Tag: San Carlos Lake

When the Supreme Court ruled that an agency such as the EPA does not have the authority to regulate CO2 emissions by fiat. Only Congress can enact a law to do this. I pointed out that CO2 is not the culprit gas that causes climate change, and as an example I used the South Pole weather station, having a 60+ year of good statistics, and it showed that the temperature trend is -2C per century. One would have expected a rise, since at the average winter temperature of -61C water vapor is nearly non-existent, and CO2 is the dominant greenhouse gas. One would have expected a one degree or more warming instead. This is one data point we are in a cooling trend,and indeed we are. The Greenland ice data shows it to be true:

Yet the current worldwide trend is a temperature increase. Note that the temperature models have increased the temperature increase with time from CIMP5 to CIMP6, and so diverging more and more from the HADCRUT4 data.

The overall worldwide temperature is increasing, but not at the rate the climate models suggest. The important thing is, where are the temperature increases? The South Pole winter temperatures are decreasing 2C per century, but summer temperatures are increasing ever so slightly. In the Arctic the situation is reversed. The winter temperatures have risen between 3C and 7C and vary widely from year to year, but the summer temperatures are slowly decreasing. The current temperature chart for the Arctic above 80 degrees latitude tells the story:

There must be something with Climate change far more important than rising CO2 levels, and indeed there is. A couple of weeks ago I told a story of Dr Lovelock and his Gaya theory, and how he found out the air had much more DiMethylSulfide (DMS) than expected, and the molecules acted as condensation points for clouds. The DMS was generated by Phytoplankton, dinoflagellates and diatoms that contain chlorophyll and require sunlight in order to live and grow. Most phytoplankton are buoyant and float in the upper part of the ocean, where sunlight penetrates the water. Phytoplankton also require inorganic nutrients such as nitrates, phosphates, and sulfur which they convert into proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. If nutrients are too abundant it can lead to algae blooms, such as red tide. In that case all oxygen are consumed and the algae dies and leave a toxic mess. The areas where this occurs are near river outlets that contain too many nourishments. This is the case in the Mexican Gulf, the Eastern seaboard, the North Sea and the Baltic, as well as South Asia and East Asia. The inland areas will see more clouds and more rains, but not necessarily more severe storms. Flooding may increase though.

Far more troublesome is what happens to areas that do not experience an increase in clouds. The trouble starts a few hundred miles west of the Mississippi River in the Ogallala aquifer. This map shows changes in Ogallala water levels from the period before the aquifer was tapped to 2015.

Going west to New Mexico things get worse. New Mexico depends on the monsoon rains starting in July and continues into the fall. They have a tendency to fail from time to time and sometimes many years in a row, they cannot be relied upon to water the thirsty earth. The grass and other vegetation dies, and when the rains come, they often cause flash floods that are very destructive to the soil, and leaves large areas barren. To illustrate what is happening take the Gila River. It starts in the Gila National Forest in New Mexico and flow through near Phoenix and ends i the Colorado River near the Mexico border. It used to have a flow of 1.3 million Acre-feet annually flowing seasonally through the Phoenix area. The Coolidge dam was built in 1930, all the land was taken by eminent domain, the Indians protested that some ancient burial grounds would be flooded, but at no avail. The dam was built, and a big disappointment it was. The evaporation from the San Carlos Lake was higher than the inflow for much of the year, co the total flow of the Gila river was greatly reduced. These are the numbers for the last ten years:

Only once in the last ten years has the lake been filled to even 25% of full capacity, and the last two years the lake has dried out during the most important growing season.All fish has died. The lake is totally useless even for recreational purposes, and nearly worthless for the Phoenix area as water supply. The Central Arizona Project has a capacity of providing 1.4 million Acre-feet a year, but has only been awarded a fraction of its capacity from the Colorado River, and since Lake Mead is drying up, the supply will be reduced to almost nothing.

Hoe dire is the situation? Arizona has a rising population, This chart shows it well:

Arizona has had a water problem since before the creation of the Arizona department of water resources. The farmers that had water rights took their allotment and expected a low price, say $100 per acre-ft, the cost of pumping it out of the ground. The municipal users don’t mind to pay $1,500 per acre-ft, after all, that is only 2 cents per gallon, so when the supply fails, the farmer is the loser.

