Drought to get worse in 2008?
So far, all signs point to “yes”. This article on watercrunch sums it up pretty well.
The primary factor seems to be La Niña, the current weather pattern that is likely to bring us warm, dry weather throughout the winter and into the spring, which we’ve discussed before.
The key seems to be in the next 3-4 months. If we don’t get much rain during that span, things will almost certainly be worse heading into next summer/fall.
December 22nd, 2007 at 10:14 am
“The key seems to be in the next 3-4 months”
Hmm. Sounds like one standard Randal unit to me. Lol.
December 22nd, 2007 at 10:17 am
See I told you the next 4 months is critical to determine whether the drought eases or gets far worse. May is when acute water shortages could kick in.
December 22nd, 2007 at 1:52 pm
So, how far along are Sonny and Shirley planning on waiting before they start planning for this? Why not at least announce that they’re concerned and are looking at options, rather than completely blowing it off? Next year should be interesting.
December 22nd, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Mickey and Jay Randal > Did either of you take the time to actually read through David Stooksbury’s presentation? Jay Randal > did you even take the time to actually read the Techcrunch item?
I think the both your posting and comment wrongly and weakly recap the messages of Stooksbury’s presentation for January - March and the summer.
Yes, he says that if the normal winter rains don’t come it will be worse this summer, but he also says the smart bet is that the winter rains are NOT coming, they are going to be less than normal.
Of course it is only the likely probability that this winter will have less rain and higher temps than normal. But he knows about what he is forecasting, presents it from different sources. And show that winter time forecasts for North GA related to La Nina have been fairly accurate in the past.
Here is the link to his presentation if anyone wants to know firsthand -
http://www.caes.uga.edu/topics/disasters/drought/powerpoint/outlooks2008.pps
Or … you can find a way to ignore the problem and push it out for another Randal Unit and see if Stooksbury really knows what he is talking about Then if he is correct you can get busy moving on past denial and anger, right to stage 3 of death and dying and start “bargaining”.
December 22nd, 2007 at 6:26 pm
notanumber> Who are you arguing with here? I fail to see how running this site is “ignoring” the problem. If you believe you’ve found information that further confirms, or disagrees with, something discussed here — by all means, share it with the community.
December 22nd, 2007 at 6:40 pm
ST > Good point. Please take a look at the link I posted above. Then we can discuss my point of view that in this post Mickey is for some reason trying to soften Stooksbury’s message. Which encourages some people to ignore actions towards improving the problem today.
You are correct that with this blog he is not ignoring the issue. But “issue” is not the same as “problem”. Is his approach in some of these posts, like this one, recognizing the problem or just issue?
December 22nd, 2007 at 8:54 pm
My point is, maybe he simply overlooked what you have discovered. We are working together here to get to the heart of these issues. That’s what the comments are for. Just a couple weeks ago, the dead pool meant something entirely different to everyone here, until a reader did some homework and clarified things in a comment.
Again, I’d encourage you to continue doing research to help us all gain a broader, clearer understanding as this is an inordinately complex situation we’re trying to grasp here. I think you’re way off-base if you truly feel there is some agenda to “soften” the news here. It’s a cooperative, learning process.
-st
December 22nd, 2007 at 9:02 pm
I certainly didn’t intend to soften the news — I simply didn’t think it was anything new to most of us. I felt it was worth posting for those that didn’t have that info yet (we get new readers everyday), and I tried to present it for what it was.
How exactly should I have phrased it? “OMG!!!!!!11111 We’re doomed!!!”
As ST said, but whole purpose for running this site in the first place is to NOT ignore the problem, but to inform as many people as possible. If you feel I was misleading in how I presented a link, always feel free to let me know (like you have).
In addition, I’m always open to having users guest post. If you see a relevant story and want to write about it, just e-mail your post to me (info@atlantawatershortage.com) and I’ll probably put it up.
December 22nd, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Not to bring up the whole global warming debacle again, but I would like to pose this as a serious question to those that believe this drought is caused by global warming. The article says La Niña is caused by cold water temperatures. I think it’s pretty well documented and agreed that the Southeast is experiencing dry weather because of La Niña. How do you reconcile global warming causing cold water which in turn causes dry weather?
December 22nd, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Mickey - I would have laughed out loud if you’d phrased it as “OMG!!!!11!!!! We’re Doomed!!!”
