Western US drought
Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2021 1:22 pm
I have some thoughts.
My general, unexamined opinion of the last couple decades, as I've watched the water get lower each time I visit Hoover Dam, has been, "Fuck um, it's untenable to live in the desert. Ask the Anasazi about it."
And I would actually dig in my heels when I would hear some Californian whine about desalinating their own water, out of the ocean. "The added salinity would affect our delicate ecosystems!" And then, without any hint of irony, they suggest why this is why fresh water should be pumped from the Great Lakes. Because fuck THAT ecoystem.
And i myself have contemplated over the years... "Well.... why IS that a bad idea? Capture that fresh water from the Mississippi right before it enters the Gulf of Mexico, or from the St. Lawrence Seaway right before it hits the Atlantic." Yes, I considered that the salt/fresh water mix ecosystems in those areas could be affected... but.... make omelet/break a few eggs you'd never see, anyway? It didn't seem like a horrible payoff. Damaging the population of brackish water puffers doesn't seem like a nightmare scenario.
So, on the subject of nightmare scenarios.... let's say this drought doesn't break. Even another year is going to be bad, in two years Phoenix is going to start to die of thirst. But I mentioned the Anasazi... geologically speaking, droughts happen, whether exacerbated by anthropomorphic climate change, or not. It can last years, or decades, or centuries, or a millennia. Earth is still leaving the last Ice Age, shit is in flux, and has been our entire lives. There's no guarentee Lake Mead isn't going to go dry in a decade, shutting down the Hoover Dam. Lack of electricity is one thing, and can be remedied... but you'll die of thirst in 4 days in Phoenix, and there's no quick fix for a water shortage.
All the while, we eastern-US peeps can just chuckle and say, "Hey, idiots. Move to where the water is." (RIP Sam Kinison)
But do you have any knowledge of the water cycle, the jet stream, and the general climate of the USA? The wind generally comes from the west, here. Water evaporates somewhere to the west, and generally gets dropped somewhere east of it when conditions are right. In the High Plaines you have rain shadows... the areaws behind mountains in the lee of the wind where the air had to go so high over the mountains, it wasn't able to release the water vapor until deeper into Nebraska, or wherever. Doesnt rain there.
Well what's going to happen to us in the East when there's no ground water out west to evaporate, to feed our rain clouds? Western drought can turn into below-average rainfalls in the east (I recognize we get frequent rains from hurricanes in the summer, even in Ohio). And the Ogallala Aquifer is already being pumped dry to keep much of the Great Plaines producing wheat. Clock is ticking there, too.
BUT.... let's look at it from another aspect. Too much ice melt at the poles can weaken the ocean currents, the engines that bring warm water from the equator toward the poles. These engines can shut down entirely, if the saline level doesn't stay at a current level. There's a theory that this current shutoff caused the last mini ice ace 13k years ago, when a massive fresh water lake the size of the Black Sea drained away in Canada, as the glacier ice receded. It triggered a new 1k year ice period when the oceans stopped churning.
So with that information, as we watch the Northwest Passage clear of ice, and icebergs the size of Delaware calve off of Antarctica, we can worry about ocean saline levels stopping the heat-pump in the ocean.
And that being said.... doesn't that make diverting fresh water from The Mississippi, and the St. Laurence Seaway, a measure to help keep the salinity of the oceans from dropping past that threshold, and keep the currents moving?
So there, there's my two extremely good reasons that maybe the east should help the west with their water problems, in spite of how generally ignorant, arrogant, and silly those people are.
And I hope someone in our very silly, short-sided, incompetent government is considering this
My general, unexamined opinion of the last couple decades, as I've watched the water get lower each time I visit Hoover Dam, has been, "Fuck um, it's untenable to live in the desert. Ask the Anasazi about it."
And I would actually dig in my heels when I would hear some Californian whine about desalinating their own water, out of the ocean. "The added salinity would affect our delicate ecosystems!" And then, without any hint of irony, they suggest why this is why fresh water should be pumped from the Great Lakes. Because fuck THAT ecoystem.
And i myself have contemplated over the years... "Well.... why IS that a bad idea? Capture that fresh water from the Mississippi right before it enters the Gulf of Mexico, or from the St. Lawrence Seaway right before it hits the Atlantic." Yes, I considered that the salt/fresh water mix ecosystems in those areas could be affected... but.... make omelet/break a few eggs you'd never see, anyway? It didn't seem like a horrible payoff. Damaging the population of brackish water puffers doesn't seem like a nightmare scenario.
So, on the subject of nightmare scenarios.... let's say this drought doesn't break. Even another year is going to be bad, in two years Phoenix is going to start to die of thirst. But I mentioned the Anasazi... geologically speaking, droughts happen, whether exacerbated by anthropomorphic climate change, or not. It can last years, or decades, or centuries, or a millennia. Earth is still leaving the last Ice Age, shit is in flux, and has been our entire lives. There's no guarentee Lake Mead isn't going to go dry in a decade, shutting down the Hoover Dam. Lack of electricity is one thing, and can be remedied... but you'll die of thirst in 4 days in Phoenix, and there's no quick fix for a water shortage.
All the while, we eastern-US peeps can just chuckle and say, "Hey, idiots. Move to where the water is." (RIP Sam Kinison)
But do you have any knowledge of the water cycle, the jet stream, and the general climate of the USA? The wind generally comes from the west, here. Water evaporates somewhere to the west, and generally gets dropped somewhere east of it when conditions are right. In the High Plaines you have rain shadows... the areaws behind mountains in the lee of the wind where the air had to go so high over the mountains, it wasn't able to release the water vapor until deeper into Nebraska, or wherever. Doesnt rain there.
Well what's going to happen to us in the East when there's no ground water out west to evaporate, to feed our rain clouds? Western drought can turn into below-average rainfalls in the east (I recognize we get frequent rains from hurricanes in the summer, even in Ohio). And the Ogallala Aquifer is already being pumped dry to keep much of the Great Plaines producing wheat. Clock is ticking there, too.
BUT.... let's look at it from another aspect. Too much ice melt at the poles can weaken the ocean currents, the engines that bring warm water from the equator toward the poles. These engines can shut down entirely, if the saline level doesn't stay at a current level. There's a theory that this current shutoff caused the last mini ice ace 13k years ago, when a massive fresh water lake the size of the Black Sea drained away in Canada, as the glacier ice receded. It triggered a new 1k year ice period when the oceans stopped churning.
So with that information, as we watch the Northwest Passage clear of ice, and icebergs the size of Delaware calve off of Antarctica, we can worry about ocean saline levels stopping the heat-pump in the ocean.
And that being said.... doesn't that make diverting fresh water from The Mississippi, and the St. Laurence Seaway, a measure to help keep the salinity of the oceans from dropping past that threshold, and keep the currents moving?
So there, there's my two extremely good reasons that maybe the east should help the west with their water problems, in spite of how generally ignorant, arrogant, and silly those people are.
And I hope someone in our very silly, short-sided, incompetent government is considering this
