Fear and Loathing For California

Ya gotta hand it to California governmental bodies. Knowing for years that the lakes are dry or drying up, knowing that the Sierra snowpack is less than normal, knowing that the Colorado River flow is much less than years past, knowing that Lake Mead and Lake Powell are way below the full mark, these governments block construction of desalination plants at every turn.
One (count em, ONE) has been approved recently (late in 2008), in Carlsbad near San Diego. It will not produce fresh water until 2011, per the company’s website.
Another one sits idle, mothballed, in Santa Barbara.
A few more are in various stages of environmental review.
People get cranky when they get thirsty. There is a reason wars were fought over water in the Wild West.
Meanwhile, farms are not planting this year. No water, so why bother?
California’s state water page may be found here.
There is a spiffy section on Climate Change, and another on Drought.
Roger E. Sowell
Marina del Rey, California (where it is indeed raining tonight)

off topic, but has anybody seen this? Snow kills 6 Moroccan children:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7872831.stm

It’s actually a very clever policy – announce separate contradicting prophecies at different times, by different people. When later it either gets dry or floods, the masses will only remember that there was a prediction covering this event.

Perhaps the reason Dr Chu and Dr Hansen can’t keep there stories straight is because they have been dipping into the ether. As Dr Hunter S. Thompson wrote in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: “There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge.”

Steven Chu.
He’s the guy that told people to paint their roofs white to save energy,…..
http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/12/steven-chu-vs-sane-homeowner.html
…despite the fact that more energy is consumed in the winter to heat than in Summer to cool,…
http://www.carboncommentary.com/2008/02/20/76
…and so what might be saved in the Summer would be lost several fold over in the Winter.
In fact, that idea is so idiotic and poorly thought out that I wonder if what he won his Nobel prize for was really his own idea, or if he just had some really bright grad students who’s ideas he, eh, borrowed? (Also, in some of the tapes I’ve seen him in, he look like he’s plastered, slurring his words and not really making a lot of sense. It makes me wonder how much further he could run his car if he put his corn into it’s tank instead of his.)

He has a severe case of Hockey Stick Fever.
With records only going back to 1877 (the man is also NOT very resourceful)
officially, he’s in a poor position to be yo-yoing the El La Ninao pom poms.
The story of the 49’ers and the weather patterns that follow, along the meticulous snow & rain records kept by a very prominent 1st reservoir in California history (still standing folks) that fed the No. Blumefield Ditch and all the other hydraulic mining co’s of the era escapes poor Chu.
The man needs to do his homework before opening his yap about my State.
There was a very long dry spell in Calif, but it’s clearly off Chu’s radar, and it does NOT fit any patterns seen currently.

UPDATE…
One tape where he appears a bit snookered..

You don’t suppose that’s why he thinks 3degC is equivalent to 11degF? (it’s 5.4degF) And the IPCC has backed down considerably on it’s claim of a 3degC change in average global temperature, whatever that is.

1. I think Dr Chu will find that increasing frequencies of El Ninos is associated with the warm phase of the PDO, which we have just exited from, hence the smart bets now would be on 30 years of more La Ninas.
2. There is therefore indeed the possibility of droughts ahead in California, due to La Ninas, not El Ninos. However, as this has happened before and humankind survived in California, perhaps they will do so again?
3. One wonders whether Dr Chu is angling for a job at Kleiner Perkin Caufield and Byers in a couple of years, who are no doubt delighted that he is talking up the need for new clean tech companies and products in their region?
4. Perhaps the answer is a series of transitory canals for water shovelling around the country? After all, with any weather, it seems to chuck it down somewhere. Washington State might have too much in the years ahead and Tennessee can ship it to Florida, perhaps?

Every day in California is a State of Emergency.
The light bulbs at the top are all screwed in backwards.
Can we borrow Dave Archibald for a few years to come over here and straighten these quarks out?

Gah! This is like some mass form of cognitive dissonance. Does anyone think for a moment that he believes this screed?

It could be worse you could live in Washington:
“Antarctic bulge could flood Washington DC ”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16545-antarctic-bulge-could-flood-washington-dc.html

Aussie John (23:50:53) :
So what caused the 1883-1884 wettest ever recorded rainfall season?
I do not know what dates constitute the 1883-1884 rainfall season.
But Krakatoa erupted August 26–27, 1883.
Just a thought.

I don’t know what you are worried about – it looks like the East Coast is going to be completely flooded due to a water bulge http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16545-antarctic-bulge-could-flood-washington-dc.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

(sarc)Hooray for whitewashing the planet, he’s a freaking genius , and we should out law any kind of heat absorption.
First matter of business in the new world, the sun must go, we’re heating double the warmth and remember it’s for the children. (sarc/)
Keep saying that to yourselves, as you make our kids play for your retirement in wasteful big $$$ green energy investments over a non existant pollution scam.
Yeah, my kids, so bring it on, the population with only take so much BS. :i

HasItBeen4YearsYet? (00:10:42) :
Steven Chu.
He’s the guy that told people to paint their roofs white to save energy,…..
http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/12/steven-chu-vs-sane-homeowner.html
…despite the fact that more energy is consumed in the winter to heat than in Summer to cool,…
http://www.carboncommentary.com/2008/02/20/76
…and so what might be saved in the Summer would be lost several fold over in the Winter.

Sorry HasItBeen4YearsYet, but your physics is wrong. White reduces both emission and absorption of radiation, black increases both. So a white house will absorb less energy from the hotter outside in summer, and reduce radiation from the hotter inside in winter. It is perfectly sensible advice.

They don’t do themselves any favors using scare tactics like that.
The public are not buying it as you can see at this news poll.
http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/

We have water, America:
Dam may go underwater…

I view California in a very poor light. They spend there citizens money on vast, pointless and wasteful ways. Yet on things that matter, they block private enterprise and seem to expect to be subsidized by other states – examples oil, water, electricity – basic things. California is socialist and anti-capitalist.
I hate to seem harsh, but frankly, I would not shed too many tears if California dried up and blew away, or fell into the sea or simply left the United States. California does significantly more harm to the US than the benefits it provides.
California and it’s citizens are completely expendable to the health and well being of the United States, in fact, it would be desirable for it to go away.

