The Study Shows...

I came across this article about California's snow pack in the Sierra Nevada range reportedly decreasing drastically over the next several decades.

But the more I read it, the more I wondered how this "study" could make such projections implying that snowfall would continue to shrink causing diminishing runoff into the San Juaquin Valley which runs north and south to the central portion of the state.

I like to think that our advancements in science are providing us with more accurate and reliable information, but the article simply fails to explain adequately to the reader how those who conducted the study can project rainfall in the mountain range so far into the future.

I say this because I get the sense that there are various factors which play into such studies. For starters, the article cites data for weather back to the 1880s. Is that really sufficient length of time to determine so far out into the future; 2100?

Also, what are the driving factors influencing the study's findings? Are they biased by the funding source? We've already learned that climate change data was manipulated to improve the accuracy of the predictions. I just read recently that 10 years ago Al Gore predicted that the north polar ice cap would be completely gone in only five years, yet the ice is still there. Oops!

Do the scientists take into account the possibility of weather cycles which we have no data on to give us any insight into whether cooler, or wetter, periods occurred? Wasn't the front page of Time magazine in the '70s warning us about scientific studies which predicted a coming ice age which could threaten our future prosperity?

But what really confused me was the paragraph near the bottom of the article which stated one suggestion to deal with future water shortage was to encourage farmers to flood their fields in wetter years to allow the groundwater table to replenish. Does this make sense to you?

If water runoff from the mountain range is going to be declining over the next several decades, why would they want to not conserve water more carefully when natural processes already cause the underground water table to replenish from percolating into the ground during runoff from higher elevations?

And then there's the documented fact that the state's utility company, PG&E, falsified records which contributed to the recent wildfires which killed nearly 100 people, as well as the government's actions, or failure to act in the proper way to deal with their already existing water shortage, has added immensely to the problem.