Originally tweeted by Roger Pielke Jr. (@RogerPielkeJr) on June 14, 2021.
I was curious
So I graphed percent of CONUS in drought according to the US drought monitor, data is weekly from 1/2000
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap.aspx
Here from US EPA is the same data by drought category
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-drought
And here from EPA is a longer time series, 1895-2020 for CONUS
Note: On this graph up means wetter, down means dryer
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-drought
And here is the percent in drought (D0-D4) of the Colorado River Basin over Jan 2000 to present
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap.aspx
And here is Colorado River Basin drought 1901-2015
via McCabe et al 2020
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/eint/24/2/eiD200001.xml
And for a much longer perspective, here is Colorado River Basin drought over the past 1800 years
Also from McCabe et al 2020
TL;DR
Here are the conclusions of McCabe et al 2020
Well worth reading carefully
And here is what the US National Climate Assessment concluded on drought in 2018
https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/2/
PS
A side note
For accurately citing peer reviewed literature & US NCA on drought trends in 2013 Congressional testimony, I earned the distinction of being the only US researcher in history to be attacked by the president’s science advisor (Holdren) in a White House blog post 😎
PPS
Holdren is still wrong
The IPCC, USNCA & peer reviewed literature that they rely on is still correct
Climate change is real, and aggressive mitigation & adaptation policies make good sense
The reality of climate change doesn’t mean scientific integrity can be ignored
/END
Oh, I guess I should point out Holdren’s false claims about me posted on White House website were basis for a subsequent Congressional investigation of me that turned my life upside down & almost ended my career
But I’m still here
And that kids is how I came to understand tenure
Originally tweeted by Roger Pielke Jr. (@RogerPielkeJr) on June 14, 2021.
Cold comfort in Phoenix Roger. How many days over 110°F this year?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EhgTdsgVgAATeFk?format=png&name=900×900
concrete and asphalt does that you noob.
High pressure systems sitting on top of Phoenix is the cause of the high temperatures.
When a high pressure system sits on top of you, the temperatures will get very hot.
There is no evidence that CO2 is causing this high pressure system to do what it is doing. Mother Nature has been moving high pressure systems around since the beginning of Time. Long before human-derived CO2 entered the picture.
High pressure systems over Phoenix are perfectly normal for this time of year. Those of us east of Phoenix hope the high pressure stays out there. But of course, it won’t, it will move and warm someone else up eventually.
Here’s a Nullschool snapshot of the weather over the U.S. Note the high pressure system hovering over the southwest U.S. I marked the center of it.
If you wonder where a high pressure system is centered, look for the hottest temperatures in the area and that will be where the center of the high pressure system is located.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/500hPa/orthographic=-95.37,45.11,660/loc=-109.579,36.039
Fools like Loydo are great cherry pickers. One year France is the hotspot, another year it is Russia, this year it’s Phoenix. I guess Loydo doesn’t understand what the word global means in “global warming”.
Funny how that chart starts with the 1950’s. If it showed the the 1930’s then it wouldn’t be scary.
No, recent concrete and asphalt done that you noob
How hot would it have been in the 1930’s if there was as much concrete and asphalt back then as there is today?
So you think concrete and asphalt is causing the drought?
Hey Loydo! I thought you of all people wouldn’t be imposing your white male imperialist doomsday views on the culture of indigenous folk. As a blow-in you have to respect their long tradition and deep knowledge of nature mate-
Stevenson Screens (Weather Instrument Shelters) (colostate.edu)
I’d recommend some more quiet contemplation of the tree rings and talking to the elders.
Lolly’s getting all upset about weather, making rash claims about no recent concrete and asphalt…
Imagine that!
Lolly’s alleged knowledge includes having cruised downtown Phoenix noting where temperature stations are located and verifying that no new asphalt or concrete has been added to the acres already surrounding the thermistor housing.
Not likely!
Just like other paid alarmists, Lolly’s using weather events and false claims to imply something unusual.
