From “The Hill”, even California Democrats aren’t buying the climate BS Obama and Holdren are selling on drought: (h/t to WUWT reader “Green Sand”)
Voters don’t hear the words “climate change” when Democrats in competitive races in California explain what’s causing the worst drought in the state’s history.
President Obama has repeatedly blamed global warming for episodes of severe weather, including wildfires and droughts in the Golden State, but Democrats seeking to unseat Republicans in the hard-hit Central Valley region are balking at that argument.
The drought is an issue in three of the five closest House races in California, but Democrats are opting against drawing a direct link between the drought and climate change.
“The way folks talk about the drought out here is: ‘We have a problem, let’s fix the problem,’” said Amanda Renteria, a Democrat challenging Rep. David Valadao (R).
“Climate change doesn’t really belong in the question, or answer,” said Renteria, one of her party’s best hopes of gaining a House seat this fall.
California’s drought is in its third year, with no signs of ending. It’s expected to cost the state $2.2 billion this year.
Renteria’s race against Valadao in California’s 21st District is smack dab in the middle of the agriculture-heavy Central Valley, where the drought is the single biggest issue for voters.
Renteria isn’t a climate skeptic and thinks there is something “going on” with climate change.
But her campaign isn’t focused on pinning the drought to the effects of global warming.
It’s focused on how federal and state officials were unprepared to deal with the drought, and how Central Valley lawmakers should have pushed Congress to take steps to build water storage infrastructure to help farmers.
“The fact that we need an answer, and needed an answer for years — this has been coming, we knew it was coming — adds to questions about who our leaders are, and what is going on in Congress,” she said.
Other Democrats in California districts impacted by the drought are tacking a similar tack.
OK, spot the portion caused by climate change:
The paper:
North American drought: Reconstructions, causes, and consequences, Cook et al. 2007
PDF here: NADrought
Figure 10 is the source of the above graph:
Fig. 10. Long-term aridity changes in the West (A) as measured by the percent area affected by drought (PDSIb−1) each year (B) (redrawn from Cook et al., 2004). The four most significant ( pb0.05) dry and wet epochs since AD 800 are indicated by arrows. The 20th century, up through 2003, is highlighted by the yellow box. The average drought area during that time, and that for the AD 900–1300 interval, are indicated by the thick blue and red lines, respectively. The difference between these two means is highly significant ( pb0.001).
Californians could use some serious climate change in the halls of the state capital.
There is a correlation between -PDO’s, La Nina’s, global cooling and droughts in the West.
The correlation with +PDO’s is more(stronger) El Nino’s, global warming and stormy/wet weather in the West.
I’m not saying that we are having global cooling, just that global warming and El Nino’s lessen chances(and severity) of droughts in California.
To state otherwise is ignorance or bias or intentional for non scientific agenda’s.
We have had a -PDO during this current California drought. This drought is apprently worse than the last severe drought in California in 1976/77. The increase in population/farming and water needs, with no substantive measures to increase supply for those needs(just the opposite) have made it much worse.
In 1976/77 we were at the end of the previous ~30 years with a -PDO. Having enough rain during most of the +PDO decades that followed just caused complacency.
By no coincidence, the Midwest and East, down stream from the huge upper level ridge out west, saw a brutally cold Winter in 1976/77, along with numerous visits from the “Polar Vortex”…..just like last Winter.
the effect of increasing the concentration of the two main GHGs, water vapor and carbon dioxide, from about 303 to 304 molecules per 10,000 molecules of dry air would not be measurable.
=========
due to partial pressure law, increasing CO2 by 1 molecule will tend to reduce H2O by 2.4 molecules, all else remaining equal. Otherwise the increased CO2 would increase the mass of the atmosphere, increasing the surface pressure, making it harder to evaporate water, until such time as the same weight of water failed to evaporate, bringing the weight of the atmosphere back into equilibrium.
Since the molecular weight of CO2 is 44, and the molecular weight of H2O is 18, it takes (44/18) = 2.44 molecules of H2O to equal the weight of 1 CO2 molecule. What is interesting is that this would yield a negative H2O feedback of 2.4, which almost exactly balances the 3 time positive water feedback assumed by climate science. Since the H2O will tend to come out of the atmosphere more rapidly than temps will rise, it could well be that partial pressure law causes a net negative feedback.