December 23rd, 2007 at 12:23 am
RichS> Climate change is a much preferable term to employ than global warming, for the confusion you’ve expressed. And to boot, it’s about 10xs more complex an issue to comprehend as the basic hydrology we’ve been struggling with on here for the past two months! I can suggest a couple of excellent books that deal fairly with the science of climate change if you’re interested. I know it’s a contentious and politically divisive subject, and it’s really a shame it’s come to that.
Anyway, “The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight” does a really excellent job of explaining a lot of environmental issues, as well as “God’s Last Offer.”
-st
December 23rd, 2007 at 12:32 am
And to clarify, my understanding is that climate change can expect more extreme weather, in all forms. That means deeper, longer droughts, more intense hurricanes, heavier flooding, etc…
December 23rd, 2007 at 12:54 am
Did I miss something here about this thread subject? Stooksbury basically said the drought will most likely last to end of next year and I agreed with him. I do not believe mickey or myself inferred otherwise. If the rainfall is below normal for the next 4 months, in Georgia, then summer looks bad for serious water shortages.
December 23rd, 2007 at 1:13 am
I am off traveling through Christmas day, so have a Merry Christmas everyone in spite of the epic drought. Take care all.
December 23rd, 2007 at 1:28 am
Oh also Happy New Year to everyone if I do not post again on here before this December ends.
December 23rd, 2007 at 11:38 am
Thanks ST - Honestly my interest level isn’t high enough to read a whole book about climate change. It just seems that everything from an active hurricane season to an inactive hurricane sytem to La Niña is seen as evidence of global warming or climate change. If it is dry in one part of the country and flooding in another, both will be attributed to climate change. If the moon turns purple, the next day you will hear people attributing it to climate change.
December 23rd, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I hear ya. The “Ancient Sunlight” book has a couple of chapters that you should at least browse, if you are truly curious about why climate change is a valid concern.
The way I see it, you can’t harvest the planet’s natural resources at the rates we continue to do so, indefinitely, without a reaction from the weather systems. It’s all very intricately related. Forests aid the hydrologic cycle and also “sink” CO2; fossil fuels are essentially massive trapped stores of ancient plant matter, more CO2 that is being unleashed into the atmosphere exponentially faster. The vast, stabilizing resources of a finite planet have been very rapidly depleted and altered over the last century or so — a blink in the evolutionary history of mankinnd and the earth. That’s going to cause some disruptions in natural systems, one way or another.
-st
December 23rd, 2007 at 3:14 pm
You may be right ST and I appreciate the serious answer to a question posed seriously. Your posting “climate change can expect more extreme weather, in all forms” has given me some pause. I’m very skeptical - but do have an open mind to that answer. I will grant that what you say is reasonable.
December 23rd, 2007 at 5:47 pm
mickey > Thank you for the direct reply. Your suggested alternative headline would have only weakened Stooksbury’s information further through indirect ridicule. Something your original subtle headline (Drought to get worse in 2008?) sufficiently accomplished.
It is well understood that the interrogatory “voice”, such as you used in the headline post of this thread, weakens the perspective of the topic by questioning its position. Why did you choose not to use a simple declarative eg (Drought to get worse in 2008.) or imperative (Drought to get worse in 2008!) perspective which would have been neutral or supported the perspective of the item’s topic? Either choice would have been much closer to Stooksbury’s actual message.
My original question remains, did you choose to use the weakening interrogatory headline after reviewing Stooksbury’s presentation?
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:19 pm
ST - “My point is, maybe he simply overlooked what you have discovered. ”
I didn’t discover anything I just read the article and links that Mickey posted. I would be surprised that Mickey would “overlook” this information. Is it unreasonable to think that the owner of the blog would at least review the material he is presenting? Perhaps he choose not to, but Mickey is probably best at answering for himself.
I don’t do any “research”, I just look up, read the material and try to understand it.
(Rather than like some others here, who are willing to just spout out and then back off by saying they are really not interested enough to read a book.)
December 23rd, 2007 at 8:20 pm
I didn’t intend to weaken the information with my headline. In fact, I didn’t put nearly as much thought into as you have in dissecting it.
However, I still stand by it. Will the drought get worse in 2008? The answer appears to be “yes”. You can’t prove otherwise at this point.
