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Old 05-06-14, 14:31   #7
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Update re: World Water Shortage Increases-Causes Food Shortage

Intense Drought Tightens Grip in US, Spreads To the High Plains





Two false-color images from NASA’s Aqua satellite, one from May 24, 2012, and the other from May 25, 2014,
show the evolution of drought in Texas and Oklahoma. Green is indicative of vegetation. (Images: NASA. Animation: Tom Yulsman)


In the already parched Plains of the United States, intense drought “seems to be waking up and pushing rapidly north along with warmer temperatures.”

The bullseye of this expanding misery is Texas, large portions of which have been in drought for close to four years. As of this week, 21 percent of the state is categorized as being in exceptional drought — the most intense of the Drought Monitor categories. That’s up from 13 percent a year ago.

Overall, more than 80 percent of the state is experiencing some degree of drought.

The animation above, centered on the Texas Panhandle and western Oklahoma, shows how conditions have changed between 2012 and today.
It consists of two false-color images from the MODIS instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite, one from May 24, 2012, and the other from May 25, 2014. Green is indicative of vegetation. Bodies of water, mostly reservoirs, appear black. (The images show what’s known as the 7-2-1 composite from the MODIS instrument.




Palo Duro Canyon, May. 18, 2012. (Photograph: © Tom Yulsman)

In May of 2012, spring vegetation was quite evident even though some degree of drought gripped the region. Two years later, the situation has changed dramatically as drought has tightened its grip.
To complement the satellite images, I thought it would be interesting to compare Drought Monitor maps for May of 2012 and 2014. Here’s what it looks like:



This makes it pretty clear why the satellite image from May, 2012 showed a much greener landscape than what’s evident this week.


Back to the shorter term, over just the past week, severe drought — the second most intense category — has pushed well up into Kansas.


According to the Drought Monitor report published intense drought:

Quote:
. . . seems to be waking up and pushing rapidly north along with warmer temperatures. A large expansion of D3 [extreme drought] now covers nearly the entire southern half of Kansas and D4 [exceptional drought] is slowly pushing north out of Oklahoma. Soil moisture and groundwater levels are hurting well in front of the peak demand season as the cumulative impacts of such an intense multi-year drought are already glaringly evident, and it’s only early May. Precipitation totals on the year are running just 25-50% of normal, or worse, for many locales across southern Kansas.
And with the region now heading into summer, the prospects for improvement, at least in the short term, are not very good.


According to the Drought Monitor report, heat and drought are now:
Quote:
. . . even more pronounced and entrenched across western Oklahoma and much of Texas as well. Expansion has begun to happen in earnest now that Mother Nature has turned up the furnace, which will do the landscape no favors with summer not here yet.


Farther down the road, help could arrive in the form of wetter weather born of El Niño. The odds of El Niño developing by summer now stand at 65 percent. This cyclical climatic phenomenon tends to bring wetter than normal weather across the southern tier of the United States during winter. Let’s hope!


RELATED:

Severe Drought in Texas Causes Food Shortage -
How to Beat Coming Killer Food Shortages

By Holly Deyo

50% of America’s fruits and veggies are grown in California and the Feds are destroying their crops. -What this means for you.


TAN DROUGHT KILLING THE GOLDEN STATE




Photo:
Government shut off water in 2009 to California farms in a controversial effort to help threatened species.
(NOAA) Now they shut off water to farmers because of low snowpack and rainfall. - They can’t win



The US Government has lost its mind. It is no more evident than their decision to cut off water to America’s food basket. Squeezed by the worst-ever drought in the state’s history, California is dying of thirst. Crushing news was delivered to farmer’s that no water would be coming from the Federal government. This dreaded decision was compounded by the Sierra Mountains getting just 25% of normal snowpack. There is no water to replenish already dangerously low reservoirs, so no water for farmers.