Especially since Phoenix’s temperature records only start in 1896, missing the hot 1880s.
Phoenix, Arizona
“NORMAL MAXIMUM, MINIMUM, AND MEAN BY MONTHS 1961-1990
Month_______MAXIMUM____MINIMUM___MEAN
January___.___65.9_________41.2_______53.6
February__.___70.7_________44.7_______57.7
March____.___75.5_________48.8_______62.2
April_________84.5_________55.3_______69.9
May_____.____93.6_________63.9_______78.8
June_____.___103.5____.____72.9_______88.2
July_________105.9_________81.0_______93.5
August___.___103.7_________79.2_______91.5
September____98.3_________72.8_______85.6
October___.___88.1_________60.8_______74.5
November_.___74.9_________48.9_______61.9
December__.__66.2_________41.8_______54.1
Annual_______85.9_________59.3_______72.6″
Look at that Normal maximum temperatures for June, July and August are well into the 100s. Making 110°F degrees well within normal variation.
N.B. The Months 1961-1990 are the coldest maximum high temperatures period displayed at https://azclimate.asu.edu/climate/climate-of-phoenix-summary/.. Subsequent periods demonstrate increasing UHI elevated temperatures.
“HIGHEST MAXIMUM AND LOWEST MINIMUM BY MONTHS AND DAY AND YEAR OF OCCURRENCE 1896-2008
_________HIGHEST___Day____Year___LOWEST___DAY_YEAR
_________Maximum_________________Minimum
January_____88______19______1971_____16________7____1913
February____92______25______1986_____24________7____1899
___________________27______1921_______________8____1933
March______100_____26______1988_____25________4____1966
April_______105_____20______1989_____35________10___1922
___________________29______1992
May_______114_.____30_______1910_____39______._3____1899
June.______122______26______1990_____49________4____1908
July_______121______28______1995_____63________4____1912
______________________________________________5____1912
August_____116______1______1972_____58________20____1917
.___________________4______1975
September-_116______1______1950_____47________22____1895
._____________________________________________20____1965
._____________________________________________21____1965
October____107______1______1980_____34________30____1971
.___________________2______1980
November_._96___.___1______1924_____27________23____1931
__________._________2______1924
December__87_______10_____1950_____22________31____1900
_____________________________________________26__.__1911
Annual_.__122____JUN_26___1990_____16______JAN_7___1913″
Maximum temperatures spread over a century… Over 110° F in June is neither unprecedented nor even unusual. 110° F temperatures during a Phoenix summer are normal weather.
Isn’t weather amazing?!
More to the story though isn’t there?
And let’s forget about the grey and black bars for the moment shall we?
Progression of temperature increases due to increased UHI in Phoenix. Looks like 2020 is a repeat of 1989.
The gray & black bars are pure NOAA fantasy and quite odd for an organization that downplays UHI.
”Looks like 2020 is a repeat of 1989.”
Yep.
It’s called weather Loydo. I live in the high desert area of NE Arizona and yesterday was the first time in 14 years I’ve tied a high temperature record. Big deal
Looks like you’re about get 4 in a row.
Loydo, this article is about drought. Why are you trying to change the subject?
From Roger’s US EPA drought link above:
“Drought can also be thought of as an extended imbalance between precipitation and evaporation.”
The reality that there has been no increase in drought in the USA is the point of the article. This is yet another inconvenient fact for you, Loydo. But you have spent years ignoring inconvenient facts, haven’t you? Hence your attempt to hijack this thread.
The high temperatures are due to the lack of precipitation, not the other way around.
…. because she’s a f-kin scientific idiot ??
A falsifiable hypothesis.
Sky Harbor Airport temperature readings, Loydo, not Phoenix. Are you aware of the development that has occurred in and around that airport over the decades? And models of future “projections!” Give me a break. Additionally, Mk1 eyeballs says not much has happened to peak temperatures over the last 40 years.
Gee! Who would have known it gets hot in that desert? Not Loydo!