There is a reason that no great civilization ever arose in North America. It’s not because the Indians couldn’t do it, there were a few abortive attempts. It is because the climate lacks the required long term stability.
The US of A will eventually discover this. It will be blamed on GW.

“…despite the fact that more energy is consumed in the winter to heat than in Summer to cool,…”
In the summer, the highest energy consumption comes when the sun is highest in the sky.
In the winter, the highest energy consumption occurs when the sun isn’t shinning at all.
In addition, the sun doesn’t shine much in the winter for much of the US.
On top of that, for much of the country, roofs are covered by snow for a significant fraction of the winter, so it doesn’t matter what color you paint it.

E.M.Smith (02:39:56)
‘Of course, the thing that really frosts my shorts is the point made earlier. We could have all the water anyone could ever need at about the present rate for city water, technically… if only you could get a desalinization plant completed… Plenty planned and some started. Then the protests, red tape, et. al. begin… ‘
You left out lawsuits.
And people wonder why business is moving out of California and the U.S..

There is no question that the population centers of California face several serious threats, including their water supply. Obsessing about CO2 is an unfortunate distraction that diverts attention away from any intelligent remedial actions.
An interesting story from the LA Times in 2005
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-earthquake08sep08,1,2126004.story?coll=la-util-news-local
U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones remembers attending an emergency training session in August 2001 with the Federal Emergency Management Agency that discussed the three most likely catastrophes to strike the United States.
First on the list was a terrorist attack in New York. Second was a super-strength hurricane hitting New Orleans. Third was a major earthquake on the San Andreas fault.

Graeme Rodaughan… Not only just in front…at present some 91 % think
GW is a myth…Question was : Is the heat wave in Australia caused by GW?
No and yes each 4,5 % approx. … Is it a UCSPA??? [United Coordinated Sceptic
Poll Attack] … Other weather and climate-related polls:
…At what point should sporting events be called off due to heat
39C 65%
41C 21,7%
44C or above (Aussies are tough, aren’t they??) 13,4%
and lastly:
Obama’s greatest challenge?
Economy: 57,7%
Rebuilding US international status 22,0%
Climate change 8,1%
And this people voted for[?] Rudd and Company…
or not so many real Australians care for ABC AU net polls??

‘HasItBeen4YearsYet? (00:10:42) :
Steven Chu.
He’s the guy that told people to paint their roofs white to save energy,…..’
That’s just in the spring. In the fall, you paint the roof black. Then in the spring you paint it white. Then in the fall, you paint it black again. C’mon guys, you’re just not thinking GREEN…
er… black. er…white.
Oh heck.

With its roughly 16,000 employees, and a budget that is probably in the billions, the Department of Energy has not, to date, created one electron of energy! Thank you “Jimma” Carter for giving us this waste of money.
And now Steven Chu is using his post to promote his religion.
markm

I hope Dr Chu read this article before he made his remarks. PDO and AMO are major factors affecting US weather and droughts especially PDO along the west coast and AMO along the east coast and sometime they combine in unique ways.
http://www.pnas.org/content/101/12/4136.full.pdf+html
Figure #4 of this article is especially helpful. With PDO now negative and AMO still positive we are today where we were about 1945 -1950. The weather that followed over the next 30 years was cool especially 1965 -1975,when both PDO AND AMO went negative .
Global temperatures seem to go up more than usual when both AMO and PDO are positive like 1995 -2007 and again 1925-1945. Co2 levels have very little to do with these natural climate swings. The climate swings were present well before any manmade CO2 showed any rise.

$600 million in the stimulus package for NASA to study climate change? I thought it was a done deal that we are doomed, etc. Should use half that money to study adaptations to climate change and the other half to advance the Singularity. We need it bad.

This is really silly because the wave regime off the California coast is perfect for wave acuated pumps. A Reverse osmosis unit with inlet pressure (1000psi to 1200psi) provided by wave pumps and a pelton turbine on the outlet (700psi to800psi) would be energy positive. Local salinity impacts are easily solved by deep water discharge (cheap plastic pipe run a mile or two offshore to an area of stong current with perferations on the last few hundred feet to spread it out). The only things lacking are the will and the capital.

John Philip,
Would it make you happier if I said that “Dr. Hansen seriously contemplated a Super El Nino in 2007 and has already forecast a return to El Nino in 2009?
I’m not sure what your point is, because it seems clear that Dr. Hansen expects El Nino to be the dominant pattern in the future.

Aussie John (23:50:53) :
So what caused the 1883-1884 wettest ever recorded rainfall season?
There was an intense El Nino event in 1884 (sources: Eguiguren 1894, Sievers 1914).
You can find a table of el nino events at: http://www.cipca.org.pe/cipca/nino/nino/feni%F1o.htm

Steven Goddard
Could you send me your E-mail. I have somthing on seaice that might be of interest to you.

Sorry HasItBeen4YearsYet, but your physics is wrong. White reduces both emission and absorption of radiation, black increases both. So a white house will absorb less energy from the hotter outside in summer, and reduce radiation from the hotter inside in winter. It is perfectly sensible advice.
Winter roof reflects sunlight and house needs more heating. Paint sits on black body interior surface. Black body interior absorbs internal heat and warms the paint. Paint radiates as a black body. Not a good idea to paint the house white unless you live in a hot country.

Dr. Chu is correct in his warning to California. I didn’t read his entire statement so I don’t know if he was insinuating that gorebull warming was the cause. Gorebull warming has nothing to do with it. The article “The Great Droughts of Y1k” May 2001– http://www.yosemite.org/naturenotes/paleodrought1.htm details the past and warns of the future. Dr. Stine also investigates how precipitation in coastal Alaska and southern California are in opposite patterns. That is what is happening today(?) Climate Audit also reviewed this back in 2006– http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=956.
So many layers to sort out: sunspot cycles, DeVries cycles, ENSO cycles, 60 year ocean cycles, climate “Minimum” cycles and volcanic eruptions to muddy up the record. My bet is that they are all interrelated. Dr. Stine is certain that California will have another 150 year drought at some point in time.

