6 ms·

Epic Drought in West Is Literally Moving Mountains

77 points by markmassie 12y ago

enraged_camel 12y ago
I love how they put the most important sentence at the very end of the article: >>But, Jacob said, the significance of the study is that it shows a new way for scientists to estimate total water loss during times of drought, which would be more difficult to estimate without being able to detect how much the land is being uplifted in dry years. Because really, the fact that the land has risen a few millimeters, in and of itself, is not important, since it doesn't have any implications (at least for humans). What is important is that being able to measure this increase will allow us to gather water loss data from other regions.
- rosser 12y ago
  I'm skeptical that this has no implications for humans. (Not to say that I think it has implications; rather, I feel the claim that it has none isn't obviously substantiated.) IIRC, undersea earthquakes can be more common at low tide, because the reduced water mass sitting atop a fault line can allow it to slip more easily. I'd be tremendously surprised if a reduction in water weight equivalent to a year's losses from the Greenland Ice Sheet doesn't change the strain pattern on some of the incredibly overdue fault lines in California. Enough to facilitate or even induce a slip? I have no idea. But absent better information, I have to be skeptical of a claim that there are "no implications".
TulliusCicero 12y ago
I know they said this change shouldn't really have any impact on humans by itself, but still, that's terrifying.
- trhway 12y ago
  lets hope it willn't affect earthquakes in CA. Though considering that handling comparable amounts of liquid in shale gas production in CO does affect earthquakes...
  - malandrew 12y ago
    On the other hand, for those of us living on bedrock, earthquakes might provide some rent relief. FWIW, I'm only being half ironic. The rent situation in the Bay Area is so out of control, that only an earthquake will really relieve some of the upward pressure on prices.
    - mahyarm 12y ago
      No a damaging earth quake will just make prices rise even more because of further supply reduction. Is Google going to move it's HQ because of an earthquake?
      - jarek 12y ago
        Is Google going to keep its HQ in an area newly bereft of non-collapsed infrastructure and non-dead significant portion of employees? Are the hipsters going to be as attracted to SF when their favourite restaurants go up in gas fires and the Dolores hill slides?
        mahyarm 12y ago
        People here in the SF bay area think that cities will implode like it's the apocalypse when a major earthquake happens. But that never actually happens, and only approaches it in developing countries. Most buildings in the USA can withstand a major earthquake due to building code regulations. I bet if the SFBA had a major earthquake, not counting a tsunami, at most about 5000 non elderly adults would die, which is a miniscule number in a metro area of ~7.5 million.
    - trhway 12y ago
      > The rent situation in the Bay Area is so out of control in 2000 during that housing squeeze we rented very small (almost studio) 1bd in Palo Alto at 1100. Currently i see large 1bd in Palo Alto going for ~2K. Given that money has cheapened at least 2 times (and salaries and prices doubled) during this period i don't think that situation has changed significantly in any direction.
bostonvaulter2 12y ago
The current XKCD is very relevant: http://xkcd.com/1410/ http://xkcd.com/1410/
debt 12y ago
I'm not from here but the nonchalance most native Californians have about the drought is quite alarming. "We're always in a drought" they say. Anyone who's read just a little bit of California history will find that to be somewhat true. However, the current drought situation is the absolute worst it's ever been though and there really seems to be no fix for it. Its very much a "kick the can down the road" mentality in California about the drought. It reminds me of the pension crisis in my home state of Illinois.
- fourstar 12y ago
  Born and raised here. It's bad. We know it's bad. But like you said we can't do anything about it. Articles like this help though spread awareness of global warming.
  - vixin 12y ago
    Nice to know you're sure of the cause. Nothing to do with anything other factors of course. Meawhile this https://www.taxpayers.org.au/tophers-latest-the-true-cost-of-climate-change/ https://www.taxpayers.org.au/tophers-latest-the-true-cost-of... - a cost/benefit analysis - suggests re-evaluation of those other issues which <can> be fixed.
- ChuckMcM 12y ago
  Since it is a drought, there is literally no "fix" for it, and California has been responding per their plan to the length of it. You need only drive down the central valley (I-5) and see the thousands of acres of farmland reverting to desert. The next step is mandatory rationing of drinking water. At some point one might consider the option of building an aqueduct to connect the Missouri river to the west coast, or at least to headwaters of the Colorado. Since we cannot manipulate the weather, or the ocean currents, we're unable to 'fix' the root cause. When mandatory rationing hits, people will gripe more loudly. When importing water in trucks from Oregon becomes profitable people will really grumble.
  - debt 12y ago
    It's completely dead down the I-5. At first, because I'm not from here, I thought it was pretty normal. But as time when on it's pretty obviously not the case. Off I-99 we had to take some farm roads and we can just see water near the edge of the farms just gushing groundwater into their irrigation systems. It's absolutely incredible. No regulation, just 100's of gallons of water flowing out of a groundwater pipe into a larger irrigation pipe.
rosser 12y ago
I wonder how much additional strain this puts on the fault lines that riddle the area.
- danteembermage 12y ago
  One weeks worth of plate tectonic tension apparently
Daishiman 12y ago
It's really funny how everyone is completely ignoring the profound effects this will have on California's wildlife and native flora.
schainks 12y ago
I think people in California should adopt an alternative to the "Ice Bucket Challenge." Make it the "dirt bucket challenge" or __<something cheeky>___ challenge to save water. Is there any connection between the increasing smog output of China and the lack of rain/show in California?
- AnimalMuppet 12y ago
  I recall seeing something within the last few years that said that North American industrial pollution was resposible for the growth of the Sahara desert. If that research is still good, then it's entirely plausible that Chinese pollution is contributing to California's drought.
- tomjen3 12y ago
  What do you usually do after you have gotten really dirty?
djloche 12y ago
Water Rationing is not necessary. When it becomes a life threatening problem, people who want water will pay for desalination projects to be quickly completed in order to supply water for people to live. Forward thinking politicians are already putting these things on the fast track to get ahead of the game.
- mattip 12y ago
  That's what happened in Israel which now gets a significant percent of municipal water from desalination, (a bit of marketing here [0] but the facts seem correct) [0] http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059994202 http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059994202
snake_plissken 12y ago
Just stop growing Alfalfa in the desert.