The longest stretch of 110 degree days was 62 at Parker from June 7 to September 12, 1902
https://realclimatescience.com/2019/09/arizonas-record-heatwave/
Loydo still doesn’t know the difference between climate and weather.
He also doesn’t know the difference between lying and the truth
Wow one whole city out of 500,000 cities in America, one of the normally hottest cities in America is what you used to hijack the thread with.
UHI is a big factor there
And yet people keep moving to Phoenix…. How come, Qualoyd?
From his early days with Ehrlich and his famine lies to working for Obama destroying US science academies, Holdren is truly a life long POS.
I’ve written this before, but I thought I’d contribute my two cents about Holdren again.
During the Obama administration I had the opportunity to interview for a senior position under John Holdren at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. When I arrived for my interview, Holdren and one of his staff were at the whiteboard trying to predict the spread of radiation from Fukushima, which had just happened. They were trying to calculate it with no actual data – any chance of that being useful? They thought they needed to do that in order to decide what should be done. Like the Japanese weren’t already predicting the spread infinitely better with real data. Holdren invited me to join in and try to contribute to the science (I though he must have meant seance). Instead, I mentioned several names of people to call in Japan. I got the job offer (actually to fill two open positions), but I turned it down. I couldn’t bring myself to work for such an idiot.
Do you know who supervised Holdren’s PhD thesis?
It explains a lot.
Sort of reminds me, as a consultant on other systems, of being invited to sit in and contribute to the development of a new data base system for the company I was doing work for at that time. They started the project with a hot discussion of what to name the files and indexes thereof. I quickly went back to my real work.
Did you suggest mauve as the DB color before leaving them to their idiocy??
It would’ve been a classic lose-lose job position.
First in line for taking blame.
Every good idea or good work you achieve is Holdren’s credit.
Every bad mistake Holdren makes is your fault.
I’ve worked for similar egocentric bosses. Glad you escaped and avoided the the unnecessary stress!
They were relying on me for the work they hired me for in the first place. I didn’t have to explain anything.
Interesting 1901-1904 was also a drought period in Australia called the federation drought. At my place in SE Qld 1902 was the record lowest rain year in the period 1893 to 2021. Australia was also hot and dry in the 1930’s and during the war 2 years. There was a drought in the period 2004 to 2008 followed by floods in 2011 and 2012.
Roger is one of my heroes and in Australia we’ve had the same BS and nonsense from the Flannery donkey etc and so much of the delusional left wing MSM.
But here’s the BOM rainfall data from 1900 to 2020 and an 8 year moving average trend line. The first 70 years were much drier than the last 50 years.
And the Aussie region has had a lower cyclone trend since 1970 and the Indian ocean positive IOD didn’t favour rainfall over much of the 2000 to 2009 period either.
Even so the overall trend is up over the last 50 years.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=aus&season=0112&ave_yr=8
BTW here’s the BOM cyclone trend graph for Australia since 1970.
Note that the more recent 2015 to ’16 season is the only one to have had no SEVERE cyclones in the last 50 years.
And the cyclone trend is definitely DOWN over that period. And would have had a lower rainfall cost over the last half century.
Think about it.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/climatology/trends.shtml
What the heck does “climate change is real” mean? Of course climate changes.
And how would one mitigate it? Other than some minor warming and rainfall increases, what climate change has actually occurred? And where are the validated studies that tie weather to CO2?
Can we not revert to “global warming”? As my wife, who left school at fifteen, pointed out when the terminology was changed “they are only doing it because they know that climate has and will always change whereas one day, as history shows, global warming will cease and, once again become global cooling.”
Dave, yes I have an involuntary gag response to the word mitigation when used in respect of climate change – the stupidity. But one has to respect Roger’s opinion on this aspect as it has always been his position that he agrees with the basic premise of human caused climate change based on CO2, which you and I might think is risable but it certainly puts Roger in an interesting and potentially powerful position as a critic of the religion.