Radiational cooling? Is there a hole in the CO2 “blanket” in Buffalo?
————————————————————-
Frigid temperatures take WNY by surprise
http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/570235.html
Buffalo State College hosts the national teach-in on Global Warming Situations today — a day the local temperature bottomed out at minus 6 degrees.
“We didn’t have temperatures forecast to be quite that cold,” weather service meteorologist David Zaff said this morning. “When you have snowpack on the ground and clear skies, temperatures can plummet. It’s called radiational cooling.”
——————————————————
Power Absorption Coefficient and the Beer Lambert Law
http://www.atomicprecision.com/blog/2009/01/06/fwd-power-absorption-coefficient-and-the-beer-lambert-law/
“So carbon dioxide in the far infra red is a low absorber, it has no dipole so the absorption is collision induced (quadrupole induced dipole absorption).”
” Carbon dioxide cannot absorb an infinite amount of radiation,…carbon dioxide has a spectrum. It absorbs only at certain frequencies.”
“Carbon dioxide at atmospheric pressures has essentially no absorption because it has no dipole.”
“The planet will not heat up due to carbon dioxide because I0 / I cannot become infinite in the Beer Lambert Lw. This is a trace gas compared with water, the main gases in the atmosphere are nitrogen (about 80%) and oxygen (about 20%). None of these gases will cause run away heating. They have not done so for 4,000 million years. Obviously, in that time the Earth has developed a self regulatory mechanism. Of far greater danger to the Earth are holes in the ozone layer and pollutants other than carbon dioxide, which is needed by plants, which in turn create oxygen for mammals. Of far greater danger to the Earth i steh ripping apart of the landscape in order to make profit – wind turbines.”
——————————————————-
Absorption of Infra red radiation by CO2
http://www.atomicprecision.com/blog/2009/01/10/fwd-absorption-of-infra-red-radiation-by-co2/
References
1) _http://nov55.com/ntyg.html_ (http://nov55.com/ntyg.html) . 2) _http://brneurosci.org/co2.html_ (http://brneurosci.org/co2.html)
These sites show how CO2 absorbs infra red radiation. At its main peak, CO2 absorbs all infra red in ten metres under atmospheric conditions. There is no radiation left after ten metres. If the CO2 concentration were doubled, all infra red would be absorbed in five metres. This is not a mechanism for change of temperature AT ALL because of convection. The Stefan Boltzmann law for black body radiation was misapplied by Arrhenius because CO2 only has three absorption peaks in the infra red. This means that 94% of the so called “heat producing radiation” escapes carbon dioxide.
So the alarmists have just put temperature proportional to alpha and concentration proportional to intensity. This has little or no science in it. The other site mentioned here shows very clearly that the Beer Lambert law does not produce a temperature change mechanism. The site also discusses gross corruption in contemporary science and society. My Hall of Fame group operated in a time when science was not corrupt and all our work was published in the best peer reviewed journals and books. The AIAS exposes gross corruption in for example cosmology almost every day. we used computers extensively, and we know that use of computers must be carefully controlled. Computer models produced by climatologists are heavily criticised in numerous sites.
So all we are left with is that the weather may be changing.

HasItBeen4YearsYet? (00:10:42) :
Steven Chu.
He’s the guy that told people to paint their roofs white to save energy,…..
http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/12/steven-chu-vs-sane-homeowner.html
…despite the fact that more energy is consumed in the winter to heat than in Summer to cool,…
http://www.carboncommentary.com/2008/02/20/76
…and so what might be saved in the Summer would be lost several fold over in the Winter.
In fact, that idea is so idiotic and poorly thought out that I wonder if what he won his Nobel prize for was really his own idea, or if he just had some really bright grad students who’s ideas he, eh, borrowed? (Also, in some of the tapes I’ve seen him in, he look like he’s plastered, slurring his words and not really making a lot of sense. It makes me wonder how much further he could run his car if he put his corn into it’s tank instead of his.)

In southern Nevada, the roofs of school buses are painted white to reduce the interior heat. Almost anybody who bought a new car bought a “desert friendly” color like white, silver, light blue, etc., etc.
The point is, if you live in a hot, sunny climate, then white helps reduce your energy usage (and reduces local warming). But if you live in a cooler climate, you’ll want your roofs to be a dark color.
I don’t know what us poor fools in the temperate midwest should do. Can somebody develop a roof shingle that turns light and reflective when it’s hot but is dark when cold?
BTW: Shade trees are a wonderful thing. In the summer, the leaves help keep the sun off your home, and therefore cooler. But in the winter, when the leaves are gone, more sunlight strikes your home and this helps reduce your heating bill.

John Galt:

Do Dr. Chu and others like him think they can scare us into blindly accepting their agenda?

The answer, as you know, is YES. This thing has to be maintained or the wheels fall off. If the constant drumbeat of HUMAN CAUSED isn’t continued, people will forget, or worse, will start to remember that climate changes did not start last wednesday

In response to the first comment post on this topic from Roger Sowell.
Your statement: “…knowing that the Colorado River flow is much less than years past, knowing that Lake Mead and Lake Powell are way below the full mark…”
This is sort of misleading. Overpopulation and over-use is why some of the lakes like Mead are only about 50% of full pool. And people forget, we live in a desert (I’ll spell that again: d e s e r t ) …which would otherwise not be so populated if it wasn’t for modern air conditioning and irrigation systems.
When I first moved to Southern California, I read a whitepaper from an expert who presented it to a city council contemplating what to do about the rapid growth in the San Diego area. The paper said we were just coming out of “a prolonged 30 year drought in Southern California”. That was 1986. We have had quite a few very wet years and very dry years since then. One of the lakes by my house that was half empty for about 5 years was suddenly filled up again two years ago because of excess rainfall. Again, this is a desert, and some of the farmers were shameful, when for years, they flooded their fields with un-metered (yes un-metered !) water for crops they had no business growing in this climate here in California.
But I would like you to visit http://lakemead.water-data.com/ and see that this year, the inflows have been running more than 70% above normal for Lake Mead and this has been consistent for more than 100 days…and last year wasn’t bad either. The problem is that the population siphons out way too much and wastes too much.
Oh, and last year, we were still snow skiing until it was almost summer… not sure where they take the snow measurements, but we had snow for skiing much later and longer than usual.

