A deeper water shortage on Lake Mead is hardly the worst thing we’re facing
Joanna Allhands, Arizona Republic – August 25, 2022
The federal Bureau of Reclamation has declared a deeper level of water shortage for Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir.
But that was not the most consequential thing Reclamation announced – or, more accurately, skirted – on Aug. 16.
It’s also not the gargantuan cut that some media reports make it out to be.
If anything, we got off easy.
What did Reclamation declare?
A Tier 2a shortage is the deepest mandatory cut we have made to date, one that entails 592,000 acre-feet – 21% – of Arizona’s apportionment from Lake Mead. Nevada must cut 25,000 acre-feet (8%) and Mexico 104,000 acre-feet (7%).
These are significant amounts of water.
But considering that Arizona has already left 800,000 acre-feet of water in the lake this year – a combination of mandated cuts and voluntary, compensated conservation efforts – it’s not exactly a “drastic” cut, as one headline suggested.
Nor is it something new or unexpected. We’ve been planning for this for years.
Where were we before?
A sign marks Lake Mead’s 2002 water level — with the current shoreline far in the background — on July 9, 2022, near Boulder City, Nev.
Reclamation declared the first water shortage on Lake Mead last August – a Tier 1 shortage – which was created as part of a 2007 agreement that aimed to cut use when the lake hit certain low levels.
Arizona agreed to take the brunt of the cuts, and in a Tier 1 shortage, Arizona must trim 512,000 acre-feet of use. So, a Tier 2a ratchets that up for us by 80,000 acre-feet.
These amounts of water stem from the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan, which ratcheted up cuts when it became clear the 2007 amounts weren’t enough. California agreed to take cuts for the first time as part of that plan, but not until the lake reaches deeper levels of shortage (a Tier 2b shortage, to be exact, but more on that in a second).
Arizona also passed an internal Drought Contingency Plan in 2019 to help lessen the pain of cuts within the state. Pinal farmers – those with the lowest priority rights – were given a bit of water in 2022, plus some funding to help drill wells and transport that water to fields. That hasn’t produced the amount or quality of water that farmers had hoped, but that’s another blog for another day.
How will a Tier 2a shortage play out?
When the Tier 2a shortage goes live in 2023, Pinal farmers will receive no water from the Central Arizona Project, which delivers water to users from Phoenix to Tucson. They must now fully rely on groundwater to survive.
Then again, Pinal farmers were already in line to lose all of their CAP water in 2023, even if we remained in a Tier 1 shortage.
A Tier 2a shortage also will wipe out the next higher priority pool of CAP water – the so-called Non-Indian Agricultural pool. Most of that water goes to central Arizona cities and tribes.
Then again, they won’t necessarily be up a (suddenly dry) creek because the 2019 in-state plan mitigates 75% of their losses. In the grand scheme of things, it could be a lot worse.
Why did we get off easy?
This chart shows the key water levels in Lake Mead, which is used to determine water deliveries for Arizona, Nevada and California.
Shortage declarations are tied to specific lake levels. But Reclamation decided to fudge that with a concept they call “operational neutrality.”
It stems from an emergency action this spring to help prop up Lake Powell. Reclamation kept 480,000 acre-feet in Lake Powell that should have flowed downstream to Lake Mead, then promised to pretend that water was in Lake Mead when determining shortage levels.
The lake has physically reached the threshold to be in a deeper – and more consequential – Tier 2b shortage, one that would ratchet up Arizona’s cuts to 640,000 acre-feet and would require California to cut for the first time, to the tune of 200,000 acre-feet initially.
That’s important because everyone that relies on Lake Mead would be making mandatory cuts, leaving larger, guaranteed amounts of water in the lake as it is rapidly tanking.
Relying on voluntary savings doesn’t always pan out, as we found this year with the 500-plus plan, a separate emergency action (notice that there are a lot of these?) to prop up Lake Mead. The goal was to pay people to leave 500,000 acre-feet in the lake each year, but users only volunteered a little more than half of that in 2022 – mostly from Arizona.
The benefits of those savings evaporated almost immediately once they hit the lake. Essentially, we spent millions on actions that did almost nothing for lake levels.
So, if anything, a Tier 2a shortage is an underreaction, and at a crucial moment when we need to be doing so much more.
Why is this the least of our worries?
We could make every cut we’ve already laid out, all the way down to a Tier 3 shortage, the deepest for which we’ve planned.
And Lake Mead would still be on a freefall to “dead pool” – the point where lake levels fall so low that water can no longer flow downstream through Hoover Dam to users in Arizona, California and Mexico.
Reclamation’s August 24-month study, which was released at the same time as the Tier 2a shortage declaration, projects the lake will fall below 1,000 feet of elevation in 2024 – more than 20 feet below the minimum protection level that Reclamation had hoped to maintain.
Their modeling shows we need to cut at least 2.5 million acre-feet simply to maintain that minimum protection level on Lake Mead (and a similarly low protection level on Lake Powell, which also is tanking quickly).
And that’s on top of every water-saving action to which we’ve previously agreed.
So, what’s the takeaway?
We could carry out the cuts in a Tier 2a shortage, or a Tier 2b, or the deepest Tier 3, and it still wouldn’t be enough to keep Lake Mead on life support. We must cut way deeper than that in 2023 – and sustain those deep levels until at least 2026 – if we have any chance of saving it and Lake Powell.
And no, there is no plan yet to do so.
