Lake Powell Water Levels as a Proxy for Western Snowfall

For those of you who haven’t seen the Green River, it’s fantastic at both Flaming River Gorge and the confluence with the Colorado, at Canyonlands Park, both on the map.

not to mention the large and ever increasing amount of water being used by the biofuels industry
Huh?
All them Midwestern Ethanol, and Biodiesel plants are just killing the poor ol’ Colyradoe, eh?

Kum,
Huge amounts of western water is used to irrigate corn for biofuels.
http://www.coloradocorn.com/resources/ethanol-biofuels
Sometimes research should come before sarcasm.

At 14,000 liters of water, and given Lake Powell holds 4.5 trillion liters of water, we could produce 82.5 million gallons of biodiesel, or 1.6 million barrels of biodiesel.
The input to US refineries –
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip_crude.html
is 13.8 million barrels / day.
Lake Powell converted to Biodiesel wouldn’t make 2 hours worth of US daily fuel.
If the 14,000 liters/biodiesel liter is correct, what a waste of water.

Kum,
The vast majority of biofuels in the US are generated from corn.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12039&page=10
TABLE 1-1 U.S. Production of Biofuels from Various Feedstocks in 2006
Fuel
Feedstock
U.S. Production in 2006
Ethanol
Corn
4.9 billion gallons
Sorghum
Less than 100 million gallons
Cane sugar
No production (600 million gallons imported from Brazil and Caribbean countries)
Cellulose
No production (one demonstration plant in Canada)
Biodiesel
Soybean oil
Approximately 90 million gallons
Other vegetable oils
Less than 10 million gallons
Recycled grease
Less than 10 million gallons
Cellulose
No production
SOURCE: U.S. CRS (2007).

Great article about Lake Powell, all you guys, now this is the kind of stuff that opens eyes and turns heads. Keep ’em coming, you’re rolling like a juggernaut heading for victory over corrupt science and politics!
A side note… Liquefied natural gas doesn’t require any water that I’m aware of and we have at least a bit over one century worth, maybe two, and… nobody has to go hungry. That’s with running our vehicles and replacing coal and oil entirely. Correct me if I’m wrong.

“weather is not climate”
So they say.
So where is all the hot weather that would be the result of global warming? I haven’t seen any reports of it (unless you look at GISTemp, the product of a global warming, mad scientist).
But I keep seeing all the reports of cold.

Steve, you made reference to Biodiesel. Biodiesel, in the U.S., is made from waste veg grease, or Soybeans, Not Corn.
I’m assuming that the Co corn that is irrigated is irrigated from groundwater, not snow melt water.

Kum,
I said “not to mention the large and ever increasing amount of water being used by the biofuels industry.”
The vast majority of irrigation water in Colorado comes from rivers. Much of the water usage in the Front Range is pumped over from the western slope.
http://co.water.usgs.gov/infodata/wateruse.html

Kum Dollison,
here is a quote from the link Stephen posted:
“The worst offenders included making biodiesel from rapeseed or soya (14,000 liters of water to make just one liter of biodiesel)”
You must understand that water cost is not just irrigation. Processing of the crop also incurs heavy water cost.
Corn for ethanol is 1/10 the amount at 1,400. This is still stupid!!!
You should also note that he uses the phrase “ever increasing”. We do not yet know whether our gubmint will be stupid enough to continue to push rapeseed/soya for biodiesel with current technologies!! The amount of used vegetable oil is already being fully utilised for biodiesel in a number of areas.

I read, somewhere, that although about 15% of corn is irrigated, only about 6% of the corn that’s used for ethanol is irrigated. Most of that in Nebraska. I’m wondering how much Colorado Corn actually goes to ethanol. If there’s not a plant within 30, or so, miles I would say very little. I bet most of it goes the same place it’s always gone – to feed Colorado cattle.
BTW in 2007 we planted 91 million acres of corn and produced 13.1 Billion bushels.
in 2009 we planted 86 million acres and produced 13.2 Billion bushels. An all-time record yield of 165 bu/acre. In spite of one of the most horrendous growing seasons on record.