I think it would be unfair to say that the drought WILL get worse in 2008. It certainly seems like the path we’re heading down, but you never know. I think it would have been arrogant and misinformed on my part to declare that things will definitely get worse. Instead, I posed the question, responded that things likely will get worse, and provided a link for more info.
December 23rd, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Mickey > why did you qualify “yes” by putting the word in quotes?
December 23rd, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Ok, let me take a stab at this. As things stand right now everything indicates that at a minimum the drought will continue at during the next year, and the odds are quite good that it will get worse to some degree. In this article which only seems to cover the high points made by Stooksbury and not point out anything that none of us were not aware of. I’d be interested in seeing a transcript of his entire speech if only to see what else he has to offer. One thing that we can be sure of, we have seen a good amount of rain over the past week or two and while it has helped to some degree we are in no way out of the woods here and there is a long way to go before we can even begin to think that the drought is on the verge of being broken.
December 23rd, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Actually notanumber - since you just have to take a poke at me…
I think the most interesting thing in this article was how closely it followed the position of Jay Randal which you mercilessly mocked. Where’s your apology to Jay???
Since it isn’t going to happen, I will apologise for you.
Notanumber says “Sorry Jay. You were right and I was wrong. You are much smarter than I am. I am not nearly as smart as I think I am. My arrogance clouds my judgement sometimes. I’m a big weeniehead.”
Now doesn’t that feel better?
December 23rd, 2007 at 10:04 pm
In hindsight, the quotes around “yes” were probably a bad idea. I put it in quotes to try to show that “yes” was the answer to the question that I had posed in the title. I think I would have been better off using italics or bold to emphasize it.
December 23rd, 2007 at 11:59 pm
richs - Jay is self-mocking. Jay is the person that wrote there was a good soaking rain and Lanier would rise 6-10″. Then kept incrementalizing, delaying and excusing the lack of a 6-10″ rise and then finally after a week wrote that it didn’t rain much after all. (seemed strangely similar to an Emily Litella routine)
Now back to you and Jay. Thank you richs, I think it is special that you are willing to try and make-up with him for me. I am glad through my comments in this forum I could create that opportunity for you, and I hope that Jay finds it very sweet of you. Your and Jay’s remarkable similarities are very apparent and now that your fondness for Jay is out in the open, I hope that 2008 allows you both to share a wonderful deep growing intimate manly relationship.
December 24th, 2007 at 12:19 am
Mickey > Sorry I was harsh.
I was not trying to imply that the issue/problem was being ingnored. But I do feel there is an active effort by some to deny it.
My concern with the post starting this thread, and to a slightly lesser degree the post at watercrunch, is that they “glossed” over the urgency that Stooskbury was imparting in the referenced presentation. That it is really unwise to wait until spring. According to Stooksbury’s presentation this is a drought that started in early 2006, grew throughout 2006 and grew worse in 2007 and will, with a very high degree of probability, grow much worse this winter with the delivery of true crisis this spring. Yes, in 4 months we will know if Stooksbury and the rest are good forecasters. But if they are Atlanla is screwed! Don’t you think Atlanta should be actively seeking to “cover” the downside?
It does not seem like they are. Interstate negotiation is not supposed to have any outcome until mid-March. And even more frustrating is that GA and Atlanta seems very resistant to do much of anything independently, eg currently in GA at even the very highest level of water use restrictions the very large majority of businesses have no usage restrictions whatsoever.
I feel confident that you are aware of the lilly pond parable. But in case you aren’t, “If a pond Lilly doubles everyday and requires 30 days to completely cover a pond, on what day will the pond be 1/4 covered? 1/2 covered? On what day will it be fully covered?” In addressing the drought, I think we are close to the day before the 30th day.
December 24th, 2007 at 12:26 am
wspurlock > Here is a direct link to Stooksbury’s full powerpoint presentation.
http://www.caes.uga.edu/topics/disasters/drought/powerpoint/outlooks2008.pps
I hope you might share your understanding of it. I don’t want to be chicken little about it so I am looking for any other thoughts or insights from someone who has read it.
