Post by crudo on Oct 10, 2006 11:53:26 GMT -5
Hotter planet brings chilling outlook for ag
By MICHAEL G. MOONEY
BEE STAFF WRITER
Last Updated: October 10, 2006, 07:26:03 AM PDT
Assuming the experts are correct, the day will come when there won't be enough water to go around in the Northern San Joaquin Valley, let alone the state.
While no one can predict exactly when that day will arrive, a growing number of scientists and researchers insist it's an unstoppable force -- carrying with it any number of potentially devastating consequences.
A complex web of factors, including climate change, explosive growth and galloping urbanization, will reduce -- dramatically in some years -- the supply of clean surface and underground water.
That could put the valley's ag-based economy in harm's way.
"We have droughts and floods," said Dennis Gudgel, Stanislaus County's ag commissioner. "It's always been that way. It's the availability of water that's more of a concern for farmers. It's a very serious issue."
Experts say the competition for water will grow ever keener as the century pushes ahead. As for droughts and floods, the experts say they will become more frequent and harsh as temperatures rise.
Precipitation patterns also will change, but Michael Hanemann, director of the California Climate Change Center at the University of California at Berkeley, said that likely will prove to be far less significant than increasing temperatures.
"Economically," Hanemann said, "it is the change in temperature that is especially significant for California."
Water, he said, usually is not scarce during winter.
Even the predicted changes, less snow and more rain in the Sierra, probably can be accommodated, said Hanemann, by an "investment in some form of storage."
Higher temperatures, especially during the winter, will be much more difficult, Hanemann said.
A warmer winter, for example, could harm the health and yields of tree crops such as almonds and peaches.
Parry Klassen, the chairman of the East San Joaquin Water Quality Coalition, grows peaches and watermelons over 35 acres near Fresno.
The coalition boasts 1,865 members who farm more than 507,000 acres between the San Joaquin River and the Sierra foothills -- about half the irrigated land within that area.
Members of the coalition own and-or operate irrigated lands within Stanislaus, Merced, Tuol-umne, Madera and Mariposa counties, as well as portions of Calaveras County.
Higher winter temperatures, Klassen said, could wipe out peaches and almonds in the valley. With more than a half-million acres planted in almond trees today, Klassen said the loss could hurt the valley and state economies.
"The reason we can grow almonds and peaches," he said, "is we have cold winters. The trees need to go to sleep; we call it 'chilling hours.' If global warming makes our winters too warm, the trees won't get enough chilling time."
Nut and peach trees need anywhere from 500 to 1,000 chilling hours, when temperatures are less than 40 degrees.
Water also is an essential ingredient, no matter what a farmer grows.
Klassen said valley farmers need two to four acre-feet of water a year to "grow just about anything."
One acre-foot of water is enough to cover one acre of land one foot deep.
"If you don't have the water," Klassen said, "you're going to get lower yields and less production."
Lack of planning raises concern
Carol Whiteside, president of the Great Valley Center, said she is concerned there hasn't been more discussion and more planning and preparation for climate change.
"The principles of global warming," she said, "are not contested anywhere in the scientific community. There is (debate) about whether it's a natural climatic cycle or something we're facilitating, worsening by human activities."
Whatever the cause, Whiteside said ,political leaders need to begin exploring "what if" scenar-ios that consider all possible consequences and contingencies, everything from prolonged summer droughts and heat waves to catastrophic winter and spring flooding.
Determining the region's ultimate water capacity and needs is critical, Whiteside said.
Whiteside applauded Gov. Schwarzenegger, who last month signed legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels, a 25 percent reduction.
Many scientists long have believed greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are an important factor in climate change.
Earlier this year, Schwarzenegger told a group of Bee executives and editors that he believes technological advances also are needed.
He cited desalinization, removing salt from sea water, as one of the ways to help improve water quality and supply by century's end.
"I would say we would have the technology … of changing salt water into regular water," Schwarzenegger said. "I think that by that time, hopefully, the rest of the world will be onboard to recognize that we (are), right now, creating self-inflicted wounds; that everything that is happening to our weather and to our environment -- it's all because we are doing it to ourselves."
That's one of the reasons, Schwarzenegger said, the legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions is so important.
Experts such as Hanemann say we cannot afford to wait for future generations to find solutions.
Past emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, he said, already have shaped the state's climate for the next 40 years.
Dan Cayan, a researcher in the Climate Research Division of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, is even more pessimistic.
