This desperate sounding tweet came in a few minutes ago and will be sure to get the peccatogenesists all stirred up with laughable claims of “poisoned weather” etc.
June 11 U.S. Drought Monitor Update: moderate to exceptional #drought covers 44.1% of contiguous U.S. http://t.co/YqslStK35q
— NOAA NCEI Climate (@NOAANCEIclimate) June 14, 2013
Let’s look at what a La Niña pattern actually does for drought, from NOAA’s own archives:
Note the big path of dry area in the southern USA.
Now compare it to the US Drought monitor graphic:
The blocking high from La Niña is a bit further north than the NOAA graphic, so the drought tends to follow it.
This is nothing out of the ordinary for the Western USA, which has seen long term historic droughts before.
But I’m sure the peccatogenesists will find a way to blame “global warming” or #poisonedweather or some similar religious fervor.
Ralph: I watch Phineas and Ferb myself… pretty awesome show!
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/archive.html
This is a link to a very easy and quick archive comparison page.
pick two dates from Jan 1, 2000 to today (by week)
and compare the two images.
with a companion table for percentage of area in different ranges of drought for the two dates.
How many billions of $$$ have been spent over the years on this bogus CAGW theory? If we had instead spent that money of saltwater desalination plants along the Texas and California coasts along with canals or pipelines to get the water inland to the drought-stricken areas, just think how much crop loss could be prevented. Some of the money could also be spent on irrigation systems for those farmers who need them.
But I guess this what you get when the politicians in Washington have their heads up their butts. Its enough to make you want to scream.
Based on my Artifical Neural Network calculations I think we won’t see any real El Niño until 2018-2019, maybe a weak one later this year. La Niña returns at the end of next year 2014. http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/images/ENSO-forecast-April-2013.jpg
In Central MN on the northern margin of the Corn Belt we’re on the cusp of losing the crop to cool temps, plenty of rain and no Sun.
On the southern margin we’ve a multi-year drought.
EPA is pushing 15% ethanol in our tanks.
jai mitchell says:
June 14, 2013 at 11:34 am
“notice how the texas drought occurred in 2006 and 2008/2009 when we were in an El Nino?”
In 2006 the El-Nino started mid year. When was drought proclaimed?
2008/2009 was a La-Nina, not El-Nino.
phodges says:
June 14, 2013 at 5:05 pm
“Any analysis based on just PDO, or just ENSO will not be correct.
You must combine the two, and the analysis will fit the data much better.
There have been a few peer reviewed papers by actual scientists on the issue.”
What a coincidence. I am just finishing off a paper dealing with that very issue, and shall send it off to the New Zealand Journal of Hydrology tonight. I am looking at the effects of of climate drivers on river flows in New Zealand’s Southern Alps with particular emphasis on dry years. Sure enough it is the PDO and ENSO that affect the flows.
I hope the spell is broken this winter.
It will learn them good, probly to lessen.
RE: ai mitchell says:
June 14, 2013 at 11:34 am
I checked out your links. They are out-dated. Also you need to fact-check the Texas one, remembering that sometimes papers are guilty of exaggeration and hype, to sell copies.
When the PDO shifts to having cold water off the west coast, it does get dry in Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, and other Southwest states, but so far we have experienced nothing like the conditions in the Dust Bowl. You need to talk to the people, getting old now, who actually lived through that time, before you speak of current heat and drought being a once-every-five-hundred-year event. Or just check out the raw, unadjusted data from weather stations. We have seen nothing like they saw: Temperatures above 110, day after day, and they had no air conditioning. We have no reason to whine, and the fact some do whine only proves we are not as tough as they were.
do they mention that almost every week, the area under drought conditions has been getting smaller for most of this year?
I’ve said it before, but there’s a reason cactus evolved and thrives in Texas..
It’s worse than we thought. US drought during the Holocene.
Should the people of the US have acted prior to 1800 to reduce their fantastically dangerous levels of co2? Fear and alarm is the name of the game here folks.
We have solutions to drought, ready to implement. There is no shortage of fresh water, instead, there are floods from an excess. What is needed is a water distribution system.
My proposal, NEWTAP, is described at the link.
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/solution-to-water-in-west.html?m=0
This is but one of many alternatives to bring water to the West.
