Article In Western Water Law “Wet Winter In Arizona’s High Country Brings Worries About Floods – Not Drought”

There is an informative article in the publication Western Water Law and Policy Reporter by M. Becker titled “Wet Winter In Arizona’s High Country Brings Worries About Floods – Not Drought”.

Excerpts from the excellent article read

“A wet January and February throughout Northen Arizona drained by the Salt and Verde rivers followed a December that was the 11th wettest month in more than a century of recording keeping on the Salt and Verde River watersheds……See “Reservoirs Full to the Brim, More Rain Due,” Payson Roundup, February 17, 2009.”

“The precipitation has left the Salt and Verde Rover reservoirs brimming at about 21 percent above normal. Roosevelt Dam is a t 100 percent capacity. This capacity level means that lake levels are at the highest levels ever.”

“These reservoirs hold enough water to get the Phoenix area through three to five years of drought”.

Climate Science has often discussed the issue of drought in the western United States, and has concluded that the claims of almost perpetual droughts in the coming years is not scientifically robust. Examples of the Climate Science weblogs that discuss this issue include

http://climatesci.org/2008/05/08/when-will-lake-mead-go-dry-a-new-paper-that-uses-multi-decadal-global-models-for-regional-predictions/

Comments on a New Report on Climate Change in Colorado: A Synthesis to Support Water Resources Management and Adaptation for the Colorado Water Conservation Board by Ray et al. 2008

 http://climatesci.org/2008/10/27/new-article-on-the-need-to-move-from-dubious-multi-decadal-regional-climate-predictions-to-the-assessment-of-regional-vulnerabilites/

http://climatesci.org/2008/09/08/dynamical-downscaling-assessment-of-model-system-dependent-retained-and-added-variability-for-two-different-regional-climate-models-by-rockel-et-al/

The wet winter this year in Arizona should be yet another wake-up call to policymakers who are using multi-decadal regional climate predictions, assuming that they have skill, when the real world data indicates otherwise.  The southwest USA has not moved into a perpetual drought due to the addition of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.