77 points by markmassie 12y ago

I love how they put the most important sentence at the very end of the article: >>But, Jacob said, the significance of the study is that it shows a new way for scientists to estimate total water loss during times of drought, which would be more difficult to estimate without being able to detect how much the land is being uplifted in dry years. Because really, the fact that the land has risen a few millimeters, in and of itself, is not important, since it doesn't have any implications (at least for humans). What is important is that being able to measure this increase will allow us to gather water loss data from other regions.

rosser 12y ago
I'm skeptical that this has no implications for humans. (Not to say that I think it has implications; rather, I feel the claim that it has none isn't obviously substantiated.) IIRC, undersea earthquakes can be more common at low tide, because the reduced water mass sitting atop a fault line can allow it to slip more easily. I'd be tremendously surprised if a reduction in water weight equivalent to a year's losses from the Greenland Ice Sheet doesn't change the strain pattern on some of the incredibly overdue fault lines in California. Enough to facilitate or even induce a slip? I have no idea. But absent better information, I have to be skeptical of a claim that there are "no implications".

TulliusCicero 12y ago

I know they said this change shouldn't really have any impact on humans by itself, but still, that's terrifying.

trhway 12y ago
lets hope it willn't affect earthquakes in CA. Though considering that handling comparable amounts of liquid in shale gas production in CO does affect earthquakes...
- malandrew 12y ago
  On the other hand, for those of us living on bedrock, earthquakes might provide some rent relief. FWIW, I'm only being half ironic. The rent situation in the Bay Area is so out of control, that only an earthquake will really relieve some of the upward pressure on prices.
  - mahyarm 12y ago
    No a damaging earth quake will just make prices rise even more because of further supply reduction. Is Google going to move it's HQ because of an earthquake?
    - jarek 12y ago
      Is Google going to keep its HQ in an area newly bereft of non-collapsed infrastructure and non-dead significant portion of employees? Are the hipsters going to be as attracted to SF when their favourite restaurants go up in gas fires and the Dolores hill slides?
      - mahyarm 12y ago
        People here in the SF bay area think that cities will implode like it's the apocalypse when a major earthquake happens. But that never actually happens, and only approaches it in developing countries. Most buildings in the USA can withstand a major earthquake due to building code regulations. I bet if the SFBA had a major earthquake, not counting a tsunami, at most about 5000 non elderly adults would die, which is a miniscule number in a metro area of ~7.5 million.
  - trhway 12y ago
    > The rent situation in the Bay Area is so out of control in 2000 during that housing squeeze we rented very small (almost studio) 1bd in Palo Alto at 1100. Currently i see large 1bd in Palo Alto going for ~2K. Given that money has cheapened at least 2 times (and salaries and prices doubled) during this period i don't think that situation has changed significantly in any direction.

