Seven states running out of water

The United States is currently engulfed in one of the worst droughts in recent memory. More than 30% of the country experienced at least moderate drought as of last week's data.

In seven states drought conditions were so severe that each had more than half of its land area in severe drought. Severe drought is characterized by crop loss, frequent water shortages, and mandatory water use restrictions. Based on data from the U.S. Drought Monitor, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the states with the highest levels of severe drought.

In an interview, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) meteorologist Brad Rippey, told 24/7 Wall St. that drought has been a long-running issue in parts of the country. "This drought has dragged on for three and a half years in some areas, particularly (in) North Texas," Rippey said.

While large portions of the seven states suffer from severe drought, in some parts of these states drought conditions are even worse. In six of the seven states with the highest levels of drought, more than 30% of each state was in extreme drought as of last week, a more severe level of drought characterized by major crop and pasture losses, as well as widespread water shortages. Additionally, in California and Oklahoma, 25% and 30% of the states, respectively, suffered from exceptional drought, the highest severity classification. Under exceptional drought, crop and pasture loss is widespread, and shortages of well and reservoir water can lead to water emergencies.

Drought has had a major impact on important crops such as winter wheat. "So much of the winter wheat is grown across the southern half of the Great Plains," Rippey said, an area that includes Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, three of the hardest-hit states. Texas alone had nearly a quarter of a million farms in 2012, the most out of any state, while neighboring Oklahoma had more than 80,000 farms, trailing only three other states.

In the Southwest, concerns are less-focused on agriculture and more on reservoir levels, explained Rippey. In Arizona, reservoir levels were just two-thirds of their usual average. Worse still, in New Mexico, reservoir stores were only slightly more than half of their normal levels. "And Nevada is the worst of all. We see storage there at about a third of what you would expect," Rippey said.

The situation in California may well be the most problematic of any state. The entire state was suffering from severe drought as of last week, and 75% of all land area was under extreme drought. "Reservoirs which are generally fed by the Sierra Nevadas and the southern Cascades [are] where we see the real problems," Rippey said. Restrictions on agricultural water use has forced many California farmers to leave fields fallow, he added. "At [the current] usage rate, California has less than two years of water remaining."

The U.S. Drought Monitor is produced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the seven states with the highest proportions of total area classified in at least a state of severe drought as of May 13, 2014. We also reviewed figures recently published by the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service as part of its 2012 Census of Agriculture.

These are the seven states running out of water.
7. Texas

> Pct. severe drought: 56.1%

6. Oklahoma

> Pct. severe drought: 64.5%

5. Arizona

> Pct. severe drought: 76.3%

4. Kansas

> Pct. severe drought: 80.8%

3. New Mexico

> Pct. severe drought: 86.2%

2. Nevada

> Pct. severe drought: 87.0%

1. California

> Pct. severe drought: 100.0%
> Pct. extreme drought: 76.7% (the highest)

> Pct. exceptional drought: 24.8% (2nd highest)

California had the nation's worst drought problem with more than 76% of the state experiencing extreme drought as of last week. Drought in California has worsened considerably in recent years. Severe drought conditions covered the entire state, as of last week. Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency earlier this year as the drought worsened. California had 465,422 hired farm workers in 2012, more than any other state. Farm workers would likely suffer further if conditions persist. The shortage of potable water has been so severe that California is now investing in long-term solutions, such as desalination plants. A facility that is expected to be the largest in the Western hemisphere is currently under construction in Southern California, and another desalination facility is under consideration in Orange County.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/06/01/states-running-out-of-wa...
==========================================
For all Actions & In-actions, there are Consequences!

The period ahead will confirm that WE have pushed nature to far & that nature will now push us in return!

progressiveslol wrote on Jul 1^st, 2014 at 11:01pm:

Climate change is real.

How much to attribute to CO2?

The IPCC says temperatures rose .35C prior to 1970, before AGW. That is natural variation.
The IPCC says temperatures have risen .55C since AGW.
If we assume natural variation remained at .35C then CO2 caused .2C warming.
Not the dominant forcing since 1970 let alone last century.

MOTR wrote on Jul 7^th, 2014 at 9:24am:



Perhaps I should have been more specific. No AGW due to GHG emissions. Certainly AGW overall from land clearing etc.

'There is very high confidence that the net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming.[6] {2.2}

Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.[7] It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent (except Antarctica) (Figure SPM.4). {2.4} '

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spms2.html

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

The above link shows a map of the current US Drought situation.

With much of the Western & Southern parts of the US now in a serious drought, this has ramifications for the Food & Water supply of a great number of people.

This also highlights that the current Climate Change relates to the current unfolding situation and how it will play out in the decades & centuries ahead, not how it relates to what happened in the past, particularly in the distant past, prior to humanities existence.