Steve it looks to me like those refineries are in the “South Platte Basin.” The South Platte flows out of the Rockies, through Nebraska, hooks up with the N. Platte, and goes into the Missouri/Mississippi River System.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Platte_River
The farmers there have 400 GROUNDWATER WELLS, and are in a fight over whether or not they’re taking water out of the S. Platte River.
I just can’t see how the Colorado River could enter into this at all. Why would one “Pump” water over a mountain when you’re sitting right beside a very nice river, already?

I’ve been following the resevoirs in WY the last few years, and they have rebounded to near normal levels recently as well……………

Kuhnkat, that “Twent” article was just a silly hit-piece. Many (most?) biodiesel producers don’t even use water in the process anymore.
As for corn: as I said, something like 96% of the corn used for ethanol is Not irrigated. That that is was irrigated long before the local ethanol refinery was built. As for the plants, water usage can run from zero to 4 gal/gal of ethanol, with the average being around 3. Many plants use waste water from the local municipality, or from a local river. They put the water back cleaner than they found it. As I said, a couple have been built with zero-discharge.
You want to look at water? Get a number on how much they use in the typical California oilfield (water injection,) and the typical oil refinery.

Q. If there were no human extraction of water from the lake since 1992 then what would the likely level be today?
Due to time constraints I have not read all the comments before posting this question.

Biofuels
The point, surely, is that the crops for biofuels (and the water required) are new uses since we (rich westerners at least) have to eat.
Wouldn’t it be simpler to convert to steam power for cars? Not as efficient perhaps but a lot less water use I would guess. (This is not a serious suggestion but then neither is biofuel, apart from reprocessed cooking oil which seems like a win win since it is otherwise often tipped down the drain). The only downside is the faint smell of fish and chips which makes one a bit hungry at times.

Who doesn’t go to Climate Depot for their latest Man-made global warming Smack Down News? I bet the Obama administration does. I bet all the news agencies do. I bet all the AGW alarmists do. It seems that’s the only place to get the real consolidated news on climate science smack down updates. Good on ya Climate Depot
http://www.climatedepot.com/

@ Nigel S (01:46:38) :
Steam power would be very efficient, and be very flexible on fuel supply as what is needed is a simple source of heat, not the precise burning characteristics required for an internal combustion engine. The major problem for people would be a 20-30 minute warm-up time to get the steam pressure up. Sure, people will buy electric cars that need an 8 hour recharge to do a 1 hour daily commute, but won’t give up being able to jump right in and go in an instant.
Oh, about used cooking oil… Back around 2007-8 I was studying online about homebrew biodiesel, checking out sites with all the info needed for DIY. As the fuel prices were skyrocketing, used restaurant oil went from being something discarded that you could have for the asking, to something people were paying for, and then there were outfits gathering it up for commercial processing. In short order it became something that had to be locked up so people wouldn’t steal it, when before they were paying to get rid of it. If it has gone back to throwaway status then fuel prices have dropped so low it’s no longer worth the effort to convert it, or there is a very low concentration of environmental and/or economical people with mechanical skills in that particular area where it’s being discarded.
Another quick biofuel note: They were selling online kits for homebrew ethanol, a thousand bucks or so each, probably still are. The sites said you could mix it with regular gasoline up to 15% without any modifications to the vehicle, recoup your investment pretty quick. About then here in central PA I started noticing new stickers at the gas pumps, “Contains 10% ethanol.” Currently, in what may be a nod to the real state of biofuels, there are stickers saying “May contain up to 10% ethanol.”

