Rare ‘triple’ La Niña climate event looks likely
nature.com
nature.com
La niña is the opposite of el Niño.
El niño (spanish - "the boy") is the name used by inhabitants of the area it hits the hardest, South America (mostly spanish speaking).
The western part of South America has its usual rainy season from late Dec to April.
The "el nino" boy is a reference to birth of Jesus. Chrstianity is the predominant faith in most of south america, so christmas is celebrated by all. Fishermen would thus say Jesus' birth brought extra "gifts" in the form of a stronger and longer rainy season, starting from late Dec.
So the the Spanish baby jesus boy brings brings miracle heat and rain upon his birth.
Invert the weather for la nina.
Now you you know what it means to you if you live in an affected area.
Edit - took out wrong statement about northern hemisphere
Australia gets the opposite weather to South America for the cycle.
So for La Nina, it's dry in South America, but wet here in Australia.
At the moment dams in the Eastern Cape are empty [2]. My mother's taps in Gqeberha are on a trickle only. No idea whether (El|La) Niñ[ao] is responsible here, but maladministration of available water has also been mentioned.
In summary, in ZA we look forward to La Niña, so this article is good news for us.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Town_water_crisis
2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/19/south-africa...
Water tankers are delivering water to various areas in Port Elizabeth as well as numerous smaller towns which have run out of water.
During Cape Town's water crisis we were queuing to collect water from the mountain spring that the local brewery graciously allowed us to collect water from.
National Geographic has an article about South Africa running out of water: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/partner-c...
If anyone is interested: "La niña" translates to "the girl" according to google translate (perhaps I saved someone extra clicks :)
El chico -> the boy.
I know it’s normal for lots of areas of the world (and I’ve lived in those places) but we’re generally not equipped for it here.
One thing he noticed is that the water has pushed ants to find new places to live (including his growing enclosure, where they’ve made a home in his electrical box), and they’ve brought aphids to farm along with them. Obviously this along with extremely wet weather is terrible for his crops.
He has mentioned the $10 lettuce (initially $4, then $6, then…) and somehow it seemed so unlikely still, like there must be somewhere you can still buy normally priced lettuce. But I guess not. It’s wild how quickly food supplies can get gutted by climate fluctuations.
Suffice to say, I’ve begun hydro gardening for fast turn around essentials with the idea that in a time of crisis, perhaps I can avoid buying $10 lettuce. Thanks Hoocho, you’ve made my 3D printer far more useful and made hydroponics way more fun.
And this local supply disaster noted, we kinda like it that way.
Lettuce likes some pretty specific conditions. If there's one area that's perfectly suited to growing lettuce with the minimum resources (fertiliser/water etc) then grow it there. Better than trying to grow it in the desert or somewhere much too cold.
If Australians go without lettuce for a month or so nobody is going to die. Eat rocket, spinach and cabbage instead.
There was big social media/news thing when KFC announced they were replacing lettuce with cabbage on their burgers.
A lot of unhappy campers there - tbh I think if they went further and made it a nice slaw with a sharp/tangy dressing then it'd be a massive improvement to their usual soggy, greasy chicken, and undercooked/limp chips (fries)
Worldwide there's an issue with regions being devoted to mainly a single crop intended to supply tens of millions across several cities, often overseas.
Good when it works, better have a backup alternative when that fails.
Carnarvon represent!
Right now my lights, air pump, and fan cost around $25/month to run. Nutrients are remarkably inexpensive (perhaps pennies per head of lettuce assuming they mature on schedule). All said it’s maybe a $30-35 per month hobby which might generate far more than that value in real, edible food. It’s surprising how many plants you can fit in a 1m x 1m grow tent when you use hydroponics.
I’m sure I’ll mess up several times before I get it working smoothly, but I’ve loved the learning process so far.
Before this I got kind of hooked on growing micro greens. It’s such a great gateway to indoor gardening, the results are awesome and it’s very low effort.