That said, there is ample evidence, for those who look with open minds, that man has certainly impacted what is currently happening and
in the years, decades & centuries ahead we shall reap what we have sown!

Or, more to the point, we shall not reap enough of what we have sown, to feed our hungry Billions! 

lee wrote on Jul 26^th, 2014 at 12:31pm:

when?

lee wrote on Jul 27^th, 2014 at 12:08pm:

wow, some serious science going on there 

Who can believe it though?   

'A 1,200-year perspective of 21st century drought in southwestern North America'

http://www.pnas.org/content/107/50/21283.full



Blue is precipitation, Brown is temperature.

.BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Jul 28^th, 2014 at 12:36pm:


PNAS -



Is a Scientific Organisation with a warmist bent. You need to get out more.

'Climate Change Could Double Likelihood of Super El Ninos'

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-could-make-super-el-ninos-more...

perceptions_now wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2014 at 7:05pm:


Global warming fails to start El Nino as predicted, greater drought predicted.

Obviously El Nino fails to heed the IPCC.

Was it really only a couple of months ago they were confidently predicting a super El Nino?

perceptions_now wrote on Aug 3^rd, 2014 at 4:07pm:


Yeah....nah

Everyone was chicken little back in April 2009. Is that all you got?

Gravy train for charging extra premium for the fraud of Alarmist nonsense.

Warren Buffett on insurance- Mar 3 2014-

'The effects of climate change, "if any," have not affected the insurance market, billionaire Warren Buffett told CNBC on Monday—adding he's not calculating the probabilities of catastrophes any differently.

While the question of climate change "deserves lots of attention," Buffett said in a "Squawk Box" interview, "It has no effect ... [on] the prices we're charging this year versus five years ago. And I don't think it'll have an effect on what we're charging three years or five years from now." He added, "That may change ten years from now."

He said the U.S. has been "remarkably free of hurricanes" in the past five years with only slightly more tornadoes.


"The public has the impression that because there's been so much talk about climate that events of the last 10 years from an insured standpoint and climate have been unusual," he continued. "The answer is they haven't."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101460458#.

If insurance companies put up prices to maximise profits- that's an entirely different thing.

Property Insurance Rates Skyrocketing in Florida

Florida is known for being a disaster-prone state, and insurance companies are always quick to point out the many hurricanes that have ravished the state in past years. However, residents of Central Florida have been seeing massive increases in their property insurance rates over the last couple months.

Some individuals have suffered homeowners-insurance premiums that have risen more than 50 percent in the last year, and many Central Floridians now pay insurance premiums that are higher than most of the state and most of America. One of the factors that significantly affects your insurance rates is the cost of “reinsurance”, which companies buy to cover their own losses. In essence, “reinsurance” is insurance for insurance companies. These costs are skyrocketing because the industry recently decided to reorganize the way it calculated storm risk. This new approach determined that inland Florida rates need to go up, and reinsurance increases are estimated to increase up to 80% in some areas of the state.

More than a few insurance companies in the United States are pulling out of weather-challenged states and are refusing to write new homeowner policies. Some companies are also refusing to renew contracts with current policyholders. In fact, the Consumer Federation of America studied industry data and came to the conclusion that insurance companies have methodically and significantly decreased their financial responsibility for weather catastrophes like hurricanes, floods and tornados in recent years.

Because more and more private insurers are refusing to write policies in Florida, the state has had to step in and cover around 1.5 million properties through its publicly funded corporations.

http://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=26288
===========================================
There is the Reality and that Reality will become more pronounced as the years roll on!

lee wrote on Aug 4^th, 2014 at 4:07pm:


Whom to believe?

A Lawyer?
An Insurance Salesman?
Or, perhaps a Politician?

Trust me, there's not much of a choice amongst them!

I would still opt for the best advice, from those who should know best, The Scientists!

perceptions_now wrote on Aug 3^rd, 2014 at 5:39pm:


oops warmist insurance industry attempts to ratchet up premiums flops on the fraud of catastrophic global warming - facts talk PeaNut and bullsh1t walks.

Zurich Insurance Group shuts down climate office that was opened in 2008

By Sebastian Lüning, Fritz Vahrenholt

The Zurich Insurance Group is closing the climate office it had opened in 2008, a Zurich spokeswoman confirmed to E&E Publishing. Over the past several weeks and months Zurich Office Director Lindene Patton had been actively promoting the idea of the climate catastrophe to the US Senate. Patton had also co-wrote the US National Climate Assessment, which flopped completely thanks to the alarmist tendencies of her colleagues.

Apparently the Zurich has slammed on the brakes because the lobbying efforts closely tied to the IPCC are no longer getting acceptance from the public and parts of US politics. In general the insurance business is suspected of using extreme weather warnings to peddle their products to customers and to justify high premiums.