So, where do the water supplies come from? These are official numbers from 2019

Since then the situation has gotten much worse. The Colorado River contribution is down by at least 30%, and will be cut down further when Lake Mead drops some more. It is already precariously close to dead pool. The Gila River water flow is zero during growing season, but the Salt River still delivers 300,000 A-f per year, all during growing season. So the in-state river flow is down by a half. This means that over half of Arizona’s water supply will come from drawing down the aquifers. This will reduce the river flows some more, the land will be dried up, and eventually the wells will dry up and Arizona will act more like a desert, with no cooling capacity left in the soil, the summer temperatures will be even hotter and dust storms will be common. The trees will die from drought and wildfires will increase. When the monsoon rains come, heavy flash floods will remove what little top soil is left. This is real climate change in the American Southwest.

If we concentrate on limiting CO2 emissions but ignore the real causes of climate change this is the future the American South-west can look forward to. If we took a fraction of the money earmarked to eliminate fossil fuel and use it instead to save the planet, in this case the American Southwest, then we’ll again make the American Southwest livable with enough water for 40 million people, and with a still functioning agriculture in the west, supplying food for many more people, plants and wildlife.

One of the problems leading to climate change is polluting rivers. Of the ten most polluting rivers in the world none are in Europe or the Americas, see map:

Nitrogen pollution from agriculture is another problem, even in Europe and America. The Dutch farmers are up in arms over the draconian measures imposed by the Dutch government, praised on by Klaus Schwab and he New world Order leaders that want “The great reset”. This involves reducing the nitrogen content on the agricultural lands by 50, 75 and even 95% in certain areas, reduce cattle by 50% and a similar reduction in the pig population. The protest is joined by Germany, Poland, Italy and Spain (and maybe Australia). The protest is immense:

Government mandates cannot solve the nitrogen crisis. The best way to reduce the nitrogen pollution is to lower the nitrogen fertilizer from slightly above optimum to slightly below optimum. With fertilizer cost more than tripling this adjustment was going to be made anyhow. Plants have a remarkable ability to absorb the nitrogen, and with the rising CO2 levels they do so more efficiently. The optimum amount is different for every plot, and any farmer knows much better than any desk-bound bureaucrat how and when to sow, fertilize and reap.

In the eastern half of the U.S. water rights comes with the land, and since rainfall can lead to floods, water rights are water responsibilities. When a land owner disturbs the soil he must first put up a retaining sausage to stop erosion. Then he has to build a retainment basin to compensate for roofs and hardened surfaces, so the water will be retained on the property as much as possible. This will lessen floods. The farmers have to build shallow ditches adjacent to creeks and rivers to prevent agricultural runoffs. And fertilizing is only allowed when no thunderstorms or rains are expected

In the dry American southwest it is all about water rights. Land without water rights is nearly worthless. If a homeowner without water rights get caught putting a bucket under his downspout and uses the rain to water a newly planted thee, he can be fined. All water must be purchased. This is wrong. The water that rains on a piece of land belongs to the land and should return to the aquifer. The springs, forming creeks belong to the river and cannot be dammed. This will help restore the aquifiers, but the river flows will be diminished until the aquifers are restored, which may take a century. So before the water rights question can be righted and the aquifers restored we must

Build a TransContinental Aqueduct. This will solve the water needs for the upper Western Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, lower California, Mexico and the Lower Colorado River basin, and then

Build a Trans-Rocky Mountain aqueduct. This will solve some of the water needs for Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, upper New Mexico and the Upper Colorado river basin. To complete the trying to save the aquifers we also need to

Build a South Platte River aqueduct. This will solve the water needs for the greater Denver ares and help preserve the northern Ogallala aquifer.

The rise in CO2 is on balance positive, it has already helped to keep 2 billion people from starvation. With food famine coming the very worst thing we can do is declare a climate emergency and unilaterally reduce our electric supply eliminating much of our fossil fuel source to produce electricity and at the same time push electric cars.