Ag Weather Forum

California Drought And Climate Change

Bryce Anderson
By  Bryce Anderson , Ag Meteorologist Emeritus
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"This plot of California temperature and precipitation anomalies since 1895 shows the 3-year period ending in 2014 was by far California's hottest and driest on record." (Graphic by P.H. Gleick)

A research article posted in the online version of the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences", and summarized in an article on the CleanTechnica website, concludes that there is a strong link between the devastating drought in California--dubbed a megadrought--and climate change. The article is titled "Anthropogenic warming has increased drought in California", and is authored by a research team from Stanford University, led by Dr. Noah Diffenbaugh. The original article was posted on March 2nd, 2015.

The California research goes along with other findings from studies of historical droughts in the Plains and the Southwest. Those studies have concluded that the risk of severe and protracted droughts in those regions is rising to unprecedented levels. The extent of heat and dryness has not been seen since the Medieval Climate Anomaly 1,000 years ago, when a 50-year drought and water shortages forced the ancient Pueblo people to abandon their civilization setup in Chaco Canyon (in today's New Mexico).

In the case of the California drought, Diffenbaugh's research team found that warm and dry years, with increased snowmelt, higher water loss from plants and soils, and diminished water availability, have been about twice as likely recently to produce severe droughts as year that were dry but with cooler temperatures. In the article, Diffenbaugh is quoted:

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"Our findings...provide very strong evidence that global warming is already making it much more likely that California experiences conditions that are similar to what we have experienced during the current severe drought."

You may be wondering if there is any actual "on-the-ground" producer example which speaks to this question. I do have one--not from California, but from central Washington state, which also had a very dry and hot year last year that was well off the charts--and which still has long-term dryness in effect. This is how this grower described the situation from last year:

"While our annual precipitation totals are not significantly different since my 37-year farming career began, the distribution and timing in recent years has been frustrating. Summers have been very hot and intensively rainy in gully-washer events. (It) cooks the wheat before it's ripe and rains on it when we are trying to harvest."

The western U.S. has a big drought challenge. The region's management of this may well set the stage for how we deal with additional climate change-related events.

The full article, with more keynote graphics, is at this link: http://tinyurl.com/…

Bryce

Twitter @BAndersonDTN

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Comments

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Bryce Anderson
4/1/2015 | 7:47 AM CDT
Conclusions from climate change research are actually for both extensive drought and too-wet conditions although in different areas. There's more detail at this link to U.S. climate change impact highlights: http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/highlights
Curt Zingula
4/1/2015 | 6:56 AM CDT
The Climate Change "experts" can't agree whether earth will burn up with drought or drown out with too much rain. But they know for sure that whichever occurs, it will be "disastrous". And to Matt - the EPA has a "save our winters" program which they hope to use to help provide JOB SECURITY.
Bonnie Dukowitz
4/1/2015 | 6:51 AM CDT
Were the man-made lakes not constructed because of the water shortage?
MATT MULLER
3/31/2015 | 1:23 PM CDT
I'm curious as to why the mega drought that occurred a thousand years ago or the 1930's drought was natural, cyclical climate change and the current one is totally man made.
Jay Mcginnis
3/31/2015 | 6:55 AM CDT
Interesting, I don't see anything about blizzards in L.A. in this article, could Charlee Garst be wrong?
Charlee Garst
3/30/2015 | 9:30 PM CDT
If L. A. ,Ca. has a blizzard, it must be global warming. We have carbon credits to sell!!!