Satellite Reveals End of “Unending” N. California Drought

January 14th, 2017 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.



– Widespread and deep snowpack
– Greening vegetation
– Rivers overflowing their banks
– Strong river discharge into the Pacific Ocean





842 Responses to “Satellite Reveals End of “Unending” N. California Drought”

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  1. Steve Fitzpatrick says:

    California reservoirs now stand at 113% of historical average storage for this date, and lots of water is being allowed OUT of reservoirs to keep the levels low enough to provide flood protection for the remainder of the rainy season. The drought is over, even if the state officials can’t bring themselves to say that. Don’t worry though, flooding damage will now be blamed on ‘climate change’, no matter how wacko that claim is. Have these people no shame? Seems they do not.

    • FTOP says:

      You are expecting sanity from a horde of cultists that think your SUV causes snow, heat, drought, floods, and melts the arctic.

      I have never seen an ideology that can persist beyond all observational facts.

      Take this article below. It was 1954 when this last deep cold was observed in Bulgaria. A rational mind would say this appears to be an event that has happened both prior to and after the supposed CO2 impact on climate, therefore it supports the null hypothesis. One might also begin to explore the theories around 60-year cycles.

      But no, a 1954 event is natural and a 2017 event WITH EXTREME COLD is global warming.

      “The farce is strong in these ones” -Obi-Wan K-climate

      It is snowing in the beaches of Greece, Italian fountains are freezing over. Canada setting all time records, feet of snow in the Sierras — the cause of all this extreme cold? You guessed it, global warming.

      • Metoo says:

        That is why they changed the buzz words to “climate change.” Now, no matter how the weather changes (as it has done since the beginning), they are correct.

        • John Kannarr says:

          No, the latest is “climate disruption”.

          • Michael says:

            Why can’t people understand this simple fact?

          • Don Perry says:

            Let’s see — if it’s “climate disruption”, then they must claim that climate is normally static. Since everyone else seems to know that climate does, in fact, change over time, doesn’t that make them “climate change deniera”?

          • Joe says:

            Hey Don Perry,

            “Let’s see — if it’s “climate disruption”, then they must claim that climate is normally static.”

            They don’t say that, and only an idiot would think that was in any way a logical argument.

          • Paraclete says:

            My favorite is Climate Justice.

        • J says:

          I like to call them Weather Deniers

        • David Appell says:

          Scientists have been using the words “climate change” for many decades. And, yet, also “global warming.”

        • Jed Marlin says:

          I asked a climate crazy how she thought we could achieve “climate stasis” and she had had no idea what I meant.
          Sorry, I just don’t believe the UN can stop the “global climate” from changing, no matter how high they raise my taxes to pay for it.

          • DJG says:

            Because the unspoken assumption is that climate change is bad because, and only because, man (supposedly) does it. Similarly, climate stasis would also be bad if man had a hand in it.
            It’s not really climate that’s their concern, it’s mankind.

          • Joe says:

            She wasn’t as stupid as you are, and that is about all there is to it. She probably knew that climate change refers to wild swings in climate, not the normal climate fluctuation that we have seen in the past. Best you educate yourself, before you chime in, as you have so little to add to an intelligent discussion.

          • JJ says:

            Joe, please splain to me how you have added to an intelligent discussion by insulting DJG by calling him “stupid”?

          • Bruce Stern says:

            Only man is responsible for climate change!

            Said no climatologist ever.

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            It’s because people like Joe are stupid themselves but make themselves feel better by calling someone else stupid. Stupid is as stupid does.

            Climate – the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.


            The fact that Jed could ask the girl about climate stasis, which hopefully will never occur as it would probably be the end of life on earth, and she didn’t know anything about how to respond is all that Jed needed to know about her.

            The fact that Joe didn’t have anything to come up with except an ad-homonym personal attack against Jed, rather than contributing something important to the overall conversation just proves that people like Joe are dumber than a box of rocks and has nothing of value to say to anyone. Joe needs to take his own advice and educate himself before he has so little to add to an intellegent discussion.

          • TMLutas says:

            You can achieve rough climate stasis with technologies like cheap lift and orbital manufacturing. With those, you stick shades and mirrors at appropriate points to reduce/increase the biggest variable in the earth’s heat budget, our received total solar radiation. In effect, it would be a planetary thermostat.

            The global warming/climate change/climate disruption people *hate* this idea. It yields them very little power, does not end capitalism, and gives them no virtue to signal their superiority over the rest of the world. It’s only merit is that it would actually solve the problem of the world not being at a climate optimum. The supposed climate experts don’t even like to *define* a global climate optimum. Go try it. It’s an exercise in frustration.

            Since we are looking to develop cheap lift and orbital manufacturing for other (profitable) reasons, we don’t have to do much except ensure that space lift companies like SpaceX, XCOR, Virgin Galactic, and all the rest of their competitors are not unnecessarily blocked from doing so and that we clear the legal way for orbital mining companies to go do their thing and provide the bulk of materials so we can make the thermostat.

            My own rough calculations are that we’ll hit the technical ability to make a thermostat a few decades before we have an actual need to have a thermostat as our temps are going in roughly the right direction at present (climate optimum is actually hotter than our current values).

          • Nate says:

            Clearly, he was being an ‘elitist’ by using a fancy word, stasis.

          • Nate says:


            ‘with technologies like cheap lift and orbital manufacturing. With those, you stick shades and mirrors at appropriate points’

            So it would be cheap, huh?

            Tell me, compared to an acre of solar panels down here, how much would an acre of mirrors in space cost?

            How many such acres would be needed to do the job?

          • David Appell says:

            Bruce Stern says:
            “Only man is responsible for climate change!
            Said no climatologist ever.”

            So you believe climatologists about the past…but not the present.

            How come?

        • Bruce Stern says:

          Right. So why does the IPCC have Climate Change as part of their name? Sorry to disrupt your little fantasy. Sounds like something pulled straight off Hee-Haw.

          • K Daddy says:

   are not serious right????

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            No K Daddy he’s serious. Why? Because he’s an intellectually progressive liberal in favor of one world government.
            It’s either that or he didn’t understand what was actually written.

          • Rhee says:

            Dave, it’s not an OR condition, that’s definitely an AND condition with Bruce. Sadly there are way too many like him, and Joe from the prior comments; they are wedded and welded to their beliefs, like the cults which ensnared people into perverted eastern mysticism 3-4 decades ago. They dulled the senses of the victims and locked them into the beliefs, much like the UN through IPCC did.

        • Rico says:

          No, “climate change” has been in used for longer than global warming, actually. The two terms don’t mean the same thing, even remotely. Climate change is a regional phenomenon, as opposed to a global one.

      • Russell K. Hunt says:

        Run the surplus down the aquaducts and store it underground on the westside of the San Joaquin Valley. Don’t let it run off into the ocean more needed.

        • Ron miller says:

          Yes yes yes.

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            Well they have been working towards that end East of Tracy where your DDS practice is. But I am afraid they are not making much headway. I believe you were my dentist and if so your mother and I are good friends. I say this because of your obvious enthusiasm that is prevalent in that area of SJC. But on the off chance I don’t know you I do believe you are on the right track. At least for the short haul. But something greater will be needed in the not so distant future and I am afraid that CA just won’t be able to do it.

      • bill says:

        How do they think the Dinosaurs care to an end for it was climate change and the day will come in the world again and its not man made
        climate change for its normal for the earth changing is how the world works and im not even a scientist but i have common since

        • Joe says:

          Somehow, I believe that you are not a scientist! Call me psychic ..

          • Allright Joe, here is what the people you keep insulting are trying to tell you but you with your smarmy, elitist, the argument is settled attitude can’t or won’t try to grasp. The earth goes through extreme climate changes, as in ice ages and extreme draught.
            The Arctic was once a lush tropical forest. These change occur in relationship to the phases of the sun as it heats and cools. Man occupies less than 3% of earths surface. The sun directly effects 100% of earth’s surface. Are the ice sheets melting because the oceans are warming because the sun has been in a period of increased activity. Why yes they are. Does man have an impact on his environment. Yes he does. Has man had any impact on the earth’s increase temperatures. Yes he has but it is estimated that man’s influence is less than 3% of the overall rise in temperature since the 1930s. So you can pick any number you like from the “argument is settled” pseudo scientists temperature claims and mans impact is pretty insignificant. The return on the dollar for the solutions proposed by climate change politicians are ridiculously unfair. Especially in light of the fact that the sun is entering a significant cool down phase.

          • Wrong! says:

            The only nightmare is your illogical contorted thinking. Gee, think Climatologists might have looked at the sun’s energy as a potential cause of global warming? They have and if anything we should be in a cooling period. We’re not because of Co2 accumulation and it’s role as a greenhouse gas.

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            Make that psychotic and you have it correct.

          • Nate says:


            ‘Yes he has but it is estimated that mans influence is less than 3% of the overall rise in temperature since the 1930s.’

            Where is this made-up factoid from?

            ‘The earth goes through extreme climate changes, as in ice ages and extreme draught’

            Yes, and we werent here during most of those changes, and repeating them while we are here won’t go so well.

            Even when we were here: most recent ice age of 20k y ago, the changes occured very slowly, and our little hunter-gatherer tribes had time to move and adjust (well except the neandertals)

            Not so today, we have a lot more infrastructure and agricult. belts to move, and (perhaps) not a lot of time to adjust.

      • rschwarz says:

        In California we’ve known about the El Nino/La Nina Super-wet/super-dry cycle eery 3-7 years for decades. The fact everyone pretended to forget because they decided the drought was global warming says more about the religion of global warming than anything else.

        Welcome back El Nino.

      • Gene says:

        Not only that, the Southern Hemisphere is cooling at an unprecedented rate-two nights ago, it snowed on Mt. Roraima (tropical Brazil, a few degrees above the equator). this has NVER been recorded. The New Ice Age is upon us.

      • Koop in VA says:

        Good lord you don’t follow science do you?

        What were the 2 most notable predictions from the original IPCC? I wouldn’t expect you to know because it appears you view science through your political philosophy. So the predictions were higher temperatures and sea ice melt (particularly the Arctic). So what has happened in the intervening quarter century? Higher temps and lower sea ice.

        But because you apparently like to rely on right wing media, you don’t understand what has happened, do you? Don’t get me wrong, I still call myself “conservative” because I think the government messes up most things they deal with, but good Lord, the data is out there. Solar activity is extremely low and yet temps are up and sea ice is down. What do you think the cause of that is?

        Scientists can inform us here but instead you seem to rely on either you political beliefs or your religious beliefs. Neither are suitable for the current condition.

        • demetrious says:

          I thought the “original IPCC”, that is the original founder and organizer argued (in the late 70’s, early 80’s) that global cooling was occurring and that a new ice age was imminent. The founder was replaced and in the early 80’s “global warming” was touted.
          no truth to this?

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            I can’t put my finger on it but I do recall that back in September or so one of them said that they were wrong. It was just a brief clip in the news that most of the media didn’t cover. Wish I had saved the piece or I would gladly show it to you. Perhaps someone else reading this will remember it and post it.

          • David Appell says:

            demetrious says:
            “the founder was replaced and in the early 80s global warming was touted.
            no truth to this?”

            Yes – no truth to that.

        • Freeland_Dave says:


          You accuse others of not looking at the data but the problem is that the IPCC’s data is filled with errors. I have been trained to look at that type of data and it’s filled with speculation. So take your religious belief in man made climate change somewhere else because there is no data that indicates it other than what the IPCC and NOAA have ‘adjusted’.

          Factually, sea ice is thicker and larger today than it was a decade ago. Factually, global temperatures around the world are lower than they were a decade ago. What do YOU think is the cause of the IPCC and NOAA’s predictions? I can tell you, it’s MONEY. This entire ‘problem’ is all over money. Who gets it and who doesn’t, and along with money comes the power to control people. But if that’s what you want just articulate them in nightly prayers.

          Do you worship at the Man Made Global Climate Change Church (the MMGCC) founded by Al Gore their priest? So it’s your science is the God you worship?

          Yes, I am being insulting to you intentionally. Hey, you threw the first stone at someone else so it seems fair to toss you a couple. In other words if you don’t like me insulting you and acting like a bully, don’t do it to someone else.

        • Greg says:

          Since the rising temps and decreasing ice began a few hundred years ago at the end of the little ice age AGW is not needed to make such a prediction. The predictions are about a catastrophic change in climate, not about less ice. And those catastrophes include the greatest ever drought in CA, which it is not. None of the climate models have predicted current temperatures.

        • Hollywood Hick says:

          I’m going to go with data/temp manipulation.

        • Data? As if it never warmed before? As if the Arctic never was ice free before?

          Good Lord, look at the data beyond your microcosm.

        • Buck Turgidson says:

          Huge El Nino 2015-16. 2017 will be colder than 2016 as the El Nino abates. Yawn

      • Peggy says:

        It’s almost become a religion to some of them !!!

      • pugsan says:

        Look! Weather!

    • Joshua says:

      Declaring California to be in a perpetual drought isn’t about protecting water supplies. It’s about amassing power & control over the people of California. The undergirding principle of all Liberal policies is to shift the locus of power away from the people and to centralized government, placing it in the hands of the “elite.”

      • appleforaface says:

        Dear god, get help.

        • TexasDave says:

          Funny comment, since you libs don’t believe in God. All you believe in is control and fear.. and that is what California has become. Truly sad

          • David Appell says:

            I have some really good friends who live in California. They are all doing VERY well, and do not at all seem controlled or fearful.

            Maybe it’s just you who is fearful.

          • Scott Charters says:

            David Appell I have some sheep on my farm and they seem to be pretty happy with their lot in life. They are also doing VERY well and do not at all seem to be controlled or fearful. But the truth is me and my dogs actually do control every aspect of their life, they just don’t know it…happy little sheep munching on their grass.

          • HBsrfr says:

            Nice analogy SC. Soon California will be one big sheep farm. The earners are leaving for greener pasture(less regulated and taxed), leaving behind moonbats and gov’t dependents. Its sad, actually, what libs have done to this state.

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            Scott Charters in reference to David Appells comment,

            And do your sheep bleat in a panic when they go to the slaughter house? Most Californian residents don’t either; until its too late. Maybe David will join his friends in CA and we can figuratively kill two birds with one stone. Lived in CA for over 30 years and yes, most of the residents living there have the sheep mentality. Glad I moved and even though there are liberal problems where I live no place on earth has a problem with the liberal mentality than the not so great state of California. The scriptures are correct when they state, “Raise up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it?” In this case it’s liberals stupidly brainwashing their children in public school and they come out a good liberal sheep who only bleat when they are being fleeced by their state government.

          • Nate says:

            ‘All you believe in is control and fear’

            Pretty sure that god is in control and you should be fearful are among the most important themes in the bible.

          • Koop in VA says:

            Good lord. Is this parody? Most liberals actually do believe in God. Your comment shows your incredible ignorance. My suggestion is to understand that you can choose the media you consume. The second suggestion is to understand that most humans choose media that already conforms to their bias. The third suggestion is to understand that you are likely not a special snowflake and that you are subject to the same flaws as other humans.

            I doubt this will get through to you. You will likely consider me to be a raging liberal. But the truth is I’m 45 and for president I’ve almost exclusively voted for Republicans. The point being that I would encourage you, no matter how difficult, to read more widely. It’s merely my opinion but I do believe that the GOP has become dogmatic and reactionary and is a shell of it’s former self. And when it comes to scientific understanding “we” are woefully ignorant due to our biases.

          • Nate says:


            I agree with you, I think. I was trying to point out hypocracy in many comments concerned that liberals are all about controlling others.

          • Nate says:

            Whereas I believe that religious fundamentalists, of all stripes, are all about controlling others, and have the view that those that dont believe as they do are to be demonized.

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            Why is it that those who don’t believe in God often call out his name during the act of sex? I had some atheist neighbors once that called out the name of God more than the Catholic Church that was my neighbor on the other side. If I wanted to hear the name of God all I had to do was wait until the sun went down and I could hear it for hours every night. Worse than a warren of rabbits and almost as intelligent. The two adults had problems feeding their children but no problem adding more children to their family.

          • David Appell says:

            Scott Charters says:
            “I have some sheep on my farm and they seem to be pretty happy with their lot in life.”

            Who do you imagine is controlling your life?

        • V. Uil says:

          You don’t understand do you? Come on admit it. It is all too complicated for you. Too abstract.

          So you resort to pointless jibes. Especially pointless because you (being a good climate believing lefty) know – you really do – that there is no God.

          • Chavender says:

            One need not be a lefty to realize that the creator entity hallucination goes in the “primitive beliefs about the nature of reality” pile.

          • Hank Tarris says:

            Stephen Hawkin proved God exists, called by Physicists and Astronomers as The Causal Agent Outside Of SpaceTime, who for unknown reasons created our SpaceTime Universe

          • american says:

            You got nothing Chavender. Like the democrat/liberal/progressive/communist above whose comment is only an insult, “get help”. No facts. No logic. No common sense. Just personal attack. We should have a special tax upon just liberals, and all the money from that tax go toward ‘alleviating global warming’. Then you can do what you do best, empty meaningless virtue signaling.

          • Lewis says:

            Some say there is no God, while asking others to worship at the alter of the All Powerful Global Warming Devil.

          • David Appell says:


            – George Orwell

          • FTOP says:

            I would assign the term “carbon pollution” to the realm of universal deceit.

            6CO2 + 12H2O –> sunlight = C6H12O6 + 6O2 + 6H2O

            If anyone claims carbon dioxide, water, sugar or oxygen are pollutants they are demonstrating universal deceit.

        • OhDear says:

          You must have never been to California. I have been here all my life and this is not Reagan’s free California. It’s Brown’s totalitarian massively regulated lobbyist run California.

          • Apeon says:

            What we could have had nationally had Hilliary had won.

          • TL says:

            Careful, according to California Proposition 65, your post contains cancer-causing chemicals.

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            Well it wasn’t for their lack of trying to steal the election with voter fraud.

            ‘But that didn’t take place.’

            No, it took place but you didn’t hear about it because Hillary’s adoring media didn’t tell you about it.

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            Not to worry TL we’re talking CA. CA rarely enforces the laws that they pass. Law in CA is circumstantial depending on how liberal and/or criminal you are. It’s also attached to personal wealth for liberals, meaning the more personal wealth you have the less the laws that CA passes apply to you.

          • Koop in VA says:

            And how is the economy going? Even better than ignorant Texas despite the shale boom, right?

            And I’m curious to get your perspective. While I have always called myself “conservative” I haven’t agreed with the “taker’/ “giver” paradigm of modern conservatism. So, most liberal states provide more to the federal government than they receive. And many conservative states receive more in federal government spending than they receive. As a good conservative what do you think the remedy is for this? Continue with hypocrisy or act with honor in alignment with your political values?

            In my experience most conservatives simply don’t understand the reality of the situation. But if you understand that most Republican run states are “moocher” states, what do you think the remedy is?

          • Nate says:

            You may not be aware that Reagan, as governor, instited tougher gun control laws

        • profwatson says:

          “apple for a face”, your screen name indicates that you suffer from several psychosis’s.

        • Nanker Phelge says:

          I note that you use the word “god” in the lower case, true to your religion-free ideology. Joshua states the truth, but as a plebian, know-nothing liberal, you don’t even have a clue as to what is really taking place. You need to stick to things you know, like “food good, fire bad.”

        • Freeland_Dave says:

          Nice try to denigrate Republicans. Take a look at the last election at the county level and you can easily see where the problem is. The Democrat areas are the large cities where crime is high, poverty and welfare are at all time levels and yet you say the Democratic states provide more to the Fed than do the Republican states. Well if it wasn’t for liberal democrats sponging off of welfare and social assistance along with allowing nothing to be done about the growing illegal alien problem just perhaps no one would have to pay the Fed as much as it annually receives. But no, you just didn’t think about that alternative now did you? In truth you are worse than the Republicans you attempt to insult and your intellectual progressive liberal mind just won’t allow you to see it much less see that it would be a better way to run a nation. Your problem seems to be that you are enthralled with yourself in your own form of conceded self worship. Don’t feel bad, all Intellectually Progressive liberals believe that they are all smarter than the rest of humanity and are not afraid to tell you so.

          • Nate says:

            So you are saying 50% or more of the people in the US live in high crime, high poverty, high welfare areas….

            Hmmm, a little crtical thinking might be in order here.

      • Gary LaPook says:

        I’m from Illinois but moved to California 30 years ago. We have been through this before. I was complaining to a native Californian friend of mine when we were coming out of a drought years ago that the drought was over but the government wouldn’t admit it. My friend said it was simple. “They will be drought bureaucrats until they can find positions as flood bureaucrats.”


        • Apeon says:

          I moved back to Washington St. in 1969, came through Southern Cal., just north of LA, the ‘new’ I-5 interstate was covered with MUD from the rainstorms. 47 years ago.

        • Sir Rants-A-Lot says:

          “They will be drought bureaucrats until they can find positions as flood bureaucrats.” That is one of the funniest and most spot-on accurate things I’ve read in a long time! Pardon me while I give you and your friend a big round of applause. I moved to California from Missouri about the same time you did….

      • Nate says:

        When is government not ‘centralized’ enough for you? I thought conservatives wanted to return power to the states. That doesnt seem to work for you?

        Are only going to be happy when govt is completely gone?

        You’d prefer a Mad Max style world?

        Look, when there actually is a water shortage, as there has been for several years, what would you have governmment do? Let it be a free-for all? Or have some sensible water management?

        • Frank says:

          Mad Max. Actually that would work for me. I am a decent driver, good with a gun and understand small unit infantry tactics. I would do quite well there. I know where I would go on my first resource raid.

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            Nate’s house? That’s where I would head because according to him he has all of the answers.

        • Frank says:

          Please do not use the term “liberal” when referring to a leftist. They have subverted a word whose root is freedom. Please do not complement a fascist, totalitarian leftist by referring to them as liberal… They are not, they are leftists, dedicated to destroying freedom wherever they find it.

          • Ib Snooker says:

            This is correct. I’ve lately been referring to them as illiberal. Also pro(re)gressive.

          • Koop in VA says:

            Are you so secluded that you don’t talk to left of center people anymore except on the internet?

            Just to clue you in there is actually a debate amongst Democrats whether the Bernie wing or the Hillary wing is the preferred path. Neither believes in fascism but it is pretty clear that the right wing is currently enamored with fascism. Of course, many right wingers don’t fully understand what fascism is. So they mindlessly wish for more corporate control of the government and they wrap it in a cloth of anti-governmentalism or “freedom” and yet they don’t understand how it operates.

          • TrumpDumpers says:

            So much hatred from the Right, it’s amazing. You’d think nothing would make them happier than marching people into a camp. This while welcoming in their Russian overlords.

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            Interesting slant Koop. You Democrats debate whether Bernie or Hillary is the way to go. I find it funny in that neither got elected. You call Trump supporting Republicans Fascist. I can see that you don’t even understand the meaning of the word which I also find humorous.

            As near as I have been able to determine that Republican Trump supporters support the Constitution and our rule of law. I honestly can’t say the same thing about anything Democrat.

            Admittedly there are Republicans that are actually thinking like Democrats but fortunately they are in the minority.

            Bet your all butt hurt that Hillary couldn’t steal the election and Trump got in because if the Electoral Vote. Guess what bunkie, that’s the rule of law under the Constitution that it seems many liberals are eager to trash.

            And last time I saw it is disenfranchised Democrats that are displaying elements of fascism where the majority of Republicans still believe in our Constitution and respect the rule of law. How many protestors out there do you think are Republican? Now answer the same question for the liberal and violent Democrats.

            No it’s very clear that you do not understand what fascism really is so to avoid looking stupid I suggest you completely refrain from using the word when describing anyone.

        • Bodhisattva says:

          Well let me point out that California has been talking voters in to bond issue after bond issue for the express purpose of making sure we don’t have a water crisis – and yet we had a water crisis. Where did all that money from the bond issues go? More important, where did all the water go? Flushed into the ocean, to protect the “delta smelt”, that’s where. Oh, and wasted to water liberals lawns in liberal enclaves all over the state. They did a series of news reports on that part of it.

          • BethT says:

            And don’t forget – Nestle “buying” millions of gallons of water for pennies per year.

          • F says:

            Wait until spring, when California starts to assess the results of all this flooding and finds out that the delta smelt have all been washed into the ocean where they were eaten by protected whales!

          • Mariposacountrygal says:

            Ah, yes, the precious delta smelt, of which there were about SIX at the last count…
            Native Californian here…I stay for the weather. My county is still rural, conservative, clean and relatively untouched….far from the libprog cities. Shhhh….don’t tell them we’re here!
            Problem is the densely packed, relatively wealthy cities that contain the voting base. They are the voice of CA that have people hating the state.
            Almost the entire eastern half of the state is predominantly conservative. But we do not have the numbers.
            I propose that we do split the state…East and West. Please.

        • Litl Tex says:

          What most forget is that a great portion of California, especially the central and southern parts, is a desert with no natural water source. Most of the operational water is piped or channeled in from out of state.

        • Patrick says:

          I agree with Frank – myself and my compatriots will do just fine, as Frank mentioned we are well armed, of the same mind, physically fit and trained in small infantry tactics. It would be a relief to resolve our political differences through force of arms – either way it’s a win-win. We “deplorables” either up end deprived of our freedom and our lives or you leftist, progressive maternal fornicators suffer that fate.
          Seems like a reasonable solution to me – I say bring it

        • Ib Snooker says:

          “Sensible water management” would be nice, wouldn’t it? That’s the problem right there. Aside from mismanagement during a drought, failing to acknowledge the end of a drought presents it’s own problems, which is kind of the point of this story.

          • John Marshall says:

            We used to have sensible water management before agenda 21 and the re-wilding project started removing dams all over this country. The UN and Geo engineering must be stopped if this planet and humans are to survive. I was born and raised in the bay area but left that cesspool when I saw the communistic writing on the
            wall. The communist have all but taken over that state and have made it impossible to survive there unless you have an unending amount of money. They are making California into an elitist playground for only those who could afford it. California doesn’t need to leave the union…they need to kick all the communist to the curb and bring logic back into existence. Global warming, climate change are all facets of communist rule and taxation.

      • David says:

        The state of California went to extreme measures last year. The state had more than the average rainfall but the state quietly discharged most of the needed water into San Francisco Bay so the shortage hoax could be continued.

        • Freeland_Dave says:

          I recall back in 1976 we had a lot of flooding in CA and they dumped all of that water into the ocean rather than keep it in storage in the reservoirs. They levied an increase in the cost of water to get people to stop using water. Then they increased the price again because they said they didn’t bring in enough revenue. When they dumped the water into the ocean, mistakenly believing that the snow pack melt would replace it. What they didn’t take into consideration was the flood of 76 was basically warm where it didn’t add to the snow pack. Later they increased the price of water again to stave off the shortage. Funny, when they have too much water they dump it and charge you for it and when they store it and ration it out to you then you get to pay more for it again. But the biggest problem with CA management is that they steal it from the other states, which is one reason why the Colorado River no longer flows to the Gulf of California any longer. It’s all dried up. Californian mismanagement of their water has caused the destruction of lakes and habitat for hundreds of species of migratory birds. All for money where many of the CA residents are very happy to drain their naturally available water into the ocean and steal it from the states on the west coast and immediately to the east of CA. Movement of water across state lines, other than natural watersheds, should be forbidden in the US by law. But the liberals won’t let that happen. Not a chance. After all, they are intellectual and progressive so they must be smarter than the rest of us. At least that’s what they believe as they describe themselves to the rest of the world.