Which would explain why the models are running hot. They fail to allow for partial pressure law to reduce H2O in their calculations, as CO2 increases.
ferd berple says:
August 18, 2014 at 12:02 pm
Not to worry. Trenberth has lately been studying the mass of the atmosphere and will soon find that it is increasing, which will be a new reason to worry about CO2. Before drowning and burning up, we’ll all be crushed!
Good analysis, though.
And suffocated.
‘Voters don’t hear the words “climate change” when Democrats in competitive races in California explain what’s causing the worst drought in the state’s history.’
Funny; voters don’t hear climate change from any Democrats when they’re running for office (did Obama campaign on climate change in 2012?), but they sure hear those two words from the Democrats after they’ve been elected, don’t they?
The current drought is certainly no worse than 1976/7, when reservoir levels were lower than now.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/08/13/drought-in-california-a-historical-perspective/
If I were to do any sort of project for California, I would have to insist on cash up front.
It’s well established — by real paleoclimatologists — that at about the year 1500 a major climate shift did occur in southwest and central North America as the region became much wetter on average. Prior to 1500 semi-arid areas were arid and even the Great Plains contained vast dune fields instead of rolling hills of grass.
It’s a very real possibility that this region could return to those drier climate conditions for hundreds of years but instead of investing in large public water-sources the feds are bent on taxing carbon dioxide and destabilizing our energy grid. Climate science-fiction shares a large portion of blame for this ineptitude from the feds. What climastrologists are doing is a criminal act in my mind and I can’t wait for them to be held accountable.
Here is an interesting Ted Talk that politicians and denizens of the western U.S. should see:
https://www.ted.com/talks/anupam_mishra_the_ancient_ingenuity_of_water_harvesting
“… President Obama has repeatedly blamed global warming for episodes of severe weather, including wildfires and droughts …”
__
( (Al Gore + AGW) * relevance deprivation) – Box’oMatches = Inconvenient Wildfire
Bryan A says:
August 18, 2014 at 10:13 am
What is needed for California and the San Joaquin Valley is an inexpensive way to Desalinate the Delta Waters then pump them to the Aquaduct.
Indeed they should build that plant, it worked in Queensland Australia. As soon as the plant was built the rain came back. The dams are full and I don’t believe the behemoth has been needed yet. However it is there in case needed in the future.
Looks to me that there is a correlation between building these plants and the rain coming back, bit like a rain dance. And as we all know if there is correlation it is causation (if it suits us).
Not that CA is likely ever to approve more nuclear plants, but there is this option to meeting its freshwater needs:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110512082949.htm
But floating nuclear power plants might meet with less opposition, although it would be a little tougher to get the fresh water generated at them to shore.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110512082949.htm
Or CA could just deport millions of illegal aliens to save on water.
Can you offer some links? 1500 AD seems not too long ago and I’ve never heard of any European explorers ever mentioning those dunes.
more soylent green! says:
August 18, 2014 at 1:18 pm
Active dune sand on the Great Plains in the 19th century:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCgQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F222496758_Evidence_of_Active_Dune_Sand_on_the_Great_Plains_in_the_19th_Century_from_Accounts_of_Early_Explorers%2Flinks%2F09e4150605a1ec36d5000000&ei=9V_yU7L6BsG9oQTXzIHoCA&usg=AFQjCNGWM29Ovb-q_272aI_q9oS4CC5Z-Q&sig2=6My7CsDZL6HpAbEU33SEcA&bvm=bv.73231344,d.cGU
The sandhills of Nebraska were active dunes during the MWP. They’ve been in the news again as an excuse for moving the Keystone XL pipeline, but environmental concern was just a front for Buffett’s fear of losing traffic on his railroad.