The states couldn’t agree by Reclamation’s mid-August deadline, and while Reclamation promised on Aug. 16 to keep working with states on as many voluntary measures as possible, it did not offer any firm deadlines, water amounts or what exactly it might mandate if states still can’t do enough to fill the giant chasm between supply and demand.
That’s the whole reason we’re in this mess. Despite all that we’ve done so far to trim use, we are still consuming far more water than the Colorado River produces.
A Tier 2a shortage, though painful and consequential, is not enough to solve this problem. Yet it’s unclear how or when we’re going to do enough to keep the lakes from dying.
‘There’s simply not enough water’: Colorado River cutbacks ripple across Arizona
Debra Utacia Krol, Arizona Republic – August 23, 2022
A view of the Hoover Dam and the Colorado River.
Up and down the Colorado River last week, the state, local and tribal leaders in charge of water supplies for more than 40 million people waited to see if the federal government would impose deeper cuts to river allocations.
The Bureau of Reclamation had given states and tribes an Aug. 15 deadline to find ways to conserve 2 to 4 million more acre-feet of water to stabilize the drought-stricken river and its two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell. Without such a plan, the bureau said, it would act.
The deadline passed with no agreement in place.
And on Tuesday, the government presented its 2023 water forecasts and said based on projected water levels at the two reservoirs, it would institute the next level of water reductions already agreed upon by the seven states and 30 federally recognized tribes within the Colorado River basin. The Drought Contingency Plan outlines specific steps Reclamation would take if the river flows continue to decline.
The next round of cuts to the three lower basin states and Mexico means that Arizona will have to do with 21% less water than in previous years. Nevada lost 8% of its delivery and Mexico’s allocation was reduced by 7%. The only lower basin state to be spared cuts is California, which holds senior rights to the river.
The bureau did not impose the deeper cuts as some had anticipated. Instead, Interior Department officials said talks would continue to come up with additional reductions as needed. The agency noted that the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act included $4 billion in money to address drought.
Few people were entirely satisfied with the government’s announcement, but one stakeholder went further than the others in expressing disappointment, introducing a new wrinkle in talks among the river’s water users.
The Gila River Indian Community said it would no longer voluntarily leave part of its Colorado River allocation in Lake Mead, an arrangement that helped Arizona meet the requirements of a regional agreement last year. Instead, tribal officials said in a statement Tuesday, Gila River would return to banking its water.
Tribes, agencies upset
In December 2021, the Gila River Indian Community and the Colorado River Indian Tribes signed onto an agreement to leave a combined 179,000 acre-feet of their river allotment in Lake Mead as a way to prop up the reservoir.
The agreement was part of a larger pact by several states and water districts to conserve 500,000 acre-feet per year in Lake Mead, where water levels were dropping rapidly. The pact was in addition to other conservation measures and was known as the 500+ plan.
The initiative was a pledge by the Interior Department as well as water agencies and tribes in the three Lower Basin states and stretched through 2023. The two tribes’ contributions made Arizona’s contribution to the effort possible.
Hoover Dam (top right) and Lake Mead on May 11, 2021, on the Arizona and Nevada border. A high-water mark or bathtub ring is visible on the shoreline. Lake Mead is down 152 vertical feet.
The Arizona Department of Water Resources committed up to $40 million to the plan over its two-year period, while the Central Arizona Project, the Metropolitan Water District in California and the Southern Nevada Water Authority each ponied up $20 million. The federal government matched those contributions for a $200 million pool to fund fallowing fields and other conservation measures.
But the failure to move forward on a longer term plan to firm up water supplies didn’t sit well with Gila River.
“The Community has been shocked and disappointed to see the complete lack of progress in reaching the kind of cooperative basin-wide plan necessary to save the Colorado River system,” said Gila River Governor Stephen Roe Lewis.
“We are aware that this approach will have a very significant impact on the ability of the State of Arizona to make any meaningful commitment to water reductions in the basin state discussions,” Lewis said, “but we cannot continue to put the interests of all others above our own when no other parties seem committed to the common goal of a cooperative basin-wide agreement.”
“What has been a slow-moving train wreck for twenty years is accelerating and our moment of reckoning is near.” Entsminger wrote. “The unreasonable expectations of water users, including the prices and drought profiteering proposals, only divide common goals and interests.”
Entsminger also outlined several steps the states, tribes and water agencies could take to minimize their use of Colorado River water, including agricultural efficiency enhancement, removing lawns, investing in water reuse, recycling and desalination programs and habitat restoration.
“We appreciate the support of Governor Lewis and the Gila River Indian Community for the recommended actions Nevada has put forth,” Entsminger said in an emailed statement. “Nevada stands ready to work with any partners who seek solutions based upon real world, equitable and sound scientific principles to the monumental challenges facing the Colorado River.”
In Arizona, officials looked for ways to repair the rift.
“The Gila River Indian Community has a been a big part of the positive actions Arizona has taken to protect Lake Mead in recent years,” the Central Arizona Project said in an emailed statement.
The agency praised the tribe for their work to develop the Drought Contingency Plan and in conserving water.
“We are understanding of the Community’s position that others need to be part of the Colorado River solution,” the CAP statement said. “We are hopeful that if a broader plan for taking action comes together that Arizona can support, the Community will choose to participate along with other Arizona water users.”
The Arizona Department of Water Resources declined comment on the statement.
The Colorado River Indian Tribes said it would continue to make water available for conservation through 2023.
“The Colorado River Indian Tribes are also development a multiyear farming and fallowing plan that includes additional conservation measures to be implement during 2023 and for many years thereafter,” said CRIT Chairwoman Amelia Flores.