Kum Dollison (23:36:05) :
RE the water being pumped over the mountain: I’m guessing that it’s for the City of Denver. There is in fact a resivoir near the Colorado River Headwaters, on the West side of the Divide, and a pipline going under the mountain. Probably not being used for irrigation in the East part of the state.
Traveling through E Colorado and W Nebraska last fall, there was in fact a prodigious amount of corn being grown, didn’t see a lot of irragation going on. This all being said, having travelled all over the Colorado River watershed, I’ve seen all manner of crops being flood irrigated. To the point that would make a Plains farmer blush. There’s a fair amount of corn crop in these parts (South Plains), almost completely irrigated, but with center pivot or drip. Much more efficient uses of water, IMO, certainly more so than the flood irrigation used even in the desert of South Arizona.

Here are some references.
One third to one half of water pumped over from the western slope is used for agriculture.
http://www.allbusiness.com/environment-natural-resources/ecology-environmental/13626685-1.html
Over 90 percent of water consumed through human activities in Colorado occurs in agriculture.
http://www.colorado.edu/law/centers/nrlc/publications/water_and_growth_faq.pdf
Mesa County is the largest water user in the state. It is almost all agricultural and is 99% surface water. Weld County is the largest corn producer and the second largest water user in the state. 80% of the water used in Weld County is surface water.
http://co.water.usgs.gov/infodata/wateruse.html
One third of corn production in the US is for biofuels.
http://www.europeaninstitute.org/May-2008/biofuels-once-seen-as-a-climate-panacea-now-causing-food-headaches-and-transatlantic-second-thoughts.html

Good luck trying to grow corn in Colorado or Arizona without irrigation. Most of the corn growing regions receive 15 inches of precipitation or less per annum.
http://www.nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/pdf/precip/pageprecip_co3.pdf

Well this certainly sheds new light on the greenies desire to drain the lake. No lake level to indicate that there must have been a lot of snow to result in those increases in lake level in spite of the increased outflow of water, would mean no further evidence that they are wrong!
I live in AZ and the greenies call for draining Lake Powell seem to occur in phases. Now I see what all the fuss was about the last time. They don’t even pretend to care anymore that millions of people depend on that stored water.

richard verney (05:33:05)
New steam car record, yes, these crazy guys
http://www.steamcar.co.uk/lsr_history.html
An American put up the money so thanks for that.

@ Nigel S (04:42:41) :
There was up to a certain year of certain Volvo diesel engines that could run straight vegetable oil (SVO), about 1986 I think. When using waste vegetable oil (WVO) the major issues are filtering out fine sediments and the oil contains acids, both picked up during the cooking. When using those fuels, outside temperature can be an issue. There can be dual-fuel dual-tank systems, where regular diesel is used at the start until things warm up and then VO is used. There can also be systems using heaters for the tank and engine.
Often with VO and biodiesel there are engine timing issues, older engines with manually adjustable timing are preferred. Sensor-controlled electronic ignition systems will likely have problems, although recently manufactured vehicles are being built for multi-fuel use and can handle biodiesel and perhaps VO.
A major issue with biodiesel is it has more of a solvent character than normal diesel, it is considered corrosive. Thus older vehicles may need the old rubber hoses upgraded, and certain seals and O-rings get upgraded to Viton.
Which brings up something interesting. Diesel is basically #2 heating oil, there may be some additives for cleaner burning and to keep it from “gelling up” in real cold weather. Home heating oil is dyed red for a quick check if truckers are using it to duck paying highway fuel taxes.
Home oil furnaces can, with no exceptions I know of, burn both #2 and #1 heating oils, with #1 otherwise known as kerosene, which is a solvent. After reviewing the expected quality of homebrew biodiesel, I concluded that old-fashioned “dead dinosaur” diesel is best for vehicles, while biodiesel would be best used for home heating. Furnaces are a lot less finicky than vehicles.