bostonvaulter2 12y ago

The current XKCD is very relevant: http://xkcd.com/1410/ http://xkcd.com/1410/

debt 12y ago

I'm not from here but the nonchalance most native Californians have about the drought is quite alarming. "We're always in a drought" they say. Anyone who's read just a little bit of California history will find that to be somewhat true. However, the current drought situation is the absolute worst it's ever been though and there really seems to be no fix for it. Its very much a "kick the can down the road" mentality in California about the drought. It reminds me of the pension crisis in my home state of Illinois.

fourstar 12y ago
Born and raised here. It's bad. We know it's bad. But like you said we can't do anything about it. Articles like this help though spread awareness of global warming.
- vixin 12y ago
  Nice to know you're sure of the cause. Nothing to do with anything other factors of course. Meawhile this https://www.taxpayers.org.au/tophers-latest-the-true-cost-of-climate-change/ https://www.taxpayers.org.au/tophers-latest-the-true-cost-of... - a cost/benefit analysis - suggests re-evaluation of those other issues which <can> be fixed.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
Since it is a drought, there is literally no "fix" for it, and California has been responding per their plan to the length of it. You need only drive down the central valley (I-5) and see the thousands of acres of farmland reverting to desert. The next step is mandatory rationing of drinking water. At some point one might consider the option of building an aqueduct to connect the Missouri river to the west coast, or at least to headwaters of the Colorado. Since we cannot manipulate the weather, or the ocean currents, we're unable to 'fix' the root cause. When mandatory rationing hits, people will gripe more loudly. When importing water in trucks from Oregon becomes profitable people will really grumble.
- debt 12y ago
  It's completely dead down the I-5. At first, because I'm not from here, I thought it was pretty normal. But as time when on it's pretty obviously not the case. Off I-99 we had to take some farm roads and we can just see water near the edge of the farms just gushing groundwater into their irrigation systems. It's absolutely incredible. No regulation, just 100's of gallons of water flowing out of a groundwater pipe into a larger irrigation pipe.

rosser 12y ago

I wonder how much additional strain this puts on the fault lines that riddle the area.

danteembermage 12y ago
One weeks worth of plate tectonic tension apparently

Daishiman 12y ago

It's really funny how everyone is completely ignoring the profound effects this will have on California's wildlife and native flora.

schainks 12y ago

I think people in California should adopt an alternative to the "Ice Bucket Challenge." Make it the "dirt bucket challenge" or __<something cheeky>___ challenge to save water. Is there any connection between the increasing smog output of China and the lack of rain/show in California?

AnimalMuppet 12y ago
I recall seeing something within the last few years that said that North American industrial pollution was resposible for the growth of the Sahara desert. If that research is still good, then it's entirely plausible that Chinese pollution is contributing to California's drought.
tomjen3 12y ago
What do you usually do after you have gotten really dirty?

djloche 12y ago

Water Rationing is not necessary. When it becomes a life threatening problem, people who want water will pay for desalination projects to be quickly completed in order to supply water for people to live. Forward thinking politicians are already putting these things on the fast track to get ahead of the game.

mattip 12y ago
That's what happened in Israel which now gets a significant percent of municipal water from desalination, (a bit of marketing here [0] but the facts seem correct) [0] http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059994202 http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059994202

snake_plissken 12y ago

Just stop growing Alfalfa in the desert.