California has a fire ecology; the span varies according to the ecosystem. The If a fast surface wildfire courses through periodically it clears the small stuff, facilitates germination of certain plants, provides nutrients for others… If fires are not allowed to burn cyclically, we get slower, hot-hot ground fires that cause much more plant death, followed by erosion. Thus, the “prescribed” burns in Montana’s forests (they used to be called “controlled” but that was rarely the case so the terminology shifted to a more realistic description).
We’re having a false spring in Silicon Valley, where the plum trees are covered in white blossoms and the citrus are nearly all picked. It has been dry lately with just the slightest dusting of rain over the last few nights. I would love a bit of flooding, a drenching, mossy wet, huge puddles on the low spots of 101 clogging traffic, uprooted trees from the delta washing up on Marin’s beaches like whale skeletons, waves breaking over the sea walls, the need for wellies and sump pumps, sand bags and stout umbrellas…
As for Chu joining Kleiner, they’ve added some odd lots to the greentech team in the last few years, but there are still some good people there, too, and some money. The well of private capital isn’t dry, just less intrigued by risk.
As for Boxer, in high school we were good girls and avoided her block because it was known as a place where the bad kids misbehaved. I was shocked when I found out people voted for her. Yikes!
Yes, we’re overcrowded, and no, San Andreas hasn’t done the big cull yet, and yes, the weather (not climate) on the coast fluctuates a lot. The lotus eaters who moved out here expecting paradise complain, loudly. Those of us whose kin came here back when it was cheap choose to live contentedly within the drought-moss cycle, appreciating Nature in her moods.

“Carbon dioxide at atmospheric pressures has essentially no absorption because it has no dipole.”
And no amount of pseudo-scientific jargon and heuristics can change this fact.

Not a good idea to paint the house white unless you live in a hot country. – MartinGAtkins
Surely it depends whether you’re trying to heat the house or cool it? If you want to keep it cool, you paint your house white, so that it reflects some of the solar radiation. If you want to warm your house, you paint it black, so as to absorb all the solar radiation.
But… if white is a poor emitter as well as a poor absorber, and black is the converse, then to keep your house optimally cool, you should really paint the house white in the morning, and paint it black in the evening – so that during daylight hours the house absorbs the minimum solar radiation, and during the night the house emits the maximum radiation. And conversely if you want to keep your house warm, you should do the opposite, and paint it black in the morning, and then paint it white in the evening.
Hmmm…. All that painting would be a bit of a chore though, but if you covered your house in rotatable slats (just like the blinds you find in windows), painted black on one side and white on the other (not like the blinds you find in windows), you could have a solar cell trigger an actuator motor to turn the slats in the morning and the evening.
A neighbourhood full of houses like this would see all the houses white during the daytime summer months, and black during the daytime winter months. And every day, at about 6 am and about 6 pm (depending on the season, maybe) there would be a tremendous roar as all the houses flipped their slats to turn black and then white again. And there’d be a festival, with beer and music, each year at the vernal and autumnal eqinoxes, to celebrate the neighbourhood turning black or turning white again.
I could go on,.. but I won’t.

Great article from National Geographic on the subject.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/02/drying-west/kunzig-text/1

TJA said:
There is a reason that no great civilization ever arose in North America. It’s not because the Indians couldn’t do it, there were a few abortive attempts. It is because the climate lacks the required long term stability.
That’s part of it. If you haven’t already, you should read Jarred Diamond’s excellent “Guns, Germs, and Steel”. It expands on many reasons why advanced civilizations evolved in some regions and not in others. It’s ground breaking work.

Its same old song for CA.. drought, wild fire, mud slide, .. repeat.. but every year they make it sound new and different because the same stupid people keep building back in the same stupid places. I liked CA.. Lived from SF all the way down to San Diego. Theres some beautiful spots along the coast. But theres way too many people there. USGS has a lovely non global warming take on the whole deal:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/ha/ha730/ch_b/B-text1.html
But it sure doesnt sound like an effect of global warming.
PS Lots of earth shakin going on in western US.. anyone know the effects of a very active subduction zone? Have you checked your earthquake kits lately?

Hmmm…… let me see if I can find some water at Google……… ah yes here it is, over 300 in. of snow…… in CA!
http://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/nsa/reports.html?region=National&var=snowdepth&dy=2008&dm=10&dd=13&units=e&sort=value&filter=0
Click on SQBC1 for Squaw Valley

Below is a link to a California Supreme Court decision that discusses water rights. The case is National Audubon Society v Los Angeles Dept of Water and Power, (33 Cal.3d 419 (1983)).
Click Here
Mike S.
“This is sort of misleading. Overpopulation and over-use is why some of the lakes like Mead are only about 50% of full pool.”
Apologies if I mislead anyone. The point is that population grew (and is growing!) and water resources actually fell — the Colorado River flow trend is negative per the USGS.
See this reference, and scroll down to Figure 3.
The shrinking flow in the Colorado, plus water re-allocation among the river pact states, leaves California more dependent on snowpack, which is rather unreliable. Alternatives that Governator Schwarzennegger proposed for building more dams to store more rainwater were shot down by the legislature (motivated by environmentalists) and at the ballot box.
Then a Federal judge ruled that perfectly good Sacramento river water must be diverted to the ocean rather than sent south to parched Southern California, in order to protect the delta smelt (a small fish that apparently is endangered, or about to be.)
So here we are. Inadequate Colorado river flow, diverted Sacramento river flow, unreliable snowpack, too few dams to catch the rainwater, and environmentalists blocking desalination plants.
Now the entire nation will pay the price, as California farms do not produce what they ordinarily would. Meat prices will likely rise, too, as cattle also require water to drink.
As I wrote before on WUWT, it would be great to see a massive federal project to build a water pipeline across America, from the Mississippi to the Colorado river. Now, that is one stimulus package project I could support. Anybody want to guess if that project is included?
Roger E. Sowell
Marina del Rey, California

During the LIA, from paleo evidence (the more trustworthy type – aquifers, moisture responsive trees, etc) there were the worst mega droughts ever. How’s them apples Chu?

