Global warming may have already passed irreversible tipping point

[Endus]

It's not fantasy when I say civilization can survive and improve in the face of environmental change.

You don't claim "can". You claim "necessarily will, with magical technologies that we can't foresee but definitely will be figured out in time".

There will be plenty of specific areas that experience reduced water levels, but that doesn't mean that the overall amount of freshwater people can access is going down over time...

https://www.worldvision.org/clean-wa...r-crisis-facts

The existence of elementary water somewhere in the Earth system does not mean that water is accessible in sufficient levels for human use at costs that are affordable to those who need it.

So yes. It does.

[Edge-]

There will be plenty of specific areas that experience reduced water levels, but that doesn't mean that the overall amount of freshwater people can access is going down over time...

Question: When you spend 50 years pumping out groundwater from aquifers that take thousands of years to slowly replenish, do you have less access to groundwater than you did 50 years ago?

[cubby]

There will be plenty of specific areas that experience reduced water levels, but that doesn't mean that the overall amount of freshwater people can access is going down over time...

It actually does mean precisely that. It's interesting that you continue to post from a place of complete ignorance. What other topics do you comment on without any information or facts?

[PC2]

It actually does mean precisely that.

Source? Evidence please.

[Edge-]

Source? Evidence please.

https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/...-and-depletion

Man, a basic websearch is terrifyingly hard.

I'll also take this opportunity to remind our anti-fact, anti-science crowd of that time a handful of years back that California was pumping out so much groundwater to make up for draught conditions that NASA observed large swathes of the central valley sink by as much as 2 inches per month - https://www.nasa.gov/jpl/nasa-califo...y-land-to-sink

Spoilers: It hasn't raised back up 2 inches per month nor has the groundwater been replenished. Nor will it be replenished every time soon.

Your pride in your own ignorance continues to be confusing and confounding.

[Shadowferal]

It's not fantasy when I say civilization can survive and improve in the face of environmental change.

Empty fucking platitudes as usual.

There will be plenty of specific areas that experience reduced water levels, but that doesn't mean that the overall amount of freshwater people can access is going down over time...

Are you this egregiously out of touch with current events? O..of course you are.

Look up the "Colorado River Compact," your own state is part of that! As is Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico and, Arizona and Nevada.

Here's a copy of the Colorado River Basin Report that hits affected states this month. Feel free to whine about it. I'm sure elected officials will be more than happy to listen your unqualified ignorant self.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Our fresh water aquifers and other fresh water sources are being depleted at an alarming rate. While conversion of salt water to fresh water is a current technology, it's prohibitively expensive and a slower process than simply pumping water from clean water sources.

Climate changing isn't the only thing humans have wrought upon themselves that creates a danger to them in the next millennia. Depletion of fresh water sources and scarcity of clean water is going to become an issue for future generations as well. I'm sure it will be a comfort to struggling future generations to learn that some dude enjoying t he luxuries of early 21st century abundancy many generations back said "It'll be fine, they'll be able to develop some sort of asspull technology to better themselves because of it".

[Edge-]

Our fresh water aquifers and other fresh water sources are being depleted at an alarming rate. While conversion of salt water to fresh water is a current technology, it's prohibitively expensive and a slower process than simply pumping water from clean water sources.

Climate changing isn't the only thing humans have wrought upon themselves that creates a danger to them in the next millennia. Depletion of fresh water sources and scarcity of clean water is going to become an issue for future generations as well. I'm sure it will be a comfort to struggling future generations to learn that some dude enjoying t he luxuries of early 21st century abundancy many generations back said "It'll be fine, they'll be able to develop some sort of asspull technology to better themselves because of it".

I continue to half-joke about how I'm looking forward to being conscripted into the water-wars of the 2050's. Sure I'll be a senior citizen and I've got a bum knee and shit, but they'll be taking anyone at that point.

[Rasulis]

While conversion of salt water to fresh water is a current technology, it's prohibitively expensive and a slower process than simply pumping water from clean water sources.