Folland, C.K.; Karl, T.R.; Christy, J.R.; Clarke, R.A.; Gruza, G.V.; Jouzel, J.; Mann, M.E.; Oerlemans, J.; Salinger, M.J. (2001). “2.3.3 Was there a “Little Ice Age” and a “Medieval Warm Period”?””. In Houghton, J.T.; Ding, Y.; Griggs, D.J.; Noguer, M.; van der Linden; Dai; Maskell; Johnson. Working Group I: The Scientific Basis. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Climate Change 2001. Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press. p. 881. ISBN 0-521-80767-0.
sturgishooper says:
August 18, 2014 at 1:25 pm
While I appreciate the link, the PDF document is vitrually unreadable.
more soylent green! says:
August 18, 2014 at 1:40 pm
Did you download it? I can read it OK. Here’s a link to its abstract, however:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589485710204
It’s easy to find other references by searching, such as:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/drght_forman.html
Well, given the general tone regarding pollies in California, I would like to offer an observation from a mate of mine who lives there. California politicians are like Granola. Mostly Fruits and Nuts, the rest, Flakes.
AussieBear says:
August 18, 2014 at 1:57 pm
Back in the 1970s, CA was proud that it produced most of the nation’s fruits and nuts. How true.
The greatest single problem California, like all the other states in this country, face is that the Warren Court passed the One man, One vote ruling that destroyed the balance between cities and rural areas within states. And the worst of it is the Supreme court had no right to vote on the issue since it was a states rights issue, and didn’t involve the federal government. But that ruling destroyed the balance between the state senates that were generally controlled by rural areas and the state house that were controlled by the cities. From that point on, the cities got everything they wanted and the rural areas got whatever was left over. The Colorado River canals were basically paid for by farming interests when the projects first started. The cities weren’t interested. As the water became available, and the Warren Court ruling shifted control of the states to the cities, the water became the priority of the cities and the farmers that paid the bulk of the state costs could go bankrupt. 90% of the problems that face the states and the nation can be laid at the feet of liberalism and the liberal courts of the 50s and 60s. But you can’t go back, only forward, and until there is some common sense conservatism injected into government, we are going to stay on the slippery slope to 3rd world rating. And don’t confuse common sense conservatism with the neo-conservative BS we have suffered since 2000.
And at the peak of the post-1850 dry spell, came the Arkstorm:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1862
Soon, California children will not know lawns. Lawns in California will be a thing of the past.
California is the last hope of the CAGW crowd!
18 Aug: UK Daily Mail: So much for summer: Snow set to blast Scotland as forecasters warn of ‘coldest August spell in a century’
Forecasters have warned that Cumbria and Yorkshire could see the coldest August spell in 95 years
The temperature rose no higher than 8.9C in 1919 and it is expected to dip that low again later this week
Bitter Arctic winds could plunge parts of Britain into the coldest spell of August weather for almost a century…
It is not expected to rise above 9C in parts of the north during the day all week with chilly winds making it feel much colder.
The Met Office said Loadpot Hill, in Cumbria, is unlikely to see a maximum daytime temperature of more than 8C on Thursday…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2727734/Wet-cold-bank-holiday-way-forecasters-warn-two-weeks-bad-weather-ahead.html
16 Aug: The Weather Channel: Snow Pile in Winnipeg, Canada, Still Standing Nearly 60 Feet Tall in Mid-August
http://www.weather.com/news/winnipeg-snow-pile-20140816
Dodgy Geezer 8/18/14 @ur momisugly 11:29 am says:
A third point. Don’t EVER use the words ‘water shortage’. There is NO shortage of water on this planet. There is a similar amount now compared to when the planet was formed. We can NEVER use it up – it just passes through us.
What people really mean when they say ‘water shortage’ is ‘shortage of collection, storage, processing and distribution facilities for the local area’. Usually caused by too many people moving into an area and investment not following the trend. But the key point is that we are not short of water, we are short of infrastructure. Which is, as you indicate, a human failing….
By the same token, Geezer must conclude there is no drought on the planet, eh? Nobody said anything about global drought or global water shortages.
And in Geezer’s causes of a local water shortage, a redundancy, he neglected this root cause of the problem:
California’s San Joaquin Valley is the salad bowl of the world, providing the majority of fruits and vegetables for the entire nation. But, with another man-made drought looming, the San Joaquin Valley is in danger of becoming a dust bowl unless immediate action is taken to change policies that put the needs of fish above the livelihood of people. Bold added, Hastings, “The Man-Made California Drought”, 2/7/14.
http://naturalresources.house.gov/issues/issue/?IssueID=5921
The synonym for water shortage is man-made drought.
As go Lawn Darts, so go lawns.
Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.