          • John Marshall says:

            They have regulated and raised the price of water on the consumer who is responsible for maybe 20% of all water usage when it is the unregulated corporations like Nestles and big Agra who use 80% of all water yet their prices are insanely cheap for instance Nestles pays 560 dollars for 50 million gallons of water.

            What Commiefornia needs to do is put the price burden on the corporations which have destroyed California and left the consumer with ridiculous rules to live by, with fines for watering your lawn and if your lawn is green then someone will be monitoring your usage so they can clamp down on the lowly user while big agra wastes it’s water to run off into drainage ditches.

            I would like to see California fire all the lobbyist and politicians who have made my home-state unlivable, unsustainable under a mountain of regulation that is designed to bring California to it’s knees and scrub that governmental hard drive and put in a new operating system under the constitution as it was originally designed to be. There is absolutely NOTHING LIBERAL about California, it is a bastion of totalitarianism.

      • Michael says:

        Joshua, you have it exactly ! Please remember that though water was available to deliver to the Central Valley, the Republican backbone of California, Gov Brown and the Demorats switched off the flow and let it flood San Francisco Bay instead, using the smelt as the excuse through an unappealed Obama EPA decision. Destroying California’s greatest economy, agriculture, meant nothing to them.

        • Bodhisattva says:

          This is all based on the time the Democrats got caught with an open mike when they thought they had privacy and they talked about the need to not only prolong but worsen any crisis available so they could be seen as “necessary” to fix it but above all they must not fix it, then there would be no reason for people to vote for them any more.

          • David Appell says:

            And how did the Democrats control rainfall over California?

          • michael hart says:

            By waiting for the rest of the country to elect a republican president?

            Their bigger problem is an unwillingness to properly manage the abundant water sources available. A new head of the EPA might help them, once they show the will. I suspect, though, that they will wait until the next, worse, drought before they take the leap.

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            Ok, they didn’t control the rainfall. But when you have a state that has flooding every 7 to 11 years, go look at CA flooding history and you will see the pattern, in the wet years you say you don’t sell enough water to pay the bills and dump the water, instead of storing it, in the ocean. You justify it with protecting Delta Smelt or an alleged snow pack that is going to melt and cause flooding. Then, because you didn’t store any water in reserve and the snow pack let you down because you misjudged now much water was up there, you start a ration process where you increase water rates to discourage water use. Then, you start the whole cycle again because people cut their usage back, revenues went down and had to be made up with a hike in the water rates. But if you live in an affluent, (or is that effluent?), area like Black Hawk or down in So Cal where the roadways look like well manicured golf courses filled with flowing fountains for the esthetic look, wasting all that water isn’t really a problem for them. Liberal insanity is the biggest problem CA faces today. The proof is their electing Jerry Brown to be their governor. Guess the Hollywood Movie, Forrest Gump, really nailed it with the comment, “Stupid is as stupid does.” That sums up California five words.

          • Nate says:

            ‘Democrats control rainfall’.

            No I wouldnt go that far. But they are mostly pedofiles. And they eat republican children.

          • David Appell says:

            Freeland_Dave says:

            Where is that information?

      • Silverado says:

        That’s exactly the same way and thing they did regarding ObamaCare. They (the govt) hijacked about 15% to 20% of the country’s GDP with that left wing stunt that didn’t have one thing to do with better healthcare as much as it’s all about control. Anyway, good point…

        • David Appell says:

          You’ve never been very good with numbers, have you?

          • MICHAEL TORST says:

            Hysterical BS – How about every-buttburnt idiot get back to Solar emissions for a few years, and demand India and China stop punking the atmosphere.

          • PeteS. says:

            Please tell us what percentage of carbon, humans contribute to the total carbon in the atmosphere. And try not to lie. You don’t get to decide what is “natural” or “normal”. Just the facts, please.

            The truth is, that our contribution is statistically insignificant. Liars, also sometimes known as Climate Change Alarmists or David Appell, will try to claim that they know what is natural and normal vs the evil man-made stuff. They will pretend to know how much the oceans absorb and release, same for plants and the atmosphere in general. Every model they produce has been proven wrong by actual measurements. A good scientist will modify the model to reflect the real data, but these guys will always modify, or make up, or throw out the data to fit their model. Their aim is to convince everyone that mankind is bad for the earth and the sky is falling.

            If you just look at the data, and throw out all of the made up data and all of the convoluted arguments, it is very obvious that climate change is normal, man is not and never has had any long-term affect on climate change, and all of this scare-tactic nonsense is about control and taxes.

            But then, David Appell never was very good at math, numbers, or science. Just take a look at his very non-scientific blog nonsense, with all the pretty graphs, which parrots all of the data manipulation perpetrated by Hanson. He is clearly a brain-washed fraud.

          • David Appell says:

            PeteS. says:
            “Please tell us what percentage of carbon, humans contribute to the total carbon in the atmosphere.”

            125 ppmv. +45% above the pre-industrial era.

          • David Appell says:

            PeteS. says:
            “Every model they produce has been proven wrong by actual measurements”

            What is your proof of this?

          • David Appell says:

            PeteS wrote:
            “…it is very obvious that climate change is normal”

            So what natural factor(s) is(are) causing modern warming?

            What science supports that(those) factor(s)?

          • David Appell says:

            PeteS wrote:
            “He is clearly a brain-washed fraud.”

            Resorting to personal insults displays diffidence, fear and a lack of knowledge.

            Those who are sure of what they write have no need to insult others.

      • Ross Brisbane says:

        Joshua, Please get some help. Your mental altered state is showing.

        • Freeland_Dave says:

          Yes, Joshua really do need some help. Their altered mental state is now showing because of all the irrational and insane liberals like you who live in CA. What they need is help against people like yourself.

      • Auntie Vyris says:

        Joshua please don’t reveal our secrets or we must develop new plans to conquer the human domain.

      • Mike says:

        Josh is 100% correct. I am a native Californian and I love my state, but our government is now run by former moonbeams and elders who have turned into fascists in their old age.

      • David Unvert says:


      • Johnny G says:

        The people of California don’t need an excuse to be controlled they have given up their freedom long ago. Their voting patterns and political views are a sure sign of being government servants. Given the fact that they have willingly turned their State over to people from Mexico, homeless and drug addicts I would think they really don’t deserve to live free. The power oriented elites run these people’s lives as if they were children. Even their showers are timed by the government. Their mindless commitment to “climate disruption” is a classic lemming reaction to “authority.”

        Maybe Mexico would be willing to take this State back and Trump could build a wall to keep them out of the USA. After all many of them wanted to move to Canada or some other WHITE nation if Trump won.

      • Sherry Gee says:

        What gets to me, as a Californian, is that the environmentalists could not care less about what is happening to the environment! It IS all about power. Meanwhile, homeless are crapping, peeing, and throwing their garbage all over the place and into our streams and parks, pot growers are stealing water and setting up untold thousands of pot plants and ruining large swaths of our forests. But hey, that is fine.

        There are very REAL environmental issues that have fallen by the wayside as resources are funneled toward Global Warming, er, Climate Change. I’m 61 and I don’t see anything different about the weather since I was a kid. However, I can see a huge difference when it comes to pollutants in our country. Our politicians are having trillions of gallons of water diverted to the ocean every year, including the years we were in drought, to save the Delta Smelt.

      • JoeV says:

        Well said Joshua and dead on correct!!

      • F. Ketcfuh says:

        Absolutely correct. Population control is the holy grail of progressivism. And control of the masses is needed first..

      • Diane says:

        Exactly correct Joshua. As a long suffering clear eyed Californian watching the deliberate and disastrous drought and what it has done to our crops, our tress and plant life and the precious native animals and birds, it is so painful to watch something which man has cruelly imposed on his fellow man.

      • Joe says:

        So it’s all an illuminati plot .. I guess the cat is out of the bag, eh?

      • Ed Rochford says:

        That is the Marxist/Communist/Nazi manifesto. Control of the masses through any means possible, including Obummer care.
        It is simple renamed today as democrats, libs, progressives.

      • DILLIGAF says:

        Californians should look on the bright side. In just a few short decades they’ll have Nancy Pelosi’s husband’s multi billion dollar, really fast choo-choo which they can use to escape drought and global warming.

      • steve says:

        Southern California is in perpetual drought because it is a desert. If you allowed the ecosystem to return to its natural state it would become a desert. Cities only exist in souther california because politicians robbed politically weaker states of all the water californians could grab. Their attempt to divert the columbia river was the last place they fell short. Read Cadillac Desert.

    • D. D. Freund says:

      There never was a drought in CA. There was, and is, a lack of water storage facilities. The enviros and warmists force the continuous release of millions of gallons of water into the ocean, year-around, in order to ‘save’ extinct species. Simultaneously they block construction of any new storage facilities to supply with growing human population in the state. In a one-party state, their wishes are law.

      • Dan Simmons says:

        Very good point, Levin discussed this at length last year or perhaps 2015.
        Liberalism is an unfortunate tumor foisted appon liberty. Sad but so.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        d.d.freund…”There never was a drought in CA. There was, and is, a lack of water storage facilities”.

        And you have all those swimming pools to fill. Those are the water storage facilities.

      • Dr. Jeff says:

        And the one-party Kalifornian legislature will force a high-speed train FROM no where TO no where! While they make felons out of lawful gun owners.
        Insanity rules.

      • OhDear says:

        Ding ding ding. We have a Winner! CA. has torn down many dams and reservoirs in the last two decades for the delta smelt and snail darter. Both of which are invasive species introduced to the area from elsewhere. Only in my beloved CA.

      • Dan English says:

        This is a huge fact that is always ignored by pretty much everyone. California’s population has increased while they have been no significant increases in any storage or reservoir needs at all.

        It should take a rocket scientist to understand that when they are millions of people added to an established infrastructure that has never been increased you’re going to see an equal amount of resources used up that were never intended. Why is our state so dumb?

        • David Appell says:

          More water is only one option. Conservation is another, and it’s what’s kept California in business.

          • Valdito says:

            Conservation? Yes that is a rational point.

            But when you can’t sell a house unless it has flow restrictors on all showers and faucets and “water efficient toilets” the regulatory environment has gone to far.

            Most days I read the news, a lot of news, and have a banana and a cup of coffee. That triggers a need to take my morning c**p. Then I have to flush my water efficient toilet 2 times for it to get rid of the waste.

            My water efficient toilet actually forces me to use more water.

            Luckily, my diet includes meat. If I was a vegetarian I would produce more waste and would have to flush the toilet 3 or 4 times.

        • David Unvert says:

          Not really a problem. Only 20 percent of the water is for citizen use. 80 percent to Agriculture. And the lefty Government has fucked up HOW water is stored and used. Oh, and don’t build a prison. Just let them out to solve overcrowding

        • DILLIGAF says:

          Because it has somehow, over the years, become THE enclave for liberal thought and ideas.

      • Hank Tarris says:

        Not true at all. This is the end of a cyclical 500 year drought. There is a shorter 100 year cycle as well. The above brown/green picture is also proof it was a real drought, and has ended.

        Every 500 years, best policy is muddle through it.

        • Apeon says:

          Actually California MUDdles through it after it is over.

        • Johnny G says:

          How come the government does not know this? They insisted that this was a forever drought. Was your information a secret or just an inconvenience? Their plans to tax the population to deal with the major drought will now have to be revised to a water storage building spree tax. Everything the liberal Dems. do and say is related to taxation and accumulating POWER and social control.

      • Bodhisattva says:

        Yes, all true, but if you live in CA you know that, every major election, the state talks about how we need more water storage and convinces the voters to pass these HUGE bond issues… but somehow the water storage never gets built.

        • steve says:

          Thank goodness California politicians are building bullet trains instead of water storage or ways to divert and store the water currently flooding to the sea.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        But D.D. they do have enough storage facilities in CA. The problem is they don’t know how to manage them coupled with the tremendous amount of water that Southern CA and the SF Bay Area waste. They wouldn’t have a growing human population problem in CA is they didn’t focus themselves on gaining Democrat voters who have come across our southern border illegally. After all, according to the current president, Obama, you can vote even if you are illegal.

        • Izzi says:

          Freeland_Dave but you can’t be Cuban and a refugee from the tyrannical Castro rule cause Obama will send you packing. Sarcastic remark to follow lol. See? Obama is down to deport illegal aliens! He has put the cherry on top of his douche bag legacy in the last few weeks as the “Worst POTUS Ever” for the people but the hailed “GOAT Puppet” of the globalist elite banksters.

    • The drought is blamed on man-made climate change.
      The rain and flooding is blamed on man-made climate change.
      The over abundance of snow and avalanches are blamed on
      man-made climate change. And the warm sunny days are
      blamed on man-made climate change. The climate alarmists
      have blamed almost everything in the world on man-made
      climate change. Hey, maybe Donald Trump won the election
      because of man-made climate change.

    • Jack says:

      The smart thing would have been to build more reservoirs during the drought in anticipation of this type of rainy season. Instead Gov. Moonbeam wants a high speed train that is already over budget before its initial leg is finished.

      He will likely continue to release water into the Sacramento river in order to save the Delta Smelt, a useless bait fish while at the same time denying water to the central valley farmers that produce most of the US and worlds food.

      At some point I suspect that registered republicans will be denied water.

      • DEB says:

        I’ve never understood why leftists go out of their way to deny their god’s (Darwin’s) survival of the fittest.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        No, the smart thing would have been to manage the water you have and stop wasting it. The other smart thing would be to manage the flood of illegals into CA that exacerbates the water problem solely for the purpose of stuffing the ballot box with Democrat votes.

      • Johnny G says:

        At some point the people of California might wake the F up and do what the rest of the nation is doing. Vote these human toxic waste politicians out of office. Better yet physically throw them out of their a/c offices and let them deal with the crime and homeless drug addicted citizens they so love.

        Really what does it take for the fantasy state to have a reality check. Multi-millionairs live in and around L.A. crying about how the rich are ruining the country. They travel in private planes and hired limos yet whine about global warming. When reality hits them full on maybe they will survive but probably NOT. Useless consumers and eaters with empty heads and plastic faces.

        I wonder if these creatures know how despised and hated they are by millions of Americans. Donald Trump was not appointed buy elected with over 62,000,000 votes with every media, politician, celebrity and news anchor blasting him 24/7. As Bob Dylan said “The winds they are a changing.”

      • steve says:

        You used the words smart and Governor Brown in the same line of thought. That’s an oxymoron.


      The “drought” will NEVER be over. The so called water shortage hasn’t been caused by any natural condition,(been going on all of my 67 years lifetime) but by the massive (millions) increase in ILLEGAL immigration to SOCAL.

      • Apeon says:

        Maybe we should shift LA County to Mexico!

        • Dan Cronin says:

          …and all USA water be kept in AZ.

        • Freeland_Dave says:

          That’s what they want. And when they get it they will want more. When you pull up a Dandelion you don’t kill it unless you get the root. The root problem with CA is allowing illegal immigration to continue. Other than votes, why do Californians allow this to happen? It’s easy to answer. So that they can continue to abuse those people. Don’t believe it? When you hear of an bust of illegal immigrants what else is involved? Their employers. Right up to those who Californians elect to govern their state. Kind of hard to stop that type of a problem when it’s the proverbial fox that is guarding the hen house. And how many liberal Hollywood stars and starlets have illegals working for them under the table and illegally. Allowing illegal immigration to continue is tantamount to embracing slavery for a belief that the slave is incapable of managing his or her own life. It’s a money scam. Typical liberal logic, say one thing, do the opposite.

    • Hank Tarris says:


      Every 500 years, best policy is muddle through it.

    • Valdito says:

      Steve – minor correction.
      As of this morning the California Department of Water Resources website showed that CA reservoirs are at 115% of average for this date. They are 237.3% above last years level. They are just under 70% of capacity. When the massive snow melt begins in April and May there will be flooding because we only have about 8.4 million acre feet of capacity left.

      The largest reservoir in the state, Lake Shasta holds 4.5 million acre feet of water, 17% of CA reservoir capacity. The CA reservoir system was built to serve a population of 20 million. CA’s population is now approaching 40 million.

      Today an article in the LA Times reported that the first portion of California’s bullet train to nowhere will cost maybe $10 billion instead of $6.4 billion. That’s $3.6 billion over budget.

      For $3.6 billion (or at the very least less than $10 billion) we could build 3 or 4 new dams to create reservoirs the size of Shasta. That would increase our water storage by 50-60%. And by doing so we could allow farmers to grow their crops and the allow the Delta Smelt to swim around happily in the CA Deltas until the are eaten by increasing numbers of Salmon swimming upriver because we would have enough water storage capacity to allow more water to run downstream even in periods of draught.

      But no, in CA the philosophy is screw the farmers by restricting their access to water. They are capitalists and in their never ending desire to increase productivity have lowered the cost of food and made us all fat. But a bullet train to Bakersfield? Well, that will make us feel good about doing something to address climate change. So that’s what we are going to do.

      My head aches. I’m going to have a glass of water, but to save water I’ll dilute it 50% with some Bourbon. They have plenty of water in Kentucky so I will be doing the planet a big favor.

      • Apeon says:

        Remember how the communists starved the Ukrainian farmers to death, by taking all the crops, and shifting to commune farming——just wait and watch====farming will be declared to be so important that it MUST be brought under Federal Management.

      • Apeon says:

        “Remember how the communists starved the Ukrainian farmers to death, by taking all the crops, and shifting to commune farming——just wait and watch–farming will be declared to be so important that it MUST be brought under Federal Management”

        Had to put this in quotes so it would not be deleted due to repeating—do not remember putting this on this site before.

        • Apeon says:

          That worked

        • David Appell says:

          You people are seriously paranoid.

          • Valdito says:


            Who said this: Were going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.

            That cost Hillary the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia.

            If she thought it was acceptable to say that about coal, what do you think she didn’t say about other things that she thought were less controversial?

            David Appell, if you haven’t figured it out by now, I am going full Alinsky on you.


            It’s a bitch when your formerly silent opponents get smart and start using your tactics against you.

      • Frank says:

        I cannot wait to see the disappointing ridership numbers when this boondoggle is finished.

      • Bodhisattva says:

        Yeah, but the moonbat Democrats don’t like dams. In fact they hate them and want to get rid of them. All of them. They don’t hate them quite as much as they hate fossil fuels, but almost. Dams are evil and have to go. They drown ecosystems and cause change! Change is BAD! That’s their mantra – resist we much, because change is bad!

        • Valdito says:

          That’s true. Dams do drown ecosystems and cause change.

          If you want to have water all the time and at any time, store enough for the worst case scenario.

          “But, but, but….that will destroy natural habitat by covering it with water.”

          Tell that to the deer, elk, bears, cougars, and birds who will appreciate having access to more water. If you want your open areas to be full of wildlife, build some dams. And go ahead and eat some Delta Smelt which will become more plentiful. The Native Americans loved to harvest and eat smelt.

          And have fun fishing or waterskiing behind a powerboat that is powered by evil fossil fuels.

          And get rid of those idiotic flow restrictors on your shower. Take longer, more satisfying showers. Replace your toilet with a toilet that can flush all of your politically correct crap down the drain with one flush instead of 2 or 3.

          Or don’t build dams and kill all beavers. Beavers build dams and cause change. They are a menace. They may be just as bad as simple minded conservative thinkers who have a modicum of common sense.

          • David Appell says:

            “If you want your open areas to be full of wildlife, build some dams.”

            Because wildlife just LOVE coming down to a water source with motorboats zipping around and frat boys on jet skies.

          • Valdito says:

            David – that shows how people who didn’t grow up in rural areas don’t understand the concept of conservation and wildlife. Given your answer, I am assuming that the only experience you have with rural life is stopping in a gas station on your way through. If I am wrong, tell me.

            Deer and elk prefer watersheds and lakes because the moisture provides richer grass to eat. Bear go to lakes to catch fish. They do this at sunset when the frat boys have opened another beer and are sitting on the porch. They also catch fish at sunrise when the Frat Boys are sleeping and about to wake up with hangovers. Mountain lions and other predators show up at the same time because, guess what, there is prey.

            Farmers and ranchers for the most part are ardently conservational oriented. If you misuse the land and the resources that your crops and herds depend on, your income will drop over time. So, by and large (and there are exceptions), you don’t do anything to harm the habitat that allows you to make a living and support your family. You do what you can to preserve and improve it.

            I’ll bet that when your Prius or Tesla has a flat tire, you call AAA. When one of my vehicles has a flat (including a diesel), I fix it myself.

            Have you wondered who builds those barbed wire fences that so nicely separate highways from pastures to prevent cars from smashing into cows, sheep, deer and elk. I know. I built 20 miles of barbed wire fence by hand on a roadway in New Mexico between my freshman and sophomore years at Stanford.

            Take a couple of days some time and sit on the shore of a reservoir. Observe the patterns of wildlife, regardless of the Frat Boys on waterskis. What you will eventually determine is that wildlife are very adaptable. They know the best time to approach food sources. They know how to sense predators. Sometimes the predators are better prepared. It’s called the natural order.

            But when the population of a state doubles and you haven’t done a damn thing to prepare, people will suffer. They will continue to suffer or move to a more hospitable habitat. That is also the natural order.

          • steve says:

            Frat boys? David we now see the source of your affliction. Your feelings of inadequacy would be better served by therapy rather than posting your projections on a climate blog.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        Perhaps the population of CA wouldn’t be 40 million if CA would actively do something about the illegal alien problem it has. It would also do better if they had conservatives managing the water instead of liberals. When you go to the high populated areas of CA you can see the problem with the waste of water there.

        But you are correct about capitalists with their never ending desire to increase productivity and lower the costs of food, which doesn’t really happen. Productivity goes up, food costs remain about the same, costs go down and profit goes up. Most of those agricultural ‘capitalists’ you are speaking of are solid Democrats who espouse a liberal attitude when it comes to the illegal alien? Why? Because they are ripe to pick and take advantage of with low pay and benefits as the Democrat ‘capitalist’ keeps them in line with threads they and their families will be immediately deported if they say anything about it. The central valley of CA is filled with those types of farmers. Just another form of slavery and you and I are paying through the nose because of it. Who gets rich? Why it’s those wealthy Democrat ‘capitalistic’ farmers.

        Now I know that Democrats like to go against the ‘capitalist’ and claim they are all conservative Republicans who are at root of the problem. But after living in the Central Valley of CA for over 35 years those ‘capitalists’ are Democrat Farmers out to grub up a dime at the expense of someone else solely for garnering that dime to themselves. They preach a PC liberal speak but in actual practice it’s pure greedy capitalism.

        Use to drive the roads just south of Tracy CA where the pickers were harvesting the fields. I’d roll down the window and yell “Emegrea, Emegra and then watch three quarters of the picking workforce book it across the field away from me in their attempts to not be arrested by immigration. It’s against the law to knowingly employ an illegal immigrant. So these farmers just refuse to ‘know’.

        • Valdito says:

          Agree with most of your points, but without doing research, I think the cost of most food staples has dropped on an inflation adjusted basis.

          Now for the democrat capitalist you described, the larger and more corporate the farm, the more they have to gain by gaming the system. So of course they are democrats or at least in bed with democrats. That allows them to game the system.

          Illegal immigrants cost California over $25 billion in 2014 according to one report I read recently. They paid $3.5 billion in taxes. You could say that the difference of $21.5 billion was a form of subsidy to the farms, restaurants, and other businesses that employ them.

          If we protected our borders like most nations do, maybe our food costs would rise. But then Highway 99 might not look like a dump anymore.

          And before anyone jumps on me for being racist, I am of Hispanic background. But I am an American first.

          Immigration is what made this country great. But it was controlled immigration. We need immigrants, but need to control the inflow.

      • You shouldn’t be on this page. You make to much sense.

    • Carla says:

      All I can keep saying is, “Hallelujah!!” This is nothing short of marvelous, so thankful for this amazing gift of rain. Complainers……. hush!!!! this will be the most beautiful spring and summer ever, hope is being renewed, pressing on to thriving instead of mere surviving………

      • Bodhisattva says:

        I hate to be Danny Downer, but years with good rain often turn out to be bad fire years – which the lunatic liberals will say is proof of AGW, if this turns out to be one.

        • Valdito says:

          Have you ever visited an area that was devastated by fire 2 or 3 years earlier? They look like English gardens. All of the detritus was burned away. There aren’t a bunch of dead trees and bushes. The shade thrown by dead trees is long gone. More sunshine, greener grass.

          But you have to be careful because the wildlife is more plentiful and healthier. A cougar (mountain lion) doesn’t care if he or she eats a dear or a human.

          So take your choice, go on that long hike and climb over dead and fallen trees and push your way through scrub bushes that in your way. Or hike through glorious nature knowing that you are prey to something out there that you won’t worried about before the fire.

          • Valdito says:








            Update: David, the link doesn’t work. I’d actually like to see the picture you are referring to. My sister works for the US Forest Service. Of the 28,00 employees, about 11,000 are full time fire fighters. We have many discussions about this topic. Their is (and this is before Trump) a recognition that previous fire suppression efforts were more harmful than helpful.

            I think we will see less aggressive fire fighting in the future to allow nature to take its course. More frequent, but less destructive fires will be the result. That will force people to make more rational decisions on where to build homes. Much like flooding on the Mississippi. Don’t build your home on a flood plain. The government is not going to bail you out multiple times over the years.

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            It’s obvious you don’t know anything about forest management. For one you can’t seem to spell words correctly. Note, it’s deer, not dear that cougars eat, and that doesn’t happen as much as you might think especially when those animals are not suffering the encroachment of man.

            You should also be aware that detritus is the incorrect word to be used as fire is not the organic decomposition by organisms you apparently think that fire is. It’s also not the result of natural erosion particularly when most fires in CA have their root cause with man. Debris is the correct word and if you want to hike in a park then perhaps you should o hike them instead of a pristine forest you apparently don’t really care about. After all, it’s all about your ability to walk freely in a park like atmosphere isn’t it?

            I normally don’t word smith comments like yours but you present yourself as a knowing authority yet can’t express yourself by using the correct words in your comments. In other words, I recognize you for the liberal fraud that you obviously are.

            Your last sentence is really the kicker. “Or hike through glorious nature knowing that you are prey to something out there that you wont worried about before the fire.”

            Alas, you’re not totally at fault. No, you are just the product of a failed brainwashing program commonly known as public school.

            Shouldn’t your word “won’t”, the contraction of will not, be weren’t, the contraction of were not? Perhaps you are not as smart as you obviously think that you are.

          • Valdito says:

            When I type on a blog I don’t fool myself by thinking that I am writing a dissertation. I think it is a form of conversation. So I have typos and sometimes use the wrong word. But trust me I know what a deer is. I’ve shot enough of them and make venison jerky to keep me stocked year round.

            And if you have bothered to read any of the other comments that I have made you would realize that I am about 180 degrees on the other side of liberal.

            My point about fire suppression is that we have been too aggressive. Forests and prairies need to burn once in a while. Fire is what gets the forest closer to its natural state. And that is not pristine.

            Cougars don’t eat deer that often? Really? Take a look at this.

            This happened just outside of San Francisco. I see deer grazing on I-280 all the time. And where there are deer…..

