Climatologist Who Predicted California Drought 10 Years Ago Says It May Soon Be ‘Even More Dire’

[GliderGuider]

Climatologist Who Predicted California Drought 10 Years Ago Says It May Soon Be ‘Even More Dire’

Back in 2004, Sloan, professor of Earth sciences at UC Santa Cruz, and her graduate student Jacob Sewall published, “Disappearing Arctic sea ice reduces available water in the American west” (subs. req’d). They used powerful computers “to simulate the effects of reduced Arctic sea ice,” and “their most striking finding was a significant reduction in rain and snowfall in the American West.”

“Where the sea ice is reduced, heat transfer from the ocean warms the atmosphere, resulting in a rising column of relatively warm air,” Sewall said. “The shift in storm tracks over North America was linked to the formation of these columns of warmer air over areas of reduced sea ice.” In January, Sewall wrote me that “both the pattern and even the magnitude of the anomaly looks very similar to what the models predicted in the 2005 study.

Last year, I contacted Sloan to ask her if she thought there was a connection between the staggering loss of Arctic sea ice in recent years and the brutal drought gripping the West, as her research predicted. She wrote, “Yes, sadly, I think we were correct in our findings, and it will only be worse with Arctic sea ice diminishing quickly.” Last week, Sloan wrote me:

Yes, in this case I hate that we (Sewall & Sloan) might be correct. And in fact, I think the actual situation in the next few decades could be even more dire that our study suggested. Why do I say that? (1) we did not include changes in greenhouse gases other than CO2; (2) maybe we should have melted more sea ice and see what happens; (3) these atmospheric and precipitation estimates do not include changes in land use, in the US and elsewhere. Changing crops, or urban sprawl increases, or melting Greenland and Northern Hemisphere glaciers will surely have an impact on precipitation patterns.

Methane, methane methane.

[progressoid]

1. Science schmience.

Didja hear about Jennifer Aniston?

[Flying Squirrel]

2. Does this take into account the possible coming El Nino?

California would also benefit if El Nino conditions develop and continue into the winter. The state is suffering from one of the worst droughts in its history. An El Nino pattern in the winter time usually results in much wetter conditions for the West Coast.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/06/us/el-nino-weather/

[Yo_Mama]

3. If you look at hundreds of years of history, CA has recently been in a rainy period

Those who were predicting just based on historical rainfall also predicting new severe droughts.

I wouldn't abscribe this to climate change.
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_24993601/california-drought-past-dry-periods-have-lasted-more

Stine, who has spent decades studying tree stumps in Mono Lake, Tenaya Lake, the Walker River and other parts of the Sierra Nevada, said that the past century has been among the wettest of the last 7,000 years.

Looking back, the long-term record also shows some staggeringly wet periods. The decades between the two medieval megadroughts, for example, delivered years of above-normal rainfall -- the kind that would cause devastating floods today.

The longest droughts of the 20th century, what Californians think of as severe, occurred from 1987 to 1992 and from 1928 to 1934. Both, Stine said, are minor compared to the ancient droughts of 850 to 1090 and 1140 to 1320.