Well, yes, the climate is changing. It always has.
It always will.
But what's driving the contemporary changes?
Man or nature?
One plausible explanation is that offered by meteorologist and climate blogger Anthony Watts.
"The cause is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and a weak to neutral and persistent La Niña pattern that some are calling 'La Nada,'" he wrote last week.
"The cause is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and a weak to neutral and persistent La Niña pattern that some are calling 'La Nada,'" he wrote last week.
Watts backs his point by citing a 2013 scientific paper published in the journal Climate Dynamics that says "the current southwestern U.S. drought is associated" with "a minimum in the Pacific Decadal oscillation (PDO) index."
Droughts happen.
They are not a new phenomenon that popped up only after man began to pump high volumes of carbon dioxide into the sky.
They are not a new phenomenon that popped up only after man began to pump high volumes of carbon dioxide into the sky.
They predate record-keeping by a few millennia, if not longer.
One of California's driest periods was in 1863-1864 when the state was scorched by the Great Drought. Water Resources lists other "large-scale" multi-year droughts in 1918-1920, 1923-1926, 1928-1935 and 1947-1950.
Others have followed, but what's common to each of these former events is that they preceded what might be called the current global warming era.
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