- See more at: http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.R5JnZJFj.dpuf

progressiveslol wrote on Aug 11^th, 2014 at 6:52am:


Stunning isn't it? How the useful idiots have been played by these so called 'green' shysters is hilarious 

hmm not very informative.. altho.. the 'insurance' angle is interesting.

Not unreasonable to look to models produced by multi.nats who look at the probabilities from a totally profit motive.


My personal obsv' s ...  this is probably the 'drought we had to have'..  before new patterns assert themselves.

Here in SEQ we are praying for rain.

The conditions remind me very much of a time approx.  15 yrs ago.. in this ,  my very space,  and time.. 

that drought ..  lasted a long time.

This one.. which we are experiencing right now.. I hope will be more short - term...   the change in weather patterns means,  I hope, ( for my personal sake)  that the cycles will occur much more quickly.

I hope for huge rains in SEQ soon. OK the forecasters say it'll happen for a day or two...  SOON..  AND THERE ARE SOME NATURAL POINTERS.. oops ..

IF  .. I repeat IF..  I get 100+ mm in the next week I will be ecstatic .. but I'm waiting....................

Some real science-
An experiment loosely based on Bill Nye's and Al Gore's experiment on CO2.

Abstract-
'Classroom experiments that purport to demonstrate the role of carbon dioxide’s far-infrared
absorption in global climate change are more subtle than is commonly appreciated. We show, using
both experimental results and theoretical analysis, that one such experiment demonstrates an entirely
different phenomenon: The greater density of carbon dioxide compared to air reduces heat transfer
by suppressing convective mixing with the ambient air. Other related experiments are subject to
similar concerns. Argon, which has a density close to that of carbon dioxide but no infrared absorption, provides a valuable experimental control for separating radiative from convective effects. A simple analytical model for estimating the magnitude of the radiative greenhouse effect is presented, and the effect is shown to be very small for most tabletop experiments.'

full paper- http://rtobin.phy.tufts.edu/Wagoner%20AJP%202010.pdf

Perhaps they need to review what they think they know about ECS, that part of the function that crosses between the physics (science) and the estimations (guesses), from where they gain how much temperature will spike.

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Aug 15^th, 2014 at 1:14pm:



And it sounds like you don't either..

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Aug 15^th, 2014 at 1:14pm:



But estimation is only as good as the available data, it is not set in concrete. More/newer data should be reflected in the estimation. There doesn't seem to be a significant reduction in the error bands of ECS in the last 30 years.

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Aug 16^th, 2014 at 6:43pm:


Thanks, I do my best

Emma wrote on Aug 16^th, 2014 at 9:05pm:

How elemental is that pleasure  - hearing rain.
All my forebears would have been pleased, just like me, by that sound. What a wonderful way to plug into an eternal sentiment.

ahhhh      love the sound of rain on a tin roof.

Emma wrote on Aug 16^th, 2014 at 9:05pm:

If the ground is dry the rain doesn't make it to catchment.. if desertification takes hold it is an irreversible process!!

and still I hear this impossible... unseasonal,!   .. rain .. in the driest month of the yr... historically.!   ... falling gently and so sweetly on my corrugated iron roof.

Ahh 

life is sweet.

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Aug 21^st, 2014 at 5:12pm:


YES

which is why development at any cost is simply wrong.



not concrete and cars

SEQ ??  PUKE ..

  developers run the govt here..and/or Govt-run bodies
like Energex,  crap all over the way it SHOULD be.

TREES 
not
politically backed developers.   

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

It is STILL raining...  not as heavy,  but light and re-invigorating.  It is soaking in.. and my tanks is getting more rain than when we had 66mm..  relatively.  (The gutters aren't overflowing.. they are catching it all..
Have had a further 13.5 mm to 9 am   .. since then??? Light but sweetest ... 

So  ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....

The frogs are singing again..  have been noticeably absent in the sounds of the bush here for too many months now..

Go frogs..!!   

And the recording is likely to be 'under'  because the rain gauge is surrounded by  very tall trees...  the open area is limited... and the wind... has been quite ferocious..  eased now.

SO

a very UNUSUAL, but very welcome weather event.   

Who knows..?  I'm already feeling so much better...  but  i could get  100+   

IMAGINE THAT eh..?? 

I'm happy... 

another city dude...  couldn't find his ah in the dark..

ohh??

I have lived on the spot I still live on NOW... for 29yrs.. more or less..     Hey I been all over too,, in younger yrs. 


NOW??

I have observed the changes.. over this time.

bear with me .. bear  DOWN  boy..

'cos  I have observed real change.. and only in this last 50 yrs,, has the RATE of CHANGE in the natural world... speeded up..to such a degree as to be  recognisable in realtime. !!

THAT IS BAD.

AND.. that is in response to the obscene and increasing AMOUNTS OF CRAP.. that we humans produce.