Edit: I hadn’t worked out the math yet, but my “break even” would be growing just a few bundles of herbs and 3 or 4 lettuces per month. The system has 24 plant sites so by all means, if I don’t totally blow it, I should be plant-profitable pretty soon! And that’s excluding the micros which develop under the same lights. The cost of micro greens is wild.
I don’t worry as much about the exposure to PLA so much as I worry about the layer adhesion being poor and causing build ups of bacteria or disease that I can’t clean out of my system.
The ants thing is very random and very real too. My paint cupboard in the shed (where I keep all my spraypaints/chemicals) became an ants nest a few weeks ago thanks to the rain. I opened it up and every single surface was crawling with a full blanket of ants. I'd never seen anything like it in my life. Things we're going to see more and more of I guess.
He really motivates me to be more engaged and creative with the skills I have. I’m good about certain things, like I’ll go out in my shop and build things with wood, but I’ve been very slow to get into CNC and printing work despite my interest. I think the stuff he does made it click. He’s just making little clips, plant pots, and other small utilities, but he’s using them to create new and interesting solutions.
In other words he uses a little to do a lot. It’s really cool. Such a great way to lower that barrier and make 3D printing fun and useful.
Good luck with your projects, too. I added a small greenhouse years ago and it was so worth it, and it’s become a major part of how I plan my garden and think about growing.
Many roofers have automated messages saying "we're too busy, no point". There is backlog in getting mold tested. Also affects general trades who don't give dates, they just come when the whether is good enough.
But the mould ... that was the worst. I'm going to smell of vinegar and clove oil for the rest of my life.
Whats the connection between mold, vinegar and clove oil? Are those used to treat or prevent surface mold?
Clove oil is quite effective at killing mold at very low doses. It's also got a number of other useful properties.
Is the mold a recent thing related to el Niño or has it been a problem for a while?
In the US at least, many houses built in the 90s-2000s have mold issues because they were built without proper water vapor permeability and also with materials that are also not moisture resilient.
This is even an issue in dry areas like California.
Homes tend to stand up to harsh rains, as that is normal. What is not normal is 100 almost consecutive days of the heaviest torrential rain I have every witnessed, similar to a tropical wet season.
With this much rainfall, you get your building tested like never before. Our back lawn was flooded most of the time, with the water seeping into the building whatever way it can. There are new roof leaks, persistent puddles that seep into the brickwork. A stream of water running like a river around the property. High humidity means nothing is drying out. And so on...
That makes sense, and rhymes with climate change. What are the mitigation steps that can be taken at this point without completely reconstructing the house to exist feet above the rainy season water level?
I got flooded out of my house and took 3 months to find a new rental.
I watched as the fungus invaded my house and started to eat everything. Mould on the walls, fabrics, paper, rubber, leather. Anything that had any sort of digestible organic matter on it went mouldy. Glass had a think layer of spores. Black loud coming down from the ceiling (this is a very bad sign, your property is seriously sick if you have black mould on your ceiling).
This whole area has been dealing with this stuff since they started building here, every house is affected. These wet periods just highlight the danger. Our country doesn’t have the resources to clean this issue up. That means millions of people are inhaling spores all day every day.
Spores won’t kill you, but they will ruin your life. They get into your lungs and cause health issues. I was sceptical about it until I moved to a dry area. My health shot way back up!
Good luck getting any tradies let alone building supplies.
I can get my lettuce local though for $3 a bunch from the farmers market! So there’s that :)
But the predictive powers of climate science is low, which this article (among others) illustrates. We know we are in a period of relative high flux (compared to previous centuries), but we don't know what comes after the immediate future.
People may draw different conclusions from this, mine is that we need to get away from the thinking that there is a "natural climate" that we can revert to. We need to stop the focus on how we can influence the changing climate and start thinking about how we can adapt to various scenarios.
For example, whatever scenario that wins out will likely create massive migration pressures. How do we deal with that, humanely?
It's much easier to tell people to buy a Tesla than to tell them their children/descendants will have a much worse time on this planet.