            By the way detritus is”a product of disintegration, destruction, or wearing away.” Like dead and falling trees. Debris is more often used to describe rubble or the remnants of man made structures or products.

            And I didn’t go to public school. And using a conjunction to start a sentence is allowable as long as it does not become repetitive. See what I did there. Google “irony”or “sarcasm.”

            But thanks for your heartfelt response, dear.

    • KayFlyte says:

      Any crackhead liberal that uses the term, “unending” when discussing the weather needs to have their sanity questioned and their head examined.

      • Bob DeMan says:

        Sorry. Using the term “unending” when discussing the weather is an unnecessary qualification for liberals to have their sanity questioned and heads examined. They are after all liberals.

    • John says:

      aquifers take years to replenish, the farmers have been pumping like crazy to water almonds here in the central valley for the last 7 years, all drought years, aquifer levels have dropped over a 100 feet in the last 10 years, this rain water is running to the sea, wont be much soaking down to the aquifers, farmers should be saving as much of this water as possible, because come summer, they will be pumping out the ground once again. the snow pack has a lot to do with the aquifers recharging, but it has to soak in, and not be washed away with rain.

      • Valdito says:

        John – that is waaaaay too common sensical for the average Californian to understand.

        Check your privilege.

        One head of lettuce or head of broccoli requires about 4 gallons of water before they are harvested. One single almond requires over 1 gallon of water

        So screw the farmers and save the Delta Smelt. And starve or pay a lot more for food staples that come from Mexico, Argentina, Chile, or China. Or don’t starve and eat the Delta Smelt.

        But maybe consider an alternative. Store more water and make it available to farmers so they don’t have to drill deeper for water. Let the aquifers recharge over time with the snow melt.

        Time and a bit of common sense solves many problems.

    • David Appell says:

      “Overall, less than 60% of California remains in drought for the first time since early 2013, according to the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor. A year ago, drought covered 97% of the state.”

      • Valdito says:

        David – in the last 24 hours Folsom Dam has released almost 8% of its water. That’s more than 25 BILLION gallons of water. Why did they do that? Because even after the release of the water Folsom is over 60% of capacity. Look at a map of California. Where is the snow melt from the Sierras going to go. A great bit of it will flow into the rivers and tributaries that fill Folsom. Unless the California Department of Water Resources brings the level of Folsom down fast we will have a major flooding problem in April and May when the snow melt gets underway.

        I have an idea…..Let’s build a couple of dams that can store that water. The increasing number of deer and elk can frolic on the shores until the increasing number of bears and mountain lions show up and eat them.

        And the Frat Boys sitting on the porch will have some great pictures to sell to Nature Magazine or Natural Geographic. Or maybe the National Geographic Channel will introduce a new series like “Life Below Zero” that they film with drones and documents families that live in Alaska.

        Maybe they can name the show “More Water, More Wildlife, More Crops….Who Knew.”

        • Dennis says:

          “Sierra” means “mountain range”. There is only one Sierra. The term “Sierra’s” implies there are multiple mountain ranges in CA. which of course isn’t true. Don’t be embarrassed, weather forecasters and news anchors get it wrong all the time – in more ways than one.

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            Hate to burst your little bubble here but, contrary to your statement, the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range is not the only Mountain Range in CA and not the only range that Californians get their water from. In other word, there are in fact multiple mountain ranges in CA. I suggest you look at a geographic map of CA because you are certainly not going to believe me unless you verify it for yourself.

            But I will say that you are in the same company as those weather forecasters and news anchors that you are making sport of with your comment.

            Here’s one for you. Is the San Andreas fault the only fault in CA?

          • Valdito says:

            Dennis – Please….I know the difference between Sierra and Sierras. I grew up in the Sierras of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in New Mexico. My family immigrated to New Mexico in 1598. Along with other things, good and bad, my people, the Spanish brought the term Sierras with them.

            The other part of my heritage, the Jicarilla Apaches had other words to describe the mountains at the edge of the Llano Estacado. If you don’t don’t know what that term means, Google it. but if I described the mountains of New Mexico and California in Native American languages you wouldn’t have a clue about what I was referring to. Not to mention the fact that the many tribes have different terms to describe mountain ranges.

            This site, this blog, is about science, ideas, concepts, and theories.

            This site is not about grammar, word selection, or etymology.

            And by the way i used the term Sierras. That is a plural. Mountains is a plural term. You used the term Sierra’s. That is a possessive. That was incorrect. Now I could use another tactic commonly used by a couple of posters on this board to accuse you of being ignorant, badly educated, and poorly informed.

            But this is a conversation. We speak fast, we type fast, we make mistakes. I don’t give a sh*t. It’s the conversation, the exchange of opinions and ideas, the introduction to other ways of thinking, the identification of sources of data and knowledge that draws me to read the commentary.

            When the word and grammar police take ownership of this site, I am out.

      • Eric Fulkerson says:

        You seriously quoted USA Today when making a statistical reference? A propaganda rag should not serve as a source for data when discussing anything even remotely science related. Last season’s rainfall in NorCal was significantly above average as was the snow pack. Our reservoirs would have enjoyed significant benefit if most of the water was not allowed to empty into the ocean. Meanwhile, our local water district is increasing rates due to lost revenue as a result of decreased water use (yes, this was provided as the explanation for increased rates). What do you think will happen the next time we are asked to conserve water, particularly considering that fines for excessive use were based on pre-drought water use patterns?

    • Larry Lawless says:

      Don’t worry control freak democrats, Jerry Brown will not allow Farmers to have water, he will empty the reservoirs into the ocean and in no time we will be out of water, it is all about continuing a crisis that does not exist, it is all about CONTROL OF THE POPULACE through fake science and fake news gladly dished up by the phony Medias

      • David Appell says:

        California’s farmers get lots of water, and have for decades, courtesy of American taxpayers.

        • Eric Fulkerson says:

          Taxpayers? I suppose farmers don’t pay any tax, or feed the taxpayers who “provide” their access to water. Don’t forget that the official amount of water provided to agriculture purposes INCLUDES the water discharged to the ocean for environmental purposes (i.e. saving the smelt). Therefore, the agriculture use quantity is very misleading, and intentionally so I would say.

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            Compared to the rest of the residents of CA, farmers didn’t pay enough tax. Who built and paid for the levies in the San Joaquin Delta? Who got the cheap land that was made expensive so that they could reap millions of dollars as a result? All Californians paid for those levies as well as many at the Federal level. Who pays for the maintenance of those levies and who screams the loudest when they rupture for lack of maintenance? Hint, it isn’t the farmer. And who makes millions when they are tired of farming and sell off those properties to residential developers who rape the general public again? And when the farmers still in business complain, do they complain about their friends who were farmers and sold them out for profit? I witnessed that activity for over 35 years in the central Californian agricultural area. Now you might get the idea that I am not too impressed by many CA farmers as I observed their activities over that time, and you would be right.

            It’s significant to understand that before the Army Corps of Engineers build the levies and canals that spread across CA’s Central Valley, the entire Central Valley mainly was a high desert where the only worth wild vegetation grew in a half mile swath on the rivers of the Central Valley. Dry dirt farming doesn’t yield much. But a little water, paid for by someone else, creates a good yield and even more important to many of the farmers in the Central Valley, huge profits. That comes at a price and today all citizens of CA are paying through the nose for it. Their answer? Steal or buy it from joining states.

            No, it’s not possible to manage the water you have and grow crops accordingly. Let’s just continue to waste it along with whining and begging others to bail you out of a problem you have created for yourself.

          • David Appell says:

            Eric, CA farmers have come nowhere close to paying for the water infrastructure that greatly benefits them.

            Socialists all. Won’t admit it, but socialists all the same.

    • James Madison says:

      The drought will never be over in California. There is too much money and control involved to have it end.

    • C Jarmusch says:

      When Marxism died and no body cried
      Some of us faced it with dread.
      “Wealth doesn’t transfer all on its own”
      We global elitists all said.

      So a new plan was hatched to steal the cash
      From those who produce in the west.
      Tax the hell out of carbon and call it a bargain
      And tell them it’s all for the best.

      And we won’t tolerate any hint of debate
      And defund everyone who denies.
      Climate Change is the name of this lucrative game
      And redistribution the prize.

    • H says:

      What is the scientific evidence on each side of this question?

      Ramius10 on Twitter

    • C Jarmusch says:

      When Marxism died and no body cried
      Some of us faced it with dread.
      Wealth doesnt transfer all on its own
      We global elitists all said.

      So a new plan was hatched to steal the cash
      From those who produce in the west.
      Tax the hell out of carbon and call it a bargain
      And tell them its all for the best.

      We wont tolerate any hint of debate
      And we’ll shame anyone who denies.
      Climate Change is the name of this lucrative game
      And redistribution the prize.

    • Steve Oregon says:

      It looks like the reservoirs are quite a bit more than 113% of normal.

      And the snow/water eq. is 163% of normal. 197% in the southern sierras.

    • Mike says:

      Read and article recently that highlighted the fact that CA had not built a new reservoir since the 1980s. Seems like they should be building more to keep up with population.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        Perhaps they should do something about limiting their population growth. A good place to start might be to deport all illegal immigrants and stop the flood of immigrants across our southern boarder. Another would be to roll back welfare to be more equal to the rest of the US. One reason they come to CA is because CA pays out more in the way of welfare and social services than any other state. I have even picked up travelers who are citizens of the US who are going to CA because they pay more out in Welfare benefits than the other states. This causes an immigration of people to CA simply for free money. If CA paid the same in welfare as the rest of the states those people wouldn’t want to go there and the population would be much lower. The answer to the water problem isn’t building more reservoirs, it’s proper management of the water they have along with controlling immigration into the state which causes a growth in the population needing water. As long as it has tried California has failed in both of these areas which is precisely why they have a problem in those areas.

        • Valdito says:

          Freeland Dave.

          For one you cant seem to spell words correctly. Note, its border, not boarder. Border is a territorial distinction. Boarder is some one who lives and eats in a an abode that he or she does not own. Your either can’t spell or don’t have a great deal of expertise in using the English language.

          I normally dont word smith comments like yours but you present yourself as a knowing authority yet cant express yourself by using the correct words in your comments. You must have gone to public schools. Perhaps you are not as smart as you obviously think that you are.

          I’m just fu*king with you. Perhaps by now you have read some my other posts and recognize that you and I agree on most issues.

          Have a grate day.

          See what I did there. I purposely spelled a word wrong just to insult you.

          Are we good now?

    • RLM says:

      These people are idealogues and the new fascists. They will continue to evolve their nomenclature for whatever they are attempting to force upon the rest of us.
      These are the same people who have successfully cowed the cowardly politicians in this state to block now major new reservoir since the 1970’s.
      The drought is one thing the water shortage is quite another.
      The drought is God made.
      The water shortage is man made.
      The crazy Governor we have in this state has made matters much worse than they need to be.

    • CapeBuffalo says:

      We Californians are happy to see the reservoirs all full, or close to full but the real problem in California lies with a governor and legislature that is more concerned with lining their pockets and catering to special,interests ( read. Silicon Valley, illegal immigrants, big city constituents, high speed trains to nowhere, and eco-cultists.
      The real water need in California is storage. The politicians continually ignore the obvious fact that when you fill the state with hordes of immigrants they need water too.
      The answer is new reservoirs but they get kicked down the road, not enough kickback to the pols!

    • TheOldMan says:

      I would not say that the drought is over until the underground aquifers are refreshed. It will take more than a few storms to do that. Remember that many farms use wells and these need refreshing. Perhaps 5-6 years of good whackings like we have had might do it. I prefer it to be a bit more spread out over a couple of weeks but it’s better than what we have had over the last decade. We expect another good one Weds-Thurs and then some time to dry out.

    • Power corrupts, absolute power, absolutely corrupts. “And the wheels continue to turn, as the days go drifting by, may the messages we have heard, truly teach us how to fly.” So how will the history of our time be recorded? Will they mock us, will they make hero’s of us, will they learn from our mistakes? Either way, we have a great responsibility to stand with what is really true and REAL truth is simple, easy to comprehend, and it sets us free from tyrants, even weather dictators.Sempre Avanti

    • Rhys Jaggar says:

      I think you are being a little unfair here.

      Firstly, what is the right time of year to evaluate the state of the drought. I would contend it is the end of the rainfall year, I.e. End of September. The great variable is winter precipitation as snow or rain, the great constant is the long hot dry Californian (especially Southern Californian) summer.

      So in my view the time you can be confident thst drought is over is when you have healthy water levels at the end of the dry season.

      Secondly, reservoirs are the minor actor in water supplies. Aquifers and water tables are the bigger one and no-one has yet discussed the state of those. They replenish slower nowadays as the traditional floods which recharged them are now much less due to dams, levees etc. The Indians were mobile for a reason in California, they knew that periodic flooding was natures way to retain deep level moisture across vast swathes of the Central Valley. The clever white man thought housebuilding more important than that……

      Thirdly, there is still plenty of time for the snowpack to melt prematurely due to winter warmth and heavy rain. That will not be good, because such water will be lost due to the need to stop reservoirs overflowing. The slow spring melt keeps the system in balance as currently configured. Bsnkers call it a risk of untimely asset depreciation. I call it counting your water chickens too soon…..

      The other thing Californians need to ask is what a healthy water level is at the end of a high rainfall winter. IT should not be average, it should be much higher. You saw what happened with six years without rain. You need to stock up on water in the good times to ride out the next drought…..

    • james says:

      so literal decades of global warming doesn’t count as global warming?

      i like how you guys say we’re ignoring evidence while you literally ignore all the evidence cause you looked out your window lol

  2. David Gray says:

    I’m hoping Lake Mead will fill up

    • H.B. Schmidt says:

      It won’t fill up, but it ought to get a good influx based on current snowpack in the upper Colorado River basin. And yet, the Bureau of Reclamation is forecasting that for the water year between April and July of ’17, discharge will be below normal (91% of normal):

      Yet it wasn’t but a few months ago that the best computer models were predicting a drier than normal winter across California and the Southwest region because of weak La Nia conditions. Really? So the BEST models fail spectacularly in the span of 90 days, yet we’re to truth them to predict anything in 10, 30, 50 or 100 years’ duration?

      • Ray says:

        What? Are you a climate change denier? (tongue firmly in cheer.

        • Freeland_Dave says:

          No, there is no denying that the climate doesn’t change. It does on a second by second basis as observed by the non-scientist.

          What I deny is man made climate change on a global level.

          Most certainly you can see man made climate change to the negative when you look at the inner cities versus the surrounding urban countryside. Now that is man made climate change.

          But man made global climate change isn’t occurring at the global level but rather in small areas that have had their climates radially change because of paving, covering the earth in those areas with asphalt and buildings and then overpopulating the area to a degree where the land that population sits on cannot accommodate them.

      • Dan Simmons says:

        Unabomber was a nutcase, Ted Kaczynski, but he was also a genius when it came to understanding high-tech issues with man. Interesting Manifesto he wrote prior to his arrest. Technology will eventually lead man astray.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        H.B. They have the same problem predicting weather and why the myth of man made global climate change is failing.

      • RLM says:

        They cannot accurately predict the weather ahead for a month much less a year or more.

  3. Exactly.

    And anyone looking at the global temperature data can see AGW does not exist as the global temperatures have declined significantly since this summer.

    If AGW were real the global temperatures right now would be around +.6c above normal not +.2 c or so of late and the warming would not be concentrated in the high latitudes.

    The only time global temperature have any significant rise is when an El Nino takes place and this time is no different.

    Those that support AGW as real are full of BS.

    • Russell K Terry says:

      2004 a powerful earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, 227,898 people were killed or listed as missing and presumed dead.

      It also caused the Earth tilt by an extra 2.5 centimetres. The earth quake sped up Earth’s rotation, accelerated the Earth’s rotation, geophysicists have declared. They estimate that the shockwave shortened the period of our planet’s rotation by some three microseconds.

      The Great Sendai Earthquake or Great Tōhoku Earthquake, severe natural disaster that occurred in northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011 may have shortened Earth Days and moved it’s Axis. Now the Earth rotates a bit faster. This caused a shortening of the length of the day by about 1.8 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second). Calculations also show the Japan quake should have shifted the position of Earth’s figure axis (the axis about which Earth’s mass is balanced) by about 17 centimeters (6.5 inches), towards 133 degrees east longitude. Earth’s figure axis should not be confused with its north-south axis; they are offset by about 10 meters (about 33 feet).

      Could this be the cause of all the crazy weather?

      • David says:

        No. Also please note that the possessive article “its” does not contain an apostrophe.

      • Scott Bentley says:

        What – using you brain for something besides hair fertilizer ? Don’t forget Chili in 2010- when the entire west coast of South America, the entire city of Concepcion and the Falkland Island moved 3.04 meters (about 10 ft) to the West. Don’t you wonder why that did to the “El Nino” program ?

      • Dan Simmons says:

        Hi Russell,
        Im, new to this debate and certainly a jv when it comes to climate change issues. But reading your artical you seem to have an objective mind so this is my question; Because the Earth’s core is iron and iron is a conductor, why don’t we hear more about the influence it has with climate ? Thanks….

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        Russell k terry “The earth quake sped up Earths rotation, accelerated the Earths rotation, geophysicists have declared”.

        That’s interesting. How does a force within a rotating body speed it up?

        The geophysicists need to study some engineering.

        • Dbmwalker says:

          It takes stored energy, from the tension built up in crustal plate movement, and turns it into a different type of stored energy, ( centripetal ) energy. The amount of energy in the body doesn’t change but where the energy is stored can change. Much like how when a ice skater in a spin can pull their arms in and speed up their spin rotation. I would mention that an earthquake can also slow the earth’s rotation just as throwing a skaters arms out further will slow their rotation. Just depends on where all that mass of earth moves to, closer to earths center or further away.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            dbmwalker…”It takes stored energy, from the tension built up in crustal plate movement, and turns it into a different type of stored energy, ( centripetal ) energy”.

            To accelerate the Earth on it’s axis a force would have to be applied tangentially in the direction of rotation. A centripetal force, which is applied inwardly perpendicular to the direction of rotation, would have no effect.

            An ice skater is accelerating herself continually with muscular force translated to moments of angular momentum. The Earth has no such mechanism, it rotates due to it’s angular momentum. You cannot increase angular momentum from within the body.

            I would think she pulls in her arms to reduce air resistance.

            Since momentum = mass x velocity, basically, due to conservation of angular momentum, the mass or velocity would have to change. How do you do that from within the body?

        • alphagruis says:

          The geophysicists need to study some engineering.

          Real world engineers as geophysicists know what angular momentum conservation means.

          • Mark says:

            Try pulling your arms in while spinning on the ice or on a chair that rotates. RPMs but angular momentum is conserved, because there is a contraction. That can happen with a planet, to make a very slight change in time for one rotation. Whether that’s the case here, I don’t know. But angular momentum can be conserved when despite increase in spin rate.

          • Mark says:

            That should be “RPM increases.”

          • David Appell says:

            Angular momentum = I*omega — the product of an object’s moment of inertia and its rate of spin.

            If some mass shifts on an object, its I changes. So its rate of spin must change, in the opposite way, to compensate.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            DA…”If some mass shifts on an object, its I changes. So its rate of spin must change, in the opposite way, to compensate”.

            You’re talking about a huge sphere whose mass is constant. The oceans move about all the time, representing huge displacements in mass, and that has little or no effect on the Earth’s angular momentum.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            alphagruis…”Real world engineers as geophysicists know what angular momentum conservation means”.

            They also know that acceleration requires a force. Increasing angular momentum requires an external force in the direction of motion. Internal forces won’t do it.

        • Bodhisattva says:

          Changing the shape of the geoid can cause it to speed up or slow down – consider an ice skater who either extends or pulls in their arms while spinning.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            Bodhi…”Changing the shape of the geoid can cause it to speed up or slow down”

            So get the skater to stand still and move her arms in and out, will that cause her to spin? She spins because she is translating energy from leg muscles into angular momentum by contorting her body.

            Try it yourself by winding up and spinning half a revolution on a floor.

            If you could do it on a platform that revolved with no friction, and air resistance was not a factor, you could get it to turn at a constant angular momentum by converting muscle power to rotational energy till the desired angular momentum was reached.

            Once constant angular momentum is reached, no amount of changing body parameters will cause angular acceleration without a force being applied.

      • Jack Roberts says:

        If the days are getting shorter, Tell me why they add “LEAP SECONDS” once or twice a year?

        • Ron allen says:

          WTG Jack. We added time as recently as 12/31/16 because of the slowing of the earth’s rotation. More importantly, how is any of this related to California’s classic “throw money (taxes) to band-aid a problem” rather than plan ahead, or how global warming (or global climate change or global climate disruption)is natural as opposed to man-made?

      • Fokker says:

        Interesting point, but likely purely academic. Over the course of eons, earthquakes and other sizable geologic events likely average over the globe. This likely has a cancelling effect on any single event over long periods. Only if multiple events occurred on a particularly quadrant of the planet would a significant shift in tilt or rate of spin occur. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but to suggest otherwise would mean that our Earth’s axis or period would have changed significantly over the last couple thousand years of recorded human history, no?

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        Now did you personally see and vet all of this information for yourself or did you simply take the word of someone else about it?

        How do you know someone just didn’t write a report to provide that information because they were paid to do it or expected to get paid more for producing it?

        I for one don’t believe our weather is “crazy.” The climate is what it is. It changes and has had radical changes for as long as the climate has existed. Could it be that what we are seeing in our climate is normal?

        Since the overall climate today has been much warmer and colder throughout the history of the Earth, who is to say it’s crazy?

    • David Appell says:

      Dont you realize that, the warming that has now ended, that took place last century was one of the weakess warming periods the earth has undergone ,lets take a time period ,of the last 20,000 years.

      – Salvatore del Prete, April 7, 2011

    • David Appell says:

      Salvatore Del Prete says:

      Salvatore, where did you get the idea that temperatures increase monotonically with atmo CO2?

    • Ross Brisbane says:

      Salvatore, Excuse, excuses. You keep this ice coming mantra going. So Spencer stokes the stir pot. Excuse me fellas, but it winter in your neck of woods. We is Aussie land (specific to QLD) have been experiencing RECORD heatwaves for just about week now. 40 to 45 degrees Celsius in some parts. In case you blabber lazy brained did not realise this.

  4. James says:

    I will bet that the people of California will forget the drought and forget to plan for the next one. Water Conservatiion. What’s that?

    • Now I'm Confused says:

      Well since the givamint of the People’s Republik of Kalifornia is mandating conservation, this is unlikely.

    • Moonbeam says:

      I would rather spend billions on a part-time high speed rail to nowhere than invest in water storage.



    • Russell K Terry says:

      I existed in California for 64 years, Watched rainwater runoff into the Pacific Ocean every year. Did the California government build more reservoirs? NOPE. Did they develop more Water Conservation projects NOPE…. They haven’t learned anything.

      • David Appell says:

        California has some of the most extensive terraengineering in the world. Water is rerouted all over the place. But most of that money was spent making the socialistic farmers happy and rich, and not the general populace.

        • Fokker says:

          There you go, blaming farmers again. Don’t you like your CA produce? It’s the best in the world. Trust me, I’ve consumed food from many different places and nothing compares. While there are some rich mega farmers out there, many if not most are working stiffs like the rest of us and continually getting stiffed by the Kalifornia state government. What do you propose, greatly increasing the cost of water for produce? Who do you think will pick of the tab? Hint: not the farmers.

          • David Appell says:

            What I don’t like is ignoring the vast government subsidies CA farmers have gotten in these many decades, directly and by federally funded water infrastructure, courtesy of US taxpayers.

            And people like you who are unable to simply say, “thank you.”

          • David Appell says:

            Fokker says:
            “What do you propose, greatly increasing the cost of water for produce?”

            Simply that produce be sold for the free market cost, not the govt subsidized cost.

        • Valdito says:

          Socialistic farmers. Seriously.

          Small farmers and ranchers live hand to mouth. Corporate farmers, you have a point and actually for once, I agree with you.

          Why are the Iowa caucuses the firm primary of the campaign to become president of the US. Two words: Earl Butz.

          Butz was the Secretary of Agriculture under Nixon and his philosophy can be summarized by this quote “Get Big or Go Home.” He was responsible for the introduction of a a massive expansion of corn and soybean production in the US fostered by policies and price supports.

          He was responsible the concept of corn as a national economic tool. So basically everything we buy today is loaded with high fructose corn syrup. He held his title from 1971-76. Look at films of crowds of Americans produced before 1970 and today. Because of his policies the entire county has essentially become obese.

          When that gravy train hit the limit, what did aspirational presidential candidates do? They had to perform well in Iowa so they came up with the idea of “let’s make ethanol out of corn and force consumers to buy gasoline blended with Ethanol.

          So now Iowa is the first hurdle of the race for President. Forget about the cost of associated health consequences or the destruction of the Louisiana Delta from the bloom of fertilizer that flows off the field of Iowa, in to the Mississippi, and eventually to the Delta.

          Who benefitted? The corporate farmers of Iowa, the large grain trading companies like Archer Midland Daniels. Who got hurt. Every one of us.

          Drain the Swamp.

          • Valdito says:

            Typed too fast. A few typos and grammar errors.

            But the simple point that I am trying to make is to quote Ronald Reagan.

            Or William F. Buckley. ”

        • LysolMotorola says:

          Not to mention the delta smelt. Just because California built pipes means nothing because it just moves the water around. Perhaps they might want to spend the High Speed Rail money on storage facilities.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        True. But they did come up with more ways to waste water now didn’t they?

    • marque2 says:

      Some parts of CA already planned. San Diego county never had a water shortage due to efforts to secure more supplies and build reservoirs starting some 20 years ago, and due to blanket forced water conservation forced by Gov Brown, we had a surplus of water. Couldn’t get water deliveries stopped for various reasons, so the county put the deliveries in newly built reservoirs which filled last year when they were be filled in 2020.

  5. Kman says:

    Global warming became climate change but it’s all been a tax scam for govt coffers from the beginning.

    • It’s a religion for the dumbfounded

    • David Appell says:

      Republican pollster Frank Luntz suggested Republicans use the term climate change. From his memo “Words that Work:”


      “Frank Luntz “Straight Talk”: The Environment: A Cleaner, Safer, Healthier America” – memo to Bush Administration on communicating environmental issues, 2002

    • David Appell says:

      Scientists and the media often used the term “climate change” way back in the day:

      “Can Carbon Dioxide Influence Climate?” G. S. Callendar, Weather 4:310 (1949).

      “How Industry May Change Climate,” New York Times, May 24, 1953.

      “Warmer Climate on the Earth May Be Due to More Carbon Dioxide in the Air,” New York Times, Science in Review, Oct 28, 1956.

      “Carbon Dioxide and the Climate,” G. N. Plass, American Scientist, vol 44 pp 302-316 (1956).

      Many more examples here:

      • Fokker says:

        While all of this is true, there is no mistake that the media in particular have shifted from GW to “climate change” since the pesky temperature data won’t fit the damn curve. You do realize that not one of Al Gore’s predictions have come to fruition, right? The reality is, climate change has occurred since the beginning of time, and will continue to do so regardless of human endeavors. What remains in question is the anthropogenic component, which many of us think is greatly exaggerated for the purposes of crony capitalism and wealth redistribution.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        What is interesting in three of the four examples you have been provided, in the order of appearance is.