There have been many ideas put forward to bring water to the West. After NEWTAP, my favorites include towing icebergs from Alaska to Los Angeles, running an aqueduct from Washington state to Northern California to bring water from the Columbia River, building an artificial river from the Canadian Rockies to California, and the really exotic idea: a tunnel connecting the bottom of Lake Michigan to Los Angeles. It’s downhill all the way, so no pumps are required. Water would be distributed to dry communities throughout the West.
When the North Pacific Gyre, presently at +3.82C anomaly, gives up its heat; the blocking High will vanish. I don’t expect it to happen until after the Sun’s position moves back to the Equator in September. If the Sun stays Quiet, the northern PDO will quit.
Roger Sowell says;
” ……….. and the really exotic idea: a tunnel connecting the bottom of Lake Michigan to Los Angeles. It’s downhill all the way, so no pumps are required. Water would be distributed to dry communities throughout the West.”.
I hope you aren’t serious about that idea Roger because the Great Lakes states and Canadian provinces with Great Lakes shoreline will (I can almost guarantee you) vigorously and immediately object to it. It would never happen. And I seriously doubt that the people of Washington State will want any Columbia river water rerouted either.
Your iceberg idea does sound good though as does my saltwater desalination plant idea. I believe I rememeber reading somewhere some time back that California already has some desalination plants. Is that correct Anthony?
skSK says:
June 14, 2013 at 11:34 am
Your ENSOMETER signals neutral
REPLY: Yes, that’s called “variance”. It changes from week to week. Check the Enso page: http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/climatic-phenomena-pages/enso/
-Anthony
I’d say that is called variability but never mind.
I see you changed the headline since it was not a La Niña year after all. Would it be appropriate to substitute the La Niña graphic with a Neutral-Year one?
@CD153, re June 15, 2013 at 8:21 am
I did not like any of the other water transfer proposals, so I created my NEWTAP proposal. It may not be unique to me, it is possible others had the idea earlier.
I’m wondering if there’s an issue with the baseline period in terms of defining current conditions as “el Nino” or “La Nina”. If the baseline period is something like 1970-2000, this period was dominated by a series of strong el Ninos. This means they are taking a smoothed el Nino state as the norm. Thus neutrality will appear like a La Nina.
The BOM anomaly map for the Pacific has had a La Nina appearance for more than a year.
Should we take a look at what is used as ENSO “reference” – it should not be a period dominated by el Nino or La Nina. Could ENSO extremes somehow be filtered out of a baseline reference? (Or maybe use a 100 year rather than 30 year baseline).
Also I’ve been looking at the east Pacific temperature map animation for a while. It always ends the animation with a few days of prediction, and for the last 6 months or so the predicted tail of the animation has shown a big surge of cold upwelling at the east equatorial Pacific, signifying a swing to a full La Nina. But this surge does not happen and keeps on not happening. Its always predicted just in the future but the reality if you wait for it is just continuation of more or less static upwelling and a quite stable east equatorial cold tongue – not getting larger or smaller:
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycom1-12/navo/equpacsst_nowcast_anim30d.gif
Maybe the models tend to run off to La Nina or el Nino, while in fact we’re stuck in neutrality right now.
A few tens of millions of years ago, inland parts of north America were a sea. A few tens of millions of years in the future they might become so again.
Drought is very bad in SE Colorado. Though I did have to stop for a while in Lamar, CO for waiting out a strong passing storm up Kit Carson way.
So Friday morning near Limon I get up and walk the dog around. Big coyote rushes my beagle. Riggy the beagle actually fought off the attack and I ran in and fortunately the coyote pulled back. I went back and got a pistol but never could quite get a sure shot. Must be low on food, no rabbits and little vegetation.
Get back to the truck and start to leave and there must be a million or more Miller Moths jammed into every possible crevice. Huge swarm of moths shook up and many fall out at every bump or stop. I am now on the Snake River in Oregon and many of these stubborn moths are still with us. They are strong and bull headed, they push underneath door gaskets and everywhere there is an opportunity to hide. Nearly a hundred have been shooed out of the cab already and one is bumping me in the face while I type.
Now I know why Coloradoans are driven buggy! Flailing their arms and shaking their clothing a lot. These things are a pain in the a**! Miserable little buggers!