Hacker News Reader

Am I the only one surprised this took as much detailed study as it did? Nobody noticed a lot more greenery about in the basins they're talking about? Or nobody noticed the fact that it hadn't been raining in those places in the spring and wondered why the plants there were still fine?

These don't seem like observations that require laboratories and massive studies to me.

View on HN

In the context of managing water resources in an increasingly variable future, it's very important to quantify the relative impact of these kinds of factors on streamflow.

While perhaps it might be intuitive to you that transpiration impacts streamflow (which, if it is, you should consider a career in water resource management!), it's not sufficient to stop there when trying to model the future.

Its one thing to form a hypothesis, and another to demonstrate that it is correct, especially when there are alternatives (in this case, sublimation was one.) Where climate and ecology are involved, it takes some time to gather robust data, and there is no suggestion that this was a massive study over that period.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com