Also need a source of salt water to convert to fresh water. The closest for Utah is the Pacific Ocean. They just need to construct a transmission pipeline system across the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range and two states (California and Nevada). Closest source for Arizona would be Gulf of California. The transmission pipeline system will need to go through Mexico.

[PC2]

https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/...-and-depletion

Man, a basic websearch is terrifyingly hard.

I'll also take this opportunity to remind our anti-fact, anti-science crowd of that time a handful of years back that California was pumping out so much groundwater to make up for draught conditions that NASA observed large swathes of the central valley sink by as much as 2 inches per month - https://www.nasa.gov/jpl/nasa-califo...y-land-to-sink

Spoilers: It hasn't raised back up 2 inches per month nor has the groundwater been replenished. Nor will it be replenished every time soon.

Your pride in your own ignorance continues to be confusing and confounding.

I already said there will be specific areas that experience reduced water levels. My claim was about the *overall amount* of freshwater that people can access from all sources.

[Edge-]

I already said there will be specific areas that experience reduced water levels. My claim was about the *overall amount* of freshwater that people can access from all sources.

If you need help moving those goalposts let me know.

Do tell me how you think areas that run out of water will receive the required daily water they need to continue operating as normal from elsewhere. You know, where they'll find all that excess water and how exactly they'll be moving it.

We building pumps and pipes? Moving it via trucks? Should we do it via camels and then kill and liquify them at the end of their journey? We processing waste water for human consumption?

Real though, do ask for help when moving heavy objects. You wouldn't want to lift your back and you could trigger some fines due to OSHA violations.

[Rasulis]

[url]I'll also take this opportunity to remind our anti-fact, anti-science crowd of that time a handful of years back that California was pumping out so much groundwater to make up for draught conditions that NASA observed large swathes of the central valley sink by as much as 2 inches per month - https://www.nasa.gov/jpl/nasa-califo...y-land-to-sink

Spoilers: It hasn't raised back up 2 inches per month nor has the groundwater been replenished. Nor will it be replenished every time soon.

It will take a while. However, it is not all gloom and doom in Central Valley.


Central Valley Farmer's Bold Water Experiment Setting Example for California

A Central Valley farmer, whose bold experiment of flooding his vineyards and orchards with floodwaters in order to replenish the underground aquifer, has led other farmers in the drought-ravaged region to follow suit.

In 2011 Don Cameron -- who for 40 years has run Terranova Ranch in Helm near Fresno -- decided to re-route the year's overflowing bounty of rain from the King's River to his wine grape vineyard, allowing the vines to stand in more than a foot of water for five months.

His notion was that rather than allow the occasional floodwater to flow past farmlands during the crops' off-season, he could pump the water onto his vineyard to protect against flood and at the same time re-feed the diminishing water table. Predictably, the reaction from his fellow farmers wasn't enthusiasm.

"Initially the other farmers in the area thought we were crazy," Cameron said leaning over a rail where the North Fork end of the King's River is currently bone dry. "They thought we were going to kill our vineyard."

But Cameron's hunch paid off. The vines didn't die, and the standing water seeped down through the sandy soil and into the underground aquifer, helping to raise the water table some 40 feet. Since then Cameron has pumped flood waters -- which come roughly every few years -- onto his olive and pistachio trees as well as his almond orchards.

"We started with a flood capture project that was to prevent flooding," Cameron said, "and we turned this into a groundwater recharge project to replenish the aquifers so we can continue to farm throughout the region here."

For decades, Valley farmers have increasingly experienced the twin calamities of climate change -- flood and drought, with little in between. Cameron has watched the riverbed winding through Terranova sit parched and dry through years of drought -- only to flood in the occasional wet years.

The farm sits in a region where farmers rely solely on underground water to feed their crops. Across the valley, the incessant pumping of ground water to satiate crops in the farm belt has caused the ground to sink -- an issue known as subsidence -- in some places up to 20 feet. To protect against further damage and to offer potential solutions, the State of California in 2014 passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. Cameron's farm has become one of the models for the program -- even garnering a personal visit from Governor Gavin Newsom.