There are many things we could do to adapt and curve the issue, but it looks like we're going to suck every last bit of resource of this planet until it kills us.
I agree. These tools should make our crash landing softer than a laissez faire policy. But
1. I'm pessimistic about the true intent of the powers that be. While paying lip service to climate action there is hardly any real action: renewables are just an extra energy source on top of the existing cheap fossil fuels that give nations some independence vs the gulf states. There is a scramble for every newly discovered oilfield - and it's not because they want to prevent the extraction. And
2. If governments succeed against all odds in phasing out fossil fuels we would still be faced with massive climate change sooner or later - be it a new ice age or whatever. These are things that are out of our control - we need to make sure we can adapt, not try to control it.
About the next big climate change, you're right, those are inevitable given enough centuries. If it happens, people will deal with it in their time, but let's try not to cause one ourselves.
Very hard disagree. This is about all that matters. We've turned up the bunson burner heating up the Earth. What we don't know is _precisely_ how the entire climate system will respond to it, but it is a pretty good guess that if we leave it long enough and keep cranking it up that it'll eventually get really bad. We already see the weakening of the temperature gradient between the arctic and lower latitudes and the weakening of the jet stream and the formation of atmospheric blocking that is creating both large and persistent record heat spells in the northern hemisphere summer and cold snaps in the NH winter. We need to stop making that worse and rolling the dice to see how bad it'll get (which is a dictionary-definition _Conservative_ viewpoint).
I think it should be clear that we agree on that. My gripe is with the notion that we might be able to turn back the clock to some sort of pristine natural state - and keep it at that.
We can't and we won't. There is no such pristine natural climate "balance". We have enjoyed a few millennia of climate that has been exceptionally conducive to our present way of life (based on crops and livestock) - during which our species has prospered. This as been an anomaly in terms of geological ages, and instead of putting our efforts into calling names and casting blame for the current predicament we should concentrate on how to continue surviving under new and probably harsh conditions. That's all.
"He said the district will again seek binding guarantees from the federal and state government to help with the fast-drying Salton Sea before agreeing to reductions to preserve Lake Mead." https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/sophies-choice-water-off...
We learned as a result of the dust bowl that many aspects of the environment that we thought were useless were actually providing a stabilizing affect on the local environment. This is how we got infrastructure projects like the great shelterbelt[1].
Given this historical context the situation looks like the inverse to me. Like how the hell can the government prioritize keeping an artificial oasis supplied with enough water for a city in the middle of the desert vs prioritizing keeping a man made disaster caused by our ancestors from affecting large swathes of the country?
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plains_Shelterbelt
Not California officials.
It's the Imperial Irrigation District, which is the water utility for largely agricultural Imperial County, which is inland from San Diego. They grow a huge amount of produce there, so the water rights are primarily for farming, not for restoring the lake, which is fed by farming runoff.
So a better comparison is farming in the Imperial Valley vs Las Vegas.
incredible energy consumption, its impacts on marine life, projected sea-level rise and the cost of the resulting water itself -- with that cost being passed on to customers.
All that people waiting for hours in huge pickups, with the motor on, in order to put their huge boats in the water, while complaining how the water just go down and down every year. There is a metaphor there somewhere. I get some Rapa Nui vibes.
Doesn't seem all that rare, then.
What if there was La Niña on 1952, 1953 and 1954? Your method does not account for that. Natural events and climate do not adhere to someone's made up "mod 3" date statistics.
Intervene and rebalance the water markets, which are currently unsustainable based on bad decades-old science.
Eminent domaining the water?
The federal government at the highest level(SCOTUS) have no problem using eminent domain for things as frivolous as an unfinanced mall with no strings attached for the _private_ developer. They certainly wouldn't pause to eminent domain this if they cared.
Unfortunately these are regions of the country that are populated by large groups of people who continually elect local politicians who will blame any convenient boogeyman on their problems. Look at this in 2021 their AG sued the Biden government over not doing enough to stop pollution causing climate change because his administration didn’t crack down on _immigrants_[1].