        1. Can
        2. May
        3. May

        In your last example please note all of the information is contained in 14 pages. Not much can be covered in 14 pages for such a serious topic of discussion.

        Carefully note the words the climate change alarmists use when making their statements. Can, May, Could, Might are all words that are disclaimers, meaning it has not been proven. In other words they present their theories as fact and then base other facts on those theories. That’s not science it’s pseudo-science posing as real science. Thanks though for showing that this problem has existed in our scientific communities and promoted by our media and our government since the 1950’s.

        • David Appell says:

          How are climate modelers supposed to foretell the future?

          Population growth?
          Fossil fuel usage?
          Renewable energy usage?
          ICE cars vs electric cars — how many?
          Economic recessions & depressions?
          Aerosol emissions (air pollution)?
          Volcanic explosions?
          Changes to solar output?

          Let us know. Say, out to the year 2100. Annually.

  6. Michael T says:

    “California Drought Ends; Gore, Brown, Climate Change Nazis Hardest Hit”.

  7. Brad says:

    Somewhere I heard that it takes 3 years of 100% or better to officially end a drought. Any truth to that?

    • George says:

      What does official designation have to do with reality? A drought is over when rain and snow has fallen within historical norms. Of course the state government will promote an alternate concept that suits its purposes as long as it can get away with it. Government likes using the term drought (a cause) when it is really talking about water deficit (an effect) because it helps them fool the people into thinking there is nothing they can do to address California’s chronic water shortage other than conserve.

      • Nate says:

        I think people of the 1930s Dust Bowl would disagree with you. They had a couple of normal years in between all the dry ones.

        • Ron allen says:

          Nate: The severity of the Dust Bowl (1933-1937) was from more than drought. First, agriculture prices dropped catastrophically both before and because of the Great Depression. The typical reaction was to increase production to make up for lack of revenue per unit. Much of this production came from cultivating more arid areas further west than before. Second, farmers changed farming from soil-friendly crops to soil-destructive crops like wheat. Third, deep water irrigation did not commence in the Great Plains until the 1940’s, even though much of the plains sits on top of the Ogallala aquifer.

          • Nate says:

            Yeah. In other words a human-made ecological disaster..

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            And an economical one as well.

          • Valdito says:

            Ron to add to the points you have made. The government sponsored competitions that were focused on how finely a crop field was plowed. Finer and less clumpy dirt was believed to be the best way to prepare soil for planting. So if you could plow your field to have the consistency of talcum powder you won a prize or some sort of reward.

            But the plains were windy. When the drought of the 1930s hit, it was a perfect storm. No moisture, finely plowed fields, and wind. Hence the Dust Bowl.

            Before that territory was settled, it was teeming with Bison that ate grass, compacted the soil, and crapped all over the land. It was self sustaining. There were periods of drought and floods, but basically the grassland and the soil was kept intact by mother nature and large bovines.

            The dust bowl was the consequence of 3 factors.
            1 – A major drought.
            2- The loss of millions of Bison who helped manage the environment naturally.
            3 – Misguided agricultural practices.

        • Freeland_Dave says:

          Perhaps it was a series of drougths with intersperced periods of rainer years and not just one long drought that you were taught about in public school. Had they had the abilit to irrigate their farms the outcome of that time period of the US history COULD have been much different.

    • Mef Fisher says:

      Brad, here in the mountains of California, it may take a year or longer down in “the valley” to recharge our aquifers depending of course on the recharge rate which is a function of among other things, the depth of the aquifer,distance from the source and the composition of the surrounding geologic features. It’s not instantaneous but takes time to percolate down. Rainfall is important for its immediate result(days) and snow pack is important for its long term effect(months)

  8. Now I'm Confused says:

    Governor Moonbeam said the government needed to confiscate more taxpayer money to solve the drought crisis?

    Never let a good crisis go to waste, is the progressive mantra.

  9. Peace Gal says:

    The end goal of the Climate change scam is depopulation and is the legislative road map to one world government headquartered in Jerusalem.

  10. Brian says:

    And this is precisely what is happening. It’s obvious to anyone with an IQ over 50 that the drought is over. I can also tell you there will be another one at some point in the future. Cyclical weather patterns are not a new phenomenon

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      If there is no rainfall next rain season for CA will the current drought be over and a new drought created? Or will it just be one long drought? Yes, there will be another in the future and cyclical weather isn’t new. But considering the great drought in the 30’s, the one that created the dust bowl, is this one in CA really over? If you examine the great drought you will find some areas where normal rainfall occurred during that one drought. I don’t now how that is possible but that’s the way history records it. What starts and what ends a drought? It seems to be conditional with influence of pseudo-science, politics, earth worship and political correctness.

  11. TG says:

    California has always been arid with rainfall that is wildly erratic. That’s why, before dams and irrigation systems were developed, the population was so low. But now the elites have jammed 40 million people into the state, and we are getting to the point you can’t store enough water in the aquifers and reservoirs during the wet years to tide you over the dry years.

    But it cannot be mentioned that boosting the population has a downside, so they always blame the weather. Same rainfall and double the number of people? It’s the weather’s fault for not also doubling rain!

    It must be noted that there are two definitions of drought. Meteorological (rainfall less than expected) and hydrological (rainfall less than human water consumption). It is hydrological drought that is increasingly reported in the press. So if rain were 10% greater over a certain period of time, and population 100% greater, that by this definition would be a drought. Except that it has nothing to do with the weather.

    • marque2 says:

      It is estimated 70% of CA rainwater gets dumped into the sea. Areas that planned like San Diego never experienced a water shortage. Most of the trouble we have now is from eco groups trying to block every water project ever proposed. San Diego is a bit lucky because the nuts are in NorCal so they tend to block only NorCal and statewide projects. Our aquipher lining and reservoir expansions slipped under their radar.

      Point is, it is still a man made issue and not a people issue. Should also note, all the people in CA use about 15% of the water, about 60% goes to farming and the rest to industry. Making us all not flush the toilets had zero effect on conserving water.

      • Terry says:

        “Making us all not flush the toilets had zero effect on conserving water.”

        So THAT’s what I smell when I visit CA. Or is it the people?

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        And while it’s a good idea and has a marginal positive effect, driving your car with properly aired tires doesn’t do that much to increase your fuel economy. But that was the solution offered to the US by president Obama wasn’t it? Question. What really controls the price we pay for fuel at the pump?
        It’s not a renewable resource. Nice try but two post grads from Washington State U are making millions by producing crude oil from algae in about an hour in Oregon. Scrap that idea it’s not renewable.
        We have a CO2 problem causing problems with our atmosphere and we need to increase the price of fuel so that people use less of it. Well the CO2 levels through out history are lest than they are at present and it doesn’t seem to effect global climate all that much. Scrap the idea of the greenhouse gasses
        If we increase the price and tell them that we are doing it to protect them they will make us wealthy. Now that makes sense.
        I am often amused by the well our government and businesses sell us on things that have no real basis in scientific fact.
        Higher prices at the pump also equate to higher tax revenues garnered by the government. What could possibly bring in more revenue so quickly? It takes years to pass a tax measure to increase taxes. But the government can do it instantly by raising the price of fuel at the pump. Pretty cool. And the producer/provider? They just pass on those losses to the end line consumer like you and I. Now who do you think wields the most power when dealing with the government? It’s not you or I but the big business fuel suppliers.

    • William Craig says:

      I’ve read the general area where LA is located is ecologically fit for fifty thousand persons.

    • David Appell says:

      TG says:
      “But now the elites have jammed 40 million people into the state…”

      Are the elites paying moving costs?

      If so, do you know how I can get in on that?

  12. dwstick says:

    Famous Statements Made Throughout Human History:

    Global Warming is REAL. The science is settled.
    Phrenology is REAL. The science is settled.
    Drapetomania is REAL. The science is settled.
    Phlogiston is REAL. The science is settled.
    The Ptolemaic Model is REAL. The science is settled.
    Alchemy is REAL. The science is settled.

      • Fokker says:

        wow, you just love crappy sources. Those who claim climate science is settled are disingenuous, delusional, deceitful and just flat out wrong. This field has become so politicized that anyone seeking funding must march to the beating drum of AGW dogma. The 97% consensus number tossed about is highly misleading as it relates to whether climate scientists agreed that CO2 was a greenhouse gas, not in the belief that AGW is real. Honestly, this field smacks more of a religious cult than an area of science. Nothing in science is truly settled, particularly an area so heavily predicated on the results of computer modelling, which is inherently error prone being concocted by humans.

    • Bodhisattva says:

      Poor David Appell, he’s reading the wrong memos.

      He missed these and only reads the propaganda ones:


      SOURCE: (page 2, bottom, is where it starts)


      • David Appell says:

        15 years is too short a time to draw conclusions about climate change.


        • Bob DeMan says:

          And never is too long a time for your climate models to be right! Period!

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            As an engineer I simply love how they use statics leading back to 1800 to prove their statements of rises in temperatures of .08 and .14 degrees of change (OK the reference was ‘since 1951 when we didn’t and still do not have the technology to repeatedly measure temperatures to that degree of accuracy all over the face of the earth all at the same time. Our climate is continuously changing and what occurs on one part of the planet is different than what is occurring at another location. To make that claim have any meaning, with respect to climate change, one would have to be able to repeatedly measure every square centimeter of the planet all at the same time to an accuracy of .001 degrees. We don’t have that number of devices either in the lab or with satellites that can produce these types of numbers. In other words, what you are seeing from our climate scientists is speculative based on the computer models they used along with the ‘adjusted’ date like the data NOAA has been caught adjusting. When you have a population that doesn’t really understand how real science is conducted it’s pretty easy to dry lab your data so that it will fit the computer simulations to get the information that you desire to publish. It’s all done with a term I call, Magic with Numbers. Magic with Numbers isn’t scientifically proven fact. But the government really doesn’t want you to know that and the real scientists are sequestered from saying anything to the contrary for fear of loosing their jobs.

          • Nate says:


            Average US birth-rate per woman was 2.07 in 2008 and 1.88 in 2012.

            Pretty sure we can’t measure .07 of a baby. But averaging gives us those numbers, and they are meaninful.

          • Freeland_Dave says:

            The inaccuracies with averaging something that can’t really be fully measured the way it’s currently done means that your .07 number is rather an insignificant number and can’t be depended on for accuracy when making a conclusive statement that is to be taken as factual incontrovertible evidence that there is or is not a global climate change problem. In engineering circles that is considered to be noise and is rejected.

            My pardon, you are conversing with someone who has taken those measurements and produced results from those measurements. When you honestly do that, you through out the noise of the data you are presenting simply for the fact that it’s not repeatable. There are many things that can attribute to an error in the data you gather. One is that you have to make highly accurate measurements that are repeatable. That way you are assured that the data you receive is more or less correct.

            That’s particularly why the claims of a .08 to a .18 degree change in the Earth’s temperature over a ten year period of time can’t possibly be legitimatized. For one, we do not currently have the technology that can make repeatable measurements to that degree of accuracy and two, even if we did to make it all accurate you would have to measure, again repeatedly, every square centimeter of the earth’s surface all at the same moment in time. That’s an impossibility. So the only real conclusion that you can make it, “this is our best guess.” If you are looking for that fat government grant to continue your job, you tell them what they want to hear.

            In my years of working high tech with satellites and weather related equipment, as an engineer, I know it’s not factual. Then it becomes a political football and the earth worshiping global climate change alarmists, promoted by the media and the government, drowns out all real science.

            Don’t believe me, I don’t really care. But when you spend your life working on such things as I have done you hopefully will see the truth buried behind everything they are telling everyone else.

          • Nate says:

            Freeland dave,

            ‘Need to measure every square cm’ simultaneously.

            That is utterly wrong. The temperature anomalies are quite correlated for locations miles apart. So sufficient to take a few samples in hundreds of mile wide regions.

            Any errors from sampling will be both plus and minus and will tend to average out over the globe.

        • Freeland_Dave says:

          Especially when the technology used to establish the claims doesn’t really exist.

        • Valdito says:

          If 15 years is too short a time to draw conclusions about climate change I have to ask the question

          What is the proper time frame to use to enact regulations that impact the livelihood and well being of the population.

          “We think this is happening, but we are not certain. 15 years is too short a time to draw conclusions,. But we are going to enact regulations and restrictions TODAY”

          Why? Because the more we (the government, the elite, the connected, the well educated and indoctrinated) can control your life the better off we will be.

          Who is we? Oh it’s the government, the elite, the connected, the well educated and indoctrinated.

          Trust us we know what we are doing.

  13. Bf says:

    If anyone was interested there are easy to find petrified trees around the Blackrock Desert, NV area ( burning man location). A reasonable person would observe one of those trees and then the current surroundings and conclude that probably the climate does change and (in this example) the change wasn’t brought about by prehistoric Piute Indians driving SUV’s, F-250’s etc.

  14. flatearther says:

    There are NO satellites. These are merely images taken from high altitude weather balloons.

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      Still showing your idiocy. Weather balloons typically do not have imaging abilities. The thousands I have flown didn’t. High altitude imagery from aircraft, low flying satellites about 180 miles out and imagery from the weather satellites about 24 thousand miles out is where your imagery from the ground comes from. I have never encountered a person that so desperately wants to be an idiot until I started reading your comments.

  15. Mic says:

    Read East of Eden a week ago. I live in the San Benito Valley. I’ve seen the dry years and wet years Steinbeck writes about. I think it’s interesting how the only thing that seems to have changed from that period, are the way liberals have sprawled with unabated construction to serve their own personal needs.

  16. Pasadena Phil says:

    The last time went through a similar recovery from an “endless” drought was in the nineties when SoCal was deluged by storm after storm. When the deluge ended, the DWP announced that not only did the deluge not relieve the drought conditions, it actually made them worse. The ensuing laughter from all quarters was deafening.

    Let’s see if the “experts” learned. I doubt it. The stupidity is deeply embedded among the climate alarmists. It’s never about facts or truth. It’s about controlling the world by any and all means necessary.

    • Mef Fisher says:

      Phil, the climate alarmists probably don’t even realize that the major portions of California have what is called “Mediterranean Climate”. By definition, we are always in drought conditions except when it rains a lot. If the “drought” were to be completely over, then it wouldn’t be a Mediterranean climate anymore and the wine makers in the Napa Valley would be really mad.

    • Nate says:

      ‘nineties’. Who was governor then?? Just wondering..

  17. Rick Kargaard says:

    It has always amazed me when people who live in a desert are surprised by drought. The unusual and unexpected should be precipitation.
    Of course, the delusional are often ultra confident in their delusions and therefore acquire a semblance of credibility.
    From that, you can get some small understanding of climate change hysteria.

    • David Appell says:

      Northern California isn’t a desert.

      • Bob DeMan says:

        Really David. How can you be so obtuse?? Is Southern California a desert?? Duh!

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        It depends on what part of North CA you are taking about. Northeast CA is a high planes desert.
        Central CA from just north of SAC to Bakersfield is mainly reclaimed desert from the canals and levies built in the earl 1900’s by the Army Corps of Engineers. Shut down that water for a year and Central CA quickly becomes a desert. Just east of LA and south to the Mexican boarder to Arizona is a desert, one of the lowest places on earth and very dry. Head north towards Reno and stay on the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains you will also find it parched and a desert as well. Face it dude, most of the land mass of California is a freaking desert or would be if not for the meddling done by man. I have covered the length and breath of CA many times and can honestly say I have been in every county in CA. Northern California has a lot of desert that you apparently just don’t know about. All of CA is not a desert but there is plenty of desert to go around. Northern Ca is not dessert ether so don’t go looking for a fork. 🙂

  18. Joe Silvestri says:

    I wonder how climate alarmists explain this. During an ice age in the Carboniferous Period CO2 levels were 10 to 20 X what they are today. Hmmmm….

    • Mef Fisher says:

      The climate alarmist would never think that it was because there were fewer plants/ trees to suck it up. Try to get one to spell photosynthesis much less explain it.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        And if you really get into the bio-chemistry of photosynthesis you will find that during the day-night cycle of photosynthesis in plants that there is a period of time where CO2 is the product and not O2 as people falsely believe. Yes, the preponderance of the gasses produced by photosynthesis is Oxygen there is a small period of time where CO2 is the gas product.

        If we could harness the conversion of Adenine Di-phospahate to Adenine Tri-phosphate we could solve the world’s problem with energy and food production. But that’s not going to happen any time soon but photosynthesis is very interesting and why we have Oxygen to allow us to breathe. Before the advent of photosynthesis all of the worlds free oxygen was contained on other compounds not conducive to the development and maintenance of life as we know it. At least that’s the scientific explanation.

        For me? God did it and I’ll ask him how he did it the next time I see him.

    • Nate says:

      Its on the internet, so it must be true.

      What else could have been different back then? Oh yeah, the continents were all in different places. Could that have anything to do with ice ages? Hmmmm..

    • David Appell says:

      Explanation: the Sun was much weaker then. (It’s luminosity is increasing by about 1% every 110 Myrs.

      Also, the planet’s continents were in different places and of different, meaning a different albedo and different heat storage.

      Any other questions?

      • David Appell says:

        …in different places and of different sizes….

        • Fokker says:

          Some intellectual honesty would be nice. There is no way to predict or explain with any convincing finality what factors contributed most to ice ages millions of years past. However, the presence of an ice age with CO2 20X higher than present day does suggest that CO2 is not quite the on/off switch of warming that some claim it to be.

      • Valdito says:

        Damn, your are absolutely right.

        We humans screw everything up by altering Nature by burning fossil fuels and creating too much CO2.

        We should immediately take efforts to:

        1 – Reduce the variance of sun spots on our Sun.
        2 – Mitigate the abledo problem.
        3 – Stop the continents from moving around.
        4 – Cap all of those volcanoes above the surface and especially underwater.

        This can be accomplished withe a simple UN resolution. They are always effective.

        Let’s start demanding action now before real and objective science gets in the way and muddles everything up.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        You forgot one and it’s actually a biggie. Our North Pole does not point always to Polaris. This means our earth wobbles as it rotates and moves through its orbit around the sun. At one time it is speculated by accomplished astronomers who deal with such things that Sirius was once our North Star. That change in the inclination angle with respect to the orbit around the sun would have a dramatic effect on the climate of Earth.

        Overall, the earth is slowly cooling. The reason why lays at our core. It’s a hot liquid magma liquefied by the decay of nuclear isotopes found there. As the half life of these isotopes are reached the corresponding heat generated by the decay decreases over time and that heat is radiated out into space.

        “One by one the stars will all go out and you and I will simply fly away.”

        They didn’t really know how accurate they were when those lyrics were penned.

        • Valdito says:

          Well if you are going to use the band Bread to make your point….

          It’s a change of heart
          Look out for some rain
          When you change your heart
          One man’s loss is another man’s gain

          The problem is in CA to paraphrase a previous poster, “If it rains, the drought bureaucrats will become drought bureaucrats.”

          They do OK. The taxpayers and consumers take the pain.

  19. William Craig says:

    It has been said that everyone talks about the weather but nobody does anyting about it. Guess why…they can’t!

  20. Duke Silver says:

    Well, we all know satellite data can’t be trusted because it is adjusted. We’ll have to trust the USHCN. /sarc

    • marque2 says:

      Satellite data is adjusted, just not as often and it is much easier to see and make fun of – rather than 1000 micro-adjustments to the ground data.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        The micro-adjustments from the ground are just just as bad. While much of the technology has been upgraded it’s not very well maintained and periodically calibrated. Additionally, these stations, typically a white wooden box sitting out in a field or on the side of the road, have not been relocated away from the influence of man. A term known as encroachment.

        Take the station in Redding CA. When it was installed in the 1950s it was pretty much away from everything. Well it hasn’t moved but the local climate where it’s located has changed significantly. Where once it was out in the middle of no where it’s just off the warmup tarmac of the Redding Airport, meaning all the jet exhaust and temperatures caused by hot asphalt has an effect on the station. But does NOAA tell you that? No, when it gets out of line, according to them, they simply ‘correct’ the data so it’s not in error. Right! That is an adjustment isn’t it? Is it real or something fabricated? You decide.

        Now lets take that scenario and apply it to these weather monitoring stations that by international law that were all installed in the 1950s? How many of those stations suffer the effects of man encroachment that alters the local climate around those stations? Oh but it can all be handled by a simple adjustment and you can trust it because NOAA says you can trust it.

        I guess you can see that I don’t trust the data pertaining to man made global climate change from NOAA.

        • Valdito says:

          Freeland Dave.
          Just like those TV commercial, “Wait, there’s more”.

          With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the number of functioning temperature measurement stations dropped in most of the republics of the Soviet Union. Many of these stations were located in the taiga, a region that stretches from Finland to Siberia. So NOAA land measurements are thumb in the air estimates in that region. But it is really cold there. According to NOAA its still cold but warming.

          Same with the estimates of surface temperature on oceans. And then they average and adjust when the averages don’t support the headline “The hottest year on record.”

          I have a theory about where the NOAA is sticking their thumbs. Isn’t not in the air.

          What they should do is collect information that shows the number of deaths that are related to temperature. Cold kills more people than heat. Heat makes for more productive crop production than cold. What is more threatening to the survival of the human race? Cold, Heat, or the Internet.

          The NOAA is a joke. The Emperor Has No Clothes. But the Emperor is more likely to die by freezing that by sun stroke.

          • Valdito says:

            Don’t even think pointing out my typos.

            I will put you down faster than a Orca at Sea World or an Elephant at Ringling Brothers.

          • Valdito says:

            Jeez, even my admonitions about typos have typos. But unlike Dan Rather they are not fake and close to accurate.

    • David Appell says:

      It’s more than adjusted — temperatures are calculated from a model — satellites don’t actually measure them.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        Give yourself the grand prize on this one. The data is purposefully adjusted so it will fit the model. 28 years in the satellite business where I worked on the sensors of such satellites have proven to me that what comes out of the mouth of government entities like NOAA is not to be trusted. Furthermore, the technology that they use to predict what will happen based on what has allegedly happened does not exist at the level of precision necessary to establish such claims as factual.

        For one, to make good science one would have to repeatedly measure every square centimeter of the surface of the planet to an accuracy of .001 degrees to establish that the earth’s temperature has risen .08 to .18 degrees over a period of ten years.

        The technology necessary to make the statement legitimate simply does not exist and won’t exist in a global environment for several decades if at all. For one, there is so much space debris in the Geo/Clark belt that is filled with other satellites, mainly comm and TV, having that many sensors in space, all with the same level of calibration, simply isn’t physically possible at this time.

        When you actually have hands on experience with these sensors and apply it to the bigger picture called Earth, it’s quite easy to see that what we are being told from these ‘climate scientists’ is speculation and not actual fact.

  21. John Hultquist says:

    I see many references about drought that (now) include the notion that “ground water” remains low and it will take years of plentiful precipitation to recharge.
    I’ve put (now) in ( ) because I have thought, for no good reasons, that deep ground water and aquifers were not part of the drought concept. I have not studied such things.
    Also, it seems that once sufficient liquid was pumped out of some aquifers they would settle and the ground above lowered — subsidence. These collapsed areas will not be able to be reinflated or renewed to the original volume.
    Viewed in this manner, drought — in general — will never end.
    Or so it seems now.

    • David Appell says:

      I don’t know. Aquifers aren’t huge cavities — the water is stored in between rocks and soil, sorta like a sponge.

        • David Appell says:

          Sponges hold water. So do acquifers. And they can be similarly recharged.

          • Valdito says:

            True. but when you read about sea levels rising, particularly in Florida, some of that is caused not by the rise of the water level. It is partially due to subsidence. As water is taken from the an aquifer the surface level drops. That is also happening throughout the Central Valley of California.

            The aquifers must be restored. Whether that is by storing more water in reservoirs or by conservation, the aquifers are essential for the long term health of the land above them.

            That is true for California, Florida, and the Ogallala aquifer that stretches from Texas to the Dakotas.

            Conservation is helpful, but insignificant when you have a growing population.

            So in order to stop pumping water out of aquifers you have to store more water above ground.

            That is the sensible solution for California, Texas, and many other states.

  22. Dan Simmons says:

    Spot on with the climate change voodoo terrorist.

  23. marque2 says:

    You need to look at Colorado rains for Lake Mead.

  24. Gordon Robertson says:

    Since NOAA has no thermometers in the snow pack regions nearer the Sierra Nevadas they will average the temps there using warmer thermometers from the coast, where they have the only three thermometers in California.

    Net result: The snow pack will show a warming.

  25. TJ Tucker says:

    The following quote was recently published, in the East Bay Times, Jan 9.

    “We have to be careful about crying wolf here,” he said. “You have to maintain credibility with the public when there are critically dry years, so you have to call it like it is when conditions improve.”

    Now, ask yourselves: Would he be saying this, if there was no orchestrated movement to pretend the drought is not over? If everything was straight up, there would be no need to say this.

    So that leaves the question of why they don’t want to let go of the drought. Ideally, they would explain themselves, and I would not have to speculate. But since they won’t, I have to agree with many of the things others have said here.

    • Fokker says:

      What is not stated in this article is that “crying wolf” is the least of future problems. Numerous water districts in the woeful state of CA have raised water fees to compensate for the decreased revenue as a result of conservation. When the drought was in full force, citizens were fined for excess use based on their previous water use patterns. Now fast forward to this year and the next drought: an observant citizen would use water ad lib for two reasons. 1. avoid getting dinged with fines for keeping their yard alive since fines will be based on pre-drought water use. 2. Keep using water so the district doesn’t raise rates. Mark my word, conservation will be much harder to enforce with the next drought. I’m also certain that record numbers of wells have been constructed over the last several years. Who knows what impact that will have on the aquifers over the long term.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        The problems with the aquifers in San Joaquin County has resulted excess rainfall water discharged by some of the local reservoirs is being pumped directly into the ground to replace the water lost in the aquifers. It’s admittedly a band aide but can have a short term positive benefit. Yet it is not the solution to CA’s long term water problem. Good water management and reducing the influx of an unwanted population increase is the only real solution, unless we go nuclear power with desalinization plants and until you change the irrational mindset of the majority of Californians who are basically nothing more than Earth Worshipers, it’s not going to happen.

  26. Gordon Robertson says:

    It’s refreshing to check in on one of Roy’s new articles and not see any alarmists. They must all be gathered at a realclimate meeting being schooled on how to obfuscate the obvious.

  27. Hitek Rednek says:

    The short sidedness of California officials is staggering. CA has a very long history of cyclical weather patterns and coupled with explosive population growth (especially SoCal). Their answer – siphon off water supplies from NorCal and adjacent states – destroying those local ecosystems. Desalination plants would be a huge benefit for the state to alleviate stresses imposed by the mass aqua diversions and provide consistent readily available supply. The last time a plant was built in the 90’s… it was shut down, and parts sold off just before coming online because the drought came to an abrupt end. Obviously, no officials had a lick of sense – since none speculated or planned for similar future patterns. Which existing records clearly identify. CA is horrible with fiscal responsibility though officials will say it is not a fiscally viable option… complete horse manure. Common sense is a fickle and elusive creature to those morons with hands in everyone’s pockets.

    • David Appell says:

      SoCal just built a big desal plant. It was expensive. It’s water is expensive. It harms the environment.

