1000-yr Forecast: Hot and Dry
1000-yr Forecast: Hot and Dry
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Let's look at the historical trends, then the "short-term" forecast
Let's look at the historical trends, then the "short-term" forecast
(hint: 2-3 wet years among the next 8-10, none of which coincide with Olympic years.)
(hint: 2-3 wet years among the next 8-10, none of which coincide with Olympic years.)
With 500,000 years of historical precedent, we should already be in an ice age right now (see figure below, left). We can thank human agricultural activity 10,000 years ago for preventing this. Warm is kinda nice for developing our modern species. But that same human activity is also responsible for continuing the warming trend, which for us in the West also means: aridification.
The below chart (right side) compares the concentrations of CO2 (left) and CH4 (right) between the aggregate of the four preceding interglacial periods (blue) and our current interglacial (red). Conclusion: the greenhouse effect enabled our species to mature to the point of Earth Stewardship irresponsibility instead of freezing into oblivion. Kind of the humanity-scale Peter Principle.
Don't look for an ice age any time soon.
Don't look for Great Salt Lake to recover "on its own".
Interglacial figure.pdfPleistocene.pdfSLC airport temps.pdfThe PDO teleconnection to GSL gives us a forecast window into probable coming wet and dry years. This does not account for the wildcard effects of El Nino which manifestation could either exacerbate the drought on a given year or — when properly aligned with cool cycle PDO — dump multiple atmospheric rivers as in 2023. Precipitation wet-year probability in the below graph, back-calculated from the GSL elevation forecast, does not account for El Nino effects. What we can say, however, is that the PDO is NOT aligned for the massive interaction that we saw in 2023. So any (even "Super" El Nino effects will be moderate on the wet side. El Nino is also capable of turning a PDO-forecast wet year into yet another drought year.
Bottom line is that it is unlikely that the next 8-10 years will bring more than 2-3 average wet years; and those years do not coincide with the Olympics.
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