Other water agencies and elected officials said they would continue to work with Reclamation to develop a longer-term plan to stabilize the reservoirs and assure at least some water would continue to flow.
Phoenix officials said in an emailed statement that although their water customers would not be affected by the cuts, the lack of action by federal officials was “disappointing.” The city gave up 23% of its river allocation to stabilize Lake Mead and support Pinal County farmers who lost river water when the first round of cuts was announced a year ago, the statement said.
The city is acting to ensure water deliveries and reduce dependence on the Colorado, officials said. A $300 million pipeline will move water to North Phoenix, which currently relies on the Colorado River for water. Phoenix is also restoring ecosystems in the Salt River, which provides 60% of the city’s water, the statement said. And, the city is beefing up infrastructure.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., said she would work with her newly-created water advisory council, state stakeholders and neighboring states to ensure a secure water future.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis (Gila River Indian Community) talk during the Water Advisory Council meeting, Aug. 8, 2022, in the Hoover Dam Spillway House, 75 Hoover Dam Access Road, Boulder City, Nevada.
“Arizona’s future depends on the strength and resiliency of our water supply,” she said via a spokesperson. “As the West continues experiencing historic drought, Arizona has led the way identifying short and long term solutions while shouldering a disproportionate share of this crisis.”
Sinema said that $13 billion had been secured for drought resiliency funding over the past year through several bills including the most recent act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and other legislation.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., wrote the Interior Department last week calling for the agency to outline its options to implement mitigation actions to prevent “drastic consequences for Arizona and other Colorado Basin states.” If the reservoirs’ levels continue to drop, those consequences could include the loss of hydropower generation and even to deadpool conditions, where no water would flow out of Lake Mead.
“In 2022 alone, Arizona farmers, cities, and tribes have pledged resources to conserve over 800,000 acre-feet of water — an amount equal to nearly one-third of our state’s full allocation,” Kelly said in the letter. He added that Arizona has offered to put more “wet” water on the table to be conserved than other states.
At least one congressman also called for more action from the federal government.
“The Colorado River is in crisis, and talks among basin states to fairly spread the pain of much-needed cutbacks are going nowhere,” said Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz.. “The federal government must play a stronger role. I’m urging the Administration to take immediate action to avoid catastrophe.”
Stanton said in a letter to President Joe Biden that the cuts announced Aug. 16 were already mandated by the Drought Contingency Plan, while in June, Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said that unless another 2 to 4 million acre-feet were cut, the government would take action.
“Yesterday’s announcement proved that commitment hollow,” Stanton wrote.
One of the largest single water users on the river said it was ready to collaborate on further solutions. The Imperial Irrigation District in southern California manages an allocation of 3.1 million acre-feet, including pass through water, larger than Arizona’s entire Colorado River allocation of 2.8 million acre-feet.
Since 2003, the utility has conserved more than 7 million acre-feet of water according to an Aug. 16 statement. The district said it would work to conserve water and to help restore the Salton Sea, which has declined rapidly in recent years as the utility slashed agricultural runoff that fed the lake.
A view of the Colorado River as it flows through the Colorado River Indian Tribes’ Ahakhav Tribal Preserve in Parker on Nov. 13, 2021.
At least one water expert said he doesn’t believe the situation will improve in a year.
“The Colorado River is going to continue to decline,” said David Feldman, a professor at the University of California, Irvine and director of Water UCI, an institute that studies water problems facing the nation and the world.
He said many of the problems that have arisen from the plunging levels of Lake Mead and Lake Powell will be ongoing.
“So you have to start from the baseline that is simply not going to be any more surface water available from this point forward, at least not for the foreseeable future,” Feldman said. “The next steps, I believe, should be that each state should figure out a way to get user groups, local governments, water agencies, irrigation districts together in conversations about how they would negotiate targets for prescribed cutbacks based on water availability figures.”
Feldman said he understands Gila River’s stance.
“The drought did not cause the angst of tribal nations towards allocation agreements,” he said, but the drought has exacerbated it. “The tribes have been frustrated. The Navajo Nation, Hopi, others have been concerned for decades now about water allocation agreements on the Colorado and its tributaries.”
He also said the West is still not quite at the point to have a serious conversation about the future of water, “about our children and our children’s children.” Feldman said that if, as many forecasts predict, climate change is permanent and not just cyclical, water officials will need to plan far ahead.
“What are we going to do about the the water and the water needs and how are we going to plan to aggressively conserve?”
Strategies from recycling and reuse to landscaping all need to be on the table, he said, since outdoor irrigation accounts for one-third to one-half of urban water use. But just reducing urban outdoor use won’t be enough to address the shortages to come.
He also disputed some assertions that cities shouldn’t exist in arid lands. “The Mesopotamians did okay,” Feldman said, as well as the Huhugam in the Salt River Valley. Living in the desert, or having a lot of people, doesn’t by itself cause the problem, he said. “It’s how we live in that environment.”
Feldman pointed out that other arid parts of the world have done well, including Israel. “The Israelis have really become very savvy in the sense of not only developing the technologies, but then realizing there’s a market for it,” he said.
“We can live in a water scarce environment without sacrificing our quality of life,” Feldman said. “But we have to take it seriously.”
Debra Krol reports on Indigenous communities at the confluence of climate, culture and commerce in Arizona and the Intermountain West.
Coverage of Indigenous issues at the intersection of climate, culture and commerce is supported by the Catena Foundation.
