It's getting hot in here

2007: A record-setting U.S. drought year

Posted by Joseph Romm (Guest Contributor) at 2:14 PM on 16 Oct 2007

Read more about: climate | climate science | severe weather

The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) just issued its September report -- and the West and Southeast continue to scorch:

About 43 percent of the contiguous U.S. fell in the moderate to extreme drought categories (based on the Palmer Drought Index) at the end of September.

Here is the U.S. Drought Monitor (darker = drier):

Here are some of the drought records being set around the country:

Drought and mild temperatures have pushed Lake Superior's water level to its lowest point on record for this time of year, continuing a downward spiral across the Great Lakes ... [T]he lake has plummeted over the past year and has dipped beneath its long-term average level for a decade -- the longest such period in its known history.
As of September 25, Pasadena experienced its driest year since records began in 1878.
North Carolina and Tennessee had the driest year-to-date (January-September) and last 6 months (April-September) on record.
In fact, the 2007 statewide precipitation rank for North Carolina was driest in 113 years for January-September and for the multi-month seasons April-September through August-September.
For Tennessee, each multi-month season from November-September through May-September ranked as driest on record.
In North Carolina and Tennessee, the dryness of recent months has been so persistent and severe that the long-term Palmer Drought Index has reached near-record severity in a short time compared to previous severe droughts.

This kind of brutal drought has severe energy implications:

The Southeast drought has lowered rivers in Alabama to the point where there is insufficient streamflow to meet the demand of industry, agriculture, municipalities, and natural evaporation.
Alabama Power, the state's largest utility, has been operating some of its coal plants at significantly reduced levels to avoid raising water temperatures in the Coosa, Black Warrior and Mobile rivers.
Last month, the Tennessee Valley Authority shut down Brown's Ferry Number 2 nuclear power plant due to inadequate streamflow.
Alabama Power spokesman Michael Sznajderman said, "Come the latter part of September, if the flows continue to be so low at a number of our hydro facilities ... basically the turbines are going to come out of the water."

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

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22 Comments | Post a Comment

Drought Precursor To Falling Sea Levels

The Drought is in large part due to falling ground water levels presaging a falling worldwide sea level. This is one of the core predictions of the Bailo Model.

by jabailo at 6:57 PM on 16 Oct 2007

Do You Think

we will ever wake up in the US and discover that we should apply some incentives to where growth should be and apply restrictions to where growth should not be happening at such rapid paces?

Sometimes free markets and free enterprise are just where the money grows and people follow the money without any foundation in what is wise or sustainable.

There are signs that money managers are getting a better fix on future scenarios and are starting to question whether they should be investing in places where global warming might impact their investments.

The right repudiates environmentalists for "punishing" people with the concept of limits. Next, you can expect them to blame the environmentalists for the actual problem instead of our just pointing out the obvious.

The American dream needs a reality transplant. Whether our leaders and media will link these resource problems with the bigger questions of sustainability is yet to be seen.

by justlou at 4:46 AM on 17 Oct 2007

what are the predictions?

In 30 years or was it by the end of 2100, Illinois will have the same climate as the arid parts of Texas has now. (sorry, that would be important to know which, in 30 years or 90 years.) Anyway, it will get warmer.

I hope somebody will get good at making artificial snow.

by trock at 6:52 AM on 17 Oct 2007

Things look bad . . .

If you omit the areas that are wetter than normal. If you look here you get a better view of things. The number of wetter areas seems to balance out the areas that are drier than normal.

by Reformed Republican at 7:47 AM on 17 Oct 2007

Reformed

FOX News has a job for you.

by justlou at 9:36 AM on 17 Oct 2007

My job at FOX news

Please address the error in what I posted. The first map omitted areas that are wetter than normal. The unaltered map shows the complete story. If I presented the same map with all the drier areas omitted, could I write a story about how we are getting more rain than we used to?

by Reformed Republican at 11:47 AM on 17 Oct 2007
[ Parent ]

It's so hard.

The theory with global warming says that we will get more droughts and more wet/flooding areas.

It will be warmer so that there will be more evaporation from land areas, thus more drought.

It will be warmer so there will be more evaporation from land, lakes and oceans. A warmer atmosphere will hold more water vapor and when it rains, it will have more to drop. Or that's the theorey as I have heard it.

So we should have more dry areas and more wet areas. But as someone who is unfamilier with what the map of moisture looks like in any year, it's hard to tell if this one is different from other years.

