Astro Hacker News - Lake Mead hits historic low water level as Colorado River struggles

mikhailfranco |next [-]

Lake Mead (1,040ft) is 5ft above 70% power impairment (1,035ft).

But if you look at the last 2 years, this date is typically the minimum for the year. So it seems unlikely to hit zombie power pool this year.

https://mead.uslakes.info/Level/

Now we have a Super El Nino starting, which should bring higher than usual rainfall to the Colorado Basin in the fall and winter. So, in principle, next year might not be as bad as this year, and power pool limits are postponed for 2 or more years out.

spwa4 |root |parent [-]

Reading your comment kind of exposes something about our models. These are not numbers anyone can trust. Like the temperature this summer in Europe these things cannot reasonably be said to be correctly predicted. The IPCC average prediction for Europe was 0.3 degrees warmer than last year. We are in danger of hitting TWO degrees, and have hit 1.5 degrees increase, between 500% and 700% more than the IPCC prediction.

Note: 0.3 was already a lot, which is why the complaining with the 1.5/2 degrees hotter is so enormous.

And the problem is what will happen next. If the 0.3 degree is still accurate over a 10 year period (I mean, look at the data ..., 2027 is not going to be 2 degrees hotter than 2026 that's just not realistic), then the next two or three European summers should be colder than 2026, probably colder than 2025 and 2024 too. So this year: enormous pro-global warming message, but people should realize that the message is probably going to reverse.

Is this really the state of the art in weather and climate prediction?

k12sosse |next |previous [-]

Don't worry we can nuke Ottawa and take what's rightfully ours. - America

metalman |root |parent [-]

thats fine, trump already granted us statehood, and then we would take you from the inside.

rho138 |next |previous [-]

But muh capitalism and growing crop grass in the fucking desert!

stvltvs |root |parent [-]

Over half of Colorado River water goes to agriculture, about half of that irrigates alfalfa for animal feed. It's not clear if that's what you meant by capitalism, but lawns are a very small portion of what the water is used for.

https://watereducationcolorado.org/fresh-water-news/most-com...

rho138 |root |parent |next [-]

Lived on the front range for a decade, the alfalfa is obvi the problem. Capitalism drives the need for alfalfa.

apothegm |root |parent |previous [-]

“Crop grass” sure sounds like “alfalfa”.

stvltvs |root |parent [-]

Maybe I'm thinking too literally, but alfalfa isn't grass. It's a legume.

apothegm |root |parent [-]

My mind went to alfalfa because lawn grass isn’t a crop. And I for one didn’t know alfalfa isn’t a grass. I suspect its being a legume is not common knowledge.

jmclnx |previous [-]

But keep building those data centers in the southwest /s