Despite recent storms, it’s done nothing to alleviate the staggering dryness. California needs snow. Desperately. Down bursts can’t soak into parched, concrete-like soil so it rolls off, unused, into sewers and drainage ditches. Snowpack melts slowly and is easily funneled into reservoirs and sinks into land and eventually groundwater basins.

Gov. Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency weeks ago and conditions have worsened since.
Farmers who thought this might be coming delayed planting crops. Some have given up altogether. Even late harvests, where possible, would be better than wasting the cost of fuel to run equipment, paying farm workers to work dying fields, paying for seeds that likely won’t survive summer – and have it all come to nothing. Over half a million acres won’t even be planted.

Not that anyone wants a business penalized, but golf courses will be allowed to waste water in the most extravagant method possible. What would you rather have: food on the table or 225,000 acres of lush golf links? The amount of water required to keep them verdant is staggering. Residential customers are already being warned to conserve and some cities have passed mandatory water restrictions.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that 17 communities are at risk of running dry.


Image:
It’s clear from the image below that regions of California worst hit and in danger of running out of water are the prime food growing areas.




DROUGHT = SLOW DEATH


We saw this same scenario play out in Beulah, Colorado in 2002 – the year after Stan warned the Pine Drive Water District they needed vastly more water storage. They didn’t listen. The very next year when residents turned on their faucets, literally not a drop dripped. So dire was the situation, it made national news. It was a shock to have literally no water available.
Huge white plastic water storage tanks were hastily set up in front yards and water was trucked in weekly from Pueblo. Wells went completely dry and livestock were reluctantly sold off. It was either that or watch them die.

The next Spring when I drove around Beulah, the wildlife took your breath. Most telling were larger animals. Baby deer that survived were unbelievably scrawny. Their mothers’ ribs stuck out of their backs and sides from patchy coats like awkward jagged tree branches. Their faces were unhealthily gaunt, lit by haunted eyes. It was heartbreaking.
That was one small mountain community. Now we’re talking about an entire state facing extreme conditions. Heaven help them in the 2014 fire season, which for Californians, began in January.


PROMISES, PROMISES

Pres. Obama promised $100 million in livestock-disaster aid, but that doesn’t make water fall from the sky. This is less than a pittance when livestock and poultry alone gross nearly $10 billion in California. Instead farmers, like Beulah residents, will be forced to sell their animals.

This is a calamity. We’re not talking about a few hundred head. On average, when drought conditions hammer down, like those in Texas a couple years ago, it takes at least 3 years to rebuild herds. This means further rising beef prices that we Americans are already experiencing. Just wait, it will get worse. I warned in 2010 what the Texas drought would do to beef prices in the next few coming years, and this story bears it out:

Ground Beef Prices Have Skyrocketed, Here’s Why.

The article warns to expect steak to double.

Three weeks ago news agencies reported that-

beef herds are the smallest since 1951


and this didn’t factor in what will surely be a massive cattle sell-off in the Golden State.
Other crops feel it too. “Retail prices for tomatoes rose 10% in the 12 months through Jan. 31, and U.S. retail prices for beef, bacon, lettuce and broccoli have also risen at least 10% last year.” This hike came before farmers found out they won’t be getting water for crops and 8 million California farmland acres depend on federal and state irrigation.


MEGA-DROUGHT, MEGA-DISASTER

In a stunning report from Time Magazine, Bryan Walsh writes that scientists fear California’s dryness “could get much, much worse” bringing back the horrible era of mega-droughts. “These mega-droughts aren’t predictions. They’re history, albeit from a time well before California was the land of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. And the thought that California and the rest of the modern West might have developed during what could turn out to be an unusually wet period is sobering. In 1930, a year before construction began on the Hoover Dam, just 5.6 million people lived in California.

Today more than 38.2 million live in the largest state in the U.S., all of whom need water.

California’s 80,500 farms and ranches produced crops and livestock worth $44.7 billion in 2012, but dry farming districts like the Central and Imperial Valleys would wither without irrigation.