December 24th, 2007 at 4:34 am
In case no one saw this AJC article yet, it’s a really excellent synopsis of the many thwarted attempts by GA to solve its water issues over the past decades:
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/12/16/missed1216.html?cxntlid=inform
Mickey, maybe this could make a good blog topic…
Also I just finished a book I’ve mentioned on here, “Interstate Water Allocation in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama” — if you can find it at a library (I got it at GA State), it’s truly enlightening about the specific details of the water wars, as well as the ways other states (and other countries) have solved similar issues.
http://www.upf.com/book.asp?id=JORDAF05
-st
December 24th, 2007 at 8:56 am
Notanumber - I guess Jay can send me a picture if he wants. But he’s going to have to be really cute to make me leave my wife.
I will say one thing regarding his prediction of the lake rising. Back last spring, we got one inch at my house. The lake rose one foot the next day. I don’t have any data about how much rain they got up in the mountains nor downstream, nor what they were releasing.
This summer there was a time or two when we got around an inch and the lake still fell. So you really can’t make any predictions about how much the lake will rise with a given amount of rain without knowing how much water they are releasing.
Since you are very critical of Atlanta and Georgia for inaction, please give us some specifics that you would like to have done and what you think the impact of those actions would be. If you can’t give any ideas you are just another blowhard. You can post in the solutions forum if you have something.
December 24th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
richs - “Jay can send me a picture if he wants. But he’s going to have to be really cute…”
Do you feel better now that you are “out”?
December 24th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
IDEAS! IDEAS! GET YOUR IDEAS HERE!
I read a lot about Atlanta using only about 1%. The problem is 1% of what? The long term total is not known. The river system may be way more than oversubscribed. While the USGS has historic flow info, in climate pattern terms it does not go back very far. Most flow measurements date back only 35 to 75 years. What if the last two years are really closer to long term normal flow? What if this is not really a drought but normal. Fortunately, water conversation can help resolve the water problem very quickly and over the long term and even allow for growth. The fact that the average American uses twice as much water per day as the average Western European should provide us both comfort and a goal. There is much we can do to reduce water usage and beat the drought. Now and long term.
Stronger water conservation rules and incentives. More effective water use restrictions. Is there any good reason that a car wash should have uncontrolled water use in time of a drought? Or that people are able to plant lawns in a water emergency? According to the most sever rules they can in Atlanta. (but not in Palm County FL)
Metering of all individual dwelling, business and commercial units, retroactive as well as future construction . Low flow toilets and faucets. Smaller landscaped areas and pools and water features. More efficient irrigation systems.
Encouragement of individual solar energy and supplemental natural cooling through zoning, building and tax regulation.
Rationing. In an emergency, households and businesses that use above a certain number of gal/day per person should be able to be removed from the city supply after two monthly overages. This doesn’t mean they can’t use as much water as the want, but let them tanker water in from Lake Michigan. If they want their connection turned back on, make them post a large forfeitable bond.
December 24th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
That was very thweet of you set us up notanumber.
I’m not sure what you are talking about with your 1% figure. Are you saying the flow out of Lanier could be reduced about 1% by conservation? That might be a reasonable ballpark if we assume 10% of the water coming from Lanier is used by Atlanta Metro and you assume a 10% reduction of that 10% due to conservation i.e. 1%.
I could argue several items you offer point by point. For example - car washes. Most use recycled water or at least clean and re-use the water. So are car washes actually saving water when compared to a guy washing his car in his driveway?
But…. Instead of arguing the fine points with you, I will ask about the bigger picture. You are talking about 1%. If the lake fell 1% slower it would be better - but not nearly good enough. What you are talking about might be a reasonable part of a long term solution - but short term (which is what you are talking about) we need a lot more than 1% to get us out of this mess.
December 24th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Oh, and by the way notanumber -
It seems reasonably clear from some of your earlier posts that you are a liberal. Please correct me if I’m wrong about that.
So as a liberal - When you try (and fail) to insult me by insinuating that I am gay what you are really saying is that being gay is something to be ashamed of. Doesn’t that go against your liberal philosophy? It should - but maybe you just embody the ugly side of liberalism without any of the redeeming qualities. Or maybe you are just a little homophobic because some part of you needs the tender touch of a man.
December 24th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Another idea -
I also would require the Atlanta area metro water systems to set a 5 year goal and create within 12 months a plan to be at the 90th percentile efficiency on an international basis for the Infrastructure Leakage Index.