Bad things happen to people and societies because of weather, regardless of the causes of said weather. The developed world has made progress in reducing the destruction but that hardly says that more preparation and safeguards would not be useful
Plan for future weather extremes? Hell, we don’t even plan for past extremes!
Which leftist/alarmist plans actually help people?
As far as I know, none.
Instead, the plan is to destroy Western Civilization, force socialist government upon democratic capitalists and ruin economies across the countries.
Is that you are for “more preparation and safeguards”?
It isn’t that they would be useful, the current plans and projects are ruinous.
Yes, most of the current “plans” are more likely to be detrimental than not but western society has come quite some way with its preparations and engineering in the past few hundred years. The details are important but the basic idea is still useful.
“Which leftist/alarmist plans actually help people?
As far as I know, none.
Instead, the plan is to destroy Western Civilization, force socialist government upon democratic capitalists and ruin economies across the countries.”
That’s what it looks like to me. Nothing good comes from having socialists/authoritarians in power.
The left vilify, threaten, excoriate, prosecute and attempt to cancel anyone that is even mildly leftist and goes against the official doctrines.
Roger did that and suffered for it.
The result is that sceptics still read Roger’s stuff while keeping in the back of their minds that Pielke is a center leftist.
While legions of leftists consider Pielke to be a traitor and continue to falsely accuse and vilify Pielke.
“But one has to respect Roger’s opinion on this aspect as it has always been his position that he agrees with the basic premise of human caused climate change based on CO2,”
He’s consistent. I don’t know that that warrants respect, especially when he can’t prove what he claims. Couldn’t prove it then. Can’t prove it now.
Salute!
Surprised when Roger said “mitigate”, but “adapt” is what humans and other species have done for millions of years, with hominids being somewhat quicker to move or develop a method to stay close to home.
Gums sends
I’ve always been puzzled by RP Jr even though I applaud his methodical, dispassionate, rational analysis of the serious, and can be mitigated “issues. His studies of weather damage are quite compelling that nothing “unprecedented” is going on, and yet he persists in including the obligatory “climate change is real, serious, and can be mitigated “ line. Much like Bjorn Lomborg. Very smart guys who ought to know there’s absolutely no evidence that CO2 has an effect on temperature/weather/climate.
Planning for bad weather is just prudent, but “mitigating climate change” is as useless as burying/burning cash
…analysis of the issues …
“His studies of weather damage are quite compelling that nothing “unprecedented” is going on, and yet he persists in including the obligatory “climate change is real, serious, and can be mitigated “ line. Much like Bjorn Lomborg. Very smart guys who ought to know there’s absolutely no evidence that CO2 has an effect on temperature/weather/climate.”
Sometimes Smart Guys are not always that Smart. The subject of Human-caused Climate Change seems to bring this into stark contrast.
By omitting this, kids, we would see how tenure does NOT work.
Climate change, real for 4.5 billion years!
“What the heck does “climate change is real” mean?”
Pielke starts out saying [Human-caused] Climate Change is not real with regard to drought, but then goes on to say that “climate change is real”.
So what *does* he mean by that? I’m pretty sure when he references “climate change” he is talking about the human-caused kind, so he is making contradictory claims. He’s saying human-caused climate change is real but it doesn’t pertain to drought.
Btw, Dr. Pielke, you couldn’t prove human-caused climate change is real if your life depended on doing so. Just declaring it is real is not sufficient. Your hunches are not sufficient. Evidence is what is sufficient, and you don’t have any to back up this claim. You are voicing your opinion without any substantiation and you don’t have any substantiation because there is none.
This is the pathetic state of Human-caused Climate Change science. We have a lot of confused people walking this Earth.
Although I understand current stateside drought is not unique the Original Post’s (O.P.) 1st graph should be understood as charting full years of drought extent since 2000 and that same chart only registers less than 1/2 years drought extent in this current year of 2021. We have yet to see how extensive this stateside drought becomes.
