Another Stupid L A Times Climate Alarmist Propaganda Claim
Guest essay by Larry Hamlin
The L A Times published yet another false climate alarmist propaganda article (shown below) claiming that the Panama Canal is running dry because of man-made climate change.
The data driven Fact Check reality disputing this flawed claim is shown below that addresses the same phony and flawed claim from the New York Times.
The L A Times can always be counted upon to hype false climate alarmist propaganda devoid of any connection to climate data driven reality.
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IPCC AR4 Chapter ten page 750 (pdf page 4)
Mean Precipitation
For a future warmer climate…Globally averaged mean water
vapour, evaporation and precipitation are projected to increase.
Great catch . The climate alarmists want wetter and drier . Its a tropical jungle.
Im wonder if like the Colorado river , the lakes are also a major water supply for the expanding cities around the Canal, mostly Panama City which is 2 million plus .
“Panama’s exceptionally high levels of precipitation, rich watersheds, and abundant rivers make it one of the world’s most water-rich countries. With approximately 33,000 cubic metres freshwater per capita available, nearly six times the global average, Panama is well-endowed when it comes to this natural resource. However, Panama is currently facing various water-related challenges, even – paradoxically – water scarcity.
https://www.netherlandswaterpartnership.com/news/overcoming-water-challenges-panama
However the Dutch say they have extreme levels of water consumption per capita
This is confirmed by Wikipedia
“Those who have meters pay a fixed tariff for the first 8,000 gallons (30 cubic meters) each month in Panama City and for 6,000 gallons (23 cubic meters) in other cities and towns. These consumption levels are far above a basic water need of 50 liter per capita per day which corresponds to 6 cubic meters per month for a family of four.
Nothing is confirmed by Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is a lost asset–too bad, they were once a good resource.
It still is a fairly good resource for anything that has no political or policy propaganda value. If all that I’m looking up is something like, “what is the area of (fill in the blank)”, then fine. If I want to read about the climate of the Miocene, I know that I’m going to get a supersized portion of “greenhouse gas this”, “Earth’s future climate that”…
Jim,
I started to edit an error-filled Wikipedia description of a big uranium mine we found and developed in the 1970 to 1990 period. Some anonymous senior reviewer contradicted my account and said I needed to quote only referenced data. Heck, we and nobody else were in a position to write this history because we were the people making it. If we wanted something to be formal, we wrote it and it was normally peer-reviewed, but that does not give it any more credence or authority than what we did not write about, but performed.
Wikipedia placed invalid emphasis on gatekeeper infallibility. They think they can alter a true record, or reject a true account over a competitor account. Maybe they do these extraordinary things because “Once, I had a Dream” powers over their veracity.
Geoff S
Thats so true. Some topics have nasty editors who block plenty of good data .
While theres great slabs on different topics that are all opinion but likely valid or relevant with no extreme reviewing or at most a a tag saying {source required} at left at that.
In most of science theres plenty of disagreements but rarely is that seen in wikipedia
I never tried to edit a Wikipedia topic. Some need some minor editing. Others are a total loss–especially in the CC area.
Its basic data , nothing opinion about households in Panama and their water charges .
Like I said the Dutch report already knew this
No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater because their climate entries are compromised
Again more confirmation , the metropolis is using the Lakes/Canal water
““The water of the canal is also the source of drinking water for Panama City,” said environmental lawyer Rodrigo Noriega. “As Panama City grows, there is less water for the canal. So the canal is under a lot of stress to find new sources of water.”
It was just a hunch for me at first that the urban centres fresh water needs are growing faster than the canals needs , and multiple sources confirm that is the case. So even if you have a lower rainfall than normal the drawdown for the 2 mill plus city population continues , not helped by the excessive per household water use
Thanks for all the good information, Duker.
So a 2nd canal was added that increases the maximum Beam allowed on ships ( PanaMax restraints). I.e., larger locks. Would this not more than double the water requirements to operate the canal? Or is the old lock system decommissioned?
Not 2nd canal , just the second locks systems each end of the large lake.
They have a water basins attached so the fresh water can be reused, but the old system doesnt .