But I tend to believe that human machine caused global warming is happening. This is one more piece of evidence saying it is so.

by trock at 12:30 PM on 17 Oct 2007

Reformed

The topic of the post was the record droughts happening in parts of the US and the impacts that is having in those regions.

Your comment implies that some balance is needed. So what if other areas are wetter?

Climatologists have discovered that climate
can change radically and rapidly. Both record floods and droughts could be harbingers of bigger and more widespread changes to come. Our planetary overreach has happened at a relatively benign period in climate history. Climate change spells big trouble in the way of extremes that reveal the depth of our overshoot locally and globally.

by justlou at 12:58 PM on 17 Oct 2007

Sustainability

Water is a great example of what happens when the free market is not allowed to function. Instead of the price of water being controlled by market forces, the price is kept low by politicians who want to get votes. Because the price is artificially low, people overuse water, and you get silly rules only allowing you to water on certain days depending on your address. If the price was to increase to meet demand, people would be less inclined to waste water.

by Reformed Republican at 1:08 PM on 17 Oct 2007
[ Parent ]

Global warming/climate change

This underlines why some people like to call what's happening "global climate change" rather than "global warming." I know it's not the enviro thing to do, but it's more accurate: what's happening is that some places will get more rain while others get less. That's the "change" part.

While RR may be quite right, that doesn't take away from the fact that some regions are getting drier: s/he doesn't actually address the point being made. I imagine that your average Australian farmer would take offense if you told him/her to not worry, somewhere else is getting wetter.

by mihan at 1:28 PM on 17 Oct 2007

Things change:

I imagine that your average Australian farmer would take offense if you told him/her to not worry, somewhere else is getting wetter.

Yes, but if you live in a place like Calgary, it is hard to get upset if things warm a few degrees. It is all a matter of perspective. Just because you like the current situation does not mean it is right or ideal for everyone.

by Reformed Republican at 1:36 PM on 17 Oct 2007

RR

As a libertarian, I am very familiar with the arguments you make, which can be applied to the consumption of most discrete (i.e. measurable, and not in the commons) resources. And those arguments are quite sound... if one supposes an infrastructure and industrial system that grew up around correctly-priced resources.

Unfortunately, that's not what we have. Instead, we have an industrial system and built environment that developed in the context of very cheap energy and resources. As a result, we have a tremendous long-term investment in processes, buildings, and equipment that are inherently inefficient and wasteful. Raising the price of energy, water, or any other resource sufficiently to send correct price signals would cripple industry and business and severely strain personal budgets, while eroding the capital needed in order to make investments in more efficient infrastructure.

That's why we need subsidy/rebate/efficiency programs, to direct capital towards building a more efficient infrastructure before the price of energy/water/etc rises too high. It's a cart-before-the-horse situation unfortunately, but it seems the best way to get to a state where we can withstand the (inevitable, and proper) higher prices placed on resources and continue to function economically.

by GreenEngineer at 1:43 PM on 17 Oct 2007

Ref Rep?

So, it's ALL to the market and mispricings then, is it? That's a relief. I thought that the reduced rainfall had something to do with it.

Plus, isn't one of the great thing about markets is that prices can signals for substitutes. So, for instance, if Atlanta runs low on water they can just switch to, say, Coca-Cola. I'm liking this markets uber alles stuff!

Ok, look, resources in general should have a market price that reflects their true scarcity and full externality costs, granted, but the situations in Australia and the southern US, etc., are not just a function of market forces. They are severe droughts, not just water shortages.

by tidal at 1:46 PM on 17 Oct 2007
[ Parent ]

Libertarianism?

Green Engineer,

Libertarianism has precious little to do with the theory of market prices allocating resources efficiently. That's capitalism I think you are referring to.

Libertarianism, on the other hand, precludes most of the prescriptions you propose in your third paragraph. In fact, libertarianism is basically, implicitly mute when you start considering well-mixed greenhouses gases in a truly global atmospheric commons, or "whales", or "the polar ice cap" or global ecologic services like the carbon- and nitrogen-cycles, or other examples where "private property" is ill-suited. For what it is worth, I found the Ron Paul interview elsewhere on this site astonishingly vacuous.

Conversely, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a fairly accomplished capitalist I seem to recall, earlier this year proposed an $8 traffic congestion fee he said "Using economics to influence public behavior is something this country is built on, it's called capitalism. Tax policy influences you to drill here and mine there and grow this and live here and do that, and you know, that's common."