WUWT commentators on prior posts reminded us that the American South West drought can be considered par for the course. Outside that area (and the O.P.’s graphed Colorado Basin states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada and California) I just checked drought status (8 June 2021 data) for the far north central state that borders Canada named North Dakota. The percent of North Dakota in conditions of D3 to D4 conditions is 67% now in comparison to a year ago when 0% was D3-D4; D3 drought conditions means pasture plants are dormant and in D4 conditions ranchers cull livestock (feed too expensive).
North Dakota is still in the high plains semi-arid desert area. That semi-arid area stretches from ND all the way to San Antonio in Texas. Semi-arid deserts are routinely impacted by droughts. It wasn’t very many years ago TX suffered such a drought and areas like Kansas were selling hay in TX for simply outrageous prices. Southbound semi’s loaded to the gills were a common sight. We haven’t yet seen that with north-bound semi’s. Although that may be based more on the relative numbers of cattle in each state more than on the drought severity.
The 1950s drought had a serious effect as far east as Louisiana, but rainfall fell from a higher level. Cut the oyster harvest.
There are 3 regions of North Dakota. The eastern part of the state is flat with good soil characterized as the Red River Valley. The western part of the state is past an escarpment (toward it’s east called the Missouri escarpment) and the state’s western region is called the Missouri Plateau; an area characterized by little hills. The central part of the same state is called the Drift Prairie which does have rocky soil, but also gently rolling hills and small natural ponds.
It is the western part that is classified as semi-arid and the eastern part is classified as humid continental; the state average rainfall is 14 – 22 inches across it’s 3 regions and the average snowfall is 51 inches. Since late spring and summer are the rainiest months the North Dakotans still have a chance of getting some drought relief.
Based on the NorthDakota drought map of 10 June the most severe drought (D4) is
not particularly in the western platesu sector, but in the north central sector. And the % of area in D4 drought has not gone down since last week.
Well this is a fine piece of cherry picking…
Hide the regions seeing severe and increasing drought by looking at some national averages and just the Colorado basin…
California is in another severe drought, isn’t it? The Californian climate pattern has changed, hasn’t it?
Been hearing that for decades. What’s that line from the Princess Bride?
Inconceivable.
and the point is… As California goes, so goes the world?
I remember that not long ago, Griff thought So goes Alaska, so goes the world.
Nope. Nothing has changed. Most of the Colorado basin is semi-arid desert. Does that mean anything to you? What happens on a routine basis in semi-arid deserts?
CA recently has historically been less challenged with drought than in its past.
Griffter is right about climate change – it’s Mann-made…..and more is being Mannufatured….in a Mannifest way.
California is an arid climate. It experiences regular severe droughts and has for my entire lifetime.
Weren’t California reservoirs overflowing just a few years ago?
Yes. In 2019.
Yes, and the idiots are draining them into the sea.
More evidence that you think small and ignore the evidence in the article you didn’t read.
There is a measured DECREASE in drought in America since 2000, the 1930’s and 1950’s were were far drier than EITHER of the first decades of this century.
Your accusations are unsupported and stupid when the article showed good evidence using long established data that completely vitiates your unsupported assertions.
“California is in another severe drought, isn’t it? The Californian climate pattern has changed, hasn’t it?”
No and No
I live here
griff,
I have a little story to tell you. I lived in Southern California during the mid 1980s to early 1990s. One day I was in a car with friends and their young child when he got very agitated and started crying. It took us quite a while to figure out what he was so upset about. You know what it was? He was sitting in his car seat in the front when it started raining, he had never seen windshield wipers before, and was afraid of them. He was born in 1987 and was 3 to 4 years old at that point.
California has been in innumerable droughts before with many even more severe than the current drought. You could have easily looked this up, but you didn’t. You’re clearly trying to fabricate a climate calamity. It isn’t working because we all know to question every single thing that you claim.
Nope!
Just normal California weather. It is an arid state.
Nor should people forget that California just had some very wet years that filled all of their reservoirs.