Europe facing its worst drought in 500 years – study
Philip Blenkinsop – August 23, 2022
FILE PHOTO: Rocky beach emerges from Lake Garda following severe drought
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europe is facing its worst drought in at least 500 years, with two-thirds of the continent in a state of alert or warning, reducing inland shipping, electricity production and the yields of certain crops, a European Union agency said on Tuesday.
The August report of the European Drought Observatory (EDO), overseen by the European Commission, said 47% of Europe is under warning conditions, with clear deficit of soil moisture, and 17% in a state of alert, in which vegetation is affected.
“The severe drought affecting many regions of Europe since the beginning of the year has been further expanding and worsening as of early August,” the report said, adding that the western Europe-Mediterranean region was likely to experience warmer and drier than normal conditions until November.- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html
Much of Europe has faced weeks of baking temperatures this summer, which worsened the drought, caused wildfires, set off health warnings, and prompted calls for more action to tackle climate change.
The current drought appeared to be the worst in at least 500 years, assuming final data at the end of the season confirmed the preliminary assessment, the Commission said in a statement.
Summer crops have suffered, with 2022 yields for grain maize set to be 16% below the average of the previous five years and soybean and sunflowers yields set to fall by 15% and 12% respectively.
Hydropower generation has been hit, with further impact on other power producers due to a shortage of water to feed cooling systems.
Low water levels have hampered inland shipping, such as along the Rhine, with reduced shipping loads affecting coal and oil transport.
The EDO said mid-August rainfall may have alleviated conditions, but in some cases it had come with thunderstorms that caused further damage.
The observatory’s drought indicator is derived from measurements of precipitation, soil moisture and the fraction of solar radiation absorbed by plants for photosynthesis.
(This story has been refiled to fix typographical error in headline)
(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten and Tomasz Janowski)
Chinese farmers struggle as scorching drought wilts crops
Mark Schiefelbein – August 20, 2022
Gan Bingdong uses a hose to water plants near a dying chili pepper plant at his farm in Longquan village in southwestern China’s Chongqing Municipality, Saturday, Aug. 20, 2022. Drought conditions across a swathe of China from the densely populated east across central farming provinces into eastern Tibet have “significantly increased,” the national weather agency said Saturday. The forecast called for no rain and high temperatures for at least three more days from Jiangsu and Anhui provinces northwest of Shanghai, through Chongqing and Sichuan in the southwest to the eastern part of Tibet. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)Gan Bingdong walks through the basin of a community reservoir near his farm that ran nearly empty after its retaining wall started to leak and hot weather and drought conditions accelerated the loss of water, in Longquan village in southwestern China’s Chongqing Municipality, Saturday, Aug. 20, 2022. Drought conditions across a swathe of China from the densely populated east across central farming provinces into eastern Tibet have “significantly increased,” the national weather agency said Saturday. The forecast called for no rain and high temperatures for at least three more days from Jiangsu and Anhui provinces northwest of Shanghai, through Chongqing and Sichuan in the southwest to the eastern part of Tibet. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) In this aerial photo, a community reservoir that ran nearly empty after its retaining wall started to leak and hot weather and drought conditions accelerated the loss of water is seen in Longquan village in southwestern China’s Chongqing Municipality, Saturday, Aug. 20, 2022. Drought conditions across a swathe of China from the densely populated east across central farming provinces into eastern Tibet have “significantly increased,” the national weather agency said Saturday. The forecast called for no rain and high temperatures for at least three more days from Jiangsu and Anhui provinces northwest of Shanghai, through Chongqing and Sichuan in the southwest to the eastern part of Tibet. (AP Photo/Olivia Zhang)
LONGQUAN, China (AP) — Hundreds of persimmon trees that should be loaded with yellow fruit lie wilted in Gan Bingdong’s greenhouse in southwestern China, adding to mounting farm losses in a scorching summer that is the country’s driest in six decades.
Gan’s surviving eggplants are no bigger than strawberries. A reservoir beside his farm has run dry, forcing him to pump groundwater.
“This year’s high temperatures are very annoying,” Gan said.
Drought conditions across a swath of China from the densely populated east across central farming provinces into eastern Tibet have “significantly increased,” the national weather agency said Saturday.
The forecast called for high temperatures and no rain for at least three more days from Jiangsu and Anhui provinces northwest of Shanghai, through Chongqing and Sichuan provinces to the east of Tibet.
Local authorities were ordered to “use all available water sources” to supply households and livestock, the weather agency said.
The biggest impact is in Sichuan, where factories have been shut down and offices and shopping malls told to turn off air-conditioning after reservoirs to generate hydropower fell to half their normal levels.
The province of 94 million people gets 80% of its electricity from hydropower dams.
Factories that make processor chips for smartphones, auto components, solar panels and other industrial goods were shut down for at least six days through Saturday. Some say output will be depressed while others say supplies to customers are unaffected.
The shutdowns add to challenges for the ruling Communist Party as President Xi Jinping, the country’s most powerful leader in decades, prepares to try to break with tradition and award himself a third five-year term as leader at a meeting in October or November.
Growth in factory output and retail sales weakened in July, setting back China’s economic recovery after Shanghai and other industrial centers were shut down starting in late March to fight virus outbreaks.
The economy grew by just 2.5% over a year earlier in the first half of 2022, less than half the official annual goal of 5.5%.
State-run utilities are shifting power to Sichuan from other provinces. Authorities used fire trucks to deliver water to two dry villages near Chongqing.
In Hubei province, east of Chongqing, 220,000 people needed drinking water, while 6.9 million hectares (17 million acres) of crops were damaged, the provincial government said Saturday. It declared a drought emergency and released disaster aid.