I vote that when the food and water shortages turn up, the environmental lobby is at the back of the queue for receiving anything. If they are the ones causing the problems, they should be the ones that suffer most the consequences, in my opinion.

By law, 1/2 the state budget must be spent on “education” so if you can put up with political indoctrination the approved curriculum, there are opportunities there as well. (Though not in the classroom. The money stops in the administration level and goes to contracts to endlessly tear down and rebuild shoddy schools and recycle text books to more politically correct ones.)
Oh Yes. Read This! Fresno Unified created hired a new administrator, THEN froze the budget! This was not filling a vacant post, this was creating a new one! I just spent $30,000 getting my CA teaching credential, and I gotta tell ya, looking for a teaching job… I’m feeling a bit screwed right about now.

The Audubon case I gave above is fairly long and full of legal jargon especially at the top.
The part dealing with the history of water is found if one scrolls down to “1. Background and history of the Mono Lake litigation.”
E.M. Smith, absolutely correct about limiting growth by blocking expansion of water (and other necessary services). When some environmentalists are off the record, that is one subject I have overheard them talk about.
Roger E. Sowell

We might be getting a little of topic with painting the house white, etc., but it is very informative and entertaining. So I will mention Dr Chu to keep it on top.
About 43 years ago my Dad, a homebuilder, built his idea of what a house should be in Connecticut. It is a raised ranch, Rudolph Matern the architect, that has lots of windows and overhangs,built on a hill at about 800ft above sealevel running lengthwise from South to North on a wooded lot with 70 foot tall oaks, ash and maple.He planned it so during the summer the sun would be high in the sky and the trees and overhangs would block out the sun. During the winter the sun would be low in the sky and the sunlight would come into the house and shine on a large brick fireplace, thereby heating the house. By the way, he was “sold”on electric heat, and plumbers that put in furances and heating systems back in the mid 1960’s said electric heat was the way to go even if it was taking away work from them. It was the atomic genie that was supposed to provide cheap abundant and reliable power. But alas, that was before environmentalism, the EPA and three Mile Island. So it was constructed with thermopanes and loads of insulation too.
Now, since Dr Chu has a PhD in Physics and a Nobel prize, I would expect something more from him than painting the roof white. Like plant shade trees too, maybe.
By the way, the house has a almost white roof, Bird Seal King 3 tab shingles, FrostBlende was the color. Reason: Pure white looks cheap, but a near white roof would be cooler in the sun and last longer than a black or dark roof.

I asked this question at Tamino, but nobody answered. Can anybody here help?
******
A question: I was looking at the Multivariate ENSO index at: http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/klaus.wolter/MEI/
Looking at the graph, ENSO seems to have been in a predominantly cooling phase until the mid-1970s, then switching to a predominantly warming phase. Am I interpreting that correctly?
If so, could some of the recent warming have been attributed to carbon forcing, when it was actually due to a flip in ENSO? Of course, the flip in ENSO could also be due to global warming, I suppose.
I’d appreciate any advice on interpreting this.

re: desalinization
For some background info on Tampa’s desal plant and some of the problems encountered. They did not go into detail about the intakes sucking in too much sea grass and clogging them up. But then, they put the plant on the east side of Tampa Bay amongst the sea grass beds and not on the Gulf of Mexico.:
http://www.water-technology.net/projects/tampa/

It appears to me that far too many people in the US, including people with PhDs in science, suffer from ADD . . . Arithmetic Deficit Disorder.

Another argument for desalination plants instead of what is currently practiced here in Southern California: waste water recycling.
This is not likely to increase real estate prices in Southern California, but….our water powers-that-be are now recycling treated water from the poop-processing-plants (P3). The treated P3 effluent water is allowed to percolate through the soil until it replenishes aquifers, then is drawn out again via wells into the potable water system. The idea is to conserve water by re-use.
The problem is that P3s do not remove some rather serious chemicals and biologically active compounds, some of which are endocrine disruptors. We are talking about synthetic female hormones here, among other baddies. And they are in the public drinking water. The amounts increase year by year as the water is recycled from well to household, unused medicines are flushed down the toilet, processed in the P3, then percolates back into the aquifer.
Perhaps this explains some rather odd behavior by many Californians?
Btw…the Los Angeles Dept of Water and Power drinks bottled water at their meetings…they were horrified when someone (a reporter!) asked why are they not drinking tap water?
At times, So Cal can be rather amusing….I drink and cook with ONLY bottled water.
Roger E. Sowell
Marina del Rey, California

In Southern Cal. the winter of 1862-1863 probably surpassed 1882-1883. It’s been a long time since I read the article on it but it put down something like 45 inches in a month, Xmas eve till late Jan. So. Cal. was one big lake, it wiped out what was left of the Californio cattle ranches. It was also mentioned in William Brewers excellent ‘Up and Down California.

Re: wave power:
Currently, and for the next week offshore California, waves are forecast at 14-21 feet (average of highest 1/3 of all waves), with individual waves at twice the average. Of course, we are having a significant weather system, too, with gale-force winds. (source: NWS)
There is an awful lot of potential energy in them thar waves…now, getting permission from the various state agencies…oh, never mind…
E.M.Smith, at least NorCal gets to drink fairly pure water from Hetch Hetchy…while we are forced to drink recycled sewage P3 effluent…can we allege discrimination over this? (I know, I know…I’m a lawyer…I should know this one…)
Tom in Florida, re Tampa’s desalination troubles: the same outfit is building the one in Carlsbad. We are hoping they learned some lessons from the Tampa site. I don’t think our ocean water in Carlsbad is warm enough to support grass, but there will likely be other stuff/critters to deal with.
Frank Perdicaro: poorly managed, indeed. Your idea has some merit, except that a 1976 law absolutely prohibits new nuclear power plants anywhere in California. Note the hypocrisy: California has no problem importing vast amounts of power from a triple-header nuke in Arizona, Palo Verde.
In any event, nuclear power has become prohibitively expensive, at $0.25 to $0.30 per kwh, as I noted in my blog.
Roger E. Sowell

