Climatologist presents an inconvenient water truth at symposium
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')ven if you are intuitively opposed to it, you should do your homework," said Patzert, a climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
He said global warming, along with growth that has paved over the natural landscape that once absorbed the day's heat, have increased temperatures by two to three degrees in the past 50 years. The higher temperatures, in turn, have a profound effect on water supply by causing less snow in the mountains and a more rapid snowmelt, which makes it harder to capture the life-sustaining resource.
"If you think it's dry now ... it's going to get drier," Patzert said.
"You will never see Lake Powell full again, ever," Patzert predicted.
Jayne Harkins, a deputy regional director for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, told the audience that if the drought on the Colorado continues another few years, the agency would have to reduce water deliveries to California, Arizona and Nevada for the first time.



