![350-org-logo[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/350-org-logo1.png?quality=75){kind=logo}
You just have to laugh. In their zeal to make the current drought situation all about their irrational CO2 fears, Bill McKibben’s 350.org tweeted this ridiculous comparison of before and after at California’s Folsom Reservoir, near me. Only problem is, the devil is in the details. See the picture then click to enlarge.
Note the “what a difference a year makes” is actually comparing 2011 and 2014. In 2011, California was reaping the liquid benefits of the 2010 El Niño. In 2014, ENSO switched to the La Niña dry pattern.
Now here is the link to the actual tweet, we’ll see if they disappear it or make a correction.
What a difference a year makes in California. #ConnectTheDots pic.twitter.com/FSRb6EwCSZ
— 350 dot org (@350) June 13, 2014
The real reason for the California drought is ENSO and weather patterns, like this one:
![ENSO_pic[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/enso_pic1.jpg?quality=83)
Source: NOAA ERH
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Furthermore, any dam operators worth a damn draw down during the winter months and then [lets it get] full during the summer months. The draw down is done to have enough room to catch spring snow-melt. The first pic was taken in July. The second pic was taken in January. Most dams similar. Low in January, high in July.
oops. …and then “lets it get” full…
Lakes as well.
Pinecrest California
http://www.calconnect.com › >New Photos
Pinecrest Lake California is located in the Sierra Mountains at an altitude of … The Pinecrest Lake is partially drained each fall to provide room for the spring snow melt. The sloping lake bed turns into a sled run in the winter (but not a very fast … Pinecrest Lake is formed by a dam on the South Fork of the Stanislaus River.
Comparing a wet year to a dry year and January to July. How much more biased can you get? For those interested here is the interactive for the California Reservoirs:
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.action
Folsom is there and you can simultaneously plot individual years.
Makes no difference if they tweet a correction. They’ve already had their little climaxes on this piece of eco-porn and are now out on the back-porches smoking their little smokes.
Perhaps Mr. McKibben just needs to learn a bit more about watershed and dam management, along with improving his calendar skills.
2011 was a very wet year in California – one of the top 5 snowpacks on record. That was weather. The last two years have been abnormally dry. That’s climate change.
Everyone knows that!
Rob Dawg, I just checked that site, too. Select 1993-1994, and you’ll see much worse conditions than now. McKibben’s just one big farce.
it looks like that image comparison originally comes from NASA…
http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/news/california-drought-20140225/
REPLY: Right, thanks – but they identified the years correctly in the caption – Anthony
I live in Folsom, and we all received a newsletter a few years ago indicating that Folsom Lake would be maintained at a lower level in the interest of better flood control. The increase in water released was stated as 25%. Major difference.
Perhaps McKibben could find this useful http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/monitor/cal-mon/frames_version.html
1920-2000 warming and increasing precipitation, after 2000 cooling and less precipitation.
Just curious if there is a more recent picture, say from this month. I know it’s been dry, but it would be interesting to see a comparison between January and June, after the spring snow melt (whatever snow there was this year).
And don’t forget that the US Bureau of Reclamation that manages the water released HUGE amounts to ensure that freshwater flows kept ocean saltwater out of the delta area and protect the fish. A giant flush of valuable water that probably could be used right now.
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.action
check jan 1, 1993. Almost every reservoir in California was bone dry. So much for global warming.
That there is the difference between 397 and 399 ppm CO2.
Yes, 10 degrees shy of sanity
The entire point of a reservoir is to save up water for dry times (& to hopefully buffer against floods). Good management involves making reasonably good predictions. It would definitely shock me to find out that a california government bureaucracy was rather poor at doing their actual job.
Oh look. Poor predictions. How shocking.
With regard to:
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.action
Can anyone explain why the horizontal red bars labelled “Hist Avg” are so much higher than the red “Hist Avg” numerical value given just below the bar?
The other issue with Folsom is that it gets hit the hardest for delta/ecosystem releases. It is the closest to the delta (compared to Oroville and Shasta) and so is first hit for needed salinity and species releases. San Juan Water District started questioning the required releases in August of 2013, but Reclamation couldn’t slow or stop those releases until an “official” drought was proclaimed (the politics of that are another topic all together). In wet or dry years, but especially dry ones, we will continue to see this sort of thing in California, until the USACE changes their flood control rule curves for our major reservoirs, and we enter an era of more dynamic flood control pools. That would allow more carry over year to year. As a Folsom Reservoir water user, I have to admit that January photo was scary, though within about 3 weeks of that photo we had a major rain event in that watershed and the resevoir doubled its storage over a weekend. The joys of California weather.
Never ever forget that reservoir levels in California are 100% man made/controlled. It is not uncommon to see one reservoir experience a huge draw down for maintenance reasons. These datums have no climate component.
So after this El Nino, will they tweet the full one again for 2015?
“Can anyone explain why the horizontal red bars labelled “Hist Avg” are so much higher than the red “Hist Avg” numerical value given just below the bar?”
Percent of average versus percent of capacity. Many facilities are not sized for storage but for flood control.
Someone should respond to them: “what a difference six months makes!!” since it looks like there is three times the water now as there was at the low point in January.
The blue block and bar is today’s actual volume as a percent of total reservoir volume. The red line is the historical average capacity for this date of total reservoir volume. The red numerical value is today’s percentage capacity compared to the historical average for today.
So, eg: total reservoir volume 100, today’s actual volume 60 (blue bar and blue numbers), historical capicity for this date 80 (red horizontal line), percent of historical capacity for this date 75 (red number).