Click here to read the summary report. Click here to go to the website.

Thanks to the Summit County Citizens Voice (Bob Berwyn) for the link. From the post:

It was the warmest decade since the start of modern measurements in 1850, with more national temperature records broken than in any previous decade. Along with analyzing global and regional temperatures and precipitation, the report took a close look at extreme events, including heat waves in Europe (2003) and Russia (2010), Hurricane Katrina in the United States of America, Tropical Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, droughts in the Amazon Basin, Australia and East Africa and floods in Pakistan.

The decade was the warmest for both hemispheres and for both land and ocean surface temperatures. The record warmth was accompanied by a rapid decline in Arctic sea ice, and accelerating loss of net mass from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and from the world’s glaciers.

As a result of this widespread melting and the thermal expansion of sea water, global mean sea levels rose about 3 millimeters per year, about double the observed 20th century trend of 1.6 mm per year. Global sea level averaged over the decade was about 20 cm higher than that of 1880, according to the report.

Click here to read the discussion. From the synopsis:

During June 2013, below-average sea surface temperatures (SST) prevailed in the eastern Pacific, while near-average SSTs persisted across the rest of the equatorial Pacific. This ENSO-neutral pattern was also reflected in the Niño indices, which were warmer than -0.5°C in Niño-4 and Niño-3.4 and cooler than -0.5°C in Niño-3 and Niño-1+2 during the month. Meanwhile, the oceanic heat content (average temperature in the upper 300m of the ocean) anomalies increased during June, due to the emergence of above-average subsurface temperatures in the eastern half of the Pacific. Across the equatorial Pacific, the low-level winds remained near average, while weak upper-level westerly anomalies persisted in the central Pacific. Convection remained enhanced over Indonesia and weakly suppressed near the International Date Line. Collectively, these atmospheric and oceanic conditions were consistent with ENSO-neutral.

From The Greeley Tribune (Eric Brown):

The price for a share of northern Colorado’s largest water-supply project has nearly doubled just this year, and such upswings in prices create a tough situation for anyone in the agriculture industry who’s needing more of the resource. In January, a unit of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project was selling for $9,500, but last month units sold for as much as $18,500, according to officials at the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, who oversee operations of the C-BT Project’s 12-reservoir system.

Brian Werner, a spokesman and historian who’s been with Northern Water for more than 30 years, said the recent price marks an all-time high for C-BT Project shares, and added that one would have to go back to the mid-1980s to find a time when the price of a C-BT unit doubled within one year.

Water experts in the region say the skyrocketing water prices are partly attributed to recent profitability in agriculture and farmers’ increased reluctance to sell their water rights. Seeing less farmers sell their water is good news for northern Colorado’s robust agriculture industry, which has watched its ownership of water decline over the years.

However, the resulting minimal amount of water on the market is pushing already high prices to a point where farmers could have even more trouble affording water if they’re looking for it. “It’s certainly not farmers who are paying these high prices right now,” Werner said.

For years, farmers have sold their water to growing cities in the region, either because they were retiring from farming and didn’t have children taking over operations, or because they were pursuing other careers, since farming wasn’t profitable at the time. That’s not the case anymore. Increased demand for corn and other agricultural goods — stemming from droughts and upswings in biofuel production and food demand abroad — has led to higher commodity prices, and recently to some of the best income years in decades for many farmers and ranchers.

Because of that, producers still in the agriculture game want to stay in it, and they’re hanging on tighter to their water. Local water officials say growing cities in Colorado are still buying water, but there’s much less of it to buy anymore.

“From my understanding, cities have already picked the low-hanging fruit,” said Randy Ray, executive director with the Central Colorado Water Conservancy District in Greeley, which provides water to farmers in three counties. “For a long time, there were plenty of farmers wanting to get out of agriculture and were eager to sell their water to cities. There’s not many of those farmers left now.” Ray, who’s constantly in search of more water for farmers in his district, said prices for other water sources haven’t increased as much as the Colorado-Big Thompson Project.

But he added that water certainly isn’t getting cheaper anywhere. “The price everywhere is only going to keep climbing, so that’s why we’re trying to buy it now, before it gets too expensive,” Ray said of Central Water, which last fall passed a $60 million bond issue in order to increase its water supplies. “In the early 1980s, digging new gravel pits for water storage cost us about $200 per acre foot. Now it’s about $3,000 per acre-foot. “Thirty years ago, water shares were in the hundreds of dollars. Now you’re probably paying $10,000, anywhere you look.”

Werner noted that a recent upswing in home building in northern Colorado might be adding to the demand and price of C-BT water. The region’s oil and gas production is skyrocketing, and could also be contributing some to C-BT’s water-price increases. But, as Werner noted, the oil and gas industry uses less than 1 percent of the state’s water, so that industry’s increased demand can only impact things so much. “It still probably just comes down to agriculture users not wanting to sell it anymore,” Werner said.

C-BT water flows to more than 640,000 acres of irrigated farm and ranch land and about 860,000 people in portions of eight counties, according to Northern Water. When the C-BT Project went it to full use in 1957, 85 percent of its water was owned by agriculture users. Agriculture’s ownership of the C-BT Project has fallen since then to 34 percent.

Overall, agriculture still uses much of the state’s water — 85 percent — and does so in large part by renting water from cities. However, in drought years particularly, renting