El Nino, the California drought and Sierra Nevada Snow

Yesterday Anthony Watts wrote one of his rare articles about the drought in his home state of California (archived here). His headline read: "Drought buster? Up to 10 feet of snow this week for California’s Sierra Nevada". Under the headline he wrote (my emphasis):

Here is some good news for drought-stricken California; the latest forecast model output from WeatherBell suggests that the Sierra Nevada snow-pack will get a fresh dump of up to 10 feet of snow. 

He posted the chart below, with a scale up to 48 inches from the look of it, not 120 inches (though the scale doesn't indicate units). Up the top it states "Maximum 147.6 in". (Click to enlarge it).

Source: WUWT

His prediction of ten feet of snow this week struck me as rather a lot in just a few days. Not knowing how quickly snow can build up in the region I did some research. "This should hit the headlines", I thought to myself. However the only news I could find on the Sierra Nevada snowpack were about how up to "2 feet of fresh snow are expected to fall this week in the Sierra Nevada's highest points" (Associated Press in the Sacramento Bee - 3 January 2015). That's eight feet short of Anthony's ten feet prediction.

Only at WUWT: California's water scarcity is "amusing"

This time it's not so much that Anthony Watts of WUWT doubts the findings (the word "claim" doesn't appear in the headline), it's that he is amused by the notion that there's yet another pressure on water availability in his part of the USA. Yes, he thinks it's humorous. (Archived here.)

A new paper was reported in a press release from UC Irvine, which said in part:

Freshwater runoff from the Sierra Nevada may decrease by as much as one-quarter by 2100 due to climate warming on the high slopes, according to scientists at UC Irvine and UC Merced.

Accelerated plant growth at higher elevations caused by increasing temperatures would trigger more water absorption and evaporation, accounting for the projected runoff declines, the researchers add.

A diminished river flow will only add to the burden of providing resources to the thirsty farms and homes that rely on it. The state is currently experiencing a severe drought, and some reservoirs and groundwater levels are at all-time lows.

The study findings appear this week in the early online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

You can read the full press release here. The research was done by Michael L. Goulden and Roger C. Bales. I couldn't find the study at PNAS early edition. I expect it will be posted online shortly.

At WUWT the paper was treated with a mix of disdain, disinterest, disbelief from commenters, and "amusement" from Anthony Watts himself. He wrote:

From the University of California – Irvine and the “Environmentalists are never happy” department comes this amusing quandary.

The cause? Increased high-elevation plant growth fueled by climate warming

I don't think too many people in California and neighbouring states would be amused. California is suffering extreme drought at the moment, according to the US Drought Monitor:

Source: US Drought Monitor