Snow is great for skiing, making Calvin-style snowpeople, and also for drinking or boiling
to make mac n' cheese and sausages.
Where did you think that water came from?
The Sierra Nevada mountains in California are beautiful snowcapped peaks at any time
of year.
During the October to May rainy season, the Sierras might see as much as 30 feet of snow,
and they keep at least a little bit even during the summer.
But a new study published in Nature Climate Change, found the Sierras have almost no snowpack
this year; less than the area has seen in more than 500 years, actually.
That… sounds bad…
Snowpack is what scientists call the total amount of snow and ice on the ground.
According to the National Resources Defence Council (NRDC) the state's snowpack used to
store 15 million acre-feet of water (1,850,000 hectare meters).
Put another way, the historical average snowpack is 28.3 inches (71.8cm) but a survey in April
2015 found only 1.4 (3.6cm).
And it's not just bad for skiers and snowboarders, most of the precipitation that falls in California
comes in the form of mountain snow and that snow melts to become our drinking water.
Water from the Sierra snowpack helps generate electricity, and provides one-third of ALL
DRINKING WATER in California.
In fact, 65 percent of all water comes from rivers and streams.
Because snow on mountains can build and build, its a good measure of how much water will
be added to the region as the snow melts.
As it melts, the snowpack refreshes rivers, lakes and reservoirs used for irrigation and
public water supplies.
So, when the snowpack is low, rivers, lakes and reservoirs aren't replenished, and the
drought continues (or worsens).
This same process works around the country.
If you turn on a faucet in Seattle, the Cedar and Tolt rivers come out of your faucet, in
New York the Delaware River basin flows outta there, the Mississippi River streams out in
Minnesota's Twin Cities and Atlanta gets the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers.
Here in California, we're getting snowmelt from those distant mountains.
Surface moisture is what keeps us alive and cooking.
It's the great circle... of life.
So, the implications of a light snowpack are massive, we know this is the worst by comparing
data, data, data.
Scientists take cores of blue oak trees and compare the rings to determine which seasons
were wet or dry.
In wetter seasons, trees grow as much as they can, but when it's dry, growth slows drastically.
Researchers compared snowpack measurements taken over the last few decades by satellites
and by scientists in the field, to ring data from 1500 blue oak trees, and found a perfect
match!
Using these two datasets, they've found this is the lightest snowpack in five centuries…
FIVE HUNDRED YEARS.
Why?
Well, we're in a record one-in-a-thousand-year drought, but that drought has been exacerbated
by human effected climate change.
Don't just take my word for it, bioclimatologist A. Park Williams from Columbia University
told the New York Times, "even though the chances of a drought like this were extremely
unlikely in the past, in the future it will be more likely to occur" because of rising
temperatures contributing in the 8 to 27 percent drop in soil moisture in California.
No soil moisture, no tree growth.
No snow pack, no water for people who live in Cali.
That's REAL hashtag calilife y'all.
85 percent of United States residents get their water from public utilities replenished
or fed by the water cycle.
I grew up with well water, which is super rare!
But when people can't get water from dried-up rivers and streams to add to reservoirs or
irrigate their fields, they go for aquifers!
Earth's surface has pockets of water in it that have trickled down over the eons, and
we're sucking it out at a rate so fast, it cannot be replenished, and the pumping causes
the surface to LITERALLY drop into the empty space.
Some groundwater is being pumped down "50 to 100 feet below previous historical lows,"
according to the California Department of Water Resources.
Water is a precious resource!
Even if you live in the lush East Coast, or in countries where water is easy to come by;
conserving water is a good habit to get into for now in case drought hits in the future.
California built a whole farming industry in a desert, after all, you never know what
the future will bring.
Turn the water off when doing dishes, washing faces or hands, and forgo baths for short
showers.
This is good to follow even in places that AREN'T currently affected by drought.
Freshwater in the ground, lakes and rivers only accounts for 1 percent of all the water
on our planet.
Don't waste it.
How do you conserve water?
Got any tips?
I always read in the comments how you guys love my cool nerdy t-shirts— I get them
from all over the Internet.
And now I’m super psyched to announce that DNews is designing a line of our own science
t-shirts over on a completely news ForHumanPeoples.com!
The link is in the description to Check out our favorites like THIS one and also other
fun stuff like phone cases, shirts, leggings, backpacks and hoodies!
Click the link in the description!