LA Weekly

Bettina Boxall reports in the Los Angeles Times today that just about nothing will end the drought, not just because our water sources lie hundreds of miles away -- where people have not spent the last two weeks under umbrellas -- but because the U.S. Water Reclamation Board says it isn't over until it's over:

"[N]obody believes the drought is over at all. It's not unusual to have an extended drought period and within that period to have one or two wet years. I don't think anybody believes this is indicative of a long-term trend."

What no one talks about here is why even an above-normal snowpack in the Sierras won't put more than a dent in the drought: Last year, the snowpack's promise of drought relief disintegrated in an unseasonably summery spring. And that, many climatologists acknowledge, is indicative of a long-term trend.

According to a study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the percentage of drought-stricken land on Earth has doubled in the last 30 years. The U.S. sees more rain, says NCAR researcher Aiguo Dai, author of the "Surface observed global land precipitation variations during 1900-1988" (which shows that the hotter it gets, the more it rains) but due to a rise in global temperatures, the stormwater evaporates faster than ever.

Dai published his findings in December. Tomorrow he'll present them at the American Meteorological Society (AMS) annual meeting in San Diego, 45 miles south of where, in the last few days, the swollen San Juan Creek has destroyed the concrete channel built to contain it.

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