The 2000-2004 North American Drought was the Worst in 800 Years

Chronic 2000-04 Drought, Worst in 800 Years,
May Be the 'New Normal'

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120729142137.htm

Dying trees in Southwest set stage for erosion, water loss in Colorado River

oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2012/jun/dying-trees-southwest-set-stage-erosion-water-loss-colorado-river

good links robot

The theory of global warming being caused by human-generated CO2 predicts a future with rising temperatures, more cloud cover and more precipitation, ie.; a wetter future. Anyone want to take a stab at reconciling this prediction with recent findings of unusual drought "exacerbated by global warming"? Some of us have good memories of your conflicting claims and aren't going to let you get away with having it both ways. So which is it, alarmists? Warming causes more precipitation and flooding or more drought?

well its both, Duh! we're going to have more rain AND more drought at the same time!

The pictures used here are totally ridiculous. They have both obviously been manipulated to highlight the contrasts between them. The exposure offset in the left photo has been increased to the point of totally black shadows and super high contrast, while the right photo has hardly any contrast at all and has been lightened. In fact, the image on the right is actually quite nice and green looking when more naturally colored, as I just did in Photoshop.

Can't you guys tell your extreme weather stories without trying to trick us? That's exacly why skeptics exist...because you put up faked images. Just be real and we'll listen, but when you do this I can't help but assume whatever you're telling me is a vaguely untrue, as well.

I screen-grabbed the side-by-side pic used in the article, increased green saturation to high levels, anddddd, well... the actual green is relatively the same, the browns/reds in the left side were dead in 2002, already... their needles just hadn't fallen. So all the grey in the right side are just those same dead trees after the needles fell.

Point being, it doesn't look any better or worse.... the trees have obviously been dead prior to 2002, and how long have the been dying there?

Instead of a time-separated pseudo-pano, shoot exactly the same frame intervaled over time.

laurenra7 - Well, let's see. Literally 5 seconds of googling produced the following, "[R]ecent warming has increased atmospheric moisture demand and likely altered atmospheric circulation patterns, both contributing to the drying."

Seems like a reasonable conclusion to me, which is compatible with your hasty indignations.

You don't understand. The entire world will be desert except for the costal areas flooded by sea level rise. This will be exacerbated by Greenland and Antarctica rebounding as the ice melts. Of course, if it warms enough, we can live there.

I have to agree with jim, that left photo in particular definitely looks modified - the sky is a dead giveaway. Plus for all we know they are showing fall on one side and winter on the other. Nothing new for these people.

I love how they point to a State like New Mexico to back up their claims. Half the State is arid desert and just .2% of it s area is made up of water. It is one of the driest States in the Union. Its like when they put a block of ice out in the middle of summer and blame global warming for its melting.

How can CO2 be a problem? These guys are clearly inhaling it all.

Deceptive yes, but not in the way many of the folks commenting here think. Whether or not these two pictures had the same hue/saturation etc. misses the point.

These two pictures represent the infestation of bark beetles that was rampant in the late 90's and early 2000's that continues today from New Mexico to Montana.

Bark beetles feed off of the inner bark of the trees killing them, leaving the needles brown until the eventually fall off. Drought can be a cause of increased bark beetle activity but not the only one, that's not my argument. This article with the corresponding pics attempt to lead you to a conclusion (these pics --> caused by drought) without presenting some relevant facts.

The sun is causing all of this. The sun is the hottest it has been in recorded history. They have been chem-trailing to block out the sun.

But take a look at the bigger picture, food prices will rise and millions will starve. Forget the carbon tax, what are we going to do about the food shortages. Grow more corn for ethanol??

The contradictory claims of the alarmists are difficult to reconcile, unless you realize that all they are is "claims" with very little "science" to back them. For example, warming will cause more cloud cover and rain, while simultaneously causing more drought. Who says? The climate models on computers, with their arbitrary "forcings" and "feedbacks".

Read the article carefully. The last drought comparable to 2000-2004 was in the 10th and 12th centuries according to tree ring data. Now pay attention: "According to climate models, the situation is likely to worsen, with 80 of the 95 years from 2006 to 2100 experiencing precipitation levels equal to or lower than than the 2000-2004 drought levels."