“bikermailman (20:35:01) :
For those of you who haven’t seen the Green River, it’s fantastic at both Flaming River Gorge and the confluence with the Colorado, at Canyonlands Park, both on the map.”
I considered purchasing property along Green River just a short ways north of the city of Green River. After finding the property on the sat image of Google Map I decided that living in in a house located approx 15 foot above river surface would not be a good idea if the spring runoffs continue to to increase each year.
Approx 12 acres with 183 foot of Green River River frontage, I would never run out of water, problem might be just too much?
Here is a link to the property listing not meant to be spam, not sure if this posting will even get past the spam filter.
http://www.moabproperties.com/listings/l0004.html
There are a couple nice pictures of the area and you can see the river and if the trend contines I guess the entire property will be part of the river as well.

Re Steve Goddard (05:42:02) :
Same with lots of corn in Calif, although I do think this is a major distraction from the main point of what you were writing.

One thing I would have liked to see in the report is what level the lake would currently be if for example (pick a time period) the water drawn from 2005 – 2009 had been the same as from 1990 – 1994. How much effect has the increase in use had on lake levels?

feet2fire 2:59:03-“you all think I’m nuts…”
Nah..we know.Lol

Ken,
A good indicator of Green River flooding is the Salt Cedar. During dry years it takes over the sand bars, but floods in wet years clear things out and produce new sand bars. Makes a huge difference when you are camping.

Kum Dollison (22:02:57) : I’m assuming that the Co corn that is irrigated is irrigated from groundwater, not snow melt water.
Kum, where do you think the ground water in Colorado comes from? Answer is snow! Do you realize the rivers and streams here are often just surface symptoms of greater flow beneath the surface that comes from, snow? People don’t realize the whole Front Range, i.e. east of the Rockies, was sparse sagebrush, a few barrel and pear cactus, and cottonwood trees along rivers. It took damming the the flow on the eastern slope into reservoirs, piping water from the western slope where <3% of the state's population resides, to support the population and agriculture in the east. The western part of the state is much wetter than the east with many orchards and now wine grapes.

A C,
In the mountains the vast majority of precipitation is snow, because it is too cold to rain for 8-9 months a year. At lower elevations, precipitation is dominated by summer rains which have very little effect on reservoir storage. Mountain snow is the dominant control.

Steve G,
Your point about water recovery in the Lower Colorado is on target, but your added comment about biodiesel is incorrect, and your confounding of biodiesel and biofuels (a larger category dominated by ethanol) has added a lot of confusion.
As Kum attempted to point out, biodiesel in the U.S. is made almost exclusively from soybeans – the soybean growing areas of the U.S., mostly in the Mississippi watershed, are not experiencing water shortages. Furthermore, it takes almost no water to manufacture biodiesel – in fact, a small amount of water will kill the inter-esterification reaction.
As for the claim in the Dutch article, perhaps you might look into its accuracy and fairness before citing it in future essays. As an alternative, you could amend your initial post to use the word ‘biofuels’. There is no question that ethanol production uses a lot of water – for fermentation, steam generation, cooling, etc.

It seems to me that you guys have way too much time on your hands to be sitting in front of the computer and typing in all this bull! If you guys really want to do something about it you’d be going to the proper site provided by state parks in your area. Basically what I see is you guys talking to one another and not getting anything done! The problem is not going to get any better why, because more and more construction in Las Vegas Southern California and especially Phoenix will continue to go on, why will the problem has to do with immigration more and more immigrants across the border and guess what they need places to live and unfortunately they drink water, shower and all the parks that their kids go to have to have water to water the grass. The problem is never going to end there can be huge snowpack in the Rockies and this will fill the reservoirs and it will happen again the fact is there is nothing we can do about it and that’s a fact why have you ever heard the term lets cut off your leg to save your foot? This is what needs to be done. Immigration, our borders need to be closed and we can properly manage our water levels after all it’s our water we give Mexico enough water in fact we give them so much water that they have developed the new River and what do they use the new River for? They throw all their trash all their polluted runoff and septic tank waste into the river and on top of that they float down the river into our country! This new River flows into the Salton Sea and when these illegals use the river flow to cross into our country the border patrol can do nothing about it because the water is so polluted that can do nothing but watch as these people cross into our country well I guess I said enough let’s see some comments

Leonard Weinstein:
Exactly…!
Which is why ice (from water) disappears on below-freezing days, and the very cold air continues to have some water vapor content. Even when that air is below 32 degrees F (0 deg C).