      • Fokker says:

        My tiny little violin is having trouble playing a sympathetic tune. Live in a desert (SoCal) because you like the sun year around, then suck it up and find yourselves a water source (desalination). Stop jacking water from other locations because you have the population, money and connections to exercise tyranny over less wealthy and populated parts of the state. Besides, isn’t solar and wind a viable source of energy for these plants, particularly in coastal (windy), sun baked areas?

      • Valdito says:

        It’s is a contraction of it.

        Its is the proper way to describe “belonging to or associated with a thing previously mentioned or easily identified.”

        OK I’ll stop.

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      One big problem with your desalinization suggestion.
      It takes a lot of energy, much more than CA can produce to satisfy the need without Nuclear power. Now sell Californians no safe nuclear power and you could do it. But that’s not going to happen and there isn’t enough ground to do it with solar energy. Wind power is out because they don’t want to kill the little birdies and make a lot of noise that keeps the cows awake at night. Been down that road and I can tell you it goes no where in CA.

  28. Scotty Mac says:

    The only thing keeping me in this doped-up State is my mom. When she passes I’ll liquidate everything & move up to Washington. Those dopers are MORE stupid than the Californian variety since they forgot to screw everyone with income taxes. When they eventually institute that, I’ll just sell-out & move again.

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      Why make your mom suffer? Take her with you so her final years can be lived out in a better place. I’d suggest moving to a state other than Washington or Oregon if I were you though. Their libs are just as brain addled as those in CA.

  29. Bill Kerney says:

    Easy solution that even the greens may accept …

    Tap river water out in the Pacific after it is in the ocean but before it becomes salty. Russian and Eel Rivers in CA and the Columbia as well.

    This creates just in time water to irrigate the entire western USA. Ends all droughts regardless of rainfall.

    Do this by state initiative so Gov. Brown can’t get in the way. Call on President Trump and congress to pass a law that suspends all federal laws and environmental regs that get in the way.

    Sales of water pay for the project financed by state initiative. Should be zero cost of water since we extract the water from the ocean.

    Enable the tearing down of Hetch Hetchy Dam – the team that services San Francisco. Harrison Ford’s youtube on that dam –

    This OUT GREENS the greens. Calls them out. They seek control and we can deliver water and restore the Hetch Hetchy Valley by a vote of the people.

    Let’s win using populism. Trump showed it works. Hispanic field workers should support the idea. Splits the greens from the Hispanics.

  30. Dave says:

    Trump declared there was no more drought in CA. Mother Nature is a republican for sure. Thanks Mother Nature!

      • Fokker says:

        Proof positive that they need to start desal plant construction immediately!

        • Freeland_Dave says:

          Think they will build nuclear power plants to power the operation? I don’t. When it comes to such things Californians have proved that they are a pretty stupid lot.

      • Bob DeMan says:

        you make it appear that the state is a desert

        • Freeland_Dave says:

          Back in the 1800’s and early 1900’s it was mainly a desert. The entire Central Valley from just above Sacramento to below Bakersfield and south and east to the Mexican and Arizona boarder, it was a desert. Mankind changed much of a desert and suddenly it’s all not working out. Proving it’s not nice to mess with Mother Nature, in this case, God.

          We have the growing problem in the central portion of the US from just north of San Antonio Texas to the Canadian border. All of that arid flat desert land converted into farmland and the irrigation from the ground, that has just about been depleted. That ‘drought’ will pale in comparison to the great drought of the 1930’s. And it won’t come back quickly as it takes a long time to replenish an aquifer.

          • Valdito says:

            Actually Freeland Dave that is not entirely correct.

            Some parts of the Central Valley would be flooded every year by the runoff from the Sierras. The valley (not all of it but some parts of it) would become a shallow lake. Some water would eventually sink into the aquifer. Some would remain on the surface for weeks or months until it evaporated. We are talking about standing water that could be 6″ or knee high depending on the area.

            Native American tribes would fish, by hand, in those shallow waters. It was that easy to catch fish in the shallow water. They would dry and store the fish to sustain them until the next year.

            Why is the Central Valley “desert” one of the most productive farmlands in the world. It’s because all of that rich topsoil that was created by the detritus carried into the valley by the snowmelt mingled with decomposing plants and fish over centuries.

            And it was detritus not debris.

            But you are correct about the southern end of the Valley, it was essentially a desert.

  31. mirthful1 says:

    It’s really looking good for CA — the end of another longish term cycle me thinks… Huzzah! I’ve now seen a few living here in CA for 55 years and and do enjoy a bit watching the hand-wringing of a minority of folks.

    But I do honestly think we need another season (or two) of this above average rainfall (and more importantly consistent snow-pack in the Sierra’s) to pronounce ‘the drought’ dead and gone and back to over watering my wonderful Marathon III lawn which is looking very nice at this point.

  32. Dana says:

    You have nailed it exactly! The whole Global Warming AKA Climate Change strategy of the left has never been about doing the right thing for the earth and mankind! It has always been about power over people and governments by those that only want more and more Governmental Control. If Al Gore was sincere about his passion wouldn’t he be doing his best to reduce his own carbon footprint?
    Looking deep into individuals that push the Global Warming and Climate Change agenda is very enlightening. None of this passes the scientific smell test, nor does it even pass the common sense smell test! It stinks to high heavens of Fraud and Collusion by Scientists as well as by men and Governments that are vested in these agendas!

    • David Appell says:

      The US has had a cap-and-trade program for 25 years.

      Exactly how has the diminished your freedom and exerted power over you?

      • Fokker says:

        The answer is very simple: cap and trade increases the costs of goods and services. This directly affects those under a cap and trade system for obvious reasons, and indirectly by making those societies less able to compete with parts of the world not burdened by such a system. No doubt this has some effect on outsourcing away from the U.S. With diminished buying power comes diminished freedom. Cap and trade by definition also diminishes individual liberty for anyone who requires a paycheck to survive. There are many in Apalachia who would argue that federal power under the auspices of the EPA has obliterated their livelihood. Is that not tyranny?

        • David Appell says:

          “Cap and trade by definition also diminishes individual liberty for anyone who requires a paycheck to survive.”

          How has your personal liberty been diminished by the US’s 25-year old cap-and-trade program?

          What about the liberty of those subject to your pollution. Diminished?

          Do you think you have the right to spew pollution to your heart’s content, without regard to how it affects anyone else?

  33. David Appell says:

    Perhaps the drought only felt “unending” to those who suffered through it. But probably they weren’t very interested in using the experience to score points.

  34. Brent says:

    For the most part (posts), it’s refreshing to read there are many who can eloquently articulate the ‘funny if it wasnt dangerous’ lunacy that the leftists have wrought on the beautiful state of CA. The statist’s will use whatever excuse they can latch onto to gain control over the sheeple. Remember, in their godless mindset – there is always a victim (the earth, the whale, the minorities, the LGBT+?+?+?…, etc) there is always the villain (the so-called privileged- mainly those who work and believe in god) and of course there is always the savior (them!).

  35. Darwin Wyatt says:

    Not to depress everyone but the Holocene interglacial period is ending. This is basic earth science folks. The last 500,000 years had 5 lasting on average 10,000 years with ice ages lasting 90,000. This is confirmed by ice core samples from Greenland and Antarctica. The Holocene is at 10,000+ now and not all the co2 in the world will stop the coming ice age. And they come on fast as the mammoths with undigested food in their stomach’s prove. Flash frozen at -100 only now emerging from permafrost. Your only chance for survival is to live near a cave system, mine or near the equator. Could start day after tomorrow. Pun intended.

  36. ren says:

    Jet stream from the north will bring a lot of snow in the mountains.,37.22,1192
    700 hPa ~3,500 m.

  37. DesertDweller says:

    Geoengineering weather terrorists have switched focus and are maintaining drought over Colorado River Region which effects So. CA.

  38. Jasonn says:

    Must be due to Global Warming/Climate Change which is allegedly responsible for everything else that happens these days. Even some Liberals have opined that it’s the reason Hillary lost the election, adding that the climate change must have been caused by the Russians on Donald Trump’s behalf. Sheesh. ;=)

  39. An Inquirer says:

    The Satellite photo shows green on January 13, 2017. Actually, the California landscape turned green well before January 13 — well before the recent spate of storms. I remember seeing a satellite photo over a year ago.

    California has experienced droughts in the past and will continue to experience droughts, and the one over the last couple of years is not exceptional in terms of lack of precipitation.

    The government’s Drought Monitor center uses reservoir levels as a key determinant of the drought’s severity. However, reservoir levels could indicate population growth, industrial development, agricultural irrigation, and archaic water rights — as well as precipitation levels.

    If the question is drought from a precipitation point of view, my preference would be the Palmer Drought Severity Index over the Drought Monitor center.

  40. Karl Koehler says:

    The coolest thing about developments like this is how ecosystems naturally and reliably and inexorably recover, just as they have for millennia. It happens again and again, directly under the noses of paranoid environmental catastrophists the world over. And they miss it – every time.

  41. Margaret Davis says:

    This is a boon for surface water supplies, but not for groundwater necessarily. The Salinas Valley Groundwater Basin, for example, does not recharge. It’s ancient water and rainfall doesn’t help.

  42. Rud Istvan says:

    Since 1970, California’s population increased 76%. Its water storage capacity inceased 28%. The present abundance doesn’t solve California’s long term problem. It does, however, put the lie to Brown and Obama climate change drought wailing.

  43. Alan J. Perrick says:




    Anti-racist is a codeword for anti-White.

    • David Appell says:

      Roy, you are attracting ever more of the racists and anti-semites.

      • Dr No says:

        They have certainly crawled out of the woodwork big time over this topic.
        It is very creepy – and reflects the states of mind that lead to paranoia and home-grown terrorism.
        I think it unlikely that any serious science is worth discussing here.

        p.s. The editors of noted that there is no evidence that rational discussion has any effect on these creatures.

  44. Samuel Rogers says:

    Has anyone noticed – the climate change proponents are basically leaches depending upon government spending to suport their “study?”.

      • Fokker says:

        Essentially, this statement is an admission of the obvious. Funding is forthcoming for those who tow the line. This is not a climate for the pursuit of pure science. It is a climate for pushing propaganda, and manufacturing data to achieve the desired conclusion. This entire field seems to have been irreversibly compromised. Dare to contradict the dominant narrative, and one faces ostracism or worse yet, being sacked.

  45. Mike says:

    I remember PCH through Malibu being closed for weeks at a time following a quarter inch deluge over 24 hours. I saw or heard these reports off and on from the 60’s to 1996, when I left California for good.

  46. Scott says:

    Big difference in the photos. What is the green “aura” hugging the coastline in the recent photo?

  47. jim says:

    now that they have all that water they need to bring in another 10 million illegal aliens.

  48. Mike says:

    I once saw a list in the Calendar section of the L.A. Times that compared and contrasted Southern California with the movie “The Road Warrior”. One comparison was “armed feral children”. It contrasted the characters of “The Road Warrior”, who struggle to live in a desert, with the people of Southern California, who refuse to believe they live in a desert.

  49. Daniel Boone says:

    I just stumbled onto this site from link on “Drudge” Great site ! Thank you.

  50. RHMS says:

    I have lived in California since 1984, 33 years. We have ALWAYS had 7 years of rain and then 7 years of drought. It is a Mediterranean climate. How this goes unrecognized is a mystery.

  51. BluePony says:

    Lived in California since 1976. The weather seems to go through roughly five year cycles. Never can be sure what the next cycle will bring, but last year was clearly the start of a more normal rain cycle with some scattered heavy storms like we just had.

    They said huge El Nio last year with massive rain, and then a dryer La Nia this year. Meanwhile the weather is all “LOLwut?” And foes what it wants.

    • Fokker says:

      Big surprise that the experts can’t predict the weather, eh? The alarmists conveniently omit what every native Californian knows: several years of drought in a row followed by a couple of wet ones. The pattern is never constant but relatively consistent. 93-94 saw so much snowfall that I was snowboarding at Squaw Valley on July 4th. ’05 was the same story. Looks like ’16-’17 will be the same. Looks very pattern like, I would say.

  52. Roberthere says:

    Adaptable hysterics aren’t they?

  53. Don Franklin says:

    Drought proves government with an excuse to raise and spend tax dollars in their never-ending quest for power and self-aggrandizement

  54. Sardondi says:

    Huh. And ANOTHER looming climatic Armageddon that was irreparably to rend the fragile fabric of our perilous existence wasn’t and didn’t.

    Either the earth’s ecosystem is far more resilient with infinitely more extreme and broad parameters of normality than the experts usually relied on by the mainstream media have heretofore known; or the usual suspects of scientism are lying to us in order to achieve some socio-political end.

  55. Rasputin3.14 says:

    California wanted rain. Trump gave rain.

  56. Buck Turgidson says:

    California has a serious people “longage.” The state’s water demand has exploded with the immigration invasion of the past 30 years. The smartest thing for the state would be a moratorium on all immigration, and deportation of all illegals. California isn’t smart, though, and besides it would be racist to stop importing water demand (and poverty). Nice place, stupid elected officials and too many brainwashed liberal sheep in the populace.

  57. Entropic man says:

    Straw man alert.

  58. Barry says:

    Exactly! The climate kooks are never satisfied. ..unless it’s more fear.

  59. Diana Helenna says:

    I came here from Drudge, too. Amazed that even the libtards mostly spell well and almost know English grammar. A few mistakes here like “short sided” which should be “short-sighted”. That was a friendly foul-up, too. Not usual.

    I am more used to the electro-mummers being so illiterate you can’t decipher the meaning other than hate. You all raise my hopes for the nation, just by knowing what the hell you are talking about and elucidating it coherently. Many kudos, many thanks.

    I agree with the post about prehistoric ‘climate change.’ I wonder, I really wonder, how Earth got out of all those other ice ages without automobiles and industrialized coal and oil use. Hell, we didn’t even have private jets for the eco-crowd to fly in, or air conditioners back then. Something seems fishy to me about that.

    Just saying…

    • John Hultquist says:

      Writing and commenting on blogs follows the rule: It is a small mind that cannot find more than one way to do a thing.
      There are several issues:
      A big one is that most use English or a version thereof. For example, I was raised in the big woods of the Allegheny Plateau. Some have claimed I came from a holler but that is not true.
      Many posters use English as a 2nd or 3rd language and, of course, the true English can neither spell nor drive on the right side of the roads.
      Next, we encounter folks trying to compose using smart phones or word engines with spelling checkers. Good luck with that.
      A few use speech to text, with some actually doing reasonably well.
      Most folks use a strategy that if youre meaning is clear move on. See what I did there?
      Unlike the adherents of CAGW, most “deniers” and “deplorables” have a good sense of humor, enjoy irony, and satire.
      I have to go put another piece of pine in the stove. I am getting tired of cold and in the spring my garden plants will relish the extra CO₂.

      • David Appell says:

        “I am getting tired of cold and in the spring my garden plants will relish the extra CO₂.”

        Your plants like higher temperatures, higher heat waves, and changes in rainfall?

      • Valdito says:

        John Hultquist. Thank your for an elegant take down of the language police.

        These are people who will say “Your entire post was bullshit because you used a contraction instead of a possessive. And that allows them to wallow in self-pride because they were able to point out a mistake. But they can’t address the logic, data, or meaning of the post they attacked on the battleground of grammar and punctuation.

        I speak good and write somewhat good, but sometimes I have typos. See what I did there? I gave someone the opportunity to call me an ignorant and ill-educated lout.

    • David Appell says:

      You should stop wondering and go read some actual science.

      Too much trouble for you? Or too busy spewing insults?

  60. Vincent says:

    The situation in California seems very much like the situation in parts of Australia. It’s now a cliche that Australia is the land of droughts and floods. Everyone knows it, yet we seem to have a political incapacity to deal with the issue in a rational manner.

    Perhaps this is the price we pay for democracy. A government which insisted on doing the sensible thing in the circumstances, such as building new dams during periods of drought in order to prevent flooding when the drought ends, and in order to meet the increased water needs of a rising population, would risk alienating sections of the population, such as environmentalists who are concerned about the extinction of a certain species of fish, or farming families who have inhabited for generations the land where the new dam is to be built.

    • David Appell says:

      In the US, the federal government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars rerouting western water to keep the farmers happy, especially in California, who love socialism when it benefits them personally, but whine about anyone else getting anything similar.

      Farmers have the money. They are organized. So they get their way over the general populace, nearly every time.

      Read John Fleck’s 2016 book, “Water is for Fighting Over: and Other Myths about Water in the West”

  61. JoMill says:

    Maybe if western states didn’t drop their dams & release all the river waters to the ocean they could conserve their water!?

  62. Buck Turgidson says:

    California definitely could build more water storage facilities. It definitely could dam the Merced River Valley and flood Yosemite National Park and turn it from one of nation’s spectacular parks into a storage reservoir. Or it could stop immmigration, deport illegals, reduce water demand, and preserve places like Yosemite. There really is no in-between even though morons will tell you that California can ‘conserve’ its way out of shortages. It can’t. Not when its population has gone from 20 million in 1960 to 39 million today. No place can withstand this explosion without some big sacrifices and impacts. I vote to stop immigration and deport illegals and presere Yosemite but I’m a racist.

    • David Appell says:

      No idiot, even Trump, is going to flood Yosemite National Park.

      When the US starts sending the water to Mexico it has agreed to send, then we can talk about immigration.

      If I was a poor Mexican, I only hope I’d have the gumption and courage to try to better my life in the US, one way or the other.

      • Global Grist says:

        Better yet, why doesn’t America just take over Mexico and annex it into the United States, clean up the drug cartels and political corruption, and enhance the economy through development? Then they wouldn’t have to come here and leech off Americans.

        • David Appell says:

          Because we are a moral (somewhat) nation of laws.

          • Global Grist says:

            You mean like immigration laws?

            You claim to want to improve the plight of Mexicans at the expense of Americans, yet you are willing to leave the majority of them in poverty subject to political corruption and drug cartels. If most of them would like to come here to better themselves, we should take the here there, don’t you agree?

            But then again, we just have a different style of political corruption running rampant in America and Europe, called Leftist Globalism. From this springs the global warming, climate change, climate disruption, carbon credit idiocy that is sold on fear to mankind in order to line the pockets of elitist hucksters and subject the populace to more of their control over our lives.

          • David Appell says:

            Yes, we should take more immigrants. It improves their lives, and improves our’s too. This country was build on immigrants — weren’t your ancestors immigrants? — and that does not stop now.

      • Buck Turgidson says:

        The US delivers every year to Mexico the volume of water it is obligated to provide under international treaty. The way it works is that we faithfully deliver this to Mexico, while they send their people up here to consumer our share. If we don’t stop immigration we’ll need to create more reservoirs, maybe David Appell’s house is a good site for the next one, since he’s all non-racisty and everything. Get help for your Trump Derangement Syndrome.

        • Buck Turgidson says:

          I want to send 5000 immigrants to David Appell’s house.

          • Buck Turgidson says:

            Everyone can find an ancestor who was an immigrant if you go back far enough in history. It’s meaningless information regarding today’s immigration policies. We’ll enact a moratorium if we’re smart and want to avoid having .5 billion people and third world traffic, and the loss of more open space, parks, forests, and farms.

        • David Appell says:

          Buck Turgidson says:
          “The US delivers every year to Mexico the volume of water it is obligated to provide under international treaty.”

          No, it has not always. And when it has, the water has often been too saline for Mexicans to use.

  63. Bob says:

    The only thing that’s not blamed on global warming hoax..
    climate change is hemorrhoids

  64. Norman says:

    This SST anomaly annual animation may provide an answer to the weather conditions in California.

    Some have claimed the warm blob in the Northern Pacific was what had caused the California drought. It is now gone and California is flooding.

    This explains the 1930 heat wave and dust bowl in the US, there were two warm blobs, one in Pacific and the other in the Atlantic.

    The article suggests that California’s drought was caused by the warm blob altering wind patterns.

  65. Jim Getten says:

    Exactly what we want to change. One of the multitude of reasons why on Friday next, Donald J Trump will become the 45th president of the United States (for better or for worse)

  66. Brian says:

    Dr. Spencer, I’m a great admirer of your work. Keep it up. But why don’t you have a Facebook share button?

  67. Dave says:

    That’s not really true. Many projects are local or regional projects that people in other parts of the state. In Southern California, we built a reuse project that takes wastewater, treats it to drinking water quality, and puts it into the ground for cities to pull out to drink. We have gone from using 40% groundwater to about 70% groundwater. That’s using some of that bond money and grants to help us reduce our reliance on imported water. In many cases, it’s a good use of our money.

  68. bwinkle says:

    Never let a crisis go to waste. If there is no crisis, create one. If a crisis is over, do whatever you can to perpetuate it.

    It’s what they do…

  69. flatearther says:

    Sorry, folks, but there are no such things as Satellites.

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      Guess all those large metal boxes with solar panels I built over a period of 28 years and put them aboard missiles and the Space Shuttle simply did not exist.

      Bozo. The moon is a satellite of the Earth. Mars has two satellites known as Phobos and Demos which are its moons. The planets, along with Earth, are satellites of our sun.

      Yet you in your cute ignorance claim there are no satellites.

  70. David C Herman says:

    Casual observation should make you question the truthfulness of any scientist promoting the idea that we are near the point of no return in regards to climate change.
    Observation #1:Every year I go-to the same coastal fishing spot that I’ve gone to since 1983. The high tide comes to exactly the same point a particular concrete pylon as it did in 1983. No change whatsoever. Yet, we are told that coastal flooding due to rising sea levels are devastating coastal communities. A clear lie that anyone over the age of 5 should understand.
    Observation#2: In my particular area of North Carolina, tall fescue grass exists on the margins, one or two degrees increase in average summer temperatures and it cannot naturally replenish itself except in very wet or shady areas. There are no areas in our state where tall fescue existed naturally in recorded history, but now no longer does, hence there has been zero substantive increase in average summer temps. Maybe a 5 year old couldn’t figure this one out but anyone with a highschool diploma sure could. Again, that temps are increasing outside of normal fluctuations here, is clearly and demonstrably a lie.
    Conclusion: If you are repeatedly and demonstrably lied to, question there motives, call them a liar and promptly move along.

    • David Appell says:

      “Observation #1:Every year I go-to the same coastal fishing spot that Ive gone to since 1983. The high tide comes to exactly the same point a particular concrete pylon as it did in 1983. No change whatsoever.”

      As someone said — Carl Sagan maybe? — “the plural of anecdote is not data.”

      • David C Herman says:

        Anecdotal? We have one contiguous body of ocean water. Any significant change in sea levels impacts the entire body of global sea levels. Hence, no change in North Carolina means no change anywhere. By definition this observation is not Anecdotal.
        As to the the fescue grass observation, yes, anecdotal to some degree. Though, my point is still valid as we’re told that even in the Tarheel state we have experienced warming. Fescues unchanged zone of proliferation here proves very simply that substanative warming does not exist here at least.
        Noteable how it’s often places that we can’t easily or wouldn’t normally visit and observe ourselves where the draconian impacts of global warming are touted. Climate change, like Christian Scientism is a cult that is dieing a rather quick death.

        • David Appell says:

          David C Herman says:

          Very very wrong.

          But I’m sure that trying to correct you would be a waste of time.

          • David C Herman says:

            Substantive and significant were key words. Like I said, neither have occured anywhere on our planet. Certainly not to the point of endangering coastal human populations.

      • Nate says:


        Thats not entirely accurate. Apparent sea level is rising in some places and falling in others. Why? Because in addition to global SL rising, land is rising in some places and falling in others, due to geologic forces and slow recovery after ice sheets departed.

    • Nate says:

      David. Youve just demonstrated the difference between ‘casual observation’ and what scientists do, which is to look at ALL the data. Lately that is done with satellites.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        And as one who actively built and launched those satellites for over 28 years I do feel qualified enough to state that none of our current satellites are capable of performing the task to that degree of accuracy.

        When you look at the published data and compare it with the technical specifications of the device making the measurements, it’s quite easy to see how people are so easily lied to.

        Now if these so called ‘scientists’ actually used the scientific method and applied their trade correctly, the results that are currently being published would be vastly different.

        You seem to trust these scientists. I don’t. Why? Because while they were working I was there keeping all the tools they work with in working order. So no, it’s not done with satellites but done by computer models with massaged data to give the results they desire. It’s a fraud. NOAA has been caught at it and still no one of significance wants to believe it.

        But I don’t fault you Nate. How would you ever know unless you performed a job like I did? You simply were not exposed to that side of the real world and that’s not really your fault. But you can pay attention to the politics and if you do it with open eyes it’s still fairly easy to spot their fraud.

      • Nate says:

        Satellites are measuring a number of things, ocean surface temp, with IR. Ocean height with radar, to determine sea level rise. Such as here:

        Are they doing it wrong? Can you tell me what they are doing wrong?

        Look they are not the only group analyzing this data, there are a half dozen from all over the world. They publish results, these get reviewed by other experts. There is also competition between the groups, who will point errors of the other guys. This is pretty much how science is supposed to work.

        Personally I don’t have the expertise to do this work. I am glad there are people who do.

        Just as I am glad there are surgeons and plumbers who are experts at what they do.

  71. Vincent says:

    The problem is essentially due to the conflict of purpose between a ‘flood mitigation’ dam and a ‘water storage’ dam. Dams cannot fully serve both purposes simultaneously.

    A truly effective ‘flood mitigation’ dam would be a dry dam that allows the river to flow through naturally most of the time. Such a dam would only be used as a ‘temporary water storage dam’ during periods of flooding. The water would then be released as soon as possible providing conditions did not allow flooding further down stream.

    If such a normally dry dam were to become full during continuous, heavy rainfall, then there would be no option but to release water, which might cause flooding further down stream.

    When such an event happens, then that’s a clear message that additional flood-mitigation dams need to be built in order to avoid future calamities.

    When the message is ignored, as it often is due to economic and political reasons, then a future flooding is inevitable. The only uncertainty is the time scale. Will the next flood or drought occur within the next 5, 10, 20 or 30 years? No-one can predict. Let’s not kid ourselves that reducing atmospheric CO2 levels will prevent a recurrence of such extreme weather events.

    However, evaporation of water from lakes and dams during hot and dry weather conditions does significantly reduce the amount of water storage. To reduce such evaporation, let’s cover the lakes with solar panels. That’s the way to go. (wink)

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      1963, the Army Corps of Engineers started building a flood control lake/dam called Canyon Lake in Texas.

      Several small towns were removed along with some Indian burial grounds as a result.

      We were told that the dam would be completed in 1965 and it would take more than 15 years to fill it. By 1968 it was overflowing and the area had it’s typical flooding.

      Since the lake was built the areas below the dam, the areas that were to be protected from flooding, have had three very large floods and several minor floods, just about the same as before the damn dam was built in the first place.

      The dam also has a hydro-electric plant as well and just below the dam is the only area where rainbow trout can survive. They are trucked in for the fishermen.

      The purpose of this information for you is to show that flood control dams don’t always work. Water management is the key.

      As far as covering places with solar panels is concerned, it’s not a good ideal. Along with electricity these panels produce a lot of surface heat. Most commercial solar panels are only about 15% efficient. What isn’t reflected back into space from the panel mostly is released as heat into the atmosphere. Go touch the back of a large solar panel when it’s fully exposed to the sun and see for yourself how hot it is. The hotter that surface is the lower efficiency it has so this heat has to be shunted away in order for the panel to operate and the highest efficiency as possible. On earth this is bled off into our atmosphere as heat. In space it’s a real problem as heat dissipates very slowly in the vacuum of space. So no, solar energy is not really a good idea even though people will swear on their mother’s grave that it’s clean, efficient energy. Fun to play with but if you have any other alternative to electrical power, it’s not the way to go. But it does have application.

