The declaration comes during one of the driest winters on record in California, following two dry years that already have left many reservoirs depleted. The state is facing “perhaps the worst drought that California has ever seen” since records began, Brown said during the Friday morning announcement.
Gov. Brown Declares CA Drought Emergency | NBC Southern California
Jerry should check back with us in 218 years about that Mann-made record drought.
July 19, 1994BEGINNING about 1,100 years ago, what is now California baked in two droughts, the first lasting 220 years and the second 140 years. Each was much more intense than the mere six-year dry spells that afflict modern California from time to time, new studies of past climates show. The findings suggest, in fact, that relatively wet periods like the 20th century have been the exception rather than the rule in California for at least the last 3,500 years, and that mega-droughts are likely to recur.The evidence for the big droughts comes from an analysis of the trunks of trees that grew in the dry beds of lakes, swamps and rivers in and adjacent to the Sierra Nevada, but died when the droughts ended and the water levels rose. Immersion in water has preserved the trunks over the centuries.
Dr. Scott Stine, a paleoclimatologist at California State University at Hayward, used radiocarbon dating techniques to determine the age of the trees’ outermost annual growth rings, thereby establishing the ends of drought periods. He then calculated the lengths of the preceding dry spells by counting the rings in each stump.
Severe Ancient Droughts: A Warning to California – New York Times