Kum Dollison (22:53:58) :
“…..in 2009 we planted 86 million acres and produced 13.2 Billion bushels. An all-time record yield of 165 bu/acre. In spite of one of the most horrendous growing seasons on record.”
Again you leave out the most significant part. It was “poor quality” corn and not of use as feed or biofuel stock as I noted in another post.
” …A bumper crop of poor quality corn is not the mark of a reliable food system; nor is one that requires tremendous amounts of propane in order to become dry enough to store. In some areas farmers are adding $75-100/acre to their cost of production, just to dry down their corn. That’s simply not sustainable in terms of natural resources or individual farm economics. If we look at this season with a lens broader than sheer yield, the story is far more complex–and ultimately less rosy. “ http://www.chewswise.com/chews/2009/11/turkey-on-the-combine.html
Poor quality corn is unsutible for biofuel because the bacteria and toxins intefere with the yeast in fermentation.

Gail, I don’t know from your link why you think I’m wrong, but I’m not. The only exceptions are a couple of ethanol refineries separate out the “crude” corn oil and sell it to biodiesel production. A very small amount, overall. Also, on the W. Coast they were “splash, and dashing” (buying palm oil from Asia, adding some diesel *for the Tax Credit* and shipping it to Europe.) I think the Euros have pretty much put the kibosh on that.
The food demonstrations had a lot of causes, but ethanol in the U.S. had absolutely NOTHING to do with any of them.
Steve, I still don’t know what agriculture on the S. Platte River has to do with snow melt on the Colorado.

Symon (02:48:42) :
“I think Kum has a valid point. You can’t talk about ‘biofuels’ and then quote a statistic about a biofuel which isn’t produced in the area under discussion.
As for advising someone to “research”, it’s a shame you didn’t do that with your infamous CO2-freezing-out-of-the-air-article. In that missive, it was a throwaway comment that created the rumpus, as it seems to be with this essay. Why not stay on subject, and avoid detracting attention from the point you are trying to make?”
I wish that was true. As I said I covered this issue in an earlier WUWT. The effects are not local. The bio-fuel use of corn and soybeans here in the USA caused farmers to plant more corn and soybeans, Monsanto to raise their prices for seed and Cargill, the grain trader, to raise theirs. Within the last couple years the cost of feed tripled in the USA and third world countries had food riots.
If a farmer can get more per acre planting corn than that is what he will plant. The veggies he might have planted and sold locally he does not and they get shipped in from elsewhere. One of the worse problems is corn is very hard on the land. It requires a lot of fertilizer and causes a lot of run off/soil erosion.
Also Texas and Colorado are two of the top 18 corn producing states in the USA. “Total unharvested corn production for the top 18 states is projected to be 630.4 million bushels, equaling 4.8% of USDA’s 2009 U.S. corn production projection of 13.151 billion bushels on January 12, 2010.” http://www.smallgrains.org/article.aspx?id=8778

Symon (06:06:07) :
Nasty piece of work aren’t you Simon.

The solid/gas equilibrium is a balance between freezing and subliming molecules. Some molecules are moving from gas to solid, and others are going the other direction. If more are subliming than freezing, there is a net loss of solid. If more are freezing than subliming, the ice mass increases.
Regardless of the net equilibrium state, my statement “CO2 freezes directly out of the air” is of course correct below the freezing point of 109F. If others want to argue about something else, have at it.