The lake has always had low water times due the cycles of rainy seasons
According to US army Corps of Engineers report in 2000 they dont really seem to have much hydrology data before the 1960s but lake levels are know of course
USACE 2000
“Of particular interest is the lowest elevation of record. Until 1998, the lowest elevation of record was 80.59 feet. In 1998, the level dropped to 78.55 (shown by the dotted line near the bottom of Figure 10), a full two feet lower than previously experienced since the canal was opened in 1914.
1998 level 78.55 feet-23.94m seems to be lower than currently so that was the minimum since 1914
2015 was also a drought year with shipping restrictions like 1998 . Same for 1982-83 ALL were El Nino years , so NOT a global warming feature
Since every ship going through locks leads to water loss, is it possible that water problems are due to increased shipping.
Bigger and bigger ships are the norm now.
1998 was the lowest Gatun lake level since 1914 and the disruptions to shipping were covered at the time . Same as for all strong El Nino years
But now its “Climate change’ gets the more prominent headlines , even though shipping trade newletters say traffic running mostly OK now ( August) and theres often a queue of ships like the Suez canal
Bigger ships don’t necessarily need more water. In fact, they fill up more of the lock, reducing the amount of water needed – except when you have one larger ship taking up the whole lock, instead of two smaller ships sharing a lock. More lock cycles use more water. Bigger ships with the same annual total cargo shipped would mean fewer ships, fewer lock cycles, and less water used, but more total cargo shipped probably means more ships, more lock cycles and more water used. However, considering that for over twenty years there have been supertankers and container ships that are too big for the Panama locks and have to take a longer route, I suspect that most of the cargo traffic through the canal now is in ships that were specifically designed to take full advantage of the lock dimensions.
We’ll know when they have a _real_ problem when they start building big pumps to lift the water from the bottom up to the top again. And that will be problem solved, except the transit fees will have to be increased to pay for the capital costs of these improvements and the energy costs.
Wait, the Suez Canal often has a queue? I thought it was wider than the Panama Canal, and it is a sea-level canal with no locks at all. It must be carrying several times as much cargo as the Panama Canal.
If climate change is raising the sea levels, the Suez Canal must be getting deeper, so the ships could be loaded heavier, right?
“These consumption levels are far above a basic water need of 50 liter per capita per day which corresponds to 6 cubic meters per month for a family of four.”
This doesn’t say anything about typical per-capita or per-household water consumption, but only what someone (probably a fanatic) _thinks_ these should be. So it’s meaningless.
Steve ==> Precipitation is always a local metric. “Global precipitation is a pernicious myth.” Nothing whatever except propaganda — either way — depends on “global”precipitation.
What matters is rain in Panama — and on the right side of it’s continental divide.
It’s no secret that the LATimes has chosen to go the way of The Guardian.
All the leftwing news outlets have gone the way of the Guardian. They are coordiating their climate scare stories, and are getting paid handsomely to do so.
There has never in history been a propaganda outfit the equivalent of the Western leftist Media. They own 95 percent of the news organizations and they are well-financed by leftwing billionaires. And the truth is not in them.
Paid Liars is what they are. Paid to undermine Western Democracy. And they have been doing a pretty good job of it so far.
I thought climate change was going inundate coastal area due to rising oceans, now they are going to drop?
Is there anything the magic molecule cannot cause?
No, nothing. I expect them to claim that while the poles are thawing, the tropics are freezing. It’s a tipsy-topsy world in the climate change community.
The baseline that the IPCC uses is from 1850-1900. That was just coming out of the Little Ice Age, so it was still pretty cold. It still is pretty cold. People outside of the tropics have to wear warm clothes and shoes, live in warmed houses, drive warmed cars and work in warmed workplaces.
Clickbait ..its better than the Royals, Trump, Hollywood all rolled into one
Didn’t want to be so ignorant as to blame the water shortage on the recently opened 3 lock for mega ships.
The “fact check” nor this post covers this “Third Set of Locks Project”. The water to raise and lower ships is not infinite. The operation of both the old and new locks uses gravity and valves. Pumping is not used. Basins are available to reduce the volume of water lost to operations.
There is a dry season typical of climates such as Panama has.