"His farm is often used as a demonstration site of how all this could be done," said Dr. Helen Dahlke, a hydrology science professor at U.C. Davis who has worked with Cameron. "I think a lot of farmers are now following his example and are in the process of implementing their own recharge projects."

But rather than gloat over his success and vindication, Cameron is taking his strategy to the next level. The farm dug a deep canal with a large pump to capture and re-direct water during the next flood event. The next phase of the project will install three more pumps and thirteen miles of canals to carry the floodwaters to neighboring farmers -- feeding the aquifer of some thirty-thousand acres.

"We can put over two-million acre feet of water into the ground to store for use later," Cameron said.

Some water experts in the state now call Cameron the "grandfather of groundwater recharge," a nickname he laughs off, but at the same time seems proud of. He admits groundwater recharge is not a fix-all for California, though it may help in some areas.

But the biggest hitch with his project is that before he can flip the switch on his pumps, nature must first flip the switch on heavy rains. And if there is one thing Cameron has come to expect, it's that you can't expect anything when it comes to farming.

"The last 10 years we had three years of flooding, and seven years of drought," he said. "I don’t think there’s such a thing as a normal year anymore, we haven’t seen it."

There are ways to mitigate water shortages in the Western US. The question is "are people willing to pay the price." It is not going to be free, nor cheap.

[Edge-]

There are ways to mitigate water shortages in the Western US. The question is "are people willing to pay the price." It is not going to be free, nor cheap.

This applies to the whole-ass topic of the thread, and is 100% on-point.

Problem is that most people aren't willing to make any personal sacrifices in their lifestyles and businesses are absolutely not willing to by-and-large, preferring saying they're doing something like the whole malarky around the whole carbon credit industry that's primarily a bunch of bullshit smoke and mirrors.

I feel like if the hole in the ozone layer appeared today we would be as similarly paralyzed by inaction on that as we are on other climate topics, and it would just continue to grow and become more expensive and more of an inconvenience to address.

[cubby]

If you need help moving those goalposts let me know.

Do tell me how you think areas that run out of water will receive the required daily water they need to continue operating as normal from elsewhere. You know, where they'll find all that excess water and how exactly they'll be moving it.

We building pumps and pipes? Moving it via trucks? Should we do it via camels and then kill and liquify them at the end of their journey? We processing waste water for human consumption?

Real though, do ask for help when moving heavy objects. You wouldn't want to lift your back and you could trigger some fines due to OSHA violations.

Really, we need to step away from people who are disingenuinely engaging this forum. People who are responding to reality with fantasy belong in a different place, one that doesn't use science.

I'm as guilty as anyone here, just to be clear.

[Shadowferal]

Really, we need to step away from people who are disingenuinely engaging this forum. People who are responding to reality with fantasy belong in a different place, one that doesn't use science.

We have to call "it" for what persistent ignorance is; stupidity.

[Mayhem]

It actually does mean precisely that. It's interesting that you continue to post from a place of complete ignorance. What other topics do you comment on without any information or facts?

every topic

[unfilteredJW]

Source? Evidence please.

Saving this because loooool

[Cthulhu 2020]

In a somewhat related topic, I used to have a lot of "cool science facts" twitters that I would follow. They'd randomly post stuff from the scientific world, from cool creatures that most people don't know about, awesome geological formations, mind blowing pictures and facts about outer space, etc.

Then these science twitters started posting about how climate change was affecting our world, and demonstrating the ways in which ecosystems were being permanently damaged and how we've already lost many lesser known species due to extinction from climate change.

Whenever they'd make one of these posts, the comments would be largely "I love your science fact posts, but stop posting this alarmist fiction from the shadow government about climate change. This is a science twitter account, not politics."

It always angered me to see such brazen and naked ignorance displayed from people. All of those science twitter accounts have since gone dark, because they were getting such incredible amounts of hate from people who thought climate change facts were "too political".

