Southern Drought Continues; Texas Disasters In 2011
Dec 21st, 2011 | 13 responses
From US Drought Monitor
In central Texas, the amount of water flowing into the lakes for 11 months of the year (Jan-Nov) was less than 10% of average.
Texas was hit by eight of the nation’s billion dollar disasters [in 2012] – the most of any state in the country. Of the eight, the three most devastating were drought, heat, and wildfires.
Is this the new normal? Some scientists think it could be:
While the worst drought since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s grips Oklahoma and Texas, scientists are warning that what we consider severe drought conditions in North America today may be normal for the continent by the mid-21st century, due to a continuously warming planet.
However, don’t count on traditional media to connect those two dots. They will, however, report losses (at least sometimes):
Economists at the Texas Agrilife Extension Service calculated in August that the drought’s cost to Texas agriculture had reached $5.2 billion.
A preliminary survey by the Texas Forest Service concludes that as many as 500 million trees have died across the state this year as a result of drought….If accurate, the number would represent up to 10 percent of the trees in Texas… the figure does not include the millions of trees lost to wildfires…
Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Texas Tech University Climate Science Center wrote in mid-August:
[T]his summer is very similar to what is projected under a +2°C global mean temperature increase. We typically average 9 days per year > 100°F in Lubbock; this year we are at 43 and counting.
But some of the damage may also be self-inflicted:
Texas is caught in the perfect storm of drought. Years of unregulated expansion and sprawl, limitless groundwater pumping, and poor conservation management practices have set up the state for disaster. Now come the effects of climate change, with increased temperatures and evaporation rates, and the result is a disaster.
What can you do? Stay informed, look for sources outside of the MSM, share the story of the drought with others. And watch how we respond. For example, Texas thinks it can build its way out of trouble:
Texas approved a somberly worded plan on Thursday that lays out where the state should spend $53 billion to cope with its water needs over the next half century, and warns that future droughts may mean not enough supply to keep up with growing demand.
The 295-page report by the Texas Water Development Board says that to avoid a potentially thirsty future, the state should implement 562 infrastructure and conservation projects that include building 26 new reservoirs as well as numerous dams, pipelines and wells — but it provides little guidance on how to pay for such infrastructure.
I think this response – man to conquer nature – is not only an artifact of the early 20th century thinking, it’s hubris. It also ignores externalities : the cost of each additional person (or business) who decides to move to Texas because of a perceived short-term improvement in today’s cost of living.
13 Responses to “Southern Drought Continues; Texas Disasters In 2011”
Kathy this is correct and having lived here for 3/4 of my life, I’ve never seen it drier for so long, although many political locals will happily remind me about how not-long-ago we enjoyed the national spotlight because of all the “flooding” around central Texas.
Ranchers have been talking about it for about a decade and they (maybe being less political about it) will confirm that it has been far too dry, for far too long.
I’ve wondered if, given several University-level Engineering schools here in the state, if we would ever consider the possibility of de-saline plants (much like middle-eastern countries) to pipe water to major hubs like Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas/Fort Worth. But I know the costs would be prohibitive, and the politics impossible.
I do worry about my home state, for more reasons than politics.
I feel bad for Texas, and I wonder why it is that people have not listened to the reasonable people, and acknowledged, at the very least, what even Sarah Palin did, that the earth is warming.
Them Texans never did believe in global warming. Boy, the animation for Sept looked HORRIBLE for Texas. Locusts are next Kathy, and, if the Texans don’t straighten up, then comes the frogs. Hope they get the message before it’s down to the first born because they ran the sheep herders out a hundred and fifty years ago. No way to mark the door sill.
The attempts to connect the current Texas drought and global warming are misguided at best. The basic and simple cause of the current drought is La Nina. Now Texas is actually in the middle of a 100 year “drought” and the current La Nina is causing a drought, within a drought, within a drought. As of yet there has been no scientific evidence that global warming has any current effect on La Nina or El Nino. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation just ended a 30 year warm phase, but the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation is only half-way through it’s warm phase. When the PDO is cool and the AMO is warm, this leads to a dry Texas.
http://www.pnas.org/content/101/12/4136.full.pdf
So while Global Warming may very well have an effect in lowering the precipitation in some areas there is a good known scientific reason for the current drought that has nothing to do with rising temps and the pushing of stories like this hurts the cause of Global warming proponents. By trying to push this narrative it shows that that facts and science is less important than then what ends up being a political goal.
Dear EEllis: are you a PhD climatologist? If not, I’ll defer to the one that I cited and that others have cited.
To Allen, PJBFan and JeffP:
Thanks for your comments. It’s not just Texas that’s in trouble, but because Texas is so large (square miles) it should get more attention.
Jeff, there was something in one of the references about desalination — but that goes to my closing graph. Should we act like co-dependents and enable — through taxes paid by the rest of us (non-Texans) — Texas to build infrastructure that draws even more people to the state, putting more pressure on resources. We seem to have no long term thinking any more. I’d be happy with mid-term thinking!