The rainy season is usually from May through November but varies in length from seven to nine months. Year to year variability is to be expected.
I lived in the Philippines for a couple of years. There were only two seasons–wet and dry.
Wait, oceans are rising and a canal that connects two oceans is drying?
Make that make sense
Thanks! You made my day!
Apparently the above comment went into detention to be approved. I guess thanking someone isn’t approved activity.
rises to a maximum of 26m above sea level, at Lake Gatun, an artificial freshwater lake formed by damming the Rio Chagres.
So the headline should have read “Rio Chagres Dam Forcing Panama Canal Shipping Limits”
Even if precipitation was going down, how would that be the fault of the US? Wouldn’t it be the fault of those countries who’s CO2 emissions are going up?
Maybe it’s Mother Nature’s fault. They should send a complaint to Mother Nature.
It’s natures’ fault. CO2 has NOTHING to do with this. Just like YOU have nothing to do with the sun rising in the east.
Don’t you know _everything_ is the US’s fault? When Chinese factories increase their emissions to fill the shelves at Walmart, it’s not their fault for using coal power and low-efficiency processes, it’s our fault for buying that crap. Somehow it’s also our fault that they burn a lot of coal building cities that no one will live in. And when China increases their CO2 emissions to build ICBM’s to nuke us, that will be our fault for not surrendering in advance.
No climate change claim is valid without independently corroborated studies. Science is never about commons sense.
I thought science was all about common sense–until you go into quantum physics and common sense no longer applies.
Earlier this morning I watched Deepak Chopra in a YouTube video. He said that quantum physics indicates there is no causation. That’s something to ponder.
I saw a video by Neil deGrasse Tyson about the Second Law. He correctly states at the beginning of the video that the second law only applies to isolated systems. He then proceeds to apply it to numerous non-isolated systems.
I’m not impressed with Tyson though I enjoyed his version of Cosmos. He’s very against the idea that there might be aliens visiting this planet. He likes discussing trying to find them millions of light years away- but don’t talk to him that MAYBE some might be here. That view is actually rather common with astronomers. A lot of people have seen them- that is- seen what might be alien ships- including me!
Tyson is a hard-core CC advocate.
I remember a report by an airline pilot. He was startled by a flight of four disks in reverse echelon formation (reverse echelon is where the leader is low and the remainder of the flight is stacked higher). He noticed the leader slowed suddenly and the other disks scrunched up. They then returned to their regular formation and sped off. It was as if the leader was startled to see the airliner, slowed, and the rest of the flight had to compensate. It also looked as if the disks were under intelligent control and not just an atmospheric phenomenon.
Oh ye of little faith-
Climate activism has the ‘hallmarks of a religion’ (msn.com)
Looney Toons!
Story tip
Record breaking COLD in South Africa.
South Africa’s Record-Breaking Cold; First Snow Of The Season Hits Colorado Rockies; Flakes Return To Finland; + ‘Snow Removal Market’ Forecast To Rise Between 2023-2030 – Electroverse
Looks like Sydney pinched the missing heat-
Australia’s southern states bake as September heat records tumble (msn.com)
It’s why God invented coal and reverse cycle aircon.
Dead carboniferous period vegetation invented coal. And humans (with no help from gods or fairies) figured out how to use it to our immense benefit.
Southerly change on Thursday (approx) will drop the temperatures right back down.
“Sydney’s long-standing weather station at Observatory Hill climbed to 34.6C, equalling its hottest September day on record.”
Seriously. !!. Obs Hill is in the middle of MANY traffic lanes in the middle of an ever expanding and in-filling city… It is Urban Warming writ large.
They really need to find somewhere sane to measure temperatures.
Anyway, we are due for a proper warm summer..
Last year didn’t make it passed 32C all summer. !
Yeah, it has been a tad warm the last few days. 🙂
Was pretty cool for the first fortnight of September though.
Will drop back down on Thursday (or thereabouts) when the cool change hits.
Cessnock Weather Forecast | Today’s Local Weather Forecast (weatherzone.com.au)
If you scroll down you can see the 7 day forecast.
If anything in weather or climate is different from what it was yesterday, it’s CO2’s fault.