In Sichuan, 47,000 hectares (116,000 acres) of crops have been lost and 433,000 hectares (1.1 million acres) damaged, the provincial disaster committee said Saturday. It said 819,000 people faced a shortage of drinking water.
Authorities in Chongqing say an estimated 1 million people in rural areas will face drinking water shortages, the Shanghai news outlet The Paper reported.
Gan, the farmer south of Chongqing, said he has lost one-third of his persimmon plants.
Farmers in the area usually harvest rice in late August or September but plan to finish at least two weeks early before plants die, according to Gan.
A community reservoir beside Gan’s farm is nearly empty, leaving a pool surrounded by cracked earth. After supply canals ran dry, it sprang a leak and heat accelerated evaporation. Gan is pumping underground water for irrigation.
“If the high temperature comes every year, we will have to find a solution such as to build up nets, daily irrigation or to install a spray system to reduce the loss,” Gan said.
Flooding in the northwestern province of Qinghai killed at least 23 people and left eight missing, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing local authorities.
Mudslides and overflowing rivers late Thursday hit six villages in Qinghai’s Datong county, the report said. Some 1,500 people were forced out of their homes.
‘Dangerous days’: These will be the hottest California counties in 2053, study finds
Nexstar Media Wire – August 20, 2022
(NEXSTAR) – California, along with Arizona, Florida and Texas, make up a new list of the top 20 counties projected to see the most days per year with temperatures above 100° F, according to a new study.
In 2023, the roughly 180,000 residents of Imperial County in Southern California are projected to experience 102 “dangerous” days with a heat index exceeding 100, according to nonprofit First Street Foundation’s peer-reviewed model. By 2053, that number is 116.
It’s not just California, either. First Street’s study found that in three decades a so-called “extreme heat belt” will include Northern Texas and states bordering the Gulf, stretching north to Illinois, Indiana, and even up to Wisconsin.
The study found that “dangerous” days occur more often in the southern half of the contiguous U.S., but especially in Florida and Texas. Starr County, Texas, topped all others in 2022 with 109 days above the threshold. Imperial, California is expected to have 53 consecutive dangerous days this year, the report states.
Here are the California counties projected to see the most days with a heat index over 100°:
Rank
County
Days above 100°F in 2023
Days above 100°F in 2053
1.
Imperial
102
116
2.
Riverside
39
55
3.
Fresno
26
43
4.
Tulare
26
43
5.
Kings
26
42
6.
Madera
22
38
7.
Glenn
22
37
8.
Sutter
21
36
9.
Tehama
21
36
10.
Kern
20
35
The model takes into account a number of factors including land surface temperatures, tree and other canopy cover, the presence of concrete and other impervious surfaces and the proximity to water. Researchers built the model under an established warming scenario in which greenhouse gas emissions reach their peak around 2040 and then begin to decline.
“Increasing temperatures are broadly discussed as averages, but the focus should be on the extension of the extreme tail events expected in a given year,” said Matthew Eby, founder and CEO of First Street Foundation. “We need to be prepared for the inevitable, that a quarter of the country will soon fall inside the Extreme Heat Belt with temperatures exceeding 125°F and the results will be dire.”
In 2023, 8.1 million Americans living in 50 counties will experience temperatures of at least 125 degrees, the highest classification on the National Weather Service’s Heat Index – “Extreme Danger,” according to researchers.
Three decades later, the same model shows that climate change will cause 1,023 counties – home to 107.6 million people – to see temperatures rise above 125 degrees.
Preventing deaths from worsening heat
In July, days after nearly half the country — 154.6 million people — sweated through a blistering heat wave, the Biden Administration unveiled heat.gov, which includes maps, forecasts and health advice. The government can’t lower temperatures in the short-term, but it can shrink heat’s death toll, officials said.
“July 2021 was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth and summers are getting hotter and deadlier,” said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Rick Spinrad. “The annual average temperature of the contiguous U.S. has already warmed over the past few decades and is projected to rise by 5 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit (2.8 to 5 degrees Celsius) by the end of this century.”
But officials said even though heat is the No. 1 weather killer, and warming is worsening, deaths can still be prevented. That’s the purpose of the website.
North Carolina state climatologist Kathie Dello said, “extreme heat is one of our greatest challenges as a county and I’m glad to see the interagency cooperation.”
It’s important that the website shows that heat isn’t just a problem for today “but in the future,” Dello said.
Given warming trends, this summer with its widespread heat waves “is likely to be one of the coolest summers of the rest of our lives,” Raimondo said. “That’s a pretty scary thing.”
L.A. County will experience triple the number of hot days by 2053, study says
Noah Goldberg – August 19, 2022
The sun sets over downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday. (Raul Roa / Los Angeles Times)
Los Angeles County will experience triple the number of hot days per year by 2053, according to a new study.
The county, where a typical hot day is just under 94 degrees, gets about seven days that exceed that per year, according to the report released this week by the First Street Foundation, a nonprofit, climate-focused research organization based in New York. By 2053, that number will jump to 21, the study found.
Los Angeles County is up there with Del Norte and Orange counties as the areas in California that will see the most severe jump in hot days. The increase will result in freak infrastructure accidents and cost the state more than half a billion dollars in air conditioning consumption.
“The results will be dire,” First Street Chief Executive Matthew Eby said about the rise in severely hot days across the country.
In 2053, California’s Imperial County, is expected to have 116 days in which the temperature exceeds 100 degrees. Riverside County is expected to have 55 days of triple-digit heat — the second highest number for a California county — according to the study.