Which again is the problem. You and those you link care more about pushing an agenda than the real science the whine when people no longer believe in the science. Dessler can say whatever he wants but has given no evidence or factual basis for his conclusions. He just “knows”. While plenty of others stick to the science and since there are no studies confirming that GW is currently having any effect on the Texas drought then it’s wrong to claim there is an effect. He is taking studies that show increased temps cause soil to dryout thus causing temps increase and further drying. But guess what this is not some automatic and unlimited cycle. The best evidence currently is a presumptive correlation between the weather and temp. Basically the weather has been changing and so have the temps so there is a presumed link. Even if at some point in time Dessler, or someone else, finds and proves a direct correlation it still means little without some indication of some measurement of the difference. He may be “right” but if the total difference in rainfall over the whole state is .01″ of rain a year then who gives a rats ass. Bringing it up in anything more than a theoretical way is basically lying to people. But thats all right pick the person who tells you what you want so you won’t actually need to know anything about what you write.
Kathy,
Don’t you know that Global Warming AKA Climate Change is no more than a global conspiracy by a bunch of egg-head who want to socialize our economy and ruin our god-given right to shit where we eat.
As for Texas and the whose former CSA, F**K them, let them die of their own stupidity, it’s incurable.
Here is the problem in a nutshell: It would be virtually impossible to show conclusive proof that global climate change (GCC) has directly caused anything! If the number of category 4 hurricanes were to increase from, say 1.7 to 3.6 due to GCC, then which Cat. 4 hurricane was caused by the GCC? The answer would have to be both and neither.
Climate is not a cause and effect situation. The butterfly affect was discovered when a computer projection of climate was rerun but had truncated the numbers to eight significant digits (iirc). The original computer program, although only DISPLAYING the eight, actually used 13. Within one month (projections) the climates were totally different. The scientist who ran the study compared the difference (i.e. the 9th through 13th significant digits) as being equivalent to a butterfly flying in a different direction in China.
Thus: if a major port were to be completely flooded, the global warming naysayers would not be convinced. If half the State of Texas were to light on fire, they would not be convinced. If freak storms started occurring with alarming frequency, they would not be convinced. If lakes in Massachusetts that used to freeze over every year no longer freeze over at all, they would not be convinced.
The reason they will not be convinced? There is no direct evidence showing cause and effect. We can’t show that GCC has directly caused any catastrophes. Sorry, but that is the limitation of the science.
QF-
Damn that was good.
To EEllis et al – there is consensus among the scientists who study the climate that *climate change is happening.*
Where there is “debate” — ie, disagreement in terms of how to interpret data and models, not ‘debate’ like politics — is in the speed of the change and how much of the change is attributable to human behavior.
Rcoutme – very well said.
Happy holidays, everyone!
Great but that fact has absolutly nothing to do with this subject. There is no “consensus” that the current Texas drought would be different in any signifigant degree without the additional warming caused by man made factors. That was your claim which has no real scientific basis and as such weakens any argument you put forth about any science because you’ve made it clear that you put your political agenda before science.
Actually, not all of Texas is in Drought. I am a little more focused on Northeast Texas and we are not only coming out of it, but we are staying out of it. The drought, I mean. The .01 percent has got to be my Ranch just East of Royse City, TX. Oh well, standing water, everywhere a few days ago.
Not to happy if the Three Lakes: Lake Tawakoni, Lavon and Hubbard are not completely filled by Jan 1, 2012. Man I thought I was better than that in praying for Good Weather.
The Lake levels have been on the rise since I changed my focus from planing rye grass to filling the lakes, in my opinion.
Oh, by the way, I know the exact day the Heatwave ended in Northeast in 2011 and all of Texas 2001, by the way, when Tropical Storm Barry cooled down the entire State of Texas in 2001, in my opinion, that was pretty neat.
Well there is a bigger story behind all this but just do not want to mess up my career. I did not go to the University to end up being a prayer of Good Weather, in my opinion.
Oh, by the way I cannot help people with their Bad Weather, unless they receive a 2-Part message first.
Sorry, that is the hard part, in my opinion, because it changes a lot of lives, also in my opinion. Messes up my career – major too, in my opinion.
I get my water from Lake Lavon and Hubbard pulls water from Lavon, so I can fix that and I do live in Northeast Texas, but judge me if you see Northeast Texas go back in drought (late 2012) and keep in mind if it does; I will lose ~$1,300 in seed by planting rye in late March 2012 with a version of fast growing grass to be hay in late July 2012.
Too cold to plant now, the cold is helping keep the water in the ground and fill up the 3 lakes, in my opinion.
Also, my ranch was fine with the 2011 drought, however, my neighbor my need for me to give him some hay. Will not know until Feb 2012.