Market-based solutions, yes. Libertarianism? Ayn Rand to elucidate us on GHG mitigation? It is to laugh.

by tidal at 2:27 PM on 17 Oct 2007
[ Parent ]

libertarians

Most Libertarians are, in my opinion, hypocrites. The twin pillars of the philosophy are (or are supposed to be) personal freedom and personal responsibility. And internalizing externalities is a central requirement of taking responsibility. Most so-called Libertarians are fascinated with the first, but conveniently ignore the second. Alas.

by GreenEngineer at 4:51 PM on 17 Oct 2007

why they should ration

Here's why the idea of pricing the water high enough instead of using sensible rationing is a bad idea.

It's the problem of the commons.

Let's say that a town decides to raise the price of water to pay for their cities budget. In order to sell more water, they decide to advertise and encourage people to use as much water as possible, it's great for us, it's great for our lawns and for our way of life and we are a wonderful town for doing it.

Then, because water usage is up, they have to drill deeper to get at more water and pull some of the water in the water table from other towns in the area. These other towns then have to drill deeper to get at more water and we have drilling wars.

Not everything is a business model. People can use less water for the good of everybody. So what if your lawns aren't green and you don't take showers everyday or very short ones. That's the way for people to pull thru during emergencies, especially short term shortages.

Now if this is long term, drill as deep as fast as you can so our town will be the one with the green lawns.

by trock at 8:24 PM on 17 Oct 2007

libertarians and purity

I did once consider much of libertarian arguments. They want to make arguments that are so pure in philosophy, but that goes the other way as well.

The Internet was developed with mostly government money or a large portion of it anyway. Well, if libertarians think that taxing is stealing and the only way for government to pay to develop the Internet is to steal with taxing, they are participating in the theft when they are on the Internet. They are co-conspirators from the benefits of the theft. That also goes to most of everything they do in our society that is touched by government. Libertarians would pretty much have to become Amish to not be co-conspirators in the whole thing.

by trock at 8:42 PM on 17 Oct 2007

Spit in the wind....

and call it rain all you want. "Market pricing" will never put enough water onto the ground to green the landscape. If it doesn't rain there's no water to argue about and your wells will dry up sooner or later.

If it doesn't rain the landscape will dry and then burn. Fighting wildfires in drought ravaged landscape is pretty futile. Mostly you stand back at a distance and watch things turn to smoke.

Just because you can't see the connection doesn't mean your actions don't have consequences. The South has voted against environmental causes every election for years.

Hope y'all get a little rain. A lotta rain will kill you.

Put the Carbon Back

by Pangolin at 2:36 AM on 18 Oct 2007

Hard Decisions

I was researching this same issue a week or so ago for my column in the local paper. I learned that while it is wetter in some places, it's lots drier in others and I'm not sure it balances out in some larger context view. And it also seems that when rains do come, they are heavier and thus tend to run off causing floods rather than soaking parched ground.
Here on the ground in western Maine, and Maine is not one of the states colored in drought on the map, it's quite dry due to lack of rain over the summer and early fall (though it did rain a bit last week). I live near the Saco River and it's as low as I've ever seen it, even in drier years. Nobody is talking but my instinct tells me it's because Nestle is pumping millions of gallons of water from the aquifer directly under the river to be trucked away, bottled, and sold at a huge profit. Water companies must be salivating at all the dry regions crying for clean drinking water. Meanwhile the few areas with clean and so-far abundant (but for how long?) water are being targeted by water companies. Some communities, unfortunately like mine in Fryeburg, Maine, opened the door before people really had a clue what was involved. Then when they became aware, it was too late to do anything except monitor them and put restrictions on any new water company that comes in. A-learn-from-your-mistakes kind of thing. And even now there's a continuing battle between landowners who are benefiting from Nestle in some way and the rest of us who are concerned about the river and ponds and wetlands.
It just seems dangerous to me to truck so much water out of the bioregion. It depletes the watertable and endangers the future for people and the ecosystem, which if I might add, is already threatened by the unpredictable nature of climate change. And when water is a commodity, as it is becoming more and more (through bottled water and the increasing corporate ownership of municipal water companies nationally and especially internationbally), eventually only those with a certain amount of financial ability, who will be fewer and farther between even in this country, will be able to afford it. I have no problem trucking water to help drought-stricken areas, but I do have a problem with corporations getting rich from it.
Ultimately we need to find ways of living within the limits of our bioregions, especially for our immediate necessities. I know this doesn't seem possible now, or even reasonable to some, but it's the only way people in other places will be able to survive. We can't continue to suck other regions dry, of water or anything else, to support a way of life that just isn't sustainable by any criteria.
Yesterday I learned that due to the extreme water situation in Atlanta and environs, the state is seeking permission to stop maintaining water levels mandated by the ESA. This is understandable from an anthropocentric perspective, but unconscionable from the ecosystem perspective. After all, if humans hadn't been so greedy in the first place species wouldn't have been threatened. These are the kinds of painful decisions we will be called upon to make as climate changes continue to impact us, region by region, over the next years and decades.

