We buy a lot of tomatoes every week here in fla. And the prices are not up, in fact they are down from previous years so I really don't know who to believe on the crop angle. I am talking about farmers and flea markets not the grocery stores. They could quit irrigating California oranges altogether and no one would miss them.

 

[Shrimpbox]

Read that whole article on desalination Sil. It is really informative, international, and even handed. Makes good,points for both sides.