Image: According to the Drought Monitor, 91% of California is in Severe to Exceptional Drought. For comparison,
the rest of CONUS looks much better except Nevada and they don’t grow much of anything.




SQUEEZE PLAY


As one Millennium-Ark reader pointed out in an email last week, after the jump in beef prices, people will look to chicken, pork, fish and turkey. Chicken is already up though not as much as beef. This will, in turn, drive up their costs and affect availability of these other meats. Keep in mind that California also produces all of these proteins plus lamb. Then consider this: Ag Specialists Warn of Higher Wheat Prices Due to Drought. It’s not just beef, weather is clobbering food from all angles. Rising Threat to Crops from Climate underscores it.

Not to be totally depressing, but remember to factor in possible health issues from the Corexit ridden fish and seafood in the Gulf courtesy of BP’s Deepwater Horizon debacle. Then there’s Fukushima Daiichi’s radiation affecting fish all up and down the West Coast.

Food production is not a national only issue. We export food around the world. In the grain arena, so does Argentina, Australia, Canada, the EU with India, Pakistan, Thailand, the U.S. and Viet Nam contributing to world rice production. Every – single – country is being hit with flood, heatwaves or drought.

Friends, serious climate issues are clobbering beef, grain, fruit and veggies – nearly all food – with unpleasant trickle-down repercussions coming. At this point, it doesn’t matter if it’s caused by geo-engineering, climate change (aka global warming), natural cycles or Sun-driven events. We must deal with the fallout and it’s coming fast.

If you think the beef and grain scenario is bad, check what’s happening in the fruit and veggie department.


CALIFORNIA’S GOLDEN BREAD BASKET

California grows half, HALF of America’s produce. Another 13% is exported4 around the world. California’s yearly produce is valued at more than $45 billion5. In the list below, out of some 400 different foods it grows for our Nation, California leads production for 79 of them. Out of these 79, California grows ALL of 14 crops (inbold). Keep in mind, this list is only 79 out of some 400 foods including sugar beets, mushrooms, oats, potatoes, cucumbers and many more.

Crop and Livestock Commodities in Which California Leads the Nation .....

Almonds
Apricots
Artichokes
Asparagus
Avocados
Beans, Dry Lima
Beans, Fresh Market Snap
Bedding/Garden Plants
Broccoli
Brussels Sprouts
Cabbage, Chinese
Cabbage, Fresh Market
Carrots
Cauliflower
Celery
Chicory
Cotton, American Pima
Daikon
Dates
Eggplant

Escarole/Endive
Figs
Flowers, Bulbs
Flowers, Cut
Flowers, Potted Plants
Garlic
Grapes, Raisins
Grapes, Table
Grapes, Wine
Greens, Mustard
Hay, Alfalfa
Herbs
Kale
Kiwifruit
Kumquats
Lemons
Lettuce, Head
Lettuce, Leaf
Lettuce, Romaine
Limes

Mandarins & Mandarin Hybrids
Melons, Cantaloupe
Melons, Honeydew
Milk
Milk Goats
Nectarines
Nursery, Bedding Plants
Nursery Crops
Olives
Onions, Dry
Onions, Green
Parsley
Peaches, Clingstone
Peaches, Freestone
Pears, Bartlett
Peppers, Chile
Peppers, Bell
Persimmons
Pigeons and Squabs
Pistachios

Plums
Plums, Dried
Pluots
Pomegranates
Raspberries
Rice, Sweet
Safflower
Seed, Alfalfa
Seed, Bermuda Grass
Seed, Ladino Clover
Seed, Vegetable and Flower
Spinach
Strawberries
Tomatoes, Fresh Market
Tomatoes, Processing
Vegetables, Greenhouse **
Vegetables, Oriental
Walnuts
Wild Rice

California is the sole producer (99% or more) of foods and commodities in bold

READ MORE:

Cracked Mendota US Running out of Water;
-
Drought Causes Food Shortage
.
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