The models have spoken.
Wait… The canal is linking two vast oceans. And CO2-induced climate change is supposed to be disastrously raising sea levels…
And they are running out of water to fill the locks? Have they checked the the nearby oceans (that are about to drown us all [/sarc]) to see if they could find any there?
Wouldn’t work, the canal is freshwater which is used for drinking as well as navigation.
Then it seems the problem is sourcing drinking water, not a ‘drying panama canal’.
WSJ 28 Jun 2021 — “Pressure on Panama’s watershed is increasing as the urban population expands and agriculture draws water away from the area.”
2022 had the highest ship traffic in a decade, every passage uses a lot of water, 14,239.
So they ran the resource down and were over reliant on a plentiful rainy season that was late and insufficient to restore a comfortable margin.
Rather than prudent management, they gambled on favourable weather and came up wanting – that is not the fault of climate change.
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/panama-canal-water-levels-historic-lows-restrictions-remain-2023-09-06/
Just looked up the UN’s population figures. In 1980, Panama’s population was a shade under 2 million. It’s now a shade under 4.5 million.
In this context, I saw a nice palindrome the other day :-
A man a plan a canal Panama
Like everywhere else on the planet, the Panama Canal area is wetter some years and then dryer some years.
So what has changed?
Well, for one thing, the size and capacity of the Panama Canal was doubled between 2007 and 2016. Other than surface evaporation which has always been a thing for Gatun Lake since it was artificially created during the building of the canal in the early 1900s, the only real consumptive use of fresh water from that lake is to fill the locks. Each time a ship transits the locks, about 50 million gallons of water is discharged to the ocean. If you double the number of ships traversing the canal and its locks, you double the amount of water discharged.
So now, since the canal capacity was doubled, during dry years that always occur from time to time, the canal authority needs to either reduce the draft of ships in the canal, or find other sources of water.
What we have here is an artificial canal with an artificial lake whose capacity was artificially doubled thus artificially doubling the amount of water that is discharged from Gatun Lake.
By the way, after doubling the capacity of the Panama Canal, the volume of water discharged on average is still no more than the average flow volume of the Chagres River, which was dammed to form Lake Gatun.
It’s not climate change – it is use and possibly overuse of a limited water resource due to human development.
The IPCC uses as a baseline 1850-1900. That was just coming out of the Little Ice Age and it was still pretty cold. It still is cold, 4.6 million people are estimated to die from cold-related causes, mainly heart attacks and strokes from when our blood vessels constricting when we inhale cold or cool air, compared to 500,000 deaths from heat related causes.
‘Global, regional and national burden of mortality associated with nonoptimal ambient temperatures from 2000 to 2019: a three-stage modelling study’
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext
Bbbut, It’s connected to oceans/Gulf of Mex and I thought sea-levels were rising to horrendously boiling levels? Dumsheets.
Isn’t the canal bordered on both sides by the oceans? How could it ever run out of water unless the oceans are first running out of water? How stupid can these people be? Of course, it is California.
Before you could use ocean water, you would first have to desalinate it.
You would also have to pump it inland and uphill.
The canal runs through a mountain range so it is all above sea level. The lake which covers most of the canal is 24-28m (80-90 feet) above sea level….down to the 24m range currently
keeping the sea water out is a feature of the freshwater lake and locks not a bug.
The oceans either side or approx the same height – as much as sea levels can be, so unless you have found a way to make water flow uphill on its own the oceans cant help
The Suez canal is the one with sea levels both sides very close but no locks needed as its surrounding ground level is very flat.
Anyone else notice that the Clausius-Claperyon equation only leads to more rain when there is a dodgy dam about to break?
In 2016 the expansion of the Panama Canal was completed. Each time a ship passes through the canal a large amount of fresh water is used. The water is used to flood the locks to raise and lower ships. This water is not reused, it is lost to sea. The canal was expanded so larger ships could pass through. In addition more ships can now traverse the canal. I suspect the increase in water usage may have something to do with fresh water shortages. Any self respecting reporter should have commented on the expansion.
If the sea levels are rising as fast as claimed by the alarmists, the Panama Canal will soon be unnecessary.