      There are also negative secondary effects of using solar panels other than the heat they produce in our atmosphere. For one, sort of like the crude joke about the size of Dolly Parton’s feet, “They are small because nothing grows well in the shade.”

      Over water, fish and the growing foods that require sunlight hitting the water don’t do well and die out.

      Over land, “Nothing grows well in the shade.” Solar like bio fuel just doesn’t work for the masses. For individuals it can be made to work but at a significant cost. Those costs, largely up to now, have been absorbed by all taxpayers in a mistaken effort to stimulate those businesses. But now, down the road a couple of decades later, we find those government subsidies have largely been terminated and those who were promoting those businesses are not long gone.

      This is not to say that these innovations are bad but they are not as good as they were first thought to be and it was the taxpayer that fronted the money for the investments to be made all based on junk science and speculation.

      Wind power? Really took off in the 1990s, particularly where I lived for over 32 years. One of the largest ‘wind farms’ in the US. Yeah, it’s in the Diablo Range of the San Luis Mountains but strangely, most of those machines no longer work. Why? Because the Golden Eagles and Red Tail Hawks were being killed by them. They make too much noise for the cattle and residents near by. They were a maintenance nightmare. On the East Coast I recall the late Senator Kennedy was successful in preventing the installation of a wind farm near one of his properties because, according to him, they were ugly, which they really are.

      The point, junk science under political influence is the biggest problem we face in the immediate future. If we can’t get a handle on that nothing of positive significance will happen.

      • Nate says:

        IMO all power sources, nuclear, coal, oil, solar, wind, corn ethanol etc have some drawbacks that we have to deal with.

        I would prefer the impacts of solar or wind to coal anyday. Coal extraction leaves behind a mess and scarred earth. The sometimes toxic ash and runoff from the plant and mines has to go somewhere. The mercury and sulfur dioxide are pollutants that actually cause deaths and damage lakes.

        If you don’t live near a coal plant or a coal mine, or a strip mine, or mountain top removal, you probably wont care. But the air pollution crosses state lines.

  72. Global Grist says:

    I think a good start to fixing California would be a 9.0 directly under the state capital with the legislature in full session and the Governor attending. Then maybe, just maybe, sense and reason could fill the vacuum.

    • David Appell says:

      Roy, you’re getting the hard core whackos now….

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        I really hate to say this but the terrorists of 911 hit the wrong targets.

        They should have hit the Capitol with both houses in session and the White House with both the president and vice president on location.

        Then we could have rebooted our government and hopefully not make the same mistakes that we have made that has placed us where we currently are.

        Two other targets of significance would also have been in order. Sacramento and Hollywood. The world would be a better place without them. Sorry if you are an innocent if you live there and I wish you no ill will. Honestly I really wouldn’t want to see any of that happen but it’s fun to think about.

  73. Chuck says:

    You need JESUS!!

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      Absolutely. He’s the only one that really matters. Take stock, when it’s all over he will fix it all and then we can enjoy ourselves with him in eternity. But caution, just because you are Christian and follow Jesus doesn’t mean that your corporal life is going to go smoothly. In fact it will probably be worse as Satan doesn’t need to concentrate his efforts on those who already follow him. Still, it’s the end line outcome that’s important so it’s a good idea to have a good relationship with Jesus. That’s an individual relationship and not one through the social aspects of a church.

  74. Billy Wyrick says:

    SUKA, SUKA, SUKA, that’s all the Libtards can ever do! I hope they open “their” homes up to all the freeloaders they want to let into what is left of the USA. Its simple you must have idea of Boarders, Language, and Culture, that is common among all of the citizens of any country. But its almost to late. The Snowflakes coming out of what used to be called schools of higher learning, are nothing more than cookie cutter “Baby Libtards”. Global Warming is when Libtard’s who claim to know all about weather, get together, have a “Bad Trip” and then try to tell about it. Stick a fork in it!!! Its done!!!! When people think a nation can be 20 TRILLON DOLLARS in debt and all is fine???? Its is to late, to save ourselves from the fools. In 8 years we created more debt than in the last——-Oh!!! I know, you are tired of hearing about it. Now tell me one more time how all that “Hope and Change” worked out???? The useful Idiots are in charge. I will leave all you with this one last message. Each state holds a election for the President of the USA. A citizen can ONLY vote in the state they are a resident of. PERIOD. So. HRC won the popular vote in a number of states, but Donald Trump won the popular vote in the majority of the states PERIOD. Which then gave him the E. C. PERIOD!!!!!! Their is no such thing as whining the total popular vote in the USA. It means nothing PERIOD. OK So you do not like it. Well change the constitution LIBTARD!!!!!! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SO SAD, SO SORRY Now LIBTARD’s you can al say three times and CLICK YOUR HEELS!!! PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP is now OUR President of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! long live our REPUBLIC!!!

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      That would be “click click click, there’s no place like home.”

      Let’s both work together to help Trump build that home for us to live in. It certainly wouldn’t have happened with Hillary.

      When Obama was elected I was disappointed but endured it. I wonder why the butt hurt liberals who supported Hillary can’t do the same for Trump.

      On, that’s right, they are liberals and I am a conservative.

  75. Darin Warren says:

    If the dummy liberals in CA wouldn’t stand in the way of building WAY more reservoirs, then droughts would be less of a threat. But then lime they handle money in government, its waste waste spend spend NEVER EVER save more. ALL this surplus will just run into the ocean and next year they’ll be spray painting their grass green again.

    • David Appell says:

      Fish need water too. You can’t have it all.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        If those liberals practiced good water management and illegal immigration control they wouldn’t need more reservoirs and still have plenty of water to go around for everyone. But Californians, as a whole group, are a pretty selfish and stupid lot. Their self pride and intellectual progressive superiority just won’t allow them to see how stupid they really are. I really can’t fully blame CA’s government. Why? Because all of them are elected or appointed by them. These people don’t elect themselves so it stands to reason that, unfortunately, most Californians are dumber than a box of rocks when it comes to such things.

  76. Bryan Hayes says:

    Same in AZ, see the “Petrified Forest” about 30 miles east of Holbrook, on I-40. Petrified trees from when the region was wetlands, strewn around what is now desert.
    >>> Climate change, OBVIOUSLY caused by the Navajo people with their SUV’s and pottery factories!

    • David Appell says:

      Where did you ever get the idea that climate has changed in the past??

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        Because the trees that those petrified rocks came from grew in a wet area. That means, the climate at that point in Earth’s history, was wetter than it is at present. That was in the past. Today the area is a dry desert. That means the climate for that area changed. Try to keep up. Perhaps you were being sarcastic and it just didn’t come across that way.

  77. Dr No says:

    The whackos have certainly crawled out of the woodwork big time over this topic.
    It is very creepy and reflects the states of mind that lead to paranoia and home-grown terrorism.


  78. ren says:

    Rain in California, brings cold jet stream.

    • ren says:

      Persistent, decadal-scale droughts over the western
      United States have been linked to La Nialike
      SST patterns in the ETP during the instrumental
      period (35). Tree-ring reconstructions extend this
      relationship back to the Medieval Warm Period
      (MWP, A.D. ~900 to 1300), which was seemingly
      characterized by positive solar forcing, inactive
      tropical volcanism, La Nialike conditions, and
      multidecadal megadroughts (3, 5, 6, 35). The first
      high-resolution, continuous Holocene speleothem
      proxy precipitation record from the southwestern
      United States documents a robust connection between
      inferred solar-activity maxima and dry conditions,
      which may be explained by solar forcing of
      La Nialike states (36). Taken together with our
      SST record, these observations are consistent with
      solar-induced dynamical cooling of the ETP and
      provide predictions for millennial-scale fluctuations
      in the hydrologic balance over the western
      United States during the early Holocene.

  79. Simontacchi says:

    2000 years ago Rome built Aqueducts, Lake Tahoe has 39 Trillion Gallons of the Good Stuff.

    • Eric says:

      2700 years ago the Assyrians built aqueducts in Nineveh.

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      Ca has already done something like that. It’s called Hetch Hetchie. It’s a very large canyon just north of Yosemite that was dammed up to supply fresh water for San Francisco and it’s still used today.

      From the canyon the water flows across the valley and comes out just East of Niles Canyon. From there it runs across the bay to a large reservoir that can be seen by I280 just south of the SF Airport. Pretty area. All of the water for SF comes from this area and guess what, after killing everything in the canyon and replacing it with a reservoir that no one has access to, they still waste water in SF and clamor for more.

      No I am not willing for them to destroy another natural place in their quest to find more water to waste. For one the Truckee river that terminates itself in the desert east of Reno Nevada would be totally destroyed and everyone and everything that depends on that water being there would also die. So that SF citizens can continue to waste it? No, they can move, conserve or just die. We don’t need to kill other places for stupid people.

  80. ren says:

    To California they reach two strong fronts with rain. The first 19 and second 20 January.

  81. Jed Marlin says:

    Climate Stasis Now!

    Folks: if we all pitch in and work together I believe we can achieve Global Climate Stasis!

    Who is with me?

    I estimate that if 350,000 each send me $250 I can get started on this virtuous goal.

    • Valdito says:

      Jed, I’d love to help you achieve your goal of Global Climate Stasis,

      But i just got bent over by my Federal and California State tax demands over the past few years.

      There is no more blood in this turnip.

  82. Mike says:

    Don’t forget, CA has access to as much water as they want, it’s called the Pacific Ocean! Desalination plants can provide all the water needed for less than 2x today’s cost. For sure more expensive, but isn’t it good to know that there will always be fresh water available at a reasonable price – that is if the Leftists allow us to take it.

    • Vincent says:

      Desalination plants do not prevent flooding.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        True, they don’t but they do go along way to facilitate proper water management techniques where flood control can really have a positive, not negative, impact.

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      It’s true. But it would be a phenomenal cost in energy. The only thing CA HAD that could have accommodated it was Nuclear power. Once the enlightened progressive liberals in CA thought Nuclear power was the answer to all of their energy related problems which includes electrical power and, oddly enough, water purification.

      But no, letting contracts to the lowest bidder and not monitoring construction while these places were being built resulted in their closure once the same enlightened progressive liberals started to worry about faults and seismic activity.

      Some were so stupid, Sacramento citizens, that they fully funded one and had to pay for it to be shut down over a period of several decades without receiving as much as a watt of energy from the facility. All because they elected people who didn’t perform their jobs in the first place.

      As was once said, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

  83. Judge Jeri says:

    Trump is healing the planet!

  84. Richard Burns says:

    Encapsulates the Liberal “Sky is falling!” In a nutshell. Comical and accurate.

  85. Mike says:

    One only need look at the scale used by the drought geniuses:

    – Abnormally dry
    – Moderate drought
    – Severe drought
    – Extreme drought
    – Exceptional drought

    Any rational naming would stop at the first 3. The rest is pure propaganda. What’s next “Bat shit crazy drought”?

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      Haven’t you noticed in the media that it’s always the worst in history. It’s sensationalized journalism for the sole purpose of attracting readers who then get to view advertisement which for the media equates to profits.

  86. Bud says:

    If there is no creator, please explain how such a vast universe came to be? Surely you don’t think that all of the galaxies came from nothing? Scientists say that we can now see 5 billion light years away, and that’s only how far away that we can see, it goes on further. How can all of that just happen without a creator?

      • jimc says:

        Hawking postulates that the universe is a quantum fluctuation, something that can happen in empty space. I dont know what the probability of an electron/positron pair can appear in that manner, but it seems me that a whole universe popping into existence must be much less. I dont know if there is even such a thing as space and time without matter (needs a universe) to define place and events (also needs a universe) to define time. So Hawking claims to see what was before there was a universe. To explain away the anthropic principle (the amazing coincidences of physics the make life possible), Hawking proposes that there is a multiverse (an infinite variety of universes with different physical laws), thus assuring one will be friendly to life.

        Besides the existence of the universe and its friendliness to life, Hawking also has the problem of proving a negative, i.e. that there is no god. All you need is one piece of positive evidence to defeat his argument. I have more than one, but Ill start with circa. 30AD. Then, of course, Hawking first wife has said that he (Hawking) believes that he is god.

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          jimc…”Hawking postulates that the universe is a quantum fluctuation, something that can happen in empty space.”

          Hawking is a theorist who is a legend in his own mind. Einstein had grave problems with scientists who implied theories with no physical reality to back them.

          Physicist David Bohm, a friend of Einstein, claimed that an equation with no reality to back it is garbage. Hawking works with equations that have no reality to back them.

          As for quantum fluctuations, quantum theory has married probability theory with Newtonian wave mechanics. There is no way to visualize anything quantum. Even though it works in specific atomic interactions, quantum theory describes a world of sci-fi.

          David Bohm, an expert in the field, claimed that quantum theory and Newtonian theory are dualities that have reached the ends of their respective paths and that we’ll have to find other ways to observe reality at the atomic level.

        • Freeland_Dave says:

          The disqualifer to what Hawkins says if found in the second word of your first sentence. The word is postulates. ‘suggest or assume the existence, fact, or truth of something as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or belief.”

          Simply put it’s his theory and not actual fact. Note in the definition it uses the words ‘suggest’ and ‘assume’ that specifically tells you that his postulation is not to be taken as fact.

          While Hawking’s believes he a god I believe him to be an addle minded horn dog more concerned with attracting attention to himself than actually doing something concrete that would benefit from humanity.

          About the best thing that Hawking’s has ever done in his entire live was to make guest appearances on the television comedy show ‘The Big Bang Theory.’ Even Billy Nye, a scientist that I don’t really care for, is on a higher plane of science compared to Hawking.

          As you can deduce I don’t think very much about either of them. Hey, it’s far, they don’t think much about me either. What goes around comes around. But you can adore them if you desire. I won’t blame you .

          • David Appell says:

            Hawking discovered what’s now known as Hawking radiation. It was a major advance in cosmology.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            DA…”Hawking discovered whats now known as Hawking radiation. It was a major advance in cosmology”.

            He did not discover it, he theorized it. More of his Black Hole nonsense.

    • Michael Smith says:

      Only the things we can’t explain are the work of the creator. For instance my wife makes a great apple pie that defies belief. I thought the good lord himself hand a hand in it, until my mother in law showed me the secret. I will assume the grand unified theory is just another pie recipe. It’s comforting for some to simplify our complex world.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        Michael Smith…”I will assume the grand unified theory is just another pie recipe”.

        It’s worse, it’s yet another unvalidated model.

        When the theory of evolution was proposed by Darwin, he knew nothing about the complexities of DNA. In DNA, there are codes which are read by RNA to create amino acids then proteins.

        Where did the codes come from? It’s patently unreasonable to assume that 5 basic elements in primeval muds could fluke together via covalent bonds to form codes that produce amino acids that have to be precise to reproduce life.

        I am not interested in Creation theory per se but I am beginning to think that some kind of intelligent creation makes infinitely more sense than evolution.

    • Michael Smith says:

      Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

      Arthur C Clarke

  87. Bon Throckmorton says:

    Good thing for the wife’s and my SUV’s or those Europeans would be under a glacier right now.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      Michael Smith…Exxonsecrets is a holdover from the McCarthyist era. Hopefully we live in more enlightened times where people don’t feel compelled to rat on each other or to try discrediting a scientist because he doesn’t agree with the climate-fascist status quo.

  88. Right I am says:


  89. Right I am says:

    Climate change is big in Ohio. SUMMER, FALL, WINTER , SPRING

  90. Simon Grunchy says:

    Seriously, Roy you need to update the layout of your website. I scroll down to enter a comment and 1/2 of the page is a black blank. Using Chrome. Seriously, a pain to navigate.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      Simon “Seriously, Roy you need to update the layout of your website”.

      Never had that problem on this site with Firefox 49. Using a Java script blocker (NoScript) and an Adblocker…no problem. Also an ornery firewall/anitmalware app that can be set up to shut everything down if so desired.

      Sounds like Chrome or some add-on you are using. Does it do the same using IExplorer, provided you are using Windoze.

  91. Vincent says:

    For God’s sake get a grip of yourselves. This site is degenerating into childish nonsense.

  92. Causeandeffect says:

    The same thing happens in south florida with the water management district. They empty lake Okeechobee in anticipation of a storm and then the storm veers out to sea. Man made drought for sure. But not in the same sense.

  93. SeaJay says:

    The NPR show was discussing flooding fields, vineyards, and other tree lots to refill the aquifer.

    Now California Knows the problem of what happens with no water…
    It is High Time to build multiple 1,000 gallon storage tanks, rain collection and filtration systems, and when the sky blesses the land with water, the state can capture millions of gallons of water.

    Rain Harvesting systems are a well developed technology,
    moderately priced to install and maintain, and basically
    self justifying in the money they save and water they produce.

    CROPS are the number 1 consumer of water in California.

    Drip irrigation and Rain Harvesting, combined with solar powered desalination plants will yield and endless supply of fresh water.

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      The problem with your comment was in the first word of the first sentence. ‘NPR’.
      Not exactly a good source for good science. But it is a good Pravda by the government that funds it.

    • K Daddy says:

      But better water retention is something California should have pursued devlcades ago..

  94. JP says:

    I believe in climate change. I believe in climate disruption. I also believe in warming trends and cooling trends, too. I think they call this the weather.

  95. Julia says:

    Right on.
    Jerry Brown probably also opened the flood gates from somewhere and brought water OR our prayers were answered.

  96. fyou says:

    A couple of big storms wont solve the long term problem of the US and other irrigation dependent nations. As we grow more and more food to feed scumbag terrorists and aids infested african warlords who keep having more babies than western countries we deplete our already depleted aquifers. We need to let these creeps learn how to feed themselves or stop having children with 10 different men.

  97. nitram says:

    While everyone is watching the weather -shuuu the price of uranium is starting to rise. More nuclear power plants coming?

  98. Iron Rey says:

    I would like to see some water get to our endorheic lakes Mono, Pyramid, and Walker, they have been getting lower and lower (although Mono has been getting better since LA quit taking from it), complex issue though.

  99. Mike says:

    A great site showing real time reservoir levels. The drought is basically over.

    • ren says:

      Reservoirs in California will reach a record this winter.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        They reach a record every day. A guy goes out there and determines how high or low the water is at the time he measures it. Then he records it in a journal and goes about his business. So each measurement is a record. But you didn’t mean that did you? The average moron reading your comment will read it’s the highest it’s ever been. You see that in the media all of the time. Coldest ever recorded, highest ever recorded and so it. It’s what sells news. Doesn’t mean that it’s true just because they say it is. For example, when has Niagara Falls frozen over? Back in the 1800’s. Yet I hear weather reports coming out of the area that, “its coldest it has ever been.” What, did the Falls freeze over and we just didn’t notice?

        BTW, I suppose that we don’t and haven’t always been getting bursts of these ‘charged particles’ since the creation of our planet. Then there is also the problem with your comment that the majority of the earth’s population lives below 55 degrees in latitude so not much protection is necessary at the poles. Oh yes, some live above that latitude but comparatively speaking, not all that many.

    • ren says:

      “While all of the storms may not tap into tropical moisture, they will still have a long time to grab moisture from the northern Pacific,” Rayno said.
      Just as in recent weeks, one storm after another will roll in with bouts of drenching rain along the coast and across the Central Valley of California with heavy snow in the mountains.”

  100. Liberalism is a Disease says:

    The ass baboons in SACTO will somehow manage to f**k this up.

    Just give pot head Jerry, the cuck Newsome, and the taco bender de Leon time.

    Oh yeah, don’t forget their new AG – Holder (not Becerra).

  101. Spicoli says:

    So those lectures I got from hipster douches a few years ago don’t mean anything? We are not going off the edge and droughts have happened about every 10-15 years in CA for a century?

    Imnagine that.

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      Well those lectures that you attended might have gotten you laid but other than that they were a waste of your time. Go look at drought history in CA and it becomes fairly easy to comprehend that the government in CA is so inept that it can’t poor piss out of boot when the instructions are written on the heal.

      NOTE to Site moderators: Piss is not a curse word. It’s a word that appears in the Christian Holy Bible. Don’t believe me though, look it up for yourself. The part about ‘pissith on the wall.’

  102. BK Mart says:

    When your population outstrips your water supply it isn’t called a drought, it’s called stupidity…

  103. Matty says:

    Donald Trump ended the drought!

  104. Charles says:


  105. Bill says:

    Will unchecked water usage reemerge?

  106. Gary Jones says:

    The argument is global warming, not water shortage. Pay attention…

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      Pay attention yourself. It’s the same topic of discussion here, along with the politics of illegal immigration coupled with unequal taxation.

      • Buck Turgidson says:

        A lot of discussion here about climate implications for water supply. Water has both supply and demand dimensions. I think people here can comment on both of them as they see fit, unless Gary Jones now is the hallway monitor of this thread.

  107. flatearther says:

    There are no satellites.

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      Congrats flatearther. How to prove to the rest of the world that you are an idiot in four words. You really out did yourself on that one. Can you do it in three words or less? Here, I’ll help you. It will be two words, “I’m stupid.”
      Now, get it down to one and really impress us.

  108. DJG says:

    Since drought is such a grave concern in California, why is so much fresh water now being allowed to discharge into the ocean? Can nothing be done to save it?

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      It’s a balance between expected snow fall run off and how much to retain in the reservoirs for the rest of the year. Unfortunately politics, not science, gets in the way, along with inept government employees that are not doing the work or not having the funding for maintenance that is the real problem. The first thing, in my opinion, is to flush all government officials into the ocean and replace them with people who are not blinded by politics that are capable of doing the right thing. That won’t happen until the majority of CA voters change their line of thinking. Don’t expect it to change anytime soon.

  109. Killvill321 says:

    If you have a blindfold on you can walk freely through a pit of snakes take the bolder off and now you became petrified and no longer have the courage to move

  110. Tang says:

    If California removed all of the illegals, it would free up so much water and reduce California’s carbon footprint at the same time.

    That is a Win – Win.

    Oh, and it would reduce crime too.

    Win – Win – Win

    • Buck Turgidson says:

      It is really simple — but you are dealing with a state that selects kamala harris to be its US Senator, a moron with an IQ of room temperature. Combine that with the tens of millions of brainwashed sheep in the populace, and, voila! Chronic water shortages.

    • Nate says:

      Dont know anything about her, seems that she was an effective district attorney.

      Difficult to believe she has a low IQ.

      I think you are confusing ‘dumb’ with ‘doesn’t agree with me’.

  111. eric says:

    i’m gunna break it down really simple for you dingbats: burning fossil fuels release CO2, CO2 is a green house gas, greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere. this is causing GLOBAL warming. we are setting records for the highest average annual global temperature year after year. pointing at individual scenarios like california and bulgaria is totally irrelevant to the argument, its a GLOBAL average issue. Having more heat in the atmosphere will cause more severe weather, predicting when and where is the hard part. The science is simple. Climate deniers are ignorant.

    • Fisht says:

      Youre full of shiat… An indoctrinated ctrl-lefty that thinks the cult of Climate Change is real, lol…

    • Fisht says:

      Green politics seem to be a way of making crazily extreme totalitarians feel wholesome.

      If you’re interested in why the ctrl-left acts this way then watch this video:

      • eric says:

        i have no interest in your conspiracy theories. the alt-right has brainwashed and manipulated you into a foot soldier that they will squash as soon as it helps their investment portfolio.

    • Tang says:

      Why does Al Gore have private jets and multiple mansions if the threat is so real?

      Why is Leo DiCaprio building an island retreat if climate change will submerge it.

      Have you given up fossil fuels?

      Just curious.

      As for me, I love fossil fuels. They are a miracle that propels my massive truck, heats my house and fuels my bbq grill.

      • eric says:

        my point in posting here is i despise when ANYONE, lefty, righty, commy, uses hack science to increase their political agenda. you have no clue what my agenda is, you are just assuming. this article states an end to the drought and does not even mention ground water! do you have any idea how ignorant that is?

    • ren says:

      This science is not simple, it is primitive and does not confirmed by its observations.
      Ozone shows the circulation of the tropopause (Jetstream).

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      eric…”…greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere…”

      sorry…heat is a property of atoms, it is their average kinetic energy. How does CO2 trap atoms?

      The glass on a real greenhouse can trap them, hence the average kinetic energy increases and the temperature rises inside the greenhouse. There is no such mechanism in the atmosphere, including GHGs, for trapping heat.

      GHGs can absorb infrared energy in specific wavelength related to infrared emissions from the surface. Infrared energy is not heat. It can be absorbed, raising the kinetic energy of GHGs, but the GHG molecules are so out-numbered by oxygen and nitrogen atoms that they cannot retain the increases energy.

      Physicist/meteorologist, Craig Bohren, claimed the heat trapping model is a metaphor at best, and at worst, plain silly.

      • eric says:

        they cannot retain the energy? where does it go then? the energy would be passed on to neighboring gases?

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          eric…”they cannot retain the energy? where does it go then? the energy would be passed on to neighboring gases?”

          Correct. It’s plainly obvious to anyone who has learned basic science that 99%+ of the atmosphere is nitrogen and oxygen whereas GHGs make up 1% of the atmosphere on a good day.

          All CO2 makes up 0.04% (4/100ths of 1%) of the atmosphere and ACO2, based on a density of 390 ppmv, makes up about 1/1000nds of 1%.

          Any heat acquired by CO2 in particular would be immediately swamped through collisions with N2 and O2 molecules.

          IMHO, CO2 has nothing to do with warming the atmosphere, it is strictly N2 and O2 that cause warming through conduction with the surface and subsequent convection. Also, evapouration of water vapour from the oceans.

          Surface radiation is a red herring argument. Any radiation from the surface would dissipate within a few feet of the surface due to the inverse square law.

          • Norman says:

            Gordon Robertson

            I hope you rethink your understanding in your post.

            You are demonstrating a severe lack of physics understanding with that comment.

            If you measured the upwelling IR at the surface as 390 W/m^2 then 100 meters up above the loss of energy would be around 0.01 W/m^2.

            If you double the distance from the Earth’s center (6,371,000 meters) to 12,74,000 meters (or 3959 miles above the surface) the radiant energy from the surface (if not obstructed by the atmosphere) would be 1/4 of the surface flux or 97.5 Watts/m^2.

            I really think you lack fundamental understanding of GHE. The energy in the atmosphere keeps the GHG’s emitting in their wavelengths which is given off in all directions including down toward the Earth’s surface.

          • David Appell says:

            Nice Norman. For once we’re in agreement!

            Any planet with an atmosphere that stores heat has a greenhouse effect. It’s really that simple.

          • Gordon Robertson says:


            I think you’re getting yourself lost in the math. Take off your math hat and put on your reality hat.

            If you have a ring on an electric stove burning cherry red at 1500 watts, you are suggesting it will be felt 100 meters away with only a loss of 0.01 W/M^2.

            Just put your hand over the ring close up then pull it back 4 feet. You can’t feel it. Holding a pot of water a foot above it will hardly affect the water.

            There is a huge drop off in radiative power in a few feet.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            DA…”Nice Norman. For once were in agreement!”

