California Drought   
       
   Feb. 7, 2014:   California is supposed to be the Golden State.  Make that   
   golden brown.   
       
   The entire west coast of the United States is changing color as the deepest   
   drought in more than a century unfolds.  According to the US Dept. of   
   Agriculture and NOAA, dry conditions have become extreme across more than 62%   
   of California's land area-and there is little relief in sight.   
       
   "Up and down California, from Oregon to Mexico, it's dry as a bone," comments   
   JPL climatologst Bill Patzert. "To make matters worse, the snowpack in the   
   water-storing Sierras is less than 20% of normal for this time of the year."   
       
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5HwRXsw2Q8   
       
   A new ScienceCast video asks, is this climate change? The answer is here   
   The drought is so bad, NASA satellites can see it from space. On Jan. 18th,   
   2014-just one day after California governor Jerry Brown declared a state of   
   emergency-NASA's Terra satellite snapped a sobering picture of the Sierra   
   Nevada mountain range.  Where thousands of square miles of white snowpack   
   should have been, there was just bare dirt and rock.   
       
   At the Jet Propulsion Lab, a group of researchers led by Tom Painter are   
   preparing to fly a Twin Otter aircraft over the Sierras to investigate the   
   situation.  Their "Airborne Snow Observatory" is equipped with a laser radar   
   and a spectrometer to measure the snow's depth and reflectivity. From these   
   data, it is possible to calculate the water content of the Sierras within 5%   
   and future snowmelt rates with similar precision.   
       
   "The Airborne Snow Observatory was designed for times like this when we really   
   need to know the state of the snow pack," says Painter. "Our next flight will   
   be over the Tuolumne River Basin." The Tuolumne watershed and its Hetch Hetchy   
   Reservoir are the primary water supply for 2.6 million San Francisco Bay Area   
   residents.   
       
   http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/   
       
   For updates, check the US Drought MonitorThe change in scenery is so striking,   
   a group of high school science students in central California have been flying   
   high altitude balloons to photograph it.  From the stratosphere, their home   
   town of Bishop looks like a settlement on the planet Mars: image, movie   
       
   "The lack of snow is really striking," says 17-year-old Amelia Koske-Phillips,   
   president of the Earth to Sky Calculus science club. "I've never seen a winter   
   as brown as this," adds 16-year old Carson Reid, a member of the launch team.   
       
   Bill Patzert blames the drought, in part, on the Pacific Decadal Oscillation,   
   or "PDO," a slowly oscillating pattern of sea surface temperatures in the   
   Pacific Ocean.  At the moment, the PDO is in its negative phase-a condition   
   historically linked to extreme high-pressure ridges that block West Coast   
   storms and give the Midwest and East Coast punishing winters.   
       
   "I'm often asked if this is part of global warming," says Patzert. "My answer   
   is `not yet.' What we're experiencing now is a natural variability that we've   
   seen many times in the past. Ultimately, though, climate change could make   
   western droughts much worse."   
       
   For more information about climate change and other Earth science topics, stay   
   tuned to Science.nasa.gov   
       
   Credits:   
   Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit:   
   Science@NASA   
       
   Web Links:   
   All Dry on the Western Front -- Earth Observatory   
       
   NASA's Airborne Snow Observatory -- JPL   
       
   Earth to Sky Calculus -- a citizen science club that has been photographing   
   the drought from the stratosphere   
       
       
   Regards,   
       
   Roger   
      
   --- D'Bridge 3.98   
    * Origin: NCS BBS - Houma, LoUiSiAna (1:3828/7)