What exactly is political leadership supposed to do here? Kowtow to the demands that will cost money and absolutely not solve the problem? Or ignore it until the people living with the issue decide to accept that it’s real rather than blaming whatever let’s them continue their lifestyle without any change?
[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.huffpost.com/entry/arizona-...
You’re ignoring that they have the power to do so, they just don’t have the will. We have built mega projects before and taken land for it. This would be no different
The pertinent text is
>Early cases also reflected the understanding that state property was not immune from the exercise of delegated federal eminent domain power. See Stockton v. Baltimore & N. Y. R. Co., 32 F. 9 (Bradley, Cir. J.). The contrary position—that a federal delegatee could not condemn a State’s land without the State’s consent—would give rise to the “dilemma of requiring the consent of the state” in virtually every infrastructure project authorized by the Federal Government.
It literally calls out that major infrastructure projects would not have been feasible without this power
Small point, but longitudinal lines aren't typically called parallels because they're not parallel to each other.
https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-paralle...
Meridian from "of the noon time, midday":
https://www.etymonline.com/word/meridian
As a mnemonic, the lines of longitude are all equally long (running from pole to pole).
that's true for any terrible idea. in many way's terrible ideas is how humanity progresses. but it seems bad to double down on the same old ("more engineering") to solve the problem. Guess the alternative "spend less" is very unpopular because it's something anyone can do but it actually hurts.
There are state senators who are the relevant representatives here not federal ones.
However, I would dispute your claim. The majority of the land (and thus resources) in the SW is under federal, not state control. Ergo, federal representatives play an outsize role in deciding questions central to the SW role in and sufferer of climate change.
Residential is around 7% (similar to losses from evaporation).
Residential per-capita use has been declining for decades. Agricultural use per acre or flat or rising.
Stopping development has little to do with the water issues in the SW (it might still be a good idea, but this is not the main reason why)
http://www.inkstain.net/fleck/2022/01/a-lack-of-curiosity-ab...
We would barely have to cut agricultural use in order to completely cover the water needs of doubling the entire population of the US southwest. Yes, surface and ground water sources are "stressed", but residential use is only going to get more and more efficient on a per-capita basis. Even though growing population creates more absolute need, in as world where agriculture is flood-irrigating fields or spray irrigating alfalfa (losing an outrageous amount to evaporation), we should start with the "easy" problems first. Pay farmers to install drip systems, for a start.
Why should the rest of the country subsidize these people lifestyle choices to live in an inhospitable area?
I’d be willing to support subsidizing moving them to a new location that’s better suited to living in, but I have no interest in helping pay for people to spit in reality’s eye so they can live in a place they have emotional/cultural ties to
Midwest river flooding, hurricanes all through the gulf coast, rising sea levels, tornadoes, New York was flooded from a hurricane, and Texas was pretty ravaged by some cold weather recently.
What place is so perfect for people to live in that doesn't face any challenges from climate change?
If they do not have the resources to make the move, I have complete empathy for them and am willing to vote for politicians who will allocate my tax dollars towards helping those people out of their current issue.
If, however, they refuse to move because of some non economic reason then that is a lifestyle choice they will have to shoulder the burden of. If one of my representative politicians tries to use my tax dollars to help them continue their untenable lifestyle choices I will vote for their competitor.
Also
> Midwest river flooding, hurricanes all through the gulf coast, rising sea levels, tornadoes, New York was flooded from a hurricane, and Texas was pretty ravaged by some cold weather recently
Don’t include Texas in that. The other groups have had weather systems of increasing severity that are massively expensive to build against. Texas had weather they declared was unforseeable when they had hit the temperature multiple times in the previous 20-30 years and refused to spend a relatively small amount of money to winterize their generators and mitigate the problem.