Remember, those climate models haven't gotten any predictions right so far about the effects of global warming except very general ones that any 3rd grader could tell you: the planet will warm some more (as it has for thousands of years), glaciers and ice sheets will melt some more (as they have for thousands of years), and ocean levels will rise (as they have for thousands of years).

So take the precipitation levels prediction published in Nature Geoscience with a huge dose of skepticism. And be careful with fires in the southwest. This year is quite a bit drier than our unusually wet one last year.

Gullible people have short memories about "wild" weather. Every year there is some kind of "unusual" weather somewhere, and some years have more calamitous or more widespread "unusual" weather, but the historical record shows little variation now as compared to, say, 50 years ago. In other words, "wild" weather isn't unusual. It's normal.

laurenra7:

Global warming causes the atmosphere to warm. Warm air traps more moisture, what this means is that areas that do not have much rainfall will receive less rainfall. Other areas that have substantial rainfall may receive more rainfall. Since the atmosphere, as it warms, must be more saturated in order to release the moisture. So areas that are relatively dry now won't reach that saturation point as often and will receive less rainfall. So yes, you can have both more drought is some areas and more flooding in others. Of course you can't have both drought and more rain in the same area.

Actually, the climate models have been tested against what has actually happened over the past few decades and have predicted the current and recent climate with a high degree of accuracy. Of course the models can't take into account every variable, that is why you always predict over a range of values with the future climate. The models aren't the end all be all, but they do give you a very likely trend for the future.

The scientific evidence for global warming is overwhelming, many thousands of scientific publications over 50 years and 98% of active scientists in the geo fields (climatologists, oceanographers, atmospheric scientists, etc.) agree that global warming is occurring and is largely caused by human activity. If you aren't going to believe the experts (the scientists), then who are you going to believe?

It's interesting the "global warming" climate change facts that hurt the agenda of the psudo-scientific fact drummers. Does it cause any concern when the "scientific" community struggles with their phrase "GLOBAL WARMING" when they change it to "CLIMATE CHANGE" so that ANY change in the environment/climate can be BLAMED on mankind? Too much rain or too little rain...blame it on CLIMATE CHANGE. Climate change has been around since just before "scientists" came to their nirvana of intellectual awareness. How did we live before their existence?

Ephesus was a sea port several years back (and yes I know about silt, etc.) however, there is no evidence of a Ford Excursion or other SUV/man event to cause the evaporation of all that water. After all, 6 miles of desert is 6 miles of desert. Where did all that water go? 1/2 Dome in Yosemite was created by "glaciers" as was part of Lake Tahoe...but where were the SUV/man caused events to make the Ice evaporate? Where did all that ice and water go? The Great Lakes were created by "glaciers" but no SUV/man events to whip on. Factual data doesn't agree with psudo-science as some would hope we all blindly accept without Scientific Method testing. PS should present FACTS not "it's possible, it could be" or other sophmoric phrases passed off as scientific fact/evidence. Scientists present alot of "scientific assumptions" as fact while feeding the common mans mind with psudo-facts. Because of the flowery letters after the scientists name as proof, somehow statements they make are accepted as fact; the little minds absorb it all without question.

By the way, just why did the Polar Ice caps on Mars melt? and what SUV/man event caused that? And what about the weather patterns the scientific community worries about for their precious Mars rover? These people kill me.

As for "climate models", they are just programs coded to produce a resultant product. Accuracy is rarely top priority over federal funding so the "scientist" can continue to live their lifestyle. Not that grant money is the impetus for the psudo-science data. That would never happen...

This is not to say man hasn't produced measurable amounts of particulate in the environment and that the environmentalists haven't help alleviate some of this particulate, at great expense to all, but I fail to believe educated minds blissfully swallow tainted pablum of the Soylent Green of "scientists" blatherings as facts without applying the Scientific Method as evidence of proof. However, the "facts" are coming from mr. PhD from whatsa-matta-u university using federal funding for a specific result to support a specific agenda. I don't believe the ends justifies the means. After all, what is the carbon footprint of the "scientists" in all their meanderings about the planet? And that carbon footprint expense isn't justified by "it's for the collection of data by a select few because they're the professionals". After all, it's necessary to control the masses through regulation from the few. Dare say.