>Some folks insist that the current Australian drought is caused by AGW/CO2. That is silly, and history disproves that assertion…
No they do not. BUT it is the hottest drought ever witnessed and the longest and has by far the lowest river flows. Global warming has exacerbated it and the lack of negative IOD events has contributed to a decline in autumn rainfall which is a unique feature of the climate in the region. There are numerous papers in the scientific literature on the warming drying trends in this region.
Meanwhile the southeast Australia – today – is experiencing the most severe February heatwave on record and will quite possible have the hottest day ever recorded. This heatwave has killed hundreds and cost 100s millions in damages. You can keep track of this horrific situation via http://www.abc.net.au/news .
Stick to the northern hemisphere Smokey…

“” E.M.Smith (16:16:55) :
gary gulrud (14:28:37) : Looks like I’m an amateur attempting banter with professionals.
Now wait a minute. I’ve been called a lot of things, but rarely ‘professional’. I insist you take that back or buy me a beer! ;=}
(liked your McCabe PDO cite, btw) “”
“Professionals” do not have jobs; they have “practices”, and they practice on their “clients”.
And since they are just practising, they aren’t too good at it; so no “professional” will ever give you a money back guarantee. Further evidence of their expertise, is that they have to have malpractice insurance to cover their a*** when they screw up.
Then finally, professionals are always protected by laws that prohibit you from horning in on their racket, and trying to “practise” yourself. So if you don’t belong to their club, you will be prosecutred for practising without a licence.
So don’t ever call me a professional; my stuff has to work or I get fired. If my customers don’t buy my products of their own free will; we go broke, and I get fired.

In Colorado, the only thing we like about southern California is that it is down stream. (when we flush) I still remember the Left coast suing us over water from the Colorado River. (so they could flush)
I have trouble sympathizing with a state that waters the medians of it’s freeways. If God wants our medians green, He makes it rain.
We do have our own nutcases. High plains desert and Blue grass do not mix. My neighbor spills more water down the storm drain whenever he waters his lawn than I use in a month. His yard looks better. My bank account looks better. See comment about green medians above.
Xeriscape. Green. Conservation. As in conserving small pieces of green paper with pictures of dead presidents and statesmen.
Too simple a concept for most politicians.

E.M. Smith, re
“(Sidebar: the mineral from which asbestos comes is common in the hills around here. I’ve sat on a big chunk of the stuff. We also have cinnabar that seasons a local river with mercury (fishing prohibited), that runs into the bay, that people fish in,…”
Yup, that asbestos is wicked stuff…I have some dealings with that as an attorney…mostly construction-related. Contractor goes excavating in dirt then hits some of that and people nearby sue just in case they breathed a little bit.
We also have people down here who fish in creeks where signs are posted saying do not fish-water is not clean; and people swim in lagoons near Malibu where the green scum is also brown…
Retired Engineer
I also wondered about why California wastes water on the freeway medians and sides when I first moved out here. Then found that it is part of that P3 recycling plan: the water is from a poop-processing-plant effluent. Also, it is used to water golf courses, and by law all dust-control watering during construction must use recycled water, if available. No kidding, folks. That P3 recycle is everywhere.
We had a construction job where the union workers threatened to walk off because they discovered that the dust-control water was P3 effluent. The owner caved and used potable water. The P3 effluent water is unmetered and free, but the owner had to pay for the potable water. The workers were concerned that they would get very ill from the water spray entering their eyes and lungs, and into shallow cuts that most construction guys have on their hands.
And all that median-watering helps to consume CO2 from our ever-warming atmosphere. In fact, the man-planted greenery in So Cal should make every warmist happy…we are doing our part to counter the deforestation in other parts of the globe. We have a town called Woodland Hills, with lots of trees. I met a lady whose dad developed Woodland Hills, and planted the thousand and thousands of trees where there was nothing before.
I wonder if we will see any increase at Mauna Loa’sCO2 measurements later this summer, as California grows zero crops due to insufficient water, and the CO2 remains in the sky. 😉
Can we sue the State Water Department for failure to provide water, thus contributing to global warming? 😉

>I think you mean climate change don’t you. That’s the new in term among the hysterical alarmists.
Climate scientists have always talked of climate change AND global warming.
It is the “sceptics” who made the big switch in response to research by Luntz who worked for the republican party. Thanks to the internet the truth is know by those who care to look (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.climatechange).
Your understanding of history and terminology is worse than the climate knowledge I see here.

Has anyone seen this yet? Met O announces global cooling to 2014.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/4534358/Snow-Britain-Further-snow-and-ice-forecast-for-rest-of-the-winter.html
“Despite global warming there could be further colder-than-average winters in the years ahead as the climate cools naturally, the Met Office believes. Mr Britton said that the last 10-year assessment – carried out in 2004 – suggested a decade where global warming would be held back by a natural cooling trend. But beyond 2014 the climate will resume its warming trend, he said.”
If that really came from Met O it is the biggest whopper they’ve come up with yet.
In August 2007 after a failed “prediction” in January and again in April for the warmest year on record, Met O stated:
“Climate scientists at the Met Office Hadley Centre will unveil the first decadal climate prediction model in a paper published on 10 August 2007 in the journal Science. The paper includes the Met Office’s prediction for annual global temperature to 2014.
Over the 10-year period as a whole, climate continues to warm and 2014 is likely to be 0.3 °C warmer than 2004. At least half of the years after 2009 are predicted to exceed the warmest year currently on record”
The emperor has no clothes.

I can’t remember the fibrous rock in that area. Is that chrysotile?
Asbestos forms in Serpentine, along the Great Serpentine belt in the Mother Lode. Most asbestos in Ca. is long-fiber.
You cannot mine the stuff because there are chrome kidneys that are classified as strategic minerals in the Serpentine. So we import our chrome from Rhodesia last I checked (10yrs ago).
So we had asbestos mined that was short-fiber, the one that is dangerous to breathe.
See what happens when government acts because it looked good on paper?
AGW is an accident looking for a place to happen.