All areas of California, as well as the rest of the country, will see increased heat over the next 30 years, according to the report. The state will also see increasing numbers of heat waves — three straight days of the county’s average hot day — which are worse on the West Coast.
“The likelihood of a heat wave in California is much higher than the rest of the country,” Eby said.
The First Street study also suggests a steep increase in the number of Americans who will face days where the temperature goes above 125 degrees, including in places like Chicago.
By 2053, more than 100 million Americans will deal with days that hot, whereas just over 8 million currently do, according to the study.
The report refers to the counties that will experience a day over 125 degrees as the “extreme heat belt.”
Meanwhile, California is already enduring a historic drought amplified by global warming.
Earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom released a new plan to adapt to the state’s hotter, drier future by capturing and storing more water, recycling more wastewater and desalinating seawater and salty groundwater.
The governor’s new water-supply strategy, detailed in a 16-page document, lays out a series of actions aimed at preparing the state for an estimated 10% decrease in California’s water supply by 2040 because of higher temperatures and decreased runoff. The plan focuses on accelerating infrastructure projects, boosting conservation and upgrading the state’s water system to keep up with the increasing pace of climate change.
“The hots are getting a lot hotter. The dries are getting a lot drier,” Newsom said. “We have to adapt to that new reality, and we have to change our approach.”
The state plan calls for expanding water storage capacity above and below ground by 4 million acre-feet; expanding groundwater recharge; accelerating wastewater recycling projects; building projects to capture more runoff during storms, and investing in desalination of ocean water and salty groundwater.
The projected loss of 10% of the state’s water supply within two decades translates to losing 6 million to 9 million acre-feet per year on average — more than the volume of Shasta Lake, the state’s largest reservoir, which holds 4.5 million acre-feet.
“Mother Nature is still bountiful,” Newsom said. “But she’s not operating like she did 50 years ago.”
Times staff writer Ian James contributed to this story.
Severe European drought reveals sunken World War II warships on Danube River
Kyla Guilfoil – August 19, 2022
Severe European drought reveals sunken World War II warships on Danube River
Europe’s scorching drought has revealed the hulks of dozens of German warships that became submerged during World War Two near Serbia’s river port town of Prahovo.
The ships, sunken on Danube River, were part of Nazi Germany’s Black Sea fleet in 1944 as they retreated from advancing Soviet forces, officials said.
The vessels still impact the river today, often hampering river traffic during low water levels, authorities said.
Now, over 20 ships have come to the surface, many of which are still loaded with ammunition and explosives. Officials say the vessels pose a risk to shipping on the Danube.
PHOTO: Wreckage of a World War II German warship is seen in the Danube in Prahovo, Serbia Aug. 18, 2022. (Fedja Grulovic/Reuters)
The vessels have limited the navigable section of the stretch near Prahova to 100 meters, significantly slimmer than the prior 180 meters ships had access to.
Serbian officials have taken to dredging along the river to salvage the usable navigation lanes.
We have deployed almost [our] entire [dredging] capacity… We are struggling to keep out waterways navigable along their full length,” Veljko Kovacevic, Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transportation, told Reuters.
The increasing difficulties for shipping boats will impact the country’s vital transportation of coal, which accounts for two thirds of Serbia’s electrical output, officials said.
PHOTO: Local fisherman Ivica Skodric, sails on his boat past the wreckage of a World War II German warship in the Danube in Prahovo, Serbia August 18, 2022. (Fedja Grulovic/Reuters)
Further implicating the energy crisis, water flow in Serbia’s hydropower system dropped by half in the past two months, officials told the Balkan Green Energy News.
The country is also already enduring the impacts of the war in Ukraine upon their energy supply.
Officials said the ships vary, with some now showing turrets, command bridges, broken masts and twisted hulls, while even more still remain buried under sand banks.
In March, the Serbian government invited a contracted a private company for the salvage of some of the hulls and removal of ammunition and explosives. The operation cost officials an estimated $30 million, according to the country’s infrastructure ministry.
PHOTO: Wreckage of a World War II German warship surfaces in the Danube in Prahovo, Serbia Aug. 18, 2022. (Fedja Grulovic/Reuters)
“The German flotilla has left behind a big ecological disaster that threatens us, people of Prahovo,” Velimir Trajilovic, 74, a pensioner from Prahovo who wrote a book about the German ships, told Reuters.
The exposure of more of the sunken fleet comes after a summer of low water levels and sizzling drought.
The Danube levels near Prahovo are less than half their average for this time of the summer, experts say.
Yangtze shrinks as China’s drought disrupts industry
Mark Schiefelbein – August 19, 2022
A man walks along the lower than normal bank of the Jialing River in southwestern China’s Chongqing Municipality, Friday, Aug. 19, 2022. Ships crept down the middle of the Yangtze on Friday after the driest summer in six decades left one of the mightiest rivers shrunk to barely half its normal width and set off a scramble to contain damage to a weak economy in a politically sensitive year. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)Students carrying umbrellas stand on the dry riverbed of the Jialing River in southwestern China’s Chongqing Municipality, Friday, Aug. 19, 2022. Ships crept down the middle of the Yangtze on Friday after the driest summer in six decades left one of the mightiest rivers shrunk to barely half its normal width and set off a scramble to contain damage to a weak economy in a politically sensitive year. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)In this aerial photo, the lower than normal bank of the Jialing River is seen in southwestern China’s Chongqing Municipality, Friday, Aug. 19, 2022. Ships crept down the middle of the Yangtze on Friday after the driest summer in six decades left one of the mightiest rivers shrunk to barely half its normal width and set off a scramble to contain damage to a weak economy in a politically sensitive year. (AP Photo/Olivia Zhang) ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHONGQING, China (AP) — Ships crept down the middle of the Yangtze on Friday after China’s driest summer in six decades left one of the mightiest rivers barely half its normal width and set off a scramble to contain the damage to a weak economy in a politically sensitive year.