Only, government official let a lot of that water flow out to sea. Which has caused many experts to question why California is wasting precious fresh water, especially as California is returning to an arid condition.
“California is in another severe drought, isn’t it? The Californian climate pattern has changed, hasn’t it?”
California is always on the verge of drought, and no, the California climate pattern has not changed.
Some droughts in California in the past have lasted for decades, Griff.
It’s all natural weather processes, Griff, until proven otherwise.
So what will happen is the alarmists will wring their hands over the drought in the southwest, and then when the rains come, the alarmists will wring their hands over too much water. They do it every time.
How about this for aggressive mitigation :
Check out NAWAPA and the modern NAWAPA XXI, well documented.
Nuclear_NAWAPA_New_Economy.pdf (21sci-tech.com)
It’s only a couple of months since Willis Eschenbach checked out so much of their idiotic claims about so called EXISTENTIAL threats
etc and he listed trends in global drought data ( no trend) and USA had a slight increase in rainfall.
And the Biden donkey’s EXISTENTIAL threat nonsense might work for our ignorant blog donkeys and other left wing loonies, but most rational people actually check the data /evidence for themselves.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/25/wheres-the-emergency/
I have been posting his fine article is several forums, the warmist/alarmists there are finding it impossible to counter, thus the lame replies fail on arrival.
Here are two different forum examples:
Where Is The “Climate Emergency”? | US Message Board – Political Discussion Forum
Where Is The “Climate Emergency”? | PoliticalForum.com – Forum for US and Intl Politics
I believe that is incorrect. Few people check, regardless of their intellectual ability. Most people believe, without much question, what they’ve been exposed to the most.
The last two days it rained 1.5 inches in Eugene, Oregon. The official state of this: Extreme Drought. Clearly drought has been weaponized by the CAGW crowd and their enablers.
Uh, haven’t you heard of an ABUNDANCE Drought?
Too much of a good thing is bad. Olde Wisdom from Thee Frugal Curmudgeon
Too early to refine that joke. Maybe you can come up with the Double-speak phrase that means normal water availability is a drought.
Most Drought monitors, including the Palmer, lag behind reality by about a month Or more. Of course the “experts” reporting the “news” don’t seem to know that but this truck driver does.
Meanwhile, here in the corn belt, things are looking great based on my personal observations during my travels and the crop reports I’m hearing on the radio.
Everything is green and the grass is still growing like it’s spring time even in the southern portions of the belt. Heavy dew this morning as I look out from my truck cab this morning in Marion, IL.
And the Cicada are now out in full force in IN and IL based on what my ears are hearing and the the amount of their splattered remains on my truck windshield.
In Oklahoma a few weeks ago, farmers were worrying about too much rain as they were getting ready to harvest the wheat crop, but the rains let up at just about the right time and the wheat harvest is in motion.
That high pressure system hovering over the southwest will probably work its way over us in the near future and then we will get heated up. We are already getting some of the heat effects, and we are also getting high mositure content, so our heat indexes here are over 100F.
This is typical weather for this time of year.
Wow we got that much rain
Fear Porn. The only good type.
Its a quite extraordinary social phenomenon. You see an example in Loydo’s comments on this thread, but its very widespread.
First make some unsubstantiated claim about local climate. In the present instance, the claim that we are in the middle of unprecedented or at least unusual drought.
When making this claim, it is not necessary for the claimed circumstance to be obviously the result of global warming. As in the present case, mere assocation of ideas will do. Even were there extreme drought at the moment, which Pielke makes clear there is not, its not at all clear that the small rise in temperature in recent decades is a cause of it.
Then, as if it follows from your assertion about extreme something, advocate measures which will have no material effect on local CO2 emissions. Eg, we are in the middle of extreme drought, this is threatening various things, so decommission all coal fired generating capacity now, and replace it with solar.