Sometimes I wonder if conservatives will ever realize that they're the ones who are making issues political, and not the other way around.

[Rasulis]

This applies to the whole-ass topic of the thread, and is 100% on-point.

Problem is that most people aren't willing to make any personal sacrifices in their lifestyles and businesses are absolutely not willing to by-and-large, preferring saying they're doing something like the whole malarky around the whole carbon credit industry that's primarily a bunch of bullshit smoke and mirrors.

I feel like if the hole in the ozone layer appeared today we would be as similarly paralyzed by inaction on that as we are on other climate topics, and it would just continue to grow and become more expensive and more of an inconvenience to address.

At least in California, inaction has become less of an issue. Residential and commercial water consumptions have gone down. Even farmers are adopting to it. The practice of flooding the farmland during heavy precipitation events is becoming more common. Farmers along central and north coasts are taking advantage of heavy fog during the summer to water their crops.

'A game-changer': San Joaquin Valley farmers help replenish groundwater by flooding their fields

California’s ‘dry farmers’ grow crops without irrigation.

San Francisco's Fog Could Be a Casualty of Climate Change… But It Could Also Be a Solution

To measure the moisture in fog, Dawson realized he needed a new approach. The answer lay in a hand-built metal device he showed us in his office.

"This is one of the fog collector designs," Dawson explained.

About three feet tall and made of commonly-available hardware store parts, the four-sided device has dozens of vertical strings like a harp, and a bottle in the center labeled "Fog H2O." The strings are intended to catch droplets of fog carried by the wind as it blows through. The water drips down the strings into thin metal gutters, and ultimately runs down into the bottle where it can be measured and analyzed, Dawson explained.

Once the fog collectors were placed out in the elements, Dawson said it didn't take long to make a major discovery.

"One of the things that people assumed is fog wasn't very much," he said. "And we came to realize that, in fact, it constitutes somewhere between 30 to 40 percent of all the water that comes into coastal California."

Another piece of good news.

We spoke a few weeks after the historic Labor Day heat wave, watching the tower become completely enveloped by fog throughout the course of our conversation. During a month that's historically sunny and warm, Karl the Fog proudly announced his unexpected return to the city on social media, proclaiming it the month of "Fogtober." Karl did his best to ruin spectators' view of the Fleet Week Parade of Ships that month, and for the first time in recent memory, Karl wrought havoc on the Blue Angels' air show three days in a row.

It turns out that since Dawson's first study, the fog has made a bit of a comeback — though not always during the months San Franciscans have come to expect it. And what's more, some of the foggiest years have been the ones in which California needed water the most.

"When we had the drought between 2012 and 2016 here in California, there was actually a tick up in the amount of fog for that four-year period," Dawson said.

"The question remains, will climate change always result in less fog?" asked Fernandez. "Maybe it'll result in more fog at certain times, and then eventually less fog."

And if it's true that more fog might show up just when California needs water, then Bendek points out that the Blue Angels can teach us something about how to best collect that water.

"When the Blue Angels fly, and they pull a lot of G's, you see this little fog running on the wings," Bendek said.

Sometimes it shows up as fog trails on either side of the cockpit, he said. At other times, it shows up as a straight line of fog, just behind the leading edge of the wings. And that's the teachable moment, Bendek says — because it illustrates the best place to put a fog collector. If a coastal hill is like a giant airplane wing, with air and moisture running over it as it comes in from the ocean, then Bendek says fog could be most effectively collected just behind the top of that hill — a little ways down the slope that faces away from the ocean.

"It's where it's most likely that the water density will be the most," he said.

Bendek said he could envision retractable fog collectors lining the hills of the Bay Area coast one day. It could take decades of environmental studies and major regulatory changes in order to happen. But there's an important small step that could happen first — and it's just on the horizon.

[Mayhem]

ah, so after harvesting all the groundwater the solution is to harvest fog, this'll end well