Factories in Sichuan province and the adjacent metropolis of Chongqing in the southwest were ordered to shut down after reservoirs that supply hydropower fell to half their normal levels and demand for air conditioning surged in scorching temperatures.
River ferries in Chongqing that usually are packed with sightseers were empty and tied to piers beside mudflats that stretched as much as 50 meters (50 yards) from the normal shoreline to the depleted river’s edge. Smaller ships sailed down the middle of the Yangtze, one of China’s biggest trade channels, but no large cargo ships could be seen.
Normally bustling streets were empty after temperatures hit 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in Chongqing on Thursday. State media said that was the hottest in China outside the desert region of Xinjiang in the northwest since official records began in 1961.
“We cannot live through this summer without air conditioning,” said Chen Haofeng, 22, who was taking pictures of the exposed riverbed. “Nothing can cool us down.”
The disruption adds to challenges for the ruling Communist Party, which is trying to shore up sagging economic growth before a meeting in October or November when President Xi Jinping is expected to try to award himself a third five-year term as leader.
The world’s second-largest economy grew by just 2.5% over a year earlier in the first half of 2022, less than half the official target of 5.5%.
The drought’s impact in Sichuan is unusually severe because the province gets 80% of its power from hydroelectric dams.
Thousands of factories that make processor chips, solar panels and auto components in Sichuan and Chongqing shut down this week for at least six days.
Some announced there was no disruption in supplies to customers, but the Shanghai city government said in a letter released Thursday that Tesla Ltd. and a major Chinese automaker were forced to suspend production.
The city government of Chengdu, the Sichuan provincial capital, told households to conserve power by setting air conditioning no lower than 27 C (80 F). Another city, Dazhou, earlier announced rolling three-hour daily power outages for neighborhoods.
The Yangtze basin, covering parts of 19 provinces, produces 45% of China’s economic output, according to the World Bank.
Low water levels in rivers also forced halts to cargo shipments.
A canal that connects Wuhan on the Yangtze with the city of Anqing to the northeast in Anhui was closed because it was too shallow for vessels to move safely, the Shanghai news outlet The Paper reported.
The national impact of shutdowns is limited because Sichuan accounts for only 4% of industrial production, while other provinces use more coal-fired power, which hasn’t been disrupted.
The government says China’s two main state-owned power companies, State Grid Ltd. and Southern Grid Ltd., are moving power from 15 other provinces to Sichuan.
A member of the Communist Party’s seven-member ruling Standing Committee, Han Zheng, promised official support to ensure power supplies during a visit Wednesday to State Grid, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
China suffered similar disruptions last year when a dry summer caused hydropower shortages and shut down factories in Guangdong province in the southeast, a global manufacturing center. Other regions suffered blackouts due to coal shortages and mandatory power cuts to meet official energy efficiency targets.
This year is unlikely to be so severe, according to Larry Hu of Macquarie Group.
“If the power rationing in Sichuan only lasts a few weeks, the impact on the industrial production at the national level should be very limited,” Hu said in a report.
Xuguang Electronics Co. in Chengdu said the six-day shutdown would reduce its output by 48,000 electronic circuits. The company said it expected to take a 5 million yuan ($600,000) hit to its annual profit.
BOE Technology Group Co., which makes electronic displays, said a Sichuan subsidiary would suspend production. BOE promised in a statement issued through the Shenzhen Stock Exchange to “fully guarantee delivery of customers’ products.”
News reports said producers in Sichuan of solar panels and lithium for electric cars also shut down, but no companies announced disruptions in supplies.
AP video producer Olivia Zhang contributed to this report.
Droughts: People will need to ‘change the way we use our landscapes for tourism,’ professor says
August 19, 2022
Toronto Metropolitan University Director at the Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management Dr. Frederic Dimanche joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the economic impact of climate change and how it will affect tourism in particular.
– The images, they’re stunning. They’re disturbing. Quite frankly, they are depressing. Look at it. Water levels at once-pristine Lake Powell and Lake Mead are now at unimaginable heights. Both lakes are around 27% of capacity. That’s down from 95% in 2000. Climate change taking its toll on economies around the world. Let’s talk more about this with Dr. Frederic Dimanche, director of the Metropolitan University’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. Good to see you, doc. I know this is primarily, number one, a problem for our planet. What is the economic toll of climate change?
FREDERIC DIMANCHE: Well, the economic toll of climate change is tremendous on all kinds of different sectors, obviously. So my specialty is tourism, obviously, so I will talk about tourism specifically, but it affects every single aspect of the economy. Think about waterways in Europe that are not being used anymore because the water levels are too low. Think about the energy sector that could be shut down because there is not enough water to create hydroelectric systems.
And obviously, the tourism industry is very much affected because people are being displaced. Some tourism activities cannot take place. We’ve seen that in the western part of the United States, but we see that in Europe also this summer. Think about the fires that took place in France in the past few weeks. Think about the drought. There is a very significant impact overall, and I think we are coming slowly to realize how much that impact is.
– Well, Frederic, talk about just how much it is impacted. Do we have any data yet just on how this extreme heat, or the floods, or the droughts, have affected tourist spending so far this year?
FREDERIC DIMANCHE: No, we don’t have that information yet. But what we know is that at least it’s displacing spending, so people may not spend anymore in one region because they decide to go somewhere else. So overall, you may not see a very big difference, but for someone specific destinations that are very dependent on the travel and tourism sector, that will represent a very big impact.
– And the big story of the week– and I mentioned Lake Powell and Lake Mead, but the big story was, of course, because of that, we’re seeing cuts to the Colorado River, most notably with the state of Arizona. How do you expect that to impact economies and, to your point, tourism?
FREDERIC DIMANCHE: Well, people will have to realize– and when I say people, it’s going to have to be the states, the local governments, will have to realize that we have been depending too much on this mighty river, the Colorado River, but we have been draining it far too much. We know we have had issues of water supply for the past 10 years, or 20 years, or 30 years. We’ve been threats before. Remember two years ago, there was a very significant drought, and we know about this before.
So this seems to be occurring on a regular basis now more and more often, and we’re going to have to make some choices. We’re going to have to change our lifestyle. We’re going to have to change the way we use our landscapes, for tourism activities as well as for residential activities. We probably cannot continue to live the way we are doing right now.
– And we’ve also got the flooding and the fires at national parks like Yellowstone. You talk about some of the lifestyle changes we should make. Is it the government? Is it private sector? Where does the answer lie beyond individuals making the choices you discussed?
– Well, the individuals are going to have– we asked the individuals to make some choices. We asked people not to water lawns and these type of things. But it’s a drop in the bucket, really. Until we see very significant change at the government level that will be changing the way we use the landscape, we use the land– does it make sense to develop some golf courses, for example, in arid climates in Arizona, for example, or eastern California? It may not make sense anymore in this kind of new environment.
So I think there are some hard questions to ask for government who will have to provide some new directives, some new directions for us all to follow. And us as the individuals, as well as the businesses.
– Every time I play golf in the deserts of Arizona or Palm Springs, I can’t help but wonder that. Love to discuss that in the future, doctor. Really appreciate you being with us. Thank you.
Climate study predicts Missouri will see days of 125 degree heat index by 2053 as part of ‘heat belt’
Andrew Sullender, Springfield News-Leader – August 18, 2022
First Street Foundation peer-reviewed study on United States heat patterns over the next 30 years.
Amid this year’s heat wave in southwest Missouri, a new study predicts a new Midwestern ‘heat belt’ to dominate forecasts over the next 30 years.
Released Monday, the peer-reviewed ‘Extreme Heat Model’ created by the First Street Foundation studies the future of climate change in the United States and “identifies the impact of increasing temperatures at a property level, and how the frequency, duration, and intensity of extremely hot days will change over the next 30 years from a changing climate.”
In the study, “Extreme Danger Days” of heat are defined as when heat index exceeds 125 degrees in a given day. A heat index combines the predicted temperature with the predicted humidity. The model predicts only 50 counties next year will experience an Extreme Danger Day of heat. But more than 1,000 counties in the United States will experience days of over 125 degrees by 2053.
The vast majority of these counties are geographically concentrated in the Midwest, the model finds — dubbing the more than quarter of U.S. land mass the “Extreme Heat Belt.” This emerging heat belt stretches from the northern Texas and Louisiana borders to Illinois, Indiana, and even into Wisconsin. Of course, right in the center of the heat belt is all of Missouri.
“Increasing temperatures are broadly discussed as averages, but the focus should be on the extension of the extreme tail events expected in a given year,” said Matthew Eby, founder and CEO of First Street Foundation. “We need to be prepared for the inevitable, that a quarter of the country will soon fall inside the Extreme Heat Belt with temperatures exceeding 125 degrees Fahrenheit and the results will be dire.”
The top five metropolitan areas by the number of impacted neighborhoods expected to experience these Extreme Danger Days are St. Louis, Kansas City, Memphis, Tulsa, and Chicago.
But that does not leave Springfield in the clear. The model breaks down heat impacts by county. A heat wave consists of 3 or more consecutive days where the “feels like” temperature meets or exceeds the local definition of a “hot day.” In Greene County that temperature is 105 degrees.
According to the model, the likelihood of a 3-day or longer heat wave in Greene County was 18 percent 30 years ago. Today there is a 50% chance of a heat wave in a given year. By 2053, there will be an 88% chance of a heat wave in Greene County each year.
That high likelihood is already being felt in the Ozarks as weeks this summer have seen “feels-like” temperatures exceeding a 100 degrees — including breaking the actual temperature record set in Springfield in 2014. Based on these climate models, Springfieldians should expect hotter summers than the one felt this year.
These high temperatures will have a drastic effect on the well-being and health of those in southwest Missouri, including heatstroke, cardiovascular collapse, and potentially death.
Since warmer air has a higher capacity to hold water, increasing evaporation will result in more humid conditions. Increased average temperatures and humidity have a compounding effect on heat indexes, which make health impacts more likely.
When temperatures reach these extremes, people may take respite in air conditioning, provided they have access to homes or buildings with cooling.
Additionally, increased air conditioning use across an area may strain energy grids, which is likely to be exacerbated by future use as temperatures rise. According to the model, energy costs in Missouri should increase by 15% in the next several decades because of the heat alone — excluding inflation and other factors.
“Rolling blackouts and brownouts may therefore become more common as extreme heat increases in frequency, intensity, and duration over the next 30 years,” reads the study.
Andrew Sullender is the local government reporter for the Springfield News-Leader.