NO, I’m not buying it. You Prove to me that water from the Colorado watershed went to corn irrigation in the South Platte River Basin (where the two ethanol refineries are located.)
Your “logic” is not only faulty, it’s nonexistent.

john,
You provided a link to a graph for one basin (out of dozens) that feeds Lake Powell.
Kum,
You can’t grow corn in Colorado without irrigation. Large amounts of western slope water are used to grow corn on both sides of the Continental Divide.
http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20070429/BUSINESS/104290117/-1/rss04

Colorado corn acreage is expected to grow by 25 percent this year in response to the high demand for corn-based ethanol, but agricultural economists say fears of resulting higher food prices are largely unfounded.
Ethanol production has been growing at breakneck speed since President Bush announced his goal of decreasing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil through his Advanced Energy Initiative last year. Colorado has a handful of corn ethanol plants producing more than 100 million gallons of ethanol each year. More plants are set to open in the next few years that will easily double that number.

Why would one use January 29 as some magical date? I’d want to see the data for February 28, March 31, April 30, May 31 & June 30 before drawing any conclusions. If you think about it, most ski resorts open mid- December and close in late March/early April. By taking readings on January 29 you are missing all of the storm data from February March and April and all the spring runoff data for May & June.

Seven,
Nothing magical about Jan 29, other than the fact that it was the most up to date information. Feel free to try out any date you want – the pattern won’t change.
http://lakepowell.water-data.com/

Oh, forgot the link for Co Corn Production
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/nass/Acre/2000s/2009/Acre-06-30-2009.pdf

Kum,
You are wrong, and you know you are. At this point you are just lashing out.
Western slope water is used to grow corn for biofuels, and I have provided you with plenty of documentation showing that. If you aren’t familiar with the geography discussed in the articles, please do a little of your own research.

@ Steve Goddard:
Based on the information your provide here and on the previous post, I’m confused by what I perceive to be conflicting statements. It seemed the point of your previous post was that snowfall had remained stable in the central Rockies for ~100 years. If I recall correctly, you posted a graph demonstrating as much.
Then, on this post you assert that the levels of Lake Powell are “a pretty good proxy for snowfall”; one can see that the Lake Powell (and Lake Mead) varied considerably here in this report, which include data back to 1964 and 1937, respectively:
http://www.swhydro.arizona.edu/archive/V4_N2/feature1.pdf
Also on this post, you assert that rising reservoir levels are a result of “lots and lots of snow”, which seems a contradiction to your original analysis, again, purported to show that snow levels had remained constant.
How should one reconcile these contentions?

It seems to me that Kum is missing the point, ethanol production squanders water and corn, plain stupidity unless hostile foreign actions force it upon you, it is low octane and gives poor fuel economy, the whole car fuel/pollution saga is a can of worms, also I would guess the plants emit water vapor? we know that is actually a “greenhouse “gas.I would say the info Steve gives googles better than Kum’s and he comes over as even! but the spat over what is a moot point is a waste of good people.

Gail,
Corn and soybean farmers don’t plant ‘veggies’. All they can plant are corn and soybeans because that is all that they can drive to the elevator and sell. We used to feed the world. Now the world feeds itself, but we are producing two or three times the corn. We have to or we can’t pay our property taxes (and other taxes). Now, when ethanol was the going thing, there was more corn than soybeans (neither of which are the types eaten by humans), but you aren’t going to see farmers in corn country planting tomatoes – they can’t sell them. Ethanol production is about 6% of the crop. The rest goes directly to feed. Of the 6% that goes to ethanol, much of that is usable afterwards as high-quality feed. Water, by the way, isn’t destroyed. There is this thing called the water cycle. You might have read about it in grade school.
The food riots overseas were about a short rice crop in Australia and environs and had NOTHING to do with ethanol or biodiesel.

Phil M,
The article mentions “lots and lots” of snow since 2005, and it also mentions a drought prior to that. Nevertheless, the long term trend in the Colorado Rockies has been towards increasing or at least steady snow over the last 100 years (with a very large year over year variability.)

