New Climate Report Foresees Big Changes

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The rise in concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from human activities is influencing climate patterns and vegetation across the United States and will significantly disrupt water supplies, agriculture, forestry and ecosystems for decades, a new federal report says.
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The West will not only face a dearth of water, but also large shifts in when it is available. Water supplies there will be transformed by midcentury, with mountain snows that provided a steady flow of runoff for irrigation and reservoirs dwindling. That flow will be replaced by rainfall that comes at times and in amounts that make it hard to manage, the report and authors said.

The report also emphasized that the country’s capacity to detect climate shifts and related effects was eroding, as budgets and plans for long-term monitoring of air, water and land changes — both on the ground and from satellites — shrank.

Richard Moss, a vice president of the World Wildlife Fund who previously coordinated federal climate reports under both the Clinton and Bush administrations, said the findings “highlight the urgency of the climate change problem” and provided important new support for action both to limit emissions and adapt to inevitable changes.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/science/earth/28climate.html

I love surprises.

nt

to creat a nationwide pipeline for water? I mean, I know it would be incredibly expensive, but it was done for oil and certainly water is more valuable. There wouldn't be anymore flooding or drought. I'm not an engineer so don't make fun, but wouldn't that be a possibility?

It's too big. The volume of oil we move around is very very miniscule compared to the amount of water being moved around by earth's water cycle.

The other issue is, that there is likely to be less precipitation in the future. We can already see this in the disappearing snow-packs of the rockies. For example, you could propose something like "hey, let's pipe the great lakes." But they're declining too, and the great-lake states aren't going to have any to spare.

We're simply already using it all. And then some. And the sources we're used to having are going away.

CA politicians have tried to put forth projects that would involve diverting water from as far north as ALASKA and ONTARIO, and would reverse the course of some rivers to serve as the "pipeline". The available water supply is not sufficient to sustain the current levels of use in CA -- the Colorado River supplies water to several Southwest states, and most accuse CA of taking far more than its fair share. Mexico, on the other hand, holds the US responsible for the fact that the Colorado no longer makes it to the sea -- there is only a trickle left compared to its former volume, and that is excessively saline (due to leaching from agricultural soil). Likewise, GA and AL are fighting over apportionment of river water, and I believe GA and FL have a similar dispute. The problem is not just one of inequitable distribution, but of unbridled demand finally outstripping supply.

:shrug:

I think not. :P

From the Great Lakes.

He stated that the energy required to pump billions of tons of water would require dozens upon dozens of new coal-fired plants across the Great Plains.

A nationwide water-distribution system, even one working WITH gravity (rather than pumping it uphill), would be incredibly expensive.

World's larget nuke being proposed for Fresno, CA

A 1,600 megawatt nuclear power plant--potentially the world's largest--is being pushed by Fresno Nuclear Energy Group, LLC to be built in California's hot and dry San Joaquin Valley, which would be a desert were it not for the California Aqueduct, snow melt from the Sierras (snow pack is one-third of normal this year and the long run forecast is for less snow and earlier melting, and a groundwater supply that is being overdraughted by agriculture and residential use that is not even metered. Ironically, farmers, who depend heavily on the locally available water supply are among those pushing for the nuclear power plant, which would be situated upwind of the poorer part of Fresno (noted in 2005 for having the highest concentration of poverty in the U.S.) and would require the repel of California's moratorium on new nuclear construction after the Diablo Canyon plant, which sits atop an earthquake fault, was the second plant in the state to be constructed backwards. (Safety first and always! Er, um, well, it won't happen again. . . . Unless we start building again. . . .)

And there is another connection between water and energy that often gets overlooked. In dry states, and more and more states in the U.S. are dry, projects that move and filter water tend to be the largest individual users of electricity. In California, almost 4% of all electricity is used to move water along large water projects and another 3% to 5% (an amount expected to grow sharply due to new, energy intensive water projects) is used by local water companies to recover, pump, and treat water. So, water equals energy. And when it comes to nukes, water uses energy, in this case, perhaps, where it is most needed--in the place where the majority of the nation's salad vegetables are grown.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/5/21/115254/117