California is Sinking...

... and fast! Last summer, scientists recorded the worst sinking in at least 50 years. This summer, all-time records are expected across the state as thousands of miles of land in the Central Valley and elsewhere sink. But the extent of the problem and how much it will cost taxpayers to fix are part of the mystery of the state’s unfolding drought. No agency is tracking the sinking statewide, little public money has been put toward studying it and California allows agriculture businesses to keep crucial parts of their operations secret.

 California is sinking, and it's getting worse. 

By Nathan Halverson at "Reveal" from the Center for Investigative Reporting

Joseph Poland of the U.S. Geological Survey used a utility pole to document where a farmer would have been standing in 1925, 1955 and where Poland was then standing in 1977 after land in the San Joaquin Valley had sunk nearly 30 feet.

Super El Nino Likely

The forecast of a strong El Nino brings good news to California, unfortunately marine life has begun to starve up and down the coast of north America. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) model is forecasting well above normal precipitation for October through December, 2015. There is a good chance heavy winter rains will break the California drought. Downside will be massive landslides and flooding in areas affected by wild fires.

Governor Brown Directs First Ever Statewide Mandatory Water Reductions

Phillips Station, Echo Summit, April 1, 2014.

Phillips Station, Echo Summit, April 1, 2015.

 No snow at Phillips Station (Echo Summit southwest of Lake Tahoe) for the first time in 75 years of early April recorded measurements.

And, no fools, on April 1st, "For the first time in state history, the Governor has directed the State Water Resources Control Board to implement mandatory water reductions in cities and towns across California to reduce water usage by 25 percent. This savings amounts to approximately 1.5 million acre-feet of water over the next nine months, or nearly as much as is currently in Lake Oroville."

Summary of the executive order issued by the Governor.

The US is on track for a record-breaking megadrought

In just a few decades, a huge swath of the US could experience the biggest megadrought that the US has seen in 1,000 years.

Way to go, Pleasanton residents!

All of California is in Some Type of Drought

 

For First Time, California Gets Ready For Mandatory Water Restrictions.

90% Chance of the El Niño Global Weather Phenomenon Striking this Year

“It is very much odds-on for an event,” said Tim Stockdale, principal scientist at European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts, who said 90% of their scenarios now deliver an El Niño. "The amount of warm water in the Pacific is now significant, perhaps the biggest since the 1997-98 event.” That El Niño was the biggest in a century, producing the hottest year on record at the time and major global impacts, including a mass die-off of corals.

“But what is very much unknowable at this stage is whether this year’s El Niño will be a small event, a moderate event – that’s most likely – or a really major event,” said Stockdale, adding the picture will become clearer in the next month or two. “It is which way the winds blow that determines what happens next and there is always a random element to the winds.”

What is El Niño?

El Niño is a climate phenomenon that occurs when a vast pool of water in the western tropical Pacific Ocean becomes abnormally warm. Under normal conditions, the warm water and the rains it drives are in the western Pacific.

El Niño occurs every few years. Its most direct impacts are droughts in normally damp places in the western Pacific, such as parts of Indonesia and Australia, while normally drier places like the west coast of South America suffer floods. But the changes affect the global atmospheric circulation and can weaken the Indian monsoon and bring rains to the western US.
It is not certain what tips the unstable Pacific Ocean-atmosphere system into El Niño, but a weakening of the normal trade winds that blow westwards is a key symptom. In 2014, the trigger may have been a big cluster of very strong thunderstorms over Indonesia in the early part of the year, according to Dr Nick Klingaman from the University of Reading in the UK.

An El Niño is officially declared if the temperature of the western tropical Pacific rises 0.5C above the long-term average. The extreme El Niño year of 1997-98 saw a rise of more than 3C.

El Niño is one extreme in a natural cycle, with the opposite extreme called La Niña. The effect of climate change on the cycle is not yet understood, though some scientists think El Niño will become more common.