Atlanta has admitted to losing almost a fifth of their treated and distributed tap water.
Here is an interesting recent article on advances in leak management -
http://www.iwaponline.com/wpt/001/0026/0010026.pdf
December 24th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
I can’t disagree with that one even though it’s more long term than short term. I’m still not going to swap spit with you though.
December 24th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
After reading over the presentation by David Stooksbury (thanks for the link, and following up with his article “Drought lingers despite recent rainfall ” (http://georgiafaces.caes.uga.edu/storypage.cfm?storyid=32990) I fully agree with his comments and want to echo one important point. “While winter rains will lead to short-term improvement in soil moisture, stream flows, groundwater levels and reservoir levels, it is imperative that Georgians do not assume that the drought is breaking.” The best that we can hope for over the next 3 to 4 months is for Lake Lanier to hold it’s own or perhaps a small increase in the level. I get the impression that Stooksbury is very good at analyzing the data in front of him, and I can only hope that the Governor and others are paying attention to what he sys.
December 24th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Corrected link:
http://georgiafaces.caes.uga.edu/storypage.cfm?storyid=3299
December 24th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Wspurlock - you say “The best that we can hope for over the next 3 to 4 months is for Lake Lanier to hold it’s own or perhaps a small increase in the level. ” I am going to disagree slightly. The normal pattern is for Lake Lanier to recharge significantly over the winter and spring months. If the lake only holds it’s own we will be in a world of hurt next year.
I would say we will be lucky if the lake recharges up to ten feet of the twenty that it is down. Even that will make a tough next year - but we have to recharge some. Just holding the current level over the winter would be very bad.
December 24th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Rich, your right but keep in mind what you said. In a normal year. This is anything but a normal year and I really don’t see anything that would indicate a change back to normal. Do you? Keep in mind that every prediction calls for a warmer and dryer winter than normal which should result in not only lower inflow to Lake Lanier but a somewhat higher than normal evaporation rate. I’d say that a 10 foot recharge might be the very best that we could hope for in this case but I really don’t see it approaching that amount. We are right at the point where we should start to see the recharge, and we are seeing just a tiny, tiny gain on a daily basis. However that could be accounted for by a number of things or perhaps a combination of several. By the end of January we should have a much better idea of what we are looking at here when we have some real numbers to use rather than the 100% pure speculation based on historical averages we are currently using.
December 26th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Totally agree Wspurlock - If I had a disagreement with you a couple of posts ago it was really just when you said holding steady was best case. Anyway - it looks promising that we will have a wet December. Maybe the long term forecasts for winter are wrong. We can hope.
December 26th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Posting this here too - not in any way to be a jerk, but because I realized belatedly that I responded to RichS in the newest blog entry, and it was a continuation of this conversation here.
The last ten years of January 1 through June 1 elevation rises:
1997 - 5.5 feet
1998 - 4 feet
1999 - 5.5 feet
2000 - 5 feet
2001 - 6.5 feet
2002 - 7 feet
2003 - 3 feet
2004 - 2 feet
2005 - 1.5 feet
2006 - LOSS of 1 foot
2007 - 4 feet
10 feet isn’t likely in even a normal year. The average over the last decade is 4.3 feet. And those haven’t been drought years. Even the best year at 7 feet, isn’t there, and sans drought in 2006, there was a loss.
A winter and spring with no gain at all is entirely possible, and a loss is not out of the question, especially given drought conditions.
December 26th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
And again, because it’s also in the other blog entry…
I have some better numbers, which you may like RichS -
In the last 30 years, the average gain from Jan 1 through June 1 was 4.75 feet.
However, during 15 of those years the elevation on Jan 1 was under 1066 feet; I took that to mean the ACE would deliberately try to keep MORE water in the lake, which is similar to our situation now. The average then? 7.51 feet.
And 7 of those last 30 years the elevation on Jan 1 was below 1060 feet, and I assumed that would mean the ACE was trying desperately to keep water in the Lake. The average? 9.65 feet.
So, I revise my position. A gain is likely given past water conservation efforts in the lake by the ACE during periods of extremely low lake levels. Further, historically, the largest elevation gains have occurred when the lake has been at it’s lowest point.
As bizarre as it may sound, 10 feet is not out of the question, but still not likely, given past data.