Lake Mead and Climate Change

[Althea]

Yes, cost was the determining factor. Also destroying aquaculture around the desalination plants came into play somewhat.

Isn't there a market for sea salt? Probably not millions of tons. But road salt for the winter, etc.

 

[Matt Dillon]

Isn't there a market for sea salt? Probably not millions of tons. But road salt for the winter, etc.

Somehow the desal plants were not set up like that and were fail.

 

[Celticguy]

Isn't there a market for sea salt? Probably not millions of tons. But road salt for the winter, etc.

not in the middle east but lots of mountains out west though I suspect its way more salt than anyone needs.
still, has to be a better idea on ditching the salt.

 

[Into the Night]

Of course. That's the kind of science

No science here...move along...move along...

that gets covered in about fifth grade.

I really don't give a damn what propaganda they teach in fifth or any other grade.

Anthropogenic greenhouse gases have become a major driver of that process:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17710-7

No such thing as 'greenhouse gases' except as a religious artifact. No gas or vapor has the capability to warm the Earth. You cannot create energy out of nothing. Your are now denying science...specifically the 1st law of thermodynamics.

Here's more information if you'd like to learn about desertification:

https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-3/

Buzzword fallacies. False authority fallacy.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Define 'climate change'. Climate has no value associated with it. What is changing?

California doesn't get water from Lake Mead.

Sybil, since you can’t even comprehend something as simple as where California obtains water, how can I expect you to comprehend the data on NASA’s website?

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-12-15/drought-colorado-river-water-agreement
California, Arizona and Nevada agree to take less water from ailing Colorado River
Trying to stave off dangerously low levels of water in Lake Mead, officials in California, Arizona and Nevada have reached an agreement to significantly reduce the amount they take from the Colorado River.
The problem took on new urgency this summer when the federal government declared a first-ever water shortage in the 86-year-old reservoir near Las Vegas.

The agreement, which was signed Wednesday after four months of negotiations, aims to keep an extra 1 million acre-feet of water in the lake over the next two years. Water agencies in Southern California, Arizona and Nevada agreed to find water savings from various sources and split the $200-million cost with the federal government.

https://www.latimes.com/world-natio...colorado-river-triggering-cuts-western-states

From 2016 which is why the 25M number is probably low. It’s not like this problem is new.
https://www.vox.com/2016/5/23/11736340/lake-mead-water-drought-southwest
It's a good time to revisit the slow-motion water crunch in the American Southwest. Last week, Lake Mead — a key reservoir that helps supply water for 25 million people in Nevada, Arizona, and California — shrunk to its lowest level ever. And the question of how to grapple with water scarcity is making headlines yet again.

 

[Into the Night]

WRONG. The lake is being pulled down because of a massive increase in demand for water in desert and temperate states that are developing housing faster than they can keep up with utilities.

There has also been a series of temporary droughts that compound the problem. It isn't about climate change. It's about weather patterns and demand.

Mostly demand. Despite record snows in the Rockies, the lake is still running low. Just too many people taking a sip along the way.

 

[Into the Night]

The problem, though, is precipitation. You can do more to collect and distribute it, but it's largely a zero-sum game.

it is not a zero sum game. If you don't collect the rainwater, it just flows away as wasted water. This is currently a big problem in the SDTC and largely why they are so short on water.

Whatever water you're moving to areas of great need are waters that are no longer available where they were.

Impractical.

With so much of the West and Southwest drying out thanks to climate change,

Buzzword fallacy. Climate has no value that can change. The phrase 'climate change' is meaningless.
Record snowfall occurred in the Rockies this year. That is what feeds the Colorado river. The SDTC simply doesn't collect the rainwater that it does get. It's not lack of rain. it's not collecting it.

the engineering and logistical problems will just get worse and worse.

The SDTC is in a stew of its own making.

 

[Into the Night]

I accept the evidence from NASA.

https://climate.nasa.gov/

https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/
In Brief:
Human activities (primarily the burning of fossil fuels) have fundamentally increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere, warming the planet. Natural drivers, without human intervention, would push our planet toward a cooling period.

Random numbers are not evidence.
it is not possible to measure the temperature of the Earth. You are denying mathematics again.
No gas or vapor has the capability to warm the Earth. You are denying the 1st law of thermodynamics again.

NASA can't measure the temperature of the Earth either, nor do they have the capability to just discard the 1st law of thermodynamics.

Science is not a government agency.

 

[Into the Night]

Climate change is a problem and the Californians seem to be doing little to cope with it.

'Climate change' is a buzzword. Meaningless.

 

[Into the Night]

There are a number of greenhouse gases. The one we mainly talk about in the climate context is CO2, but methane and water vapor are among the others. The change in the concentration of those gases in the atmosphere over the last century and a half is the biggest contributor to the unprecedented warming we've been seeing.

No gas or vapor has the capability of warming the Earth. You can't create energy out of nothing. You are still ignoring the 1st law of thermodynamics.

The way they work is that they have resonance frequencies in the infrared spectrum. Because of that, they tend to absorb radiation in that range, which otherwise would have passed into space.

You cannot trap light. Light has no temperature.

The energy is being created within the sun, as a byproduct of nuclear fusion.

Nuclear fusion IS energy.

It then travels to us as light. When it hits the Earth, some gets absorbed and then re-radiated in the infrared spectrum.

Light is utterly destroyed when it absorbed. It is not re-radiated.
Not all photons are the same. You are ignoring Planck's laws.

