NASA: California has one year of water left

http://www.newsweek.com/nasa-california-has-one-year-water-left-313647

Plagued by prolonged drought, California now has only enough water to get it through the next year, according to NASA.

In an op-ed published Thursday by the Los Angeles Times, Jay Famiglietti, a senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, painted a dire picture of the state's water crisis. California, he writes, has lost around 12 million acre-feet of stored water every year since 2011. In the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins, the combined water sources of snow, rivers, reservoirs, soil water and groundwater amounted to a volume that was 34 million acre-feet below normal levels in 2014. And there is no relief in sight.

"As our 'wet' season draws to a close, it is clear that the paltry rain and snowfall have done almost nothing to alleviate epic drought conditions. January was the driest in California since record-keeping began in 1895. Groundwater and snowpack levels are at all-time lows" Famiglietti writes. "We're not just up a creek without a paddle in California, we're losing the creek too."

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that one-third of the monitoring stations in California’s Cascades and Sierra Nevada mountains have recorded the lowest snowpack ever measured.

"Right now the state has only about one year of water supply left in its reservoirs, and our strategic backup supply, groundwater, is rapidly disappearing,” Famiglietti writes.

He criticized Californian officials for their lack of long-term planning for how to cope with this drought, and future droughts, beyond "staying in emergency mode and praying for rain."

Last month, new research by scientists at NASA, Cornell University and Columbia University pointed to abut hey.. "remarkably drier future" for California and other Western states amid a rapidly-changing climate. "Megadroughts," the study's authors wrote, are likely to begin between 2050 and 2099, and could each last between 10 years and several decades.

With that future in mind, Famiglietti says, "immediate mandatory water rationing" should be implemented in the state, accompanied by the swift formation of regulatory agencies to rigorously monitor groundwater and ensure that it is being used in a sustainable way—as opposed to the "excessive and unsustainable" groundwater extraction for agriculture that, he says, is partly responsible for massive groundwater losses that are causing land in the highly irrigated Central Valley to sink by one foot or more every year.

Various local ordinances have curtailed excessive water use for activities like filling fountains and irrigating lawns. But planning for California's "harrowing future" of more and longer droughts "will require major changes in policy and infrastructure that could take decades to identify and act upon," Famiglietti writes. "Today, not tomorrow, is the time to begin."

Time for mass migration. California is screwed, Why do Mexicans want to come to this dust bowl again?

Bump.

Not showing up, glitchspot.

I've already solved this problem in a previous thread.

We have plenty of water here in Manitoba. We could build a pipeline down to California.

@Storm_Marine said:

I've already solved this problem in a previous thread.

The solve it again Einstein.

California is the largest food producer in the US so this will **** up the entire country. gg wp Muricah

Eventually, it'll be a desert. Not within our lifetime (well.........maybe), but it will be sooner or later. I suspect sooner.

Other states farther east can take up the slack. For example, farmland that had been idle for years in New York were suddenly productive last year because of the drought conditions out west.

Lol I've been talking about this happening for the last 4 years, no one believed me even though all sings are saying we are pulling water out of the aquifers far faster then they can replenish themselves. I've been talking about the Huge American Migration from the food belt and desert cities and towns of America to the Northern areas and even Canada when things get to the point you can't even get enough water for you kids. Or grow enough food to feed the United states population as the Food belt is going to take of the hardest hits in the next 5-20 years.

Not right away, but it will and large parts of the world. Best to start growing your own food.

Owned.

@Storm_Marine: interesting so this has been solved

Build a facility that filters out seawater so it comes out as fresh water?

California is by the coast afterall.

That is very expensive, and it hurts the environment as well.

Desalinization technology is getting cheaper and more efficient. It's not at that point yet, but another little while and yeah, they probably could.

XL Water Pipeline!

I remember reading that California would survived on her own if she was her own country.

That's thinking like a genius!! Just think of the benefits,we can use the salt from the sea water and we will have enough salt to put on french fries for 200 life times.I smart.

Build a power plant to meet the demand for power it requires as well... ?

A lot of things are going to change in our lifetime. Entire country-sized regions becoming uninhabitable is entirely within the realm of possibilities.

I did'nt mean anything offensive by it.I was only kidding.To be honest,I'm pretty dense actually,maybe he's right,I don't know???lol.