            Eeeeew!! Norman…the kiss of death from Appell. Now you’ll have to attend meetings with him at realclimate and skepticalscience. At least you’ll get a front row seat since that’s where Appell likes to sit.

          • Norman says:

            Gordon Roberston

            You are very clueless on science, you have very little logical reasoning. I was hoping you would think about it but it seems that ability is not your strong point.

            If you want to compare the earth to a hot plate, you would have to have millions of hot plates and as the radiation of one is spreading out, the radiation from the one next to it is filling the void with its own radiation.

            You really should stop and think. You are so wrong in your view of radiation it does not even get a chuckle from me, it is just sad.

            You could read up on it an learn.

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      Tell you what dude. You can make your own improvement in the release of CO3 by holding your breath. The pseudo-science you are using is not science. If you really knew any science at all you wouldn’t be making such stupid statements and declaring them as fact. Yes, climate deniers are ignorant. We do have a climate and that is a scientific fact. What causes changes in our climate is called weather. You however spew things you obviously have not understanding of. Now go back to your mother’s basement where you sleep, I think I hear her calling you. Science is far from simple except to the simple minded like you.

  112. Fisht says:

    Duh… The ctrl-left depends on a permanent state of Crisis. It then lets them justify arcane, insane, Politburo style regulations and taxation on the productive people in the State…

    Liberalism is a serious and dangerous mental disorder.

  113. Fisht says:

    Its time to fight Libidiots to the death.

  114. Ib Snooker says:

    Global warming is real, and we’ve got to do something about these evil fossil fuels! If the climate model predictions pan out, then by 2020 the global temperature will be 64,204F and we’ll all have drowned – IN MOLTEN ROCK! I’m doing my part. Instead of driving a car to work, I ride my pet Pegasus. And I heat my house with magic bean power! For electricity, I just close my eyes and imagine that there’s electricity, and by Jove, there it is! And since agriculture is such a fossil fuel dependent industry, I just eat the air. Mmmmm, tasty, tasty air! So come on and let’s all do our part. Think of the children! FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, WHO’S GOING TO THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

    • eric says:

      let me see if i understand your point woven into an extremely pathetic attempt of humour: the worlds getting hotter, we cant do anything about it.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        No, he’s saying that people like you are pathetically stupid earth worshipers that incorrectly believe that they can alter things they have absolutely no understanding of. First of all, Bozo, if you had been paying attention to the news, according to the majority of climate scientists in the world today, as of a couple of days ago, have admitted that the world is getting cooler and not hotter. So yes, there isn’t anything you can do about it and I am not going to waste my time trying to change something that no one has any control over. If you feel it’s do to mankind, do us all a favor and make CO2 emission by holding your breath until you expire. That is something that you can personally do about YOUR problem.

    • David Appell says:

      The influx from Drudge has really lowered the level of discourse here.

  115. ImaHippyBurning says:

    Liberal/Progressives I mean Climate Fascists are both insane and gullible! They have become a serious threat to themselves and humanity in general. Just look at how the last 8 years they have supported such a morally corrupt and reprehensible unqualified leader HUSSEIN who has created the conditions for the next Global conflict that these imbeciles will be too cowardly to fight!

    They are truly uninspiring, hypocritical and now irrelevant!

    • eric says:

      wow, a very original comment. if i saw you in real life, i would expose the string on your back, and rip it out, taking solace in hearing those words finally for the last time.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        Physically touch me eric and you will be pulling more than a string out of your butt or mouth, which ever is easiest for you as the outcome would be the same. Now go back to your Earth Worship with your religion of climate change that you believe is all caused by mankind.

        Come on puke, I’ll play the physical game for you if you want to play. I’ll even give you the first strike. Better make it a good one because it’s doubtful you will survive mine.

        Now go whine to your mommie. She probably doesn’t want to deal with you but she’s your mommie so you are really her problem to deal with.

  116. kimdi01 says:

    To save water, especially this abundance from the recent storms and the spring snow melt, shut off the pipe lines and canals from northern California to LA. LA doesn’t need the water. It’s just populated with all those snow flake media stars who are leaving the country and planet if Trump gets sworn in. Make them live up to their word.

    • eric says:

      IGNORANT! There definitely aren’t any normal white people in LA. Do you have any idea how many conservatives live in Orange County? You are all fucking idiots who cherry pick pieces of information that ignore the whole story.

      • Freeland_Dave says:

        Isn’t it interesting when a person like eric can’t put together a valid argument he resorts to the child like method of insulting those he disagrees with.

        One thing that could possible be true is that eric surrounds himself who definitely are not normal people regardless of their race or local in LA.

        • eric says:

          i concur i dont surround myself with “normal”, because the “normal” are the uneducated-easily-manipulates-sheep that u roll with

  117. David Unvert says:

    So true

  118. august says:

    the chinese brown cloud is dramatically reduced allowing for lower altitude precipitation. China industry affects weather in California….we should sue china for weather reparations for the last 10 years and remove Jerry Brown – the retard

  119. Buck Turgidson says:

    The ‘global warming’ scaremongering has been thoroughly debunked. Look at the global avg temp predictions of the all the junk science climate models from 25 years ago — all wrong. That is why it was relabeled as ‘climate change.’ You can bet this is a crisis when Al Gore and Leonardo deCaprio and former prez obozo stop flying and move into tents. Until then, my goal is to make my carbon footprint as large as theirs.

  120. Bo jiden says:

    Call them HotAirheads.

  121. Steve Oregon says:

    This is interesting.

    A wetter future may soon be reality in all of the West with a likely cyclical return to the same kind of wet years of the 70s to the 90s.
    And it’s not just the west coast. Inland upstream water basins are way up and feeding Lakes Powell and Mead in ways that may fill both as was the case in that earlier era.
    As sure as the Texas drought ended so is the rest of the west coast drought.
    When the snowpack is way above normal and the Sierra Nevada precipitation index is above 82-83, its time, he said. Northern California has received so much rain this year that the region is on pace to surpass the record rainfalls of 1982-83.

    Rivers feeding Lake Powell are running at 171.23% of the Jan 12th avg. Click for Details
    Multiple wet years from the 1970s to the 1990s filled both lakes to capacity,reaching a record high of 1225 feet in the summer of 1983. In these decades prior to 2000, Glen Canyon Dam frequently released more than the required 8.23 million acre feet to Lake Mead each year, allowing Lake Mead to maintain a high water level despite releasing significantly more water than for which it is contracted.

  122. Mike the Spike says:

    I’m in Cali and I feel totally ontrolled by the libs. We pay for grocery bags now to fund environment bs and can’t carry our guns anywhere without locking them up, making them useless for self defense in public. Some apartment buildings are up to 90% occupied by illegals. And people wonder why rent is so high out here.

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      Yeah Mike, I do understand and have a smattering of compassion for you. I lived in CA for over 35 years. When I got there CA was not a bad place to live. Then the liberals got into power and the whole state went down the toilet as far as common sense went.

      The only suggestion I can give you is what I did for myself. MOVE!. I sold everything, packed my bags and took a one way trip permanently out of CA and it was the best thing I ever did in my life. Yeah we have an illegal problem but it’s minor compared to CA. But where I couldn’t obtain a CWP to legally carry concealed it was easy to get one where I currently reside. Now I am not a gun nut and I don’t carry every day. But when I know I am going to be in a place of high risk I can legally carry and legally defend myself.

      I know it’s hard to pull up your roots and go to a better place but if I can do it I am certain that you can easily do it as well. It’s the fear of the unknown that is really preventing you from moving. I had the same fears as does anyone pulling up their roots and moving to an unfamiliar place.

      But like I said, if I can do it I know that you can as well. Just don’t do what a lot of Californians do, don’t bring your problems with you. Leave them in CA. Good luck to you and it’s not as hard as you might suppose.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      Mike…”…and cant carry our guns anywhere without locking them up, making them useless for self defense in public”.

      Yeah…but the gangs and muggers can carry illegal guns with impunity. They can kick in the door of your home, especially if you are old and helpless, and rob you at gun point, while you are not allowed to have an unlocked gun, even with a permit, to defend yourself.

      I’m talking Canada, not California. I recall a story a while back about a young female punk who thought she had a soft touch with a 90+ year old pensioner here in Canada. She broke in and he pulled a gun and smacker her one when she jumped him.

      He was charged.

      I don’t think it’s Liberals or whatever, I think it is a political correctness that has become a sickness. People live in illusions of a world that has nothing to do with the world in which we live.

      I think the average politician is plain scared of gangs. They want the rest of us to live in the same world of fear and pathetic resistance to the criminal elements.

  123. Chuck Dolci says:

    Issues of climate change aside, this is just the latest among many examples of why so called “experts” quoted by the main stream media should never be believed. They are ALWAYS wrong. They will never quote somebody who is not an alarmist. When was the last time the media had an expert that said “Well, things are not really as bad as they look. And, besides, things should correct themselves relatively quickly.”?

  124. F. Ketcfuh says:


  125. scott allen says:

    You got to love David Appell, if he didn’t post this thread would be 20% shorter.
    David farmers pay a tax to maintain the water system in this country they pay a water tax for the right to the water.
    David the ocean is not rising any faster ( about 1 mm per year) then it has since they started keeping records in the 1770. The record is from Kronstadt
    and just an fyi the sun has more influence on earth temperature then CO2
    this from the University of Colorado (Bolder. You will note (in the third graph) that TSI (total solar irradiance ) pretty much matches the earths temperature.

    • Freeland_Dave says:

      I agree with everything you have said above with exception of what farmers pay for. Yes the do pay taxes, I don’t deny it. But proportionally, compared to those who live in the inner cities, they pay substantially less.

      Take the SJ Delta agricultural region of CA. Back in the 1800’s it was basically a desert that surrounded an unusable swamp. Dirt farming was all the farmer could do and he was dependent on rainfall to water his crops that were not adjacent to the river.

      Then they started the Army Corps of Engineers and started building out levies and canals. While the farmers did pay for some of that the preponderance of the money was paid for by other taxpayers.

      So what happened is the farmer got a huge financial lift where he could grow year around and have all the water necessary to make himself into a millionaire. it happened all over the central valley of Ca.

      At the end of the 1900’s and early into the 2000’s the rich kids from these farms didn’t want to farm. Why should they? They could, and did, sell out their family farms that their parents got very cheaply and the government made into something valuable and sold them for millions to cities, developers and yes, the mega corp farmer.

      Now, today, it is those wealthy individuals who didn’t really do much to improve the land they basically got for free or at very low cost, who are complaining about water.

      Note: The entire area from just above Sacramento to Bakersfield was an aired desert until the government stepped in to irrigate the place. Even in the thirty plus years I lived in the Central Valley of California I could easily see what irrigation of that desert was doing to CA as a whole.

      In short, from having to specifically deal with the Central Valley Farmers of CA I have very little sympathy for them. I don’t say this about all of them because some of them are really good people. But the majority of the today, sadly they are just businessmen looking for higher and higher profits.

      Funny the small farmers there today complain about not getting water and the fact that residential development has caused many of the problems in CA. But get this, it was their own kind that sold their properties to developers that did this. So don’t complain to me about the state of farming in CA today. They, the farmers, did it all to themselves after receiving a tremendous boost by the government all paid for by all of us and not just the farmer.

  126. Steve A. says:

    When did what “seems like an unending drought” turn into “unending drought?”

  127. Curtis says:

    You said it. Bunch of wackos

  128. California’s problems stem from “progressive” stupidity. We have an infrastructure for roads, floods, and water that dates back anywhere from 50 to 150 years. 50 years ago the state had a population close to 15 million. It is now closing in on 40 million. Our problems stem from the huge influx of population and a legislature dominated by non-natives from the East. People that have no understanding of the history, geology, climate and hydrology. The state legislature of activist Democrats find it is more important to discuss and act on transgender toilet rights than water or infrastructure. So California will be in a perpetual state of problems, mainly because of the idiots that reside in the state house and the fools that put them there.

  129. Karl Popper says:

    ^Wins the internet.

  130. K Daddy says:

    Ahhhh….first of all Mr. Eric, why are all the projections we were told 10 years ago about the “rapid rise of global temperatures” not born out???? Just answer that. Oh yeah, you are not from or live in California…correct?

    This major rain that California is now getting is very much like we got in the state start of 1982…guess what, it is 35 years later, following the roughly ever 7 year El Nino rain period for the state. And guess what, it is exactly 35 years later. This affect has been going on in California for a millennium…way before fossil fuels were burning from our cars and way before there were even humans on earth…now that is real science. The climate has been changing since day one and the earth adapts…that is science as well…

  131. Steve johnson says:

    Fundamentalist churches contain a lot of Folks with different agendas…but what seems distinct is actually reading the Bible. It is the GPS of western civilization. If you don’t use it good luck, so long and thanks for all the fish. If you do use it you might be surprised at what it has influenced. I learned Cantor’s theorem from a catholic who
    Used it to show me I didn’t know Jack about math.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      steve…”I learned Cantors theorem from a catholic who
      Used it to show me I didnt know Jack about math”.

      You might want to check current religious history from renowned theologians such as Elaine Pagels.

      The Catholic religion was imposed on the Roman world by Emperor Constantine circa 325 AD. In doing so, he imposed the belief system of Ireneaus, a 2nd century AD hardliner who insisted that anyone with a Christian opinion different from his was a heretic.

      Ireneaus, like his teacher, drew his beliefs from the Gospel of John in the NT. His interpretation is questionable but no one knows who wrote the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. They contradict each other on certain vital questions related to Jesus and they were written 20 to 100 years after his death.

      Circa 1945, new gospels were found in the Egyptian desert at Nag Hammadi that contradict (and confirm) the first four gospels of the NT. Those Gospels, like the Gospel of Thomas, a disciple of Jesus, were banned and burned by Constantine and his Bible police.

      You might ask your Catholic friend about his/her source.

  132. Daddy John says:

    I am 60 plus now, years ago they blamed climate change on cows. Too many cows and too much methane. Now blame it on cars.

    • Valdito says:

      Is it estimated that 30 million bison were on the ranges of North America before the Europeans showed up. The estimated number of cows in the US is about 100 million.

      But bison were bigger, ranged over more territory and ate grass, not grain. So they crapped and farted more.

      I doubt any research has been done on this topic, but I would bet that 30 million bison produce about as much methane as 100 million cows.

      • David Appell says:

        Valdito says:

        If so, so what?

        Replacing one methane source with another emitting an equal amount does not cause climate change.

        • Valdito says:

          David Appel:

          That was exactly the point I was making. Measuring and trying to mitigate cow farts today is a ridiculous way to spend money.

  133. Dean says:

    These idiots just want to tax it. Al Gore is a moron

  134. Homer says:

    You don’t have any sheep.

  135. Homer says:

    If you have read all the above comments and made it this far to read mine, you might want to get out more, or just kill yourself.

  136. WriterGuy says:

    You spout nonsense as if they were facts. Want to post sources for your claims?

  137. Justa thought says:

    Many of the posts and or responses to this article are filled with “I am right your are wrong thoughts.”

    Everyone seems to find their own truth and statistics that are better or more true than another especially if it is an apposing perspective.

    What is with the anger and hate?

  138. chuckles1954 says:

    It’s Trump I tell you! He’s making America great again, even fixing drought. Next they will be building car factories on the land that used to be sand. He did this for people that didn’t even vote for him. How sweet is that?

    • David Appell says:

      Then why is Trump selling NATO’s soul to Russia?

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        DA…”Then why is Trump selling NATOs soul to Russia?”

        He’s not, he’s trying to modernize NATO and get freeloaders to pay their fair share. He’s also trying to bring Russia into the fold and get their help fighting terrorism.

        NATO was formed post WWII to deal with a perceived threat from communist Russia. Russian is no longer a communist state and has expressed a desire to join in the free enterprise movement. They have been opposed by Neanderthals in NATO member states, like Obama and Hillary Clinton.

        NATO has no business installing missiles in countries bordering Russia aimed at Russia. Some of us out here want to avoid a nuclear war and Russia is one of a few countries who can deliver on that threat.

        It’s unfortunate that a right-winger like Trump is the only one apparently able to see that.

  139. Jason Lee says:

    Actually you are wrong have you followed the sun activity for almost two years before the Suns cooling phase that is occurring right now. We had continuous sunspot activity for the last two years look it up on space which is a website that works with the u.s. Government. What is sun spots? It’s cme’s coronal mass ejections that are emitted from the sun wich increase radiation levels On our planet wich heat our planet. I implor you to go to space weather and read everything and research science about the sun and simple physics. you will learn that we just exited our solar maximum witch our scientist have said was surprisingly long now we are entering A solar minimum cycle. Yes I read books I hope everyone else does as well that is true education to read and to observe and to learn. And I’m out

  140. Hey Trump Dumpers says:

    Seriously? Try opening your eyes! The hatred is all from the Dem party. You all are the most hypocritical people on Earth. You all see hard facts laid in front of your face yet deny it as fact. You all are he most hateful people on Earth! The proof is on the pudding. The Dem’s actions always prove my statement as fact. I’ll give you a recent example, Nov. 2013 Harry Reid set the Senate go “Nuclear” yet in 2005 condemned Republicans for even thinking of doing that. Mmmmm, that sandwhich is tasty now isn’t it! Feels so good exposing liars, cheats, crooks and hypocrits for who they are.

  141. Hey Trump Dumpers says:

    Be sure to personally attack me for my phone’s auto-un-correcting feature or you’ll be chastised by your “comrades”.

  142. Julie says:

    Actually, half the state is still in a drought and because Ca didn’t build more reservoirs during the drought, the state can’t capture all the excess rain it is receiving right now. To reverse the damage caused to trees and wildlife in the last six years, it could take another winter or two like this one. Clearly everyone responding to this opposes the idea of climate change and I won’t say I believe humans are the sole cause, but the huge changes aren’t occurring in the middle latitudes of the planet (such as examples cited, Bulgaria, Italy, etc) but at the poles. There is no denying that. Is it caused by human activity or a natural cycle? Who knows. But everything we could alter to improve the hypothetical situation is good practice anyway if we are to slow the rate at which we are destroying the planet–killing it with over-population, infinite tons of trash (think of what you throw away in one day and multiply that by 7 billion)–so I’m not going to worry about whether or not it’s true. I’m just going to try & make choices that are environmentally friendly regardless. It’s too bad so many people are more worried about proving theories right or wrong than they are about doing the right thing.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      julie…”…but the huge changes arent occurring in the middle latitudes of the planet (such as examples cited, Bulgaria, Italy, etc) but at the poles”.

      It’s only happening in the Arctic and the warming spots move around. There is no proof of warming on the Antarctic continent, only near the northern tip of the peninsula, which is closer to the latitude of South America.

    • David Appell says:

      Julie wrote:

      Oregon state, 30-yr trend in surface temperature = +0.16 C/decade
      total warming = +1.5 C since 1895
      California state: +0.23 C/decade
      total change = +0.9 C since 1895

  143. Cynic says:

    One of my concerns regarding anyone making claims of certainty on this subject is the one thing missing in the science. The one thing any good science requires. A control.

    Because there is no control (an EXACT duplicate of Earth with EXACTLY the same orbit and physical features, biodiversity, and composition, minus humanity. Which is IMPOSSIBLE) no one can say what’s happening is normal or abnormal.

    Also, for a moment let’s assume humans can warm the planet. One could argue we should for several reasons:

    – it would support stronger algae blooms in the oceans; thus supporting increased plankton and fish populations.

    – it would support the increased greening and biodiversity support of the Tiger forest. A more lush Tiger forest would support a very large animal population and would actually balance further CO2 emissions (the Tiger abounds for a very large portion of O emission).

    – if we are leaving an interstitial, and entering an ice age, I would imagine we would want to prevent that. An ice age would/could be much more harmful to global biodiversity (and human life) than a warmer planet by far.

    – wouldn’t more CO2 actually be greener as it would create a more suitable environment for green life? People who fight global warming and increased CO2 aren’t pro-green, they’re actually pro-human/pro-status quo when you really think about it.

    But that’s if we can make that impact.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      Cynic…”…no one can say whats happening is normal or abnormal”.

      That’s what many skeptics are trying to say. However, mathematicians using unvalidated climate models, which are programmed with presumptions not backed in physics, are claiming otherwise. Unfortunately, many people accept their findings on blind faith.

      When the IPCC was set up in 1988, one of it’s first co-chairs was John Houghton, a climate modeler. Even though the IPCC claimed in the 2001 review that future climate states cannot be predicted, they have reverted to unvalidated climate models to ‘project’ future climate states. The cannot use the word ‘predict’ because unvalidated models cannot predict.

      Too many people who should know better have blind faith is these expensive toys.

    • David Appell says:

      “…wouldnt more CO2 actually be greener as it would create a more suitable environment for green life?”

      Thawing permafrost will likely put enough carbon into the atmosphere to undo the greening planet. (Sci Am, Dec 2016).

      Greening is a positive feedback to global warming.




      • Lewis says:


        Professor Bloom is working hard to prove something that is unrealistic in real life.

        Plants require certain nutrients to grow. Certainly, with enough water and CO2, they will grow faster, but they also require PH, PO and N, among many micronutrients. They will end up producing the same plant material because that is all they can do. They are not a manufacturing plant which can change the product line. Certainly variations will occur, but farmers already know to add micronutrients to the soil, just as they add the big 3 in the 20, 20, 20 bags, and lime in the east.

        Perhaps we will have to eat more to get the same nutrients. I don’t see that as a problem, we already eat to much. The real question is not whether, but the percentage change in nutrients. If it is less than say 5%, so what.

        So this is just another rationalization for the religion you proselytize for.

      • David Appell says:

        Lewis says:
        “Professor Bloom is working hard to prove something that is unrealistic in real life.”

        Lewis, don’t pretend you know more than an expert who research this stuff for a living.

        It just makes you look foolish.

  144. James Monroe says:

    Jed ,
    Question: Taxes paid to whatever entities collecting them globally to offset what to me is a suspicious cause…..who gets the money? Do these tax collecting entities send a dividend check to every human on the planet? Or is it the collectors who spend/keep it?

  145. Tom says:

    I’m getting tired of all the global cooling deniers. It’s clear that to thwart global cooling we need to crank up our grills and our SUVs.

  146. Nancy says:

    It sounds as though you all should check out this website and a recent book called Technocracy Rising by Patrick Wood. It’s all about control, started big time in the 1930’s

  147. LysolMotorola says:

    Don’t chuck a wobbly. You know as well as anybody that it gets hot during the season you call winter. One week of hot days does not climate change make. I dare ANYONE to make a prediction about climate – either way…up or down – that is falsifiable in our life time. For the ignorant among us that means that it can be proven or disproven. Any gutless yobbo can predict climate in 50 years because no one can prove it false.

  148. Darwin Wyatt says:

    Dr. James Lovelock the father of the environmentalist movement and former alarmist settled this argument
    when he recanted. Google lovelock recants and you’ll see when temps failed to pace co2, he rightfully concluded co2 below natural variability. Game, set, hoax! That all being said conservation, sustainability, clean air water etc are real worthwhile goals we should all support. But GW is a hoax.

  149. Darwin Wyatt says:

    Nice try. The debate has passed you by friend. Been at this a long time starting on the warming side. Instead of reiterating all the data that proves you wrong I’ll just say I admire your dedication. And good for you for not calling the good Dr. lovelock a confused old man. That’s usually the meme hoaxers turn to. Meanwhile, there are real environmental causes that need your dedication. Let go of the stone.

  150. Norman says:

    Gordon Robertson

    I suggest maybe you want to read through this article. I like it because it is between the two fanatic groups (the extreme deniers that really do not understand physics but believe they are most expert and the alarmists who will believe every extreme view that man is destroying the world).

    • David Appell says:

      Their model is only one-dimensional.

      And, “In the present model, global mean parameters are used as constants,
      e.g. cloud height, relative humidity and Earth emissivity”

      And, get this!

      “For describing the mechanism of the greenhouse effect, it is sufficient to make the assumption that the Earth has a uniform temperature.”

      There’s more:

      “Therefore, no distinction was made between land and oceans.”

      • Norman says:

        David Appell

        The model is not designed to bring up all the effects on climate from carbon dioxide. It is a simplistic model intentionally. It is only calculating the actual radiative effects of carbon dioxide doubling alone.

        Please read the introduction, it seems you have scanned the article for some points you want to use to degrade it.

        • David Appell says:

          Norman, you’re right, it *IS* a very simplistic model. Which is why its conclusion about CO2’s climate sensitivity is crap.

          You seem to have an emotional need to believe it.

          What’s your problem with CO2 and AGW, anyway?

        • Norman says:

          David Appell

          This blog gives a list of 30 climate sensitivities that are calculated at the low end.

        • David Appell says:

          Norman says:
          “The model is not designed to bring up all the effects on climate from carbon dioxide.”

          Then it can’t calculate climate sensitivity, can it?

          What could be more bleeding obvious???????

          • Norman says:

            David Appell

            I can calculate climate sensitivity with a zero feedback. Just the raw effect of carbon dioxide and that is all it is attempting. The rest is complicated guess work that follows outside the realm of science.

          • David Appell says:

            Calculating climate sensitivity without feedbacks is useless. Feedbacks are where most of the change comes from.

          • Norman says:

            David Appell

            I am trying to locate the source for the sensitivity of CO2 being 0.8 C/(W/m^2) which gives a temperature increase of 3.2 C for doubling of CO2.

            It comes from RealClimate blog.


            I am not sure I agree with their logic. They assume that all the warming from 1850 was because of increase in carbon dioxide then they take their temperature change for that time period and put the value of 1.6 W/m^2 for the current forcing of Carbon Dioxide.

            I do not think this would be the most logical way to calculate the effect of Carbon Dioxide on the surface temperature. I think the authors who come up with 0.43 C did a much better science job. They did not assume all warming was from carbon dioxide, they just wanted to determine how much a doubling of CO2 would have on surface temperature with no need to assume, just calculate.

            I was rethinking a criticism you gave of the way I calculated surface temperature increase with a doubling of Carbon Dioxide. You mentioned the 4th power. After thinking about it, the 4th power based upon temperature is only valid for the rate that energy is leaving a surface. The amount of energy striking the surface is quite linear. Before the doubling of CO2 you have 340 W/m^2 returning to the Earth’s surface from GHG present in the atmosphere. This added energy makes the surface 33 C warmer than without its presence. Now add 3.7 W/m^2 to that and you get 343.7 W/m^2 hitting the Earth. The amount of energy increase to the surface is completely linear. You have 340 joules/sec in the first than 343.7 joules/sec with doubled CO2. The loss of energy from the surface is based upon the 4th power of the temperature with a constant factor to give a real world value.

            So you can do simple algebra. Since the amount of energy hitting the surface is a linear amount.

            340 W/m^2 times factor X = 33 C

            factor X = 0.0970588

            With a doubling of Carbon Dioxide you have 343.7 W/m^2 received by the surface. 343.7 W/m^2 times facor X (0.0970588) = 33.359 C

            From this you can get a zero-feedback effect of double CO2 as
            33.359 C – 33 = 0.359 C/ 3.7 W/m^2 = 0.09705 C/(W/m^2) instead of the whopping 0.8 C/(W/m^2) calculated if you assume all global warming since 1850 was the result of increase in CO2 during that time. There result is 10 times higher than mine but their results lack logical coherence.

            If 340 W/m^2 energy flux will only raise the Earth’s surface by 33 C why would an addition of 3.7 Watts raise this by 3 more C?