The demanded steps, as in this case, usually will have no effect on local CO2 emissions, and even if they did, would lead to reductions too small to be noticeable in the rising global total of emissions. Another example was the hysterical excitement a few years back over standby appliances. Or the crazed UK switch from coal to wood at the Drax power station. All totally useless in their own terms, even if you accepted the theory that rising global CO2 levels will lead to catastrophic warming. The measures demanded will not actually lower them.
Its a real social phenomenon, essentially a cult with overtones of ideas from traditional religions. We are about to see it in full flow in Edinburgh, where the West is going to proclaim the importance of reducing its emissions to zero. Be certain that wind, solar and electric cars will feature prominently – with absolutely no enumeration of how much effect these steps will have on global emissions.
Meanwhile, anyone suggesting that without China and India reducing the actual tons of CO2 they emit, world tonnage emitted will rise regardless of what the West does? Such people will be called deniers, cancelled, silenced.
It is a weird cult, and it is going to follow the pattern of ‘When Prophecies Fail’. That is, the more the prophecies don’t turn out or are refuted by the facts, the stronger the beliefs of the faithful will become, and the more vicious their attacks on anyone who questions them. Ten years from now there will be no more warming than there has ever been, no more droughts, no more hurricanes. But the faithful will still be prophesying disaster, still claiming the West has only a few years to get itself to zero emissions, will still be claiming that this will save the planet, will still be refusing to talk about China India etc….
….and will still be even more intent on silencing and denouncing skeptics.
I take it that when you said Edinburgh you meant Glasgow.
Yes indeed. Sorry! Its going to be the usual total farce.
This is part Two of a sciencey series on the Western Drought, worth reading.
https://blog.weather.us/the-grip-of-a-megadrought-part-2-lurching-through-disaster/
Holdren is still wrong
When was he ever right?
“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.” —Dr. Paul Ehrlich, Anne Ehrlich, and Dr. John Holdren, Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment 1970
You know where he’s coming from….
I have a lot of respect for Pielke Jr. I think Holdren’s comments were misguided. However, I think he gets it fundamentally wrong with this statement, “Climate change is real, and aggressive mitigation & adaption policies make good sense” is flaw. It should read something like, “Climate change is real. Adaption policies make good sense. The mitigation strategies being implemented at present are economically destructive, environmentally unsound, and will have no significant impact on climate change.”
My first exposure to John Holdren was a 1976 talk promoting the use of clean coal to reduce the need for nuclear power. His assertion was that with the appropriate technologies, the greatest loss of life from using coal would be from railroad grade crossing accidents. My overall impression was that he reached he conclusion first and then adjusted his analysis to support the conclusion.
“The directives issuing from a second-rate chief and addressed to his third-rate executives speak only of minimum aims and ineffectual means”.
C.N.Parkinson
I wouldn’t think this applies specifically to the CRB, but I don’t know the boundaries of same.
A few years ago there was a paper that claimed to have collected historical data on Midwest droughts over, I believe, the last 2000 years. It was based on lake sediments studies in the Dakotas. One point of the findings was that the “Dust Bowl” drought was a minor example of fairly frequent low rainfall periods for the area. In other words, there have been quite a few much greater droughts in the Midwest over the past 2000 years.
“McCabe et al 2020″, a research travesty.
McCabe promotes gross assumptions into conclusions without evidence. e.g., Claiming that temperatures cause drought in an environment where drought is frequent and normal.
That is perhaps the greatest achievement and praise possible.
That is a perfect example of the left viciously attacking any of their own who stray from leftist elite top down mandated messages.
His Pope is a pedofile, yet he still believes in the Tenets. Guess that’s why they call it Religion…
Per the PDSI, California is experiencing a 125 year drying trend, with the trend worsening in recent years:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/statewide/time-series/4/pdsi/all/6/1895-2021?base_prd=true&begbaseyear=1901&endbaseyear=2000&trend=true&trend_base=10&begtrendyear=2000&endtrendyear=2021
California PDSI, all months:
1895 – 2021: – 0.14/decade
1930 – 2021: – 0.16/decade
1970 – 2021: – 0.44/decade
2000 – 2021: – 0.83/decade