Mr Goddard,
1) Are you going to respond to the post from Randy (06:43:21)?
2) You say “Outflow (water usage) has greatly increased over the last few decades”. Have you downloaded the data from http://lakepowell.water-data.com/ to confirm this? Unlike reservoir level, which is more or less the integral of the inflow minus the outflow, picking a single day of the year back through the record is not sufficient to meaningfully chart outflow trends. Where is the data to back your increased outflow claim?
3) I gather you are the guy who wrote about CO2 condensation at the South Pole on this website without understanding a phase diagram, and apparently, from your comments, still believe in this phenomenon despite the experimental evidence presented in a subsequent article on this website. I wonder, are you the same Steven Goddard as the one that wrote this article?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/15/goddard_arctic_ice_mystery/
The article where ice area was equated to unweighted pixels on a satellite image.
The article where Dr. Walt Meier said:-
“Besides this significant error, the rest of the article consists almost entirely of misleading, irrelevant, or erroneous information about Arctic sea ice that add nothing to the understanding of the significant long-term decline that is being observed.”

Sharpshooter,
Large amounts of water are transported from the western slope to the Front Range through several tunnels bored through the mountains.
http://www.ncwcd.org/project_features/cbt_main.asp

Steve Schaper,
I don’t think there is much question that growth of water usage in the west is unsustainable.
http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/16-05/ff_peakwater?currentPage=all
Water is not destroyed, but …….

“Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.”

– The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Symon,
It appears that Randy’s post bolsters my argument. What is it that you want me to respond to?
It would also appear that you are the person who doesn’t understand a phase diagram. Vostok at -89C is in the solid phase.
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/eng/cmd/research/civil/supercritical/phase_changes_of_co2.png
BTW – I must have missed it when the North Pole melted as forecast by the NSIDC director in 2008. Please remind me about that. And Walt Meier has apologized to me for his comments in The Register.
Hope this helps.

Bill, I don’t see the dates for the images at any particular scale on the google map.
Take a look at Grand Wash Bay at this scale:
http://tinyurl.com/yfo7mzq
Now move out a bit … like magic, the lake fills up.
The data on the chart I linked comes from here (as is explained on the web page)
http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/hourly/mead-elv.html
I see no reason to doubt it — unless you think that the US Bureau of Reclamation is up to shennigans! 😉

Here is the long term volume data at Powell.
http://www.usbr.gov/uc/crsp/DrawChart?c=1719&l=LAKE+POWELL&s=14-MAR-1963&e=2-FEB-2010&t=
You can get other upper river reservoirs here:
http://www.usbr.gov/uc/crsp/GetSiteInfo
and the lower colorado here under “historical data”
http://www.usbr.gov/lc/riverops.html
And the good ol’ US Drought Monitor
http://drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html

No question that the drought is easing some.
Will we recover out of drought conditions soon?
Will there be a ‘double dip’ without a solid recovery?
I dunno.
But it’s too soon to call this one over and done with.

Leonard,
Your assertion that there will be no solid present is incorrect. There is a continuous flux of molecules moving back and forth between the solid and gaseous state below the freezing point. Partial pressure is simply a function of the quantity of CO2 molecules in the air. If the partial pressure of CO2 is low, the probability of molecules moving to a solid state is reduced. Above the “dew point” of -220 degrees the number of molecules sublimating is as great as the number of molecules freezing so there is no accumulation. However, if you had an electron microscope you would see molecules continuously freezing and sublimating on the ground surface.
To an individual molecule, the concept of partial pressure is completely meaningless. It is just a statistical measure which affects the net movement/accumulation.
I went through a graduate program in geochemistry and worked for several years in a high temperature and pressure petrology lab where we studied solid/liquid/vapor transitions of many compounds extensively.
At any given time, there will be a certain number of frozen CO2 molecules present in the system. You are looking at this from a statistical point of view. I am looking at it from the micro-physical point of view.
Below the freezing point, things freeze. Don’t confuse the freezing point -(108F) with the “dew point” -220F , which is indeed the temperature where the dry ice accumulates.

He he, the CO2 tweets were entertaining, if but intuitively obvious ; ) fun nevertheless. Any questions on the subject matter? he, he, he!~
jkalafus,
well that clears that up, doesn’t it 🙂