            They are making the claim that a 1% increase in the downwelling flux will result in a 10% increase in surface temperature. Rather terrible logic from a rigid point of view, seemingly impossible. If I were Gavin I might have rethought my conclusions as they really seem absurd.

          • David Appell says:


          • David Appell says:

            Norman says:

            Tsk tsk.

            Same problem you had before with the 0.43 C.

            atmo CO2 has only increased by 45%, so the climate sensitivity *must* be higher than that.

            Far worse: aerosol cooling.

            How much has it reduced modern warming?

            No one knows. Because there simply are’t sufficient measurements of it in the 20th century.

            So, we can’t determine CO2’s climate sensitivity based on the 20th century.

            Deal with it.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      Norman…”I suggest maybe you want to read through this article”.

      I appreciate the link but the reading is too painful. When I read first it was about a model. I held my nose and read on. Then I had to swallow nonsense about Trenberth-Kiehl…more nose pinching.

      When they referred to IR emissions as heat rays, I had to stop. Any person writing a paper who fails to distinguish IR from heat does not deserve to be read. That goes doubly for anyone who presents Trenberth-Kiehl and their fictitious energy balance diagram.

      This may sound nit picky to you but please consider the following. Some people think the visible light portion of the EM spectrum contains colour. They think that if you shine light through a prism and see a rainbow effect of colours that the colour is actually in the refracted light.

      The colour is added by the eye. The prism definitely refracts the light EM into individual frequencies but it is the eye that detects them in rods and cones in the retina.

      It’s the same with heat and IR. IR radiated from the surface contains no thermal energy whatsoever. Heat is not a property of EM. Any paper which claims that is too painful for me to digest.

      I would like to read a paper in which this is clearly understood and keeps IR as EM and heat as thermal energy, which is the average kinetic energy of atoms. Heat must always be associated with atoms and if vectors pointing from the surface to the atmosphere are to be regarded as heat rays that better refer to the mass convection of atoms.

      • ren says:

        This is evident in the stratosphere, where ozone does not reflect “heat” to the tropopause.

      • Norman says:

        Gordon Robertson

        So why does my hand get hot when I put in the path of an IR producing heat lamp? IR is energy and when the energy gets absorbed by an object it increased the kinetic energy of the molecules in the object.

        Sometimes (most the time) it is hard for me to grasp what your points are about heat and energy.

        You have your own personal definition of heat that no scientist is using anymore and plug your nose because your old definition of terms is no longer used. You must really be an old person and can not learn “new tricks”

        Meanings and definitions are changed over time. Only the stubborn and old are unable to change with the times.

        I suppose if some kid tells you “that view is cool” you would only accept he means the view is at a lower temperature.

        You may be old but not wiser. I really think your problem is you do not really understand physics very well and struggle to follow it and when frustrate with that you blame it on some definitions you can not learn.

        • ren says:

          Lamp IR heats the at first solid surfaces. The air is heated only as from of those surface.

        • ren says:

          “The amount of the IR radiation that is incident on any surface has a spectral dependence because energy coming out of an emitter is composed of different wavelengths and the fraction of the radiation in each band, dependent upon the temperature and emissivity of the emitter. The wavelength at which the maximum radiation occurs is determined by the temperature of the IR heating elements. This relationship is described by the basic laws for blackbody radiation such as Planck’s law, Wien’s displacement law, and StefanBoltzman’s law, as summarized in Table 1 (Dagerskog and sterstrm 1979; Sakai and Hanzawa 1994).”

        • ren says:

          Heat and Thermal Radiation
          Infrared radiation is popularly known as “heat radiation,” but light and electromagnetic waves of any frequency will heat surfaces that absorb them. Infrared light from the Sun only accounts for 49% of the heating of the Earth, with the rest being caused by visible light that is absorbed then re-radiated at longer wavelengths. Visible light or ultraviolet-emitting lasers can char paper and incandescently hot objects emit visible radiation. Objects at room temperature will emit radiation mostly concentrated in the 8 to 25 m band, but this is not distinct from the emission of visible light by incandescent objects and ultraviolet by even hotter objects (see sections on black body radiation and Wien’s displacement law).


          The concept of emissivity is important in understanding the infrared emissions of objects. This is a property of a surface which describes how its thermal emissions deviate from the ideal of a black body. To further explain, two objects at the same physical temperature will not “appear” the same temperature in an infrared image if they have differing emissivities.

          Sources of IR Waves
          As stated above, while infrared radiation is commonly referred to as heat radiation, only objects emitting with a certain range of temperatures and emissivities will produce most of their electromagnetic emission in the infrared part of the spectrum. However, this is the case for most objects and environments humans encounter in our daily lives. Humans, their surroundings, and the Earth itself emit most of their thermal radiation at wavelengths near 10 microns, the boundary between mid and far infrared according to the delineation above. The range of wavelengths most relevant to thermally emitting objects on earth is often called the thermal infrared. Many astronomical objects emit detectable amounts of IR radiation at non-thermal wavelengths.

          Infrared radiation can be used to remotely determine the temperature of objects (if the emissivity is known). This is termed thermography, mainly used in military and industrial applications but the technology is reaching the public market in the form of infrared cameras on cars due to the massively reduced production costs.

          Source: Boundless. Infrared Waves. Boundless Physics Boundless, 08 Aug. 2016. Retrieved 17 Jan. 2017 from

          • Norman says:


            Thanks for supplying the current definition of heat.

            In your post: “Heat is energy in transient form that flows due to temperature difference”

            IR is energy in transient and is heat.

            What Gordon Robertson calls “heat” is now known as internal energy.

            They changed definitions to avoid confusion between energy in transit and the energy a body possess.

            Gordon lives in the 19th Century and since time does not exist to him he is a Time Lord and can’t stand that terms he knows mean something different.

          • ren says:

            The problem is that the air is nearly transparent to infrared radiation.

          • Kristian says:

            Norman says, January 17, 2017 at 3:59 PM:


            IR is energy in transient and is heat.

            Norman, we’ve been through this so many times now I can hardly keep track. Gordon Robertson is clearly wrong about his arcane definition of “heat”. But you do not grasp the concept either. Which is once again evident from your statement above.

            As the source correctly states: “Heat is energy in transient form that flows due to temperature difference.” This you strangely manage to interpret into the following: “IR is energy in transient and is heat.”

            No, Norman. You forgot the boldface part. IR is NOT (!!!!!) in itself “heat”. Heat is the NET LW, the actual macroscopic transfer/movement of energy between two regions or objects as a result of the temperature difference between those two regions/objects.

            P/A = s(T_h^4 – T_c^4)

            The “heat” is the term on the lefthand side of the equal sign, Norman. The terms on the righthand side are NOT “heats”, because “heat” by definition is an energy transfer due to a temperature difference, and nothing else. What the righthand side of the equation above shows is simply a mathematical radiative expression of such a temperature difference, providing a mathematical expression of the radiant “heat” (the actual radiative energy transfer, the “heat”) on the left.

          • David Appell says:

            ren says:
            “The problem is that the air is nearly transparent to infrared radiation.”

            Ha. Actually the problem is just the opposite.


      • David Appell says:

        “Heat must always be associated with atoms….”

        Absoulute B.S.

        Even physicists of the 18th century knew of the existence of radiative energy.

        Gordon misunderstands a lot of physics, and then tries to blame it on everyone else, insulting anyone and everyone, to try and cover up his lack of knowledge.

  151. ren says:

    The first front reaches the California January 18th, the second on January 20 and January 22 arrives “pineapple express”.,42.06,1037

  152. ren says:

    Very weak solar wind. It is visible stagnation in the circulation in the northern hemisphere.
    Pressure and lows are stationary, move the slowly. Such a stationary low shapes weather on the west coast.

  153. Vincent says:

    Is there a precise definition of climate? My understanding is that climate is an average of temperature and weather events over a period of time, whether globally or locally.

    But what period of time? A decade, or two decades, or 5 decades, or 20 decades?

    Science relies on very precise definitions of all the terms that are used to describe states and conditions.

    • Nate says:

      30 y is my understanding. And the 30 y ave temp has increased every year for quite a long time.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      Vincent…”Science relies on very precise definitions of all the terms that are used to describe states and conditions”.

      Apparently not in climate science, at least, not with certain climatologists who are not necessarily trained in atmospheric physics. For example, climate modelers have picked a number out of a hat wrt the effect of CO2 on atmospheric warming. I have heard numbers between a 9% effect and a 25% effect, none of which has been proved.

      My pet peeve is positive feedbacks in the atmosphere which have never been proved to exist yet they are included in climate model programs. If you look up positive feedback on Google, there are an alarming number of people claiming a positive feedback is an amplifier. Not true, positive feedback requires an amplifier but it is not an amplifier itself. Without an amplifier in the atmosphere there can be no positive feedback.

      However, there are other sciences that define terms yet offer no direct proof. In astronomy you have black holes and the Big Bang, neither having been witnessed directly, only inferred. In geology you have continental drift theory and plate tectonics, neither having been witnessed directly. We have only witnessed side slip faults like San Andreas and possibly some vertical thrust faults.

      In theoretical physics you have space-time curvature, which is a neat trick since time has no existence. That does not stop theorists drawing a 3-D Cartesian coordinate system, which locates a point in 3-D space then arbitrarily adding a 4th dimension to the point called ‘t’.

      No one has ever demonstrated a 4th dimension called time.

      Therefore a point at x,y,z becomes x,y,z,t in space time with the t existing only as an illusion in the human mind based on an equation and a time generator called a clock. Those having gone through undergrad courses in physics never stopped to ask what time is and profs were not about to offer an explanation since none of them know what it is.

    • David Appell says:

      Vincent: The WMO recommends a time interval of at least 30 years.


      “What is Climate?
      Climate, sometimes understood as the “average weather, is defined as the measurement of the mean and variability of relevant quantities of certain variables (such as temperature, precipitation or wind) over a period of time, ranging from months to thousands or millions of years.


  154. Darwin Wyatt says:

    David Appell: You seem to be able to argue chaotic science to infinity yet unable to explain the pause, despite exponential increases in co2? You say current levels of co2 will prevent the end of the Holocene yet I’ve got -21 f and 2 feet of snow? All this when anyone who has been arguing GW knows it’s been cooling since 1936, that the Arctic Ocean was open when Amundsen sailed the northwest passage in 1906, that glaciers are retreating to their pre little ice age norms and that it’s been warmer than now numerous times just in this interglacial not to mention the last. The Eemian if my memory serves, was far far warmer than now all with lower levels of co2. Meanwhile, far better trained scientists than you have called bs. Dr. James lovelock father of the Gaia hypothesis for one. Google it. Co2 is below natural variability. There is no climate emergency. Ps: Enjoy the coming ice age.

  155. Mike Flynn says:

    David Appell wrote –

    “More bull. Medieval thinking. Even pre-Aristotelian”

    An excellent example of Wandering Wayward Warmist Waffle.

    Hand waving, and strident unsupported assertions, par excellence!

    I think he even managed to mis-spell Aristotle’s name. Par for the course where Witless Warmists are involved.


    • David Appell says:

      No real critique, just insults?

      That’s what I’ve come to expect from you.

      PS: I even looked up the spelling of “Aristotelian.” Not that you seem to have any correction.

  156. Darwin Wyatt says:

    David Appell:

    “What pause?”.

    Specifically the pause Dr. Lovelock cited in recanting his alarmism, which he did several years before it even ended last year with El Nio. It lasted almost 20 years and truthfully continues save for El Nio and the PDO.

  157. Darwin Wyatt says:

    David appell:

    While you’re at it, explain how current levels of co2 will prevent the next Ice Age but not the -21f that I’m currently enduring?

  158. Darwin Wyatt says:

    Ah, there it is. David Appell thinks Dr. Lovelock doesnt know what a pause is… The Ipcc models are where your side thought temps would be in relation to co2. Even the adjusted data is far short let alone pristine and RSS. And please explain how co2 will prevent the next ice age but not -21? And yes the trend is negative in my neck of the woods unless you take it in a city with thousands of running cars and furnaces and more sq miles of blacktop than you can shake a stick at. Give it up friend. Sell your solyndra while you can.

  159. Vincent says:

    Gordon Robertson says:
    January 17, 2017 at 8:37 AM


    No one has ever demonstrated a 4th dimension called time.


    That’s an interesting dilemma, Gordon. An explanation which makes at least some sense to me is that we are all limited in what we can understand about our universe as a result of the biological design limits of the human organism.

    The scientific methodology represents our best efforts to be objective, but it’s impossible to be completely objective whilst remaining human. Complete objectivity would require an awareness and consciousness which is outside of our body and brain and not dependent upon our neuronal and biological activities which are inextricably linked to our experience of time and the speed of the various frequencies of electromagnetic transmission that takes place in our brain.

    For example, the fastest speed we can observe or measure is the speed of light in a vacuum. Light can travel slower when passing through transparent materials but can never be measured as travelling faster.

    Even if the observer were travelling in a super-fast rocket in outer space, in either the opposite direction to a beam of light which was being measured, or the same direction as the beam of light, the speed of that beam of light would be observed as constant.

    Perhaps this perceived constancy of the speed of light is not due to a warping of time and space but due to those limitations placed upon our physiological processes which rely upon, and are limited by the inherent speed of those electromagnet communications in our brain, even though that speed in practice is slower than the maximum speed of light in a vacuum.

    Of course, I appreciate that such a hypothesis might appear to be complete nonsense to those who are much more knowledgeable than me.

    • Darwin Wyatt says:

      Quantum entanglement turned space/time on its head. The farthest point away in the universe is literally right next to us. Google it.

      • David Appell says:

        More bull from someone who understands nothing about physics.

        This site is littered with these kinds.

        • Darwin Wyatt says:

          David Appell:

          Easier to insult than to google quantum entanglement? Try googling time dilation while you’re at it. Curious why you’re on here if you’re so closed minded as to think you know everything?

          • David Appell says:

            You clearly don’t know what quantum entanglement is.

            There is no evidence it does anything to spacetime.

            Your comment is wild (unproven) speculation.

          • Darwin Wyatt says:

            David Appell:

            If you can’t comprehend the implication on space/time of two photons, separated by a universe, communicating instantaneously (quantum entanglement) then there is no help for you. I will pray for you.

          • David Appell says:

            Darwin, you are in total speculative mode, far far beyond any accepted physics.

            And assuming another universe…? Also wildly speculative.

    • David Appell says:

      “Thats an interesting dilemma, Gordon.”

      It’s not at all interesting.

      Any idiot can understand there’s a 4th dimension, time.

      It takes 4 numbers to specify the location of an object in spacetime.

      There is nothing the least bit controversial about this.

  160. Darwin Wyatt says:

    Btw, the trend is hardly relevant when the glacier down the street from me is retreating revealing spruce dated from the MWP… That means not only in my neck of the woods that it was warmer than now but alas for many years. Hundreds considering the time a spruce forest takes to establish in a glacial valley.

      • Darwin Wyatt says:

        David Appell:

        It’s been warming since the end of the LIA when the glaciers advanced. My point was they still havent retreated to their MWP minimums. In other words, it’s still not as warm as it was during the MWP.

        • Vincent says:

          The evidence for the existence of the MWP in historical records is very troubling for AGW alarmists. They try to pass it off as a localized event confined to northern Europe, but the increasing number of studies in other parts of the globe clearly suggest this is not true.

          What does appear to be true, and understandable, is that changes in climate in one part of the globe are not simultaneously replicated in all other parts of the globe. There are always time differences.

          I think it’s probably more than a coincidence that during the change from the MWP to the LIA, that great and expansive Khmer civilization in Cambodia suffered a series of extreme droughts, in part due to the increase in cold weather which reduced the melting of the winter snows in the Himalayas during summer, resulting in a greatly reduced flow of water down the Mekong river which the Khmer civilization (at Angkor Wat) relied upon.

          The result of that change in climate was the collapse of the most prominent civilization in the region, during the late 14th century and early 15th century.

      • Darwin Wyatt says:

        David Appell:

        Here is an interesting link showing glacial retreat at Exit glacier. Notice how the biggest recession is 1914-17 at some 909 ft? This, before the 1950 co2 J curve and still unmatched despite exponentially more co2? Notice the part about the spruce forest on pg 6?

        • David Appell says:

          Just one glacier?

          Show us the data on global glacier mass balance.

          • Darwin Wyatt says:

            David Appell:

            It’s clear Exit glacier receded fastest during the low co2 of 1914-17 and slowed during higher co2, indicating either co2 slows glacial retreat or is below natural variability. And why ignore the spruce forest dated to 1180AD in the glacial foreground that proves the MWP warmer than now? Maybe because it’s under the entire vast Harding ice field? Now there’s a study is like to see. Rather you pretend glacial recession from the LIA advance is a sign of GW instead of a return to normal. It’s classic emperor wears no clothes! You’re only fooling yourself. It’s really pathetic.

          • David Appell says:

            Individual glaciers have individual characteristics.

            What is the data on global glacial mass balance?

  161. WizGeek says:

    I am bewildered that this, Roy’s, rather benign post has generated over 790 responses. [SMH]

  162. Steve Fitzpatrick says:

    Appell quoting Orwell… almost too rich to bear. Appell, Orwell was horrified by government controlling private behavior. You, in contrast, embrace government control of most everything because that is how you can reduce fossil fuel use and institute ‘global economic justice’ at the same time. Too rich by half.

  163. Norman says:

    David Appell

    If you look here again I found this article that agrees closely with the math I came up with.

    You may think I do not know what I am talking about but what you do not grasp is I have a very open mind on this topic. I neither agree with you alarmists or the unscientific deniers who read a few articles on the WEB and perceive themselves to wise to be challenged. I like to be more scientific and keep searching for the truth.

    Here is a link to the article.

    Quote: “Since the IPCC overestimates the threat of carbon dioxide by 46 times, the revaluation will be needed for the CO2 reduction policies in terms of cost and potential hazards.”

    And This: “(1) According to the annual global mean energy budget [Kiehl et al., 1997], natural greenhouse energy can be expressed as (Fb Fsun) utilizing the same notation as Eq. (14), which furnishes a natural greenhouse effect of 33K. Therefore, the climate sensitivity ∆Ts and its parameter Λ is calculated as follows utilizing the same radiative forcing ∆Q of 3.7W/m2 due to CO2 doubling as the IPCC AR4.
    Λ = 33K/(Fb − Fsun) = 33K/(324 − 67)W/m2 = 33K/257W/m2 = 0.13K/(W/m2)
    ∆Ts = 0.13K/(W/m2) 3.7W/m2 = 0.5K”

    • Norman says:

      David Appell

      The numbers merged in the quote in the above post. It is not 46 times in the article! It is stated as “the threat of carbon dioxide by 46 times”

      IPCC overestimates 4 to 6 times.

    • David Appell says:

      Energy & Environment, Norman?


      That is the journal of last resort for climate deniers, because E&E will publish anything that the editor agrees with.

      I had a lot of discussions with its editor back in 2003, when I wrote the article “Hot Words” for Scientific American.

      At one point she admitted she was biased against the Kyoto Protocol, and said it was OK for journal editors to be biased.

      So I don’t take E&E at all seriously.

      Why do you?

      • Norman says:

        David Appell

        I read your Scientific American article but I do not see why that would disqualify the paper I linked to. Even if it is in the E&E journal it does not then make it wrong.

        I would like you to explain how a backradiation of 340 W/m^2 which raises the temperature 33 C can have such a low Plank feedback of 1 K(3.2 W/m^2)
        or adding 3.2 W/m^2 to the downwelling flux will raise the surface temperature by 1 K(C)? With this type of feedback you would raise the surface temperature by 106 C rather than 33 C.

        In the paper they eliminate the surface losses from the downwelling IR flux so you take 104 from the 340 and you get 236 effective W/m^2 (energy not cancelled out by losses…they used a lower figure for the downwelling IR I am using a current number).

        Even so you have 236 W/m^2 raising the surface 33 C that still gets you a figure that you need about 7 W/m^2 to raise the surface 1 K(C). With the Stefan-Boltzmann Law it gets even worse as the warmer your surface gets (radiates energy away at the 4th power of the temperature ratio) the less impact a given watts has on raising the surface temperature.

        From 0 to 1 watt/m^2 the temperature rise to reach an equilibrium state
        is enormous 64.8 K

        For 100 W/m^2 the equilibrium temperature goes to 204.9
        For 200 W/m^2 the rate of increase drops considerably only 243.7
        For 300 W/m^2 the equilibrium temperature is only 269.7

        So as you get warmer it takes more and more energy input to increase the temperature.

        I just don’t understand how they came up with the 3.2 W/m^2 increase in downwelling will increase the surface temperature by 1 C at 288 K when you are given a downwelling flux and the determined temperature rise with such a flux. If you have an answer I will keep my mind open.

      • David Appell says:

        Norman: My article wasn’t about this paper you cited.

        E&E is simply a poor journal. They’re well known for publishing denier fluff that can’t get published anywhere else. The editor is clearly biased, as she admitted.

        I’ve never met or talked to anyone who takes E&E seriously.

  164. Norman says:

    David Appell

    I look at it from another angle.

    If you stopped all evaporation and thermals this would equal to an increase of surface energy by 104.8 W/m^2 (this is the amount of energy removed by the two cooling processes…refer to the global energy budget)'s_energy_budget#/media/File:The-NASA-Earth%27s-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-radiation-fluxes.jpg

    Without the other cooling mechanisms the surface would have to warm until it was emitting radiant energy at the same rate it was receiving it from solar flux plus downwelling IR for a total of 503.6 W/m^2.

    Putting the this value into a Stefan-Boltzmann calculator you get a new surface temperature of 306.99 K which is an increase of 18.8 K over the current value of 288 K.

    If you take the Watts/m^2 removed of 104.8 W/m^2 this amount of radiant energy changes surface temperatures by 18.8 K so the Plank feedback in this case would be 1 K(5.57 W/m^2) The current number for the Plank feedback is 1 K(3.2 W/m^2). With a 3.7 W/m^2 increase of doubling CO2 you get the 1.2 K warming (or C which have the same units only different starting point).

    With a 5.57 feedback you would raise the temperature by 0.66 K about half of what the standard calculation is.

    I think evidence points to the lower value.

    If you calculate the other way 340.2 W/m^2 change the surface by 33 K

    You get an even lower Plank feedback of 10.31 W/m^2 needed to change surface temperature by 1 C/K with this feedback the 3.7 W/m^2 from doubling CO2 would only result in a warming of 0.359 K/C.

    • David Appell says:

      If you stopped evaporation, how would rainfall be affected?

      If rainfall decreases, weathering decreases.

      So more CO2 would stay in the atmosphere.

      • David Appell says:

        …and, needless to say, that additional CO2 greats additional warming. That would change all your numbers.

        • Norman says:

          David Appell

          Speaking of evaporation, with the Water vapor feedback they give around 2.2 W/m^2 as the increase in downwelling IR (believe that is the reason for the minus sign in the papers I looked at) for a doubling of CO2, they only include the warming effect of the increased water vapor in the air. How did the water vapor make it into the air? It needed to evaporate. The evaporation process removes energy from the surface and moves it into the troposphere where it is spread out and causes a much less steep lapse rate than dry air (overall troposphere is warmer because of the energy released by condensation).

          It takes around 2256 kJ/kg to evaporate water. In the climate sensitivity for water vapor feedback they have the figure for the increase in downwelling IR from the added water vapor but they do not have the amount of energy the surface would be losing due to evaporation.

          • David Appell says:

            Norman, here is a decription of the atmospheric part of a well known climate model:


            It is chock full of references to evaporation processes.

            Let me know what you find out.

          • David Appell says:

            BTW, while it makes sense to talk about downwelling IR, I don’t think it makes sense to talk about a feedback’s “climate sensitivity.”

            Unlike solar irradiance or CO2, which are independent inputs to the climate system, you can’t simply put more water vapor into the atmosphere. You’d have to change the atmo’s temperature first.

          • Norman says:

            David Appell

            Thanks for the link to the CAM 3.0 climate model details. A complex and involved paper. I did not find what I was looking for, I tried at page 88 which talks about evaoporation.

            I think this model description only goes into the complex equations used int the model and describes what the equations do. This article does not give values that I could find.

            Interesting though. Thanks. I think I would have to go back to school and take some math courses to properly understand the content.

          • David Appell says:

            Norman, note that the Trenberth Energy Balance diagram puts the global energy for evaporation at 80 W/m2.


            I’d have to do some (straightforward) calculations to see how much more water is evaporated via the water vapor feedback, and see how much more energy that takes. Or you can give it a go.

          • David Appell says:

            Plus don’t forget about the latent heat of condensation.

          • Norman says:

            David Appell

            If you return, an oldy but goldie.


            They are making the same claim I am. Evaporation cools the surface. They have a very small increase in tropical SST for doubling of CO2 because of evaporation limits how warm the ocean surface gets.

            I look at different vapor feedback mechanisms.
            From Skeptical Science (and so far most thoughts are along the same lines)


            They note the increase in evaporation but do not consider that this will decrease the surface temperature. The heat of condensation warms the air above not surface air, not where NASA is taking global temperature readings. It is why the lapse rate averages a much lower rate than it would if the air was dry.

            The article I linked to considers the cooling effect of evaporation and does not ignore it as most modern thinkers do.

  165. Darwin Wyatt says:

    I’m shocked someone with your apparent level of training is unaware of quantum entanglement. Obviously you must have been busy exaggerating CO2 and overlooked it? Einstein first coined it spooky science at a distance. It’s physics 101. I’m a nobody with a couple associate degrees from 30 years ago and even I realize it means anything is possible. I wonder what other holes in your knowledge there are?

    • David Appell says:

      Of course I know about quantum entanglement. I just reject all your other wild speculation that it’s a tunnel between two multiuniverses or from one spacetime point to another in this universe. There’s zero evidence for that.

      (Yes, I too read the recent article in Scientific American by Malcadena.)

      • Darwin Wyatt says:

        David Appell:

        Did we read the same article? It’s clearly punching a hole through spacetime. Entanglement communication crosses the universe in the time it takes light to cross the room. Get a clue.

  166. T. Burton says:

    I go to the guardian newspaper site, my handle is Joe Blog. There I stick up for Dr Spencer, Happer, Dyson and Curry etc. Someone has to. I get abused uphill and down dale but I stick at it because I am a stubborn bastard who doesn’t back down. The above gentlemen and lady get called every name under the sun but I give plenty of stick back to those who like nothing more than to denigrate good people.

    I am a retired cop used to banging heads together not climate science so I do struggle when those pompous bastards get on my case and want a bit of science.

    I just wish I could get some good climate advice from time to time to counter them. I am dyslexic and left school when I turned 15.

    Google and some skeptical sites are my best friend.

    Good to see the level of debate here is more friendly. Keep up with the good work.


  167. Dr. Mark H. Shapiro says:

    While the northern half of California is now out of the drought, the southern half of the state remains in severe drought (a one level upgrade from extreme drought.) On a longer term basis, there still is concern throughout the state that our groundwater aquifers remain seriously depleted at less than 30% of normal.

    Another serious issue will be the rate of snow melt. Even though we have received record snowfall in the northern half of the state, winter temperatures still are higher than the long-term average. If warm temperatures continue into the spring much of the runoff will end up in the ocean rather than in the aquifers. Life is not quite as simple as some would make out.

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