I don't see how any consciously connected human being could say anything else.

ah  Melbourne  .. I remember living there.. so sad for you.. but it does not equate.................. YOU SAY   Enjoy your rain, it's not unprecedented and not even unusual.
We had blue skies and a tad over 20 degrees in Melbourne today...must be some man made warming rates of change or some other laughable tosh .. 

CITY FOLK..!!  

NO CLUE.

Emma wrote on Aug 23^rd, 2014 at 9:25pm:



And yet it is not unprecedented. The rate of change is similar 1910-1940 as it is 1970-2000.

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Sep 3^rd, 2014 at 10:54pm:


Yeaarrse   say it often enough and the fools will believe it.

bogarde73 wrote on Sep 4^th, 2014 at 10:49am:



I agree, but whether or not we're artifically inflating its effects.

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Sep 3^rd, 2014 at 10:54pm:



And yet slope on a graph is rate of change. So you do not even believe the graphs- including those from the IPCC? How bizarre.

and frankly.. I find anyone who says that we have no real impact  to be a fool.

And I'm sure that most of you deniers happily fly around the world,  spewing filth from those high flyers.. Who cares..??

NOT YOU.. obviously.

Emma wrote on Sep 4^th, 2014 at 11:52pm:



Well I guess Al Gore in his private plane does; doesn't he?

The climate has always changed for millions of years. There is nothing wrong with it.

Emma wrote on Sep 5^th, 2014 at 9:11pm:


Yep, my kids will be the ones laughing at you, when the AGW thing comes crashing down.

Emma wrote on Sep 5^th, 2014 at 9:47pm:



What would it take for me to believe??...Hmmm how about something that HASN'T happened at least once in pre-Industrial history??

And although some of the skeptics and skeptical scientists may be believers in religion, or at least have 'spiritual' beliefs, the number isn't any greater than for pro warming people and scientists.


And the Creationist thing you're trying to think of is Intelligent Design.

Emma wrote on Sep 5^th, 2014 at 10:56pm:


How do you know they didn't??

And what 'super cyclones' do you refer to?

Emma wrote on Sep 5^th, 2014 at 11:15pm:


Yes I do watch the news.....and what is called a 'Super Cyclone' in Indian or a Super Typhoon at the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre, is a ordinary Category 5 Cyclone here in Australia. And Australia had it's first recorded Cat 5 Cyclone in 1899.

According to the various weather agencies, the last couple of years have been very quiet, in terms of tropical storm frequency and power.

In fact, there was a study published in Nature Journal in January this year that found 'that current seasonal cyclone activity is at its lowest level in Western Australia since 500 AD and since about 1400 AD in Queensland. That decline began about 40 years ago.'

Emma wrote on Sep 5^th, 2014 at 11:39pm:


Apparently something to do with isotopes in limestone cave stalagmites.

http://theconversation.com/tropical-cyclone-frequency-falls-to-centuries-low-in-...

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7485/full/nature12882.html

The link to the conversation is probably a little easier to understand than the second link to the actual article. (which is behind a pay wall, I just noticed)

No  and don't care either...  any idea how utterly clueless YOU sound.?? 

Hard to beat..!!!

nice graph..  im not reading links..

but most violent  = deadliest..??   
seems 1974 was a bad yr for lots of folks.. as was 2010.2011  ..don't we know it.. here in Qld. 

one graph means nothing .. sorry..  if you are trying to show proof...
you must realise surely that anything you trawl out will be met by just as big,  or an even bigger,  net.
Media does NOT inform us on this issue...  we, as it were, the general public.. get fed all sorts of tripe.. YUK.. Some love it...  I can't swallow it..  I make up my own mind..   

Only hard reality will convince some.. so .. for example,,..... when your house floods..  altho its never flooded before  in living memory..  think about it.


so  I refer you to someone prev who thought isotopes recorded on caves in WA proved cyclones were stronger then. more than 1000 yrs ago.

I mean.. guys really.. I'm not saying that is wrong... 

it is SIMPLY IRRELEVANT.

We are in a whole new game here.. and relying on old stats is foolhardy in the extreme.
Everyone has an axe to grind.. it seems..

Mine is not for cutting down trees.

Emma wrote on Sep 11^th, 2014 at 8:08pm:



So the stats from a US Gov't Agency don't count. You don't look at the links. The top 10 deadliest shows 2011 the latest and then goes back to 1953, as the next deadliest by time.

But you don't want to know that because you are safely cocooned in your own perceptions. Facts don't matter.

I'm not hoping you're right. And I don't think you are.

Just think if a sceptic disbelieved government data, they would be labelled a 'conspiracy nut'.

you know what ??

I couldn't be bothered arguing about this any more.

Emma wrote on Sep 12^th, 2014 at 7:38pm:


Good, that meas you are learning..