USA-WEATHER/NASA NASA predicts more severe droughts in California over next decade

Record ID: 135407

  • Title: USA-WEATHER/NASA NASA predicts more severe droughts in California over next decade
  • Date: 31st July 2015
  • Summary: VARIOUS LOCATIONS IN CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (FILE - 2014) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF ROADSIDE SIGN ENCOURAGING RESIDENTS TO CONSERVE WATER
  • Embargoed: 15th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVACQ78H3M5UO4YBZ033Z9D9DIN2
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: New satellite images released on Thursday (July 31) by NASA show two weather extremes on the east and west coasts of the United States. The data shows a visualization of heavy rainfall in the eastern half for the country and a persistent drought in the west for the first half of 2015.
    The findings from NASA's earth observing satellites also point to a prolonged drought for California that is already struggling with its worst drought on record.
    The dry weather has damaged the state's $45 billion agriculture industry and forced officials for the first time in 40 years to limit longtime water rights for farmers and others in Northern and Central California.. Experts have also predicted an unusually active and destructive wildfire season for the state as a result of the dry conditions.
    "The situation in California right now is pretty extreme, even as you look across the United States and out further to the rest of the globe. Essentially, to compensate for the deficit you see in California right now, you'd need to fill the entire state knee-deep in water," NASA scientist Dr. Doug Morton told Reuters on Friday (July 31).
    According to NASA, California is missing a year's worth of rainfall.
    Morton said any prospect of precipitation in the coming months from rainfall that typically occurs when equatorial ocean temperatures rise in a condition known as El Nino, did not guarantee drought relief for the Golden State.
    "There's a long term pattern of drought effects and it won't be just a single year or even a single El Nino event that will help break that drought cycle," Morton said.
    And the worst is far from over. Using measurements of rainfall and groundwater deficits, NASA scientists predict that California will have to battle even more severe drought conditions in the coming decades.
    "Under the latest generations of climate models we see that most of the desert northwest and California is likely to experience more frequent, more severe droughts over the coming decades. Those are pretty consistent results across all of the models and they do suggest that the kind of condition we see now in California will be more important and frequent in the future."
    The most populous U.S. state is now in the fourth year of the drought that has prompted its first-ever mandatory cutbacks in urban water use.
    The drought is lingering despite winter storms because warm temperatures have meant that little of that rain was stored as snow. The state relies on its mountain snowpack to melt in spring and replenish streams and reservoirs.
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