What's going wrong is that the greenhouse gas increases in our atmosphere have lowered the rate at which that infrared light is escaping the Earth, altering the eventual equilibrium point at which outflows will again match inflows of energy... an equilibrium point that is now already going to be far above anything seen since the dawn of civilization, and which is continuing to increase over time.

You cannot trap light. You are ignoring the Stefan-Boltzmann law now as well as the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

That will be environmentally devastating.

Like many religions, you have to have your Doomsday preaching.

That's why these are talked about as greenhouse gases

No such thing, except as a religious artifact.

-- they are somewhat analogous to the way a greenhouse works,

A greenhouse does not trap light.

where the rate at which energy from the sun leaves an area can be decreased, resulting in that area warming up until it hits a new equilibrium point (where its temperature is high enough that out-bound radiation again matches in-bound). A greenhouse can be much warmer than the surrounding area through that process.

A greenhouse is warmer because it reduces heat, specifically convective heat. An atmosphere cannot do that.

Yet we know how much is flowing out of Lake Meade and there hasn't been a change that would account for the gigantic drop in levels,

Yes there is. Usage has increased steadily through the years until it now easily exceeds available water capacity of the Colorado river.

nor has the upstream use change been enough to account for it.

Yes it has.

What's accounting for it is a megadrought,

Record snows are not a drought. The term 'megadrought' is a meaningless buzzword.

which has resulted in far less precipitation hitting that watershed,

Record snows are not less precipitation.

decreasing how much is flowing into the lake.

Usage is decreasing how much flows into and out of the Lake.

This also involves the issue of in-flows not matching out-flows, though in this case it's that in-flows have declined to the point where existing out-flows now greatly exceed them.

Now you are ignoring Thenivin's law. The Colorado river has a flow. The lake is just a buffer. It does NOT change the total flow.

 

[Into the Night]

Dude, Biden never cancelled any American Owned pipeline!

There are lots of American Owned pipelines piping crude and gasoline across the nation!

Try not to be an idiot! It just makes you look like an idiot. [Geeko Sportivo]

Lie.

 

[Into the Night]

The Canadians own the Keystone Pipeline!

Again- DON'T LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT!

I said Biden did not do away with any American Owned Pipelines!

Canada is in America, idiot. Conoco Phillips is not a Canadian company.

 

[Callinectes]

For many decades, the rate at which the water was replenished was far greater, allowing water levels to be maintained at a relatively stable level. Now that's no longer the case. Precipitation in the upper part of the river basin has declined dramatically.

https://www.hcn.org/articles/more-t...upper-colorado-basin-originate-as-groundwater

As stated in the article, 56% of the river’s water comes from ground water, and more and more PEOPLE are drawing that for their water supplies. And I didn’t know it, but SoCal also sucks up a huge amount. The people using that river are doing much more damage to it than “climate change”. Not to mention droughts in that region that last for years (and those droughts have been happening out there since before the Indians were scalping the white devils).

 

[Into the Night]

American oil companies have figured out that drilling less, creates more demand, and price equals demand!

Less drilling equals more price- more price equals higher profit margins!

What the oil companies are trying to do is own us!

And they are doing a great job of it!

They are not allowed to drill, dumbass. Biden canceled the drilling permits.

 

[Into the Night]

They can have it.

I know where 14 pristine FL springs are; IDGAF about all that.

I know it's probably polluted badly.

Define 'pollution'.

Lake Mead is actually rather clear water. The Lake itself acts as a settling pond for the silt stirred up by the Colorado river during it's journey through the mountains.

 

[Into the Night]

well a couple dump trucks would seem to solve that.

How?

 

[Matt Dillon]

Define 'pollution'.

Lake Mead is actually rather clear water. The Lake itself acts as a settling pond for the silt stirred up by the Colorado river during it's journey through the mountains.

Not as good as a Florida Spring pulsing out clear and clean from under the ground.

Fun Florida fact: The intracoastal waterway was canceled because they hit the aquifer while digging it and fresh water started leaking into the Gulf and Atlantic.

I'm used to a lot better water than some sludge pond out west, k?

I'm thinking there's a big lake in Utah not too far from there. A lake that has huge fish in it. It's a freshwater lake, too.

It may depend on some snow or glacier melt, though.

That water was really good., even though it reminded me of the Withlacoochee.

Just the whole experience did.

I can't remember the name of it. It's not Strawberry, it's..like NW of there. Way bigger than Strawberry, too.

I'd know it if I heard it, but ain't nobody around to help me remember.

Old Glen's dead and my uncle can't remember that stuff.

Glen's last name was kinda Amish..what was it? Hmm.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

'Climate change' is a buzzword. Meaningless.

Is “paranoid schizophrenic” another meaningless buzzword in your world, Sybil?

 

[Geeko Sportivo]

They are not allowed to drill, dumbass. Biden canceled the drilling permits.

Lies! You filthy liar!

 

[Taichiliberal]

Lake Mead, the reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam, has been in the news lately, thanks to multiple bodies being found there, as dropping water levels reveal parts of the lake that have been underwater since it was originally filled after the dam was built. The sheer magnitude of the decline is amazing. We're used to seeing lakes dry up where the lake was fairly shallow at the best of times. But Lake Mead is now about 162 feet below the level it was at as recently as 2000. The West is drying out, and while we might get some intermittent relief, climatologists predict that on average it'll just get worse and worse, thanks to our failure to curb greenhouse gases.

Man made problems.....you seriously screw with the natural process of nature and you're going to pay the price somewhere down the line.