2. humans have lived in the area for thousands of years. Yes, it doesn't fit into a northern European notion of "the kind of place humans should live", but it fits entirely into the southern European, north African and Arabic culture and living patterns. These cultures (along with the native Americans ones that flourished here for millenia) have developed sophisticated ways of living in this sort of climate and landscape.
3. it's not unlivable, it's just unfarmable (note that this is different from subsistence ag. or gardening).
Well then it sounds like they have a local solution to the issue and don’t need to bother us
> humans have lived in the area for thousands of years.
And then humans changed the environment.
> it's not unlivable
If it’s not unliveable then they should be able to support themselves, no?
Problem solved?
[1] https://waterfootprint.org/en/water-footprint/product-water-...
I live in NM. The agriculture sector here produces less than 8% of both the calories and pounds of food consumed within the state. Most of the beef production in NM is exported out of state (and country).
So if the "burden is on the consumer", it's on people who don't live in US southwest, and that has to stop. The fever dreams of the 1930s/40s bureau of reclamation have done so much damage.
[0] Or any other place with a reasonable natural amount of rainfall. Nothing special about Ohio for this purpose.
You need both, as it's only going to get worse, and we can do something about how quickly.
This especially applies to any sort of libertarian psycho who wants to live in the middle of nowhere with minimal govt and then when nature shtf they bitch about the govt.
The people who (you assume) don't use the term "flyover country" are the people stopping Congress from spending money to fix environmental crises like drought.
Even so, the White House has ordered studies and gotten Congress to spend a lot of money on the Southwest already[1].
What else are you looking for, exactly? My understanding is that the current crisis is mostly due to agriculture and water rights, and I don't know how they could legally legislate agriculture in a state. That is the responsibility of the state's own government.
1. https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2022/06/01/biden-h...
It's go-to solution for dealing with climate change is pretending it doesn't exist (and punishing state employees who say otherwise), and with freak weather events by blaming renewable energy, so I can only expect that things in that region can only get worse, before they can get better.
>"Lake Mead would reach dead pool if the water level dropped to 895 feet, said Patti Aaron, public affairs officer for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Lower Colorado Basin Region. As of Wednesday, the level of Lake Mead is 1,049.65 feet, she said."
>“We’re not in danger of hitting dead pool,” Aaron said. “It’s not an imminent problem. It’s not something that’s going to happen tomorrow, and it’s something we don’t think is going to happen at all. We would take every action to not have that happen.”[1]
Perhaps this is also politics? There doesn't seem to be a lot of slack in that system and it almost seems like this person is doing a disservice with that statement.
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2022/may/26/understanding-dead-...
https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/lakemead_line.pdf
Edit-I know far too little to extrapolate from that. It looks like this time of year and into the fall is when the water recedes due to agricultural use. It’ll be interesting to see the elevation at that lowest point.
If and when the Colorado River Compact implodes, it's going to be immensely painful to all the states -- but especially Arizona, which doesn't have the same senior rights as other states under prior appropriation.
Some researchers argue that the record is simply too sparse to show clearly what is going on, or that there is too much natural variability in the system for researchers to spot long-term trends. But it could also be that the IPCC models are missing something big.
In spite of all the hand-wringing about Global Warming -- which should more accurately be called climate change -- we don't know as much as we so often seem to think we do. The actual data sets don't go back as far as most people imagine and errors in assumptions for models are not uncommon.
How far do you imagine they go back?
I suspect most people actually underestimate how much historical climate knowledge we have.
E.g. ice cores providing knowledge from hundreds of thousands years.
But the house prices in the low-lying suburbs that were hit hardest are still very strong. And my home insurance has gone up by 30%.
I definitely remember discovering the shoddy shortcuts taken in my roof and how un-waterproof they are.
Present spring is looking to be both the coldest and hottest in recent memory. Really obnoxious.
For a couple weeks we got crazy powerful winds. Thrashed everything.
Right now we are in a drought.
La Nina results in little rain in this area. We want an El Nino, because it will help the drought. Triple La Nina is bad news.