dailyimpact | The only category of drought higher than the one now assigned to nearly 60 percent of California (the USDA’s Drought Monitor calls it “exceptional”) is “Biblical.” Three years in, there is no relief in sight — the much-anticipated El Nino pattern of sea-surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, which usually increases rainfall in California, has not materialized.
It would take a full year of normal rain and snowfall to restore
surface waters to normal levels. A UC Davis study just out finds the amount of surface water available to California agriculture has been reduced by 6.6 million acre-feet
(yes, that’s enough water to submerge 6.6 million acres to a depth of
one foot). Groundwater has been pumped to replace five million
acre-feet, but the shortfall remains a jaw-dropping 1.6 million
acre-feet.
It is, right now, one of the worst droughts in the history of North
America. Bad enough, says Lynn Wilson, chair of the School of Arts and
Sciences at Kaplan University and member of a UN delegation on climate
change, that “we may have to migrate people out of California.”
Which immediately led to a post on the aptly named Lunatic Outpost ( I am not making any of this up) titled “UN panel recommends moving people out of California.” In black transport helicopters, one assumes. (For the record: Dr. Wilson’s UN service is not her day job, and her observation had nothing to do with the UN.)
But just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean you might not have to
leave California. “Civilizations in the past have had to migrate out of
areas of drought,” says Dr. Wilson, and although heroic measures can be
expected before any such decision is reached, she says, “it can’t be
taken off the table.”
Ominously, heroic measures are already being taken. Californians can
now be fined $500 for washing their car or watering their ornamentals.
Time to move to Phoenix. Oh, wait….
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