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GLOBAL WARMING ==> CLIMATE CHANGE ==> GLOOM & DOOM !!!!!

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Hawkmoon:
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/long-dormant-lake-reappeared-california-bringing-havoc-rcna75942

This just in -- a lake bed has filled with water -- just as it has done for centuries. CLIMATE CHAAAAAAANGE!!!

I'm sure I would feel differently if I lived there -- but I don't, and I wouldn't, because in my neanderthal mentality building in a flood plain is dumb. Back in the early 1970s I took a graduate-level course in planning, in which the instructor correctly noted that everybody competes to build infrastructure (roads, railroads, houses, factories, and towns) where it's easiest to do so. And it just happens that the easiest place is more often than not the flood plans, because they are generally fairly flat and level.

But once you put infrastructure in a flood plain, you then have to deal with -- [drumroll, please] -- flooding.

The only real surprise here is that anyone is surprised that a LAKE is filling up with water when snow in its watershed area melts.

Ben:
We just broke a record from 1899: most consecutive days below 60deg. It was 150 days, and we're at I think 154 right now. Which means the same thing happened for pretty much the same amount of time, in 1899. As well as many other years between then and now. Mentioning the years with ~145 days doesn't contribute to the OMG! stories though.

Weather is weather. Climate is climate. Earth Abides.

HankB:
Some things you really can't control, but each time I moved, I checked out the area and verified where the flood plains were. Likewise "known" underground pipelines and possible "right of ways" for roads and railroads.

I didn't build or buy in several places because of this type of uncertainty. There's a very large dam nearby, and I made sure that not only am I upstream, I'm WELL above (actually, over 100 ft above) the level of the dam spillway.

It would seem from the story that many Californians didn't do similar due diligence.

AZRedhawk44:
So what I take away from it is:
-less pistachios and almonds.  OK, fine.
-those farms are under water, so they will not be consuming water from the Colorado River.
-the land under these farms has subsided nearly 30 feet due to drinking out the aquifers.  One might hope that a good bit of this flood water will recharge the aquifers in the region.
-there will be considerable silt migration.  In some ways a fast moving flood could strip top soil away and ruin farmland, but silt deposit could also reinvigorate farmland.


Seems to me California is missing a huge opportunity here.  It's time to re-establish Tulare lake.  Turn it into a reservoir and be a good custodian of its drainage and capacities.  If Tulare lake used to be the largest fresh water body west of the Mississippi and existed naturally, what numb *expletive deleted*ck decided to drain it, then turn it into farmland, and irrigate it from a sandstone riverbed 200 miles away (Lakes Mead and Havasu and the Colorado River)?

RocketMan:

--- Quote from: AZRedhawk44 on April 03, 2023, 11:14:37 AM ---Seems to me California is missing a huge opportunity here.  It's time to re-establish Tulare lake.  Turn it into a reservoir and be a good custodian of its drainage and capacities.
--- End quote ---

This would lessen the California state government's ability to claim they are in a major drought the next time there is string of sunny days.  Got to have as many crises as possible to beat down their subjects.

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