by SMLowry at 8:24 AM on 18 Oct 2007

anthropocentrism

That is an excellent point, SMLowry. Our anthropocentric society remains improvident, self-regarding and trapped in short-term thinking, when it deals with natural emergencies only in the destructive manner that you describe.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 9:27 AM on 18 Oct 2007

Drought in SE

I haven't read all of the comments preceding this one. I live in one of those dark brown patches on the map above. The surprising thing about that is that I live in a state known for its abundance of lakes and rivers -- so being a dark brown area is a really big change and very unsettling. Part of the problem here is that we have had too little rainfall. Part of the problem is probably poor planning. There has been a lot of growth in the SE, and, as in other parts of the country, instead of developing water conservation efforts, there has been a tendency to just pipe water in from somewhere else. Better irrigation methods exist. Gray water could be used for a lot of purposes. Rain water could be captured. Even though we are still in a very serious drought, we are getting rain. My Dad has been catching water that condenses off the air conditioner. He collects several gallons every day and uses that to water plants. He catches rain water in large garbage cans and uses that for outdoor watering and washing the car. I know people who are catching the rainwater that drains off the roof and using that in similar ways. These are virtually painless methods that nearly everyone could employ to reduce their load on municipal water supplies. Similar, but larger scale, efforts could be employed by municipalities. There is considerable talk in Georgia of building more reservoirs, collecting rain water, etc., now that Lake Lanier is running dry.

In Australia water conservation practices have been in place for a long time out of necessity. In some place the groundwater is being replenished by pumping treated waste water back into the aquifers. How well this is working is not altogether clear. In the SE, we get enough rainfall that if we look to Australia and employ conservation methods, we can probably reach sustainability. In the SW, that may not be the case. Likewise, in Australia the water situation is becoming increasingly serious despite the conservation efforts.

It really doesn't make a lot of sense to have a lot of urban growth in places where there's not enough surface and/or groundwater to support a growing population. We can't exactly move LA or Phoenix, but some forethought could be given to such matters when new industries that will attract larger populations are being planned and built. In some places, maybe there is more groundwater in deeper aquifers that can be tapped -- Aquifer modeling is an area of active research. There is a limit to how much can be determined by direct measurement so for the most part, communities really don't have very good knowledge adequate knowledge about their aquifers to plan for sustainability. On the other hand, from the news articles I'm reading, I'd have to say that it seems that a lot of communities are giving no thought whatsoever to sustainability but are instead just trying to pipe water in from somewhere else. This is a terrible solution. It's at best a short term fix and it creates a problem in the long term for any community that exists where the water is being pumped from.

Andrea Jo Rush

by AndreaJoRush at 12:36 AM on 21 Oct 2007

Drought effects of bottled water and corn ethanol

Industry water use needs to be regulated and monitored to prevent a biblical drought.

Has anyone in the state department reviewed a complete study of the groundwater table draw down from "bottled water" and corn ethanol production?

If they are trying, the real way to destroy the National Economy and cause a drought of biblical proportions, would be to "produce bottled water with ethanol power".

Combining the two could blow out over a 100 trillion gallons of clean water...
http://www.christopherhaase.com/blog/2007/10/how-do-you-d ...

Oh wait, that IS what the nation is trying to do. Yikes.

Simply adding "water use" tax to expendable and consumable water products and removing subsides from corn ethanol could free up a trillion gallons of water annually.

BOTH ethanol and bottled water have their places in the world, just not in the way our nation is supporting and consuming them.

Christopher Haase

Read full comment here:
http://www.christopherhaase.com/blog/2007/10/how-do-you-d ...

by ehsdirector at 11:27 AM on 22 Oct 2007

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