The Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Arizona, performed high flow experiments on 25 April 2023. Video: John Farrell / The Washington Post

Lake Powell is rising more than a foot a day, but megadrought’s effects will still be felt – “It’s maybe a year’s worth of breathing room. The crisis is still very real and very much in front of us.”

By Scott Dance 11 May 2023 (The Washington Post) – Weeks after the surface of Lake Powell sunk to an all-time low, the key Colorado River reservoir is rising more than a foot a day — on track to deepen by some 70 feet in the coming months. Spring flows into the lake are among the […]

Satellite view of end-of-winter snowpack levels in the Sierra Nevada mountain range from 2020 through 2023. The snowpack in 2023 was one of the biggest in recorded history. Photo: NASA

Striking satellite photos show the dramatic scale of California’s 2023 snowpack – “This melt really is still just getting started”

By Terry Castleman 10 May 2023 (Los Angeles Times) – After a series of atmospheric rivers and cold weather hit California, this year’s snowpack was one of the biggest in history. “This year’s result will go down as one of the largest snowpack years on record in California,” Sean de Guzman, manager of the Department of Water Resources’ snow surveys, said […]

Lake Tulare in California on 1 February 2023 and 30 April 2023, as seen from the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on NASA’s Landsat 8 satellite, and the Operational Land Imager-2 (OLI-2) on the Landsat 9 satellite. In the spring of 2023, the long-dried basin of Lake Tulare rapidly refilled in the wake of intense rainfall and snowmelt. Photo: NASA

Tulare Lake flooding due to snowpack melt seen from space – “The state has both too much water and not enough”

By Jess Thomson 5 May 2023 (Newsweek) – The long-dried basin of Lake Tulare in California has rapidly refilled in the wake of intense rainfall and snowmelt. The speed and scale of the southern San Joaquin Valley lake’s return can be seen in images taken from space by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on NASA‘s Landsat […]

Physiological response curves may shift as soil microbiomes respond to drought. In the short term (minutes to days), physiological acclimation may help to sustain function, such as soil carbon decomposition. Over weeks to decades, community shifts and evolution could alter response curves to maintain functioning under dry conditions. Broken lines indicate potential variation in the breadth of the shifted response curves. Graphic: Evans, et al., 2022 / Functional Ecology

Droughts destroying Earth’s biggest carbon sink on land: study – If more carbon-releasing microbes survive than carbon-sequestering microbes, we could end up with carbon-depleted soils

By Mark Waghorn 12 April 2023 (SWNS) – Droughts are destroying Earth’s biggest carbon sink on land, according to new research. Soil stores more greenhouse gas than plants and the atmosphere combined – thanks to the microbes that live in it. Moisture plays a key role in the process. Lack of rainfall is disrupting this […]

Numbered tags are seen underneath the wings of this California Condor photographed north of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. There are 116 birds currently living in the wild north of the canyon along the Arizona Strip and in southwestern Utah. Photo: Jim Shane / Utah Division of Wildlife Resources

Avian flu is killing endangered California condors at alarming rate

By Dinah Voyles Pulver 12 April 2023 (USA TODAY) – The avian influenza stalking wild and domestic bird flocks across the country has killed at least six endangered California condors since March and is suspected of killing another dozen. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Wednesday it’s now attributing all condor deaths in the […]

A strain of Candida auris cultured in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention laboratory. The CDC reports that the fungus is causing infections in healthcare facilities.Photo: Shawn Lockhart / Associated Press

This rapidly spreading deadly fungus is a warning about climate change

By Arjun V.K. Sharma 12 April 2023 (Los Angeles Times) – Last month, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change charted global temperatures to be 1.1 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and on a destructive trajectory to surpass 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the early 2030s. This intersects surprisingly with another piece of news: the […]

Average age at death in U.S. counties, 2020. Data: CDC Death Records. The U.S. is experiencing the greatest gap in life expectancy across regions in the last 40 years. Americans born in certain areas of Mississippi and Florida may die 20 years younger than their peers born in parts of Colorado and California. Graphic: Jeremy Ney / American Inequality

Americans are dying younger, and where you live makes a big difference – Americans born in Mississippi and Florida may die 20 years younger than their peers born in Colorado and California

By Jeremy Ney 12 April 2023 (TIME) – The average U.S. life expectancy has hit its worst decline in 100 years and America’s standing is dismal among peer nations. But the average obscures a more complex story. The United States is facing the greatest divide in life expectancy across regions in the last 40 years. Research from American […]

Aerial view of homes buried in snow in Soda Springs, California in March 2023. Photo: Josh Edelson / The Washington Post

A wet winter won’t stave off the Colorado River’s water cuts – “There are discussions going on but they’re not making much progress. The level of distrust and animosity is really remarkable.”

By Joshua Partlow 3 April 2023 GRAND JUNCTION, Colorado (The Washington Post) – The abundant snow in the Rocky Mountains this year has been a welcome relief, but is not enough to overcome two decades of drought that has pushed major reservoirs along the Colorado River down to dangerous levels, Camille Calimlim Touton, the commissioner […]

Population histories for all species of California salmon to 2021. On 6 April 2023, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, a quasi-federal body that oversees West Coast fisheries, finalized a decision to recommend closing the salmon season spring of 2024, due to years of drought conditions. Graphic: The Nature Conservancy / casalmon.org

Years of drought force shutdown of salmon fishing season off California

By Dino Grandoni 6 April 2023 (The Washington Post) – Years of drought have taken such a toll on California’s fall run of Chinook salmon that, for the first time in 14 years, fishery managers are canceling next year’s fishing season off the state’s coast to help the population recover. The Pacific Fishery Management Council, […]

A car is stranded on a flooded road near Corcoran, California, on 23 March 2023. Photo: David McNew / Getty Images

A long-dormant lake has reappeared in California, bringing havoc along with it – “This impending monster – a 50-foot-plus deep snowpack that we haven’t seen in 75 years – is sitting up there, and we just don’t know how fast it’s going to turn into water and come out of the mountains”

By Evan Bush 2 April 2023 (NBC News) – People have worked for a century to make California’s Tulare Basin into a food grower’s paradise. That pastoral landscape now looks more like the Pacific Ocean in many areas. Months of atmospheric river storms have pummeled the area and saturated the basin’s soil, which sits about […]

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