I didn't look that much into your post. It's just that removing salt and what else they need to remove, most likely require power of some sort. I'm guessing electrical because you can get electrical power out when you draw freshwater through a membrane so it becomes salt water (this would be natural way for the water to flow if salt is restricted from coming over to the fresh water).

I'm sure there are far smarter people than us in this form trying to put water into California. Keep in mind this is not the only environmental problem in the USA. New Orleans is sinking farther into the Gulf every day. Same goes for Washington DC it is sinking. Also we know eventually a massive hurricane will hit he Bayou area down south again like Katrina and this time it'll wipe out more than just one city. Again we are aware nature's challenges in the future and we have scientists are preventing them.

Yes and no.. The problem isn't necessarily finding the answer.. It's getting the will and resources to do them.. The United States is a reactionary place in which it seems like the only time something is done is at the brink or during the disaster it self.. Even when we have all the signs of that was going to happen... We need to get these fucks who are sitting on important boards in congress who disavow any kind of scientific evidence due to religious beliefs or are in corporations back pockets out of there..

You mean old white republicans, who have ruined what could have the greatest nation on Earth due to their ignorant religious views?

Also, I don't think you can really stop those areas from sinking. Unless it's man made.

What does California even grow anyway? Besides bloated, watery, oversized, and tasteless strawberries and blueberries?

@Storm_Marine: hot chicks. By the bushels.

I never knew chicks originated from California! :o They make good eggs. I don't really like eating chicken however, with the exception of maybe chicken tenders or popcorn chicken.

Screw em.

@Wickerman777: eh screw California there are way to many douchebags and arseholes over there!

Yikes, due to what's happening in California now with this, do I see a possible famine apocalypse in the near future? That's not good.

Time to use bottled water

How soon is the Pacific Ocean drying up?

Something qualifying as man-made does not also qualify it as possible for man to stop it.

Anyway, NASA's findings ought to call Americans to action. I, for one, am thinking about my options with regard to that state.

@Storm_Marine said:

I've already solved this problem in a previous thread.

Brilliant! Yes, yes, you can have all of New York's sno-err-water, Cali!

Yeah I mean now, they would probably have better luck staying in Mexico.

As someone who lives in California though, this sucks. Also, the weather here sucks too, well at least in my area.

how so?

The weather can go from very hot to cold the next day. It's been happening pretty often lately. Hell, it even snowed on one of the beaches in my area and it has never snowed before.

I heard someone tell me they're building water pipelines from Alaska to Cali. Can anyone confirm or deny this??

I know, man can do things that cannot be reversed. was saying since it has gotten to that point, we could either stop doing what is causing or if it's natural it may not be possible to stop it. Might want to investigate first.

Americans won't care. We have known this for years, my option is to leave.

I live in Cali too, time to leave.

Is NASA officially saying this, or is it the author in the OP-ED making that claim from his own reading of the evidence, and NASA's name is being attached by the media because he works their? It seems like he is writing in a semi-official capacity so he might be doing so on behalf of NASA.

It's pretty scary for the people there, but in the long run as water gets scarcer it will get more expensive and eventually people will begin to move to regions with more abundant water supplies. Currently though I think the Southwest is one of the fastest growing regions of the country in terms of population growth - or at least in terms of internal migration where Americans move from one state to another. The Southwest is an arid region and is not really meant for intensive settlement but it has a lot of big cities that are only viable because of technology. It's likely that eventually many of these big metropolises will shrink down to the size of small towns as people begin to move to areas with better water supply, such as the North East. In any case the trend in recent decades, I think going back to the 50s, in the U.S. has been a movement of people out of the big cities and into nearby suburbs.

A trend that's only recently reversed.

Interesting, I didn't know that.

Personally I'd prefer not to live in a big city, too crowded and with a lot of germs.

Somebody call Matthew McConaughey.

Actually water transfers from Canada make a whole lot of sense for most western US states. I'm not sure what incentive the Canadians have to send it over, though, other than money.

I hear ya man, while vacationing here in Cali for a while, I have come to the conclusion that you and me may be better off in Florida, well, at least in terms of still being in a place with good tropical weather and palm trees. I mean its okay if you don't consider Florida one of your first choices, but I'd prefer being in a place with warm weather and palm trees, and with more beaches and water nearby, where I am it feels much too dry, and too much dry desert land surrounding me.

That will be enough.

Was going to say this. Manitoba already sells a ton of electricity to the US. Hell, they are building another series of dams and transmission lines to increase the province's ability to move surplus electricity.