Cayan said it will take 100 years or more to undo the worldwide temperature rise from global warming, even if all greenhouse gas emissions were halted today.
The world's oceans already are rising, Cayan said, because of increasing temperatures melting glaciers and polar icepacks.
Cayan said the rise in sea levels will be so significant that he and other researchers envision a day when sea walls will be needed to protect the state's major coastal cities -- San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles.
A rising Pacific Ocean, he said, will bring more salt water into the vital Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the hub for fresh-water shipments to Southern California.
Changes in high alpine climates, more rain, less snow and overall higher temperatures, have been noted worldwide.
Such changes will continue to accelerate, Cayan said, disrupting recreational ski resorts as well as water storage and distribution.
"So, what we deposit today into the atmosphere," Cayan said, "will be felt for generations to come."
Experts at the state Department of Water Resources are urging water managers throughout California to plan for climate change.
The DWR has suggested that water officials evaluate their systems to "better understand the existing snowpack-surface water-groundwater relationship," and identify new opportunities for water storage, including more groundwater storage.
Wes Monier, strategic issues and planning manager for the Turlock Irrigation District, said he's reviewed data showing that Sierra snow is beginning to melt before April 1, for decades the traditional starting point for the snowmelt.
"From what I've seen," Monier said, "the peak (eventually) will move back about two weeks, into the middle of March. That's the middle of the rain season."
It's Monier who decides when and how much water to release from Don Pedro Reservoir.
"With the snowmelt beginning earlier, and the rainfall, we won't have the ability to store water (in the reservoir) like we do now."
Instead, Monier said, it might be necessary to release water that would have been saved for the dry summer months to avoid flooding low-lying areas downstream from the reservoir, such as Modesto's La Loma neighborhood.
That, of course, assumes rainfall patterns in the Northern San Joaquin Valley and Central Sierra remain the same.
The full effect of what the climate change is expected to bring to the region will depend upon whether reservoirs such as Don Pedro can be managed to capture the earlier snowmelt and still control flooding.
For Monier, it's the amount of rainfall that holds the key.
"Will we receive the same amount?," he said. "Will it be more? Less? No one can say for sure. I don't know that there's much to be optimistic about."
Bee staff writer Michael G. Mooney can be reached at 578-2384 or mmooney@modbee.com.
By MICHAEL G. MOONEY
BEE STAFF WRITER
Last Updated: October 10, 2006, 07:26:03 AM PDT
Assuming the experts are correct, the day will come when there won't be enough water to go around in the Northern San Joaquin Valley, let alone the state.
While no one can predict exactly when that day will arrive, a growing number of scientists and researchers insist it's an unstoppable force -- carrying with it any number of potentially devastating consequences.
A complex web of factors, including climate change, explosive growth and galloping urbanization, will reduce -- dramatically in some years -- the supply of clean surface and underground water.
That could put the valley's ag-based economy in harm's way.
"We have droughts and floods," said Dennis Gudgel, Stanislaus County's ag commissioner. "It's always been that way. It's the availability of water that's more of a concern for farmers. It's a very serious issue."
Experts say the competition for water will grow ever keener as the century pushes ahead. As for droughts and floods, the experts say they will become more frequent and harsh as temperatures rise.
Precipitation patterns also will change, but Michael Hanemann, director of the California Climate Change Center at the University of California at Berkeley, said that likely will prove to be far less significant than increasing temperatures.
"Economically," Hanemann said, "it is the change in temperature that is especially significant for California."
Water, he said, usually is not scarce during winter.
Even the predicted changes, less snow and more rain in the Sierra, probably can be accommodated, said Hanemann, by an "investment in some form of storage."
Higher temperatures, especially during the winter, will be much more difficult, Hanemann said.
A warmer winter, for example, could harm the health and yields of tree crops such as almonds and peaches.
Parry Klassen, the chairman of the East San Joaquin Water Quality Coalition, grows peaches and watermelons over 35 acres near Fresno.
The coalition boasts 1,865 members who farm more than 507,000 acres between the San Joaquin River and the Sierra foothills -- about half the irrigated land within that area.
Members of the coalition own and-or operate irrigated lands within Stanislaus, Merced, Tuol-umne, Madera and Mariposa counties, as well as portions of Calaveras County.
Higher winter temperatures, Klassen said, could wipe out peaches and almonds in the valley. With more than a half-million acres planted in almond trees today, Klassen said the loss could hurt the valley and state economies.
"The reason we can grow almonds and peaches," he said, "is we have cold winters. The trees need to go to sleep; we call it 'chilling hours.' If global warming makes our winters too warm, the trees won't get enough chilling time."
Nut and peach trees need anywhere from 500 to 1,000 chilling hours, when temperatures are less than 40 degrees.
Water also is an essential ingredient, no matter what a farmer grows.
Klassen said valley farmers need two to four acre-feet of water a year to "grow just about anything."
One acre-foot of water is enough to cover one acre of land one foot deep.
"If you don't have the water," Klassen said, "you're going to get lower yields and less production."
Lack of planning raises concern
Carol Whiteside, president of the Great Valley Center, said she is concerned there hasn't been more discussion and more planning and preparation for climate change.
"The principles of global warming," she said, "are not contested anywhere in the scientific community. There is (debate) about whether it's a natural climatic cycle or something we're facilitating, worsening by human activities."
Whatever the cause, Whiteside said ,political leaders need to begin exploring "what if" scenar-ios that consider all possible consequences and contingencies, everything from prolonged summer droughts and heat waves to catastrophic winter and spring flooding.
Determining the region's ultimate water capacity and needs is critical, Whiteside said.
Whiteside applauded Gov. Schwarzenegger, who last month signed legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels, a 25 percent reduction.
Many scientists long have believed greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are an important factor in climate change.
Earlier this year, Schwarzenegger told a group of Bee executives and editors that he believes technological advances also are needed.
He cited desalinization, removing salt from sea water, as one of the ways to help improve water quality and supply by century's end.
"I would say we would have the technology … of changing salt water into regular water," Schwarzenegger said. "I think that by that time, hopefully, the rest of the world will be onboard to recognize that we (are), right now, creating self-inflicted wounds; that everything that is happening to our weather and to our environment -- it's all because we are doing it to ourselves."
That's one of the reasons, Schwarzenegger said, the legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions is so important.
Experts such as Hanemann say we cannot afford to wait for future generations to find solutions.
Past emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, he said, already have shaped the state's climate for the next 40 years.
Dan Cayan, a researcher in the Climate Research Division of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, is even more pessimistic.
Cayan said it will take 100 years or more to undo the worldwide temperature rise from global warming, even if all greenhouse gas emissions were halted today.
The world's oceans already are rising, Cayan said, because of increasing temperatures melting glaciers and polar icepacks.
Cayan said the rise in sea levels will be so significant that he and other researchers envision a day when sea walls will be needed to protect the state's major coastal cities -- San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles.
A rising Pacific Ocean, he said, will bring more salt water into the vital Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the hub for fresh-water shipments to Southern California.
Changes in high alpine climates, more rain, less snow and overall higher temperatures, have been noted worldwide.
Such changes will continue to accelerate, Cayan said, disrupting recreational ski resorts as well as water storage and distribution.
"So, what we deposit today into the atmosphere," Cayan said, "will be felt for generations to come."
Experts at the state Department of Water Resources are urging water managers throughout California to plan for climate change.
The DWR has suggested that water officials evaluate their systems to "better understand the existing snowpack-surface water-groundwater relationship," and identify new opportunities for water storage, including more groundwater storage.
Wes Monier, strategic issues and planning manager for the Turlock Irrigation District, said he's reviewed data showing that Sierra snow is beginning to melt before April 1, for decades the traditional starting point for the snowmelt.
"From what I've seen," Monier said, "the peak (eventually) will move back about two weeks, into the middle of March. That's the middle of the rain season."
It's Monier who decides when and how much water to release from Don Pedro Reservoir.
"With the snowmelt beginning earlier, and the rainfall, we won't have the ability to store water (in the reservoir) like we do now."
Instead, Monier said, it might be necessary to release water that would have been saved for the dry summer months to avoid flooding low-lying areas downstream from the reservoir, such as Modesto's La Loma neighborhood.
That, of course, assumes rainfall patterns in the Northern San Joaquin Valley and Central Sierra remain the same.
The full effect of what the climate change is expected to bring to the region will depend upon whether reservoirs such as Don Pedro can be managed to capture the earlier snowmelt and still control flooding.
For Monier, it's the amount of rainfall that holds the key.
"Will we receive the same amount?," he said. "Will it be more? Less? No one can say for sure. I don't know that there's much to be optimistic about."
Bee staff writer Michael G. Mooney can be reached at 578-2384 or mmooney@modbee.com.