DJ: “It is the “sceptics” who made the big switch in response to research by Luntz who worked for the republican party.”
Thanks for that link. I had a suspicion that focusing on ‘climate change’ rather than ‘global warming’ was a sceptic strategy, since we are often treated to such claims as ‘the climate is always changing’, which suggests an underlying meme.
Whatever the case, this accusation is an interesting case of projection and scapegoating. A sceptic invents the strategy, and the blame is then transferred to the warming side.
On the warming side, the IPCC has been in existence for almost 20 years now, so the phrase ‘climate change’ as a synonym for ‘anthropogenic climate change’ is hardly new. It’s hard to see how sceptics could overlook this fundamental fact.

Ric Werme: Brilliant. Thanks heaps.
But I’m shocked. It’s pretty clear then that a good part of the 1950-2000 temperature trend has nothing to do with carbon forcing, and is due to PDO/ENSO interactions.
To ignore that, and attribute all the recent trend to carbon forcing, seems like unbelievably sloppy science. A classic case of model mis-specification. I can’t imagine even a bright second year econometrics student would make that mistake.
Or have I missed something? I’d hate to think AGW trend estimates were reliant models with such a basic error. Is there a trend estimate that has the PDO/ENSO component removed? Surely that would be a basic and essential building block for a credible policy making.

It riles the experts to say so, buit I have seen white-painted weatherboard (clapboard USA?) houses still standing after a bushfire (wildfire USA) has gone through and eaten every other house of various other materials for breakfast…
Dunno quite why these experts get so het when this little piece of bush lore is mentioned.

Also concerning the Trenberth. This is what he says:
” While our exploratory analyses are suggestive and form useful hypotheses for future work, climate models do not yet simulate El Niño well enough and are too different from each other to have any confidence in their projections.”

Re: Steven Goddard (05:32:40) :
U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones remembers attending an emergency training session in August 2001 with the Federal Emergency Management Agency that discussed the three most likely catastrophes to strike the United States.
First on the list was a terrorist attack in New York. Second was a super-strength hurricane hitting New Orleans. Third was a major earthquake on the San Andreas fault.

And there was no mention of having to choose a president from AG and GWB?

Smokey: “There is no skeptic ‘strategy’…”
Notice that I said “a strategy”, not ‘the’ strategy. Luntz is a sceptic, and he developed a strategy, or at least tactic, for handling public perceptions of global warming.
“…natural historical variation. The status quo has nothing to prove…”
So ‘natural variation’ is the status quo or established position? Galileo challenged the established position. That makes AGWers = Galileo. Always knew it. Thanks for the confirmation.
“The AGW hypothesis has the burden of falsifying the accepted theory that the climate varies naturally within its normal historical parameters…”
AGW theory need only show that it is a better explanation than ‘natural variation’, which is useless as a theory since it explains everything and nothing.
“…by bringing ‘republican’ into an otherwise scientific discussion.”
I refer you back to the original comment by Richard Sharpe (17:53:36): “I think you mean climate change don’t you. That’s the new in term among the hysterical alarmists.”
Nothing very scientific about that comment. Furthermore, the context of the Luntz tactic is important: it was advice for sceptics, but not just any old sceptics, rather the Republican party and the Bush administration. Hard to downplay the importance of that context.

Brendan H (01:48:15) :
So ‘natural variation’ is the status quo or established position? Galileo challenged the established position. That makes AGWers = Galileo. Always knew it. Thanks for the confirmation.”
Nice leap of logic there Mr H.
Santa Claus will be round soon with your medicine……..

G’day Graeme Rodaughan (04:45:55),
I’va also voted for global warming being a myth along with an astounding 90+% of readers. The only problem with this is that Aunty ABC will now feel the need to indoctrinate.. umm make that educate, we non-believers. Penny Wong, the golden child of climate change debate will anaesthetise more audiences with her soporific rhetoric as Aunty tries to inculcate the myth into viewers’ and listeners’ minds. Thank the Lord for remote control 😉

DJ (19:25:15) : “CO2 went up from 180 to 280ppm over that period. That explains a large part of the warming.”
Methinks it was the other way around.
I regret that it isn’t so because I would certainly like it a lot warmer. If we could warm our Earth by putting more CO2 into the atmosphere, then I say pump away!! Warm is good.

Brendan H (01:48:15) :
AGW theory need only show that it is a better explanation than ‘natural variation’, which is useless as a theory since it explains everything and nothing.
John Philip (03:17:05) :
It is actually the ‘natural-only’ advocates who have the evidence shortage; no known natural driver of climate is capable of explaining the recent trend, whereas it is entirely consistent with natural fluctuation superimposed on an anthropogenically-forced rising trend.
Interesting set of propositions.
Guys, you can’t have it both ways. Time to huddle and see if you can agree, before you try to convert the unwashed masses.
HINT: I would want to revisit the phrase “no known natural driver of climate is capable of…” Your sense of climate history sound suspiciously ‘Lyellian.’ I’m sure there are many posters here who can point you to historical instances of change as “rapid” or more rapid than the 20th c. uptick. Whether the cause of these trendings has been definitively established is not at issue (HINT: Google “Svensmark”). I trust you will acknowledge that they were not, like the warming trend from c. 1880-1940, a result of human CO2 emmissions.
That’s assuming that the real cause of the 20th c. dynamic is not heat islands, data corrupted by manipulation, and other, um, “natural” causes like the power of money to deform institutionalized science. And its also assuming that we ignore the increasingly evident divergence between accumulating C02 and stable or even slightly declining temperatures over the past 8 years.

LilacWine (03:58:10) : Penny Wong, the golden child of climate change debate will anaesthetise more audiences with her soporific rhetoric

I agree with you, but I actually don’t mind when this happens, as there has been a major shift recently – previously, the Penny Wongs and the MSM could get away with trying to indocrinate, since most people didn’t have an opinion one way or the other.
But the public opinion has changed (as we see in the poll, limited though it is). Now, the more desperate the AGWers get, the more nonsense they make up (like the report stating that global warming can cause a change in Earth’s rotational axis – yeah right!). They are making bigger fools of themselves, and more people are seeing this. So bring it on, I say, let’s see where it leads.

“I don’t think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen,” he said.
Chu made clear that he sees public education as a key part of the administration’s strategy to fight global warming…
But he said public awareness needs to catch up. He compared the situation to a family buying an old house and being told by an inspector that it must pay a hefty sum to rewire it or risk an electrical fire that could burn everything down.
“I’m hoping that the American people will wake up,” Chu said, and pay the cost of rewiring.
This is straight out of George Orwell. We have the ministry of Truth needing to “educate” the masses who still haven’t “gripped in its gut what could happen”, meaning we still aren’t ALARMED enough about what “could happen”. Indeed, they even admit that this “education” is a key part of their strategy.
His analogy of course is entirely false, and just more alarmist nonsense. What else could one expect, though, from the Ministry of Truth?
The American people are, for the most part, wide awake, and aware that AGW alarmism has very little to do with truth, and mostly hype and pure fantasy, and that politicians and fraudsters like Gore have their greedy, grubby hands on their wallets. Woe betide them when the rest wake up.

E.M.Smith (14:42:47) :
It still bothers me that this is all ‘numerology’ and that there is no mechanism demonstrated ( a couple are proposed )
Love your posts, E.M.
I believe that Svensgard’s proposed mechanism for how decreased solar magnetosphere can produce increased cloud cover (which causes warming everywhere but in Antarctica) is not only well understood but has been experimentally demonstrated (and CERI is gearing up to see if it can be verified).
For my money, Geoff Sharp and the Landscheit folks seem to have solved the other half of the equation, which is what causes oscillation in the sun’s magnetic field. To me it seems only natural that the sun will be influenced by the planets in the way they have not only postulated but demonstrated through historical analysis that it must be.

Wow,
Our earth must be rewired! I guess next the plumbing will go, then the roof, then we’ll need a new driveway… Heck, maybe we should knock it down and rebuild!!!

Someone ought to tell Chu he sounds like a kook.

psi (06:13:45) :
I believe that Svensgard’s proposed mechanism for how decreased solar magnetosphere can produce increased cloud cover (which causes warming everywhere but in Antarctica)
Increased cloud cover causing warming everywhere but in Antarctica is not Svensmark’s theory.

JamesG above mentions the WUWT 9/19/07 post “Grilling the Data”.
In the comments to that post, is a link to a NOAA data adjustment chart:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_pg.gif
Does anyone have a copy of that chart, as the above link seems to be dead?

Smokey: “With you, AGW is completely political…Go ahead, deny it.”
No it’s not.
“But your last paragraph makes it crystal clear to the most casual observer where you’re coming from.”
Let’s try that again. A political party operative offers PR advice to obfuscate the science of global warming. That makes me a political operative? You’ve probably heard of a non sequitur.
“Look at Katherine’s post above. Is she stupid, too? Is she deluded?”
Whether or not you accept AGW is a matter of judgement. I cannot say with any certainty how people arrive at their judgements. I think some people on both sides of the issue arrive at their position through temperament and ideological views. Since I don’t know Katherine, I cannot say how she arrived at her views.
“Should we unquestioningly accept what you hypothesize, without any measurable empirical evidence to back you up?”
Smokey, you have a habit of wearing your heart on your sleeve. I am not demanding that you unquestionably accept anything, and especially not what I say. You find the evidence for AGW unconvincing. That’s fine. But most climate scientists who are doing the scientific work accept AGW, with whatever uncertainties about some aspects and possible outcomes.

This is exactly what the observations show. The SOI is going increasingly negative … – unprecedented behaviour and driver for the highly unprecedented drought in southern Australia.
The SOI has been strongly positive for the last 2 years.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/soi2.shtml
The so called drought in a smallish area of south eastern Australia isn’t ‘highly unprecedented ‘. It isn’t even ‘ordinarily unprecedented’. It’s within the normal climate range for the area as shown by the climate record.
As is normal with positive SOI/La Nina conditions, the north of Australia has had recent widespread heavy rain and floods.
BTW, I live in southern Australia and not only have our recent annual rainfall been normal to a little above normal, the trend over recent years has been toward wetter years, again consistent with a positive SOI and PDO shift.
The models and AGW proponents like Hansen who predicted negative SOI conditions and more El Ninos were plain wrong.
And people like DJ who claim to have knowledge and deride the rest of us for not having that knowledge, need to get over their cognitive dissonance at the models and claimed experts failing in their predictions and look at current data.

Smokey says:

The status quo has nothing to prove; AGW believers do. That is called the Scientific Method. I swear, you folks must live in your own little bubble, believing that the status quo needs to falsify the new hypothesis on the block.
It is the other way around. The AGW hypothesis has the burden of falsifying the accepted theory that the climate varies naturally within its normal historical parameters; so far, it has failed to show this.

Here is where you have made a fatal error: Yes, it is true in science that a hypothesis has to convince one’s fellow scientists in order to become accepted in the scientific community. Indeed, it must and indeed that is what AGW has done.
Now, you personally may not be convinced, but there is no rule that AGW remains an unsubstantiated hypothesis just because YOU believe it to be so any more than evolution remains an unsubstantiated hypothesis because lots and lots of people on the web seem to think this is the case (as a google search on “evolution unsubstantiated hypothesis” will verify). Or, to put it another way, it may remain an unsubstantiated hypothesis in your mind but that bears absolutely no relation to its status according to the scientific community.

Dammit – there’s a broken link in the last post, here’s the para again
Yep, I commonly use a 5 year smoothing as a way of averaging out the large interannual variability [aka noise] and so show the underlying trend. But then so does a lot of the climate science discipline, its a totally standard, mundane, unremarkable practice, and it clarifies, it does not mislead.
When is WordPress going to get a ‘Preview’ button??
REPLY: John if the lack of a preview button irritates you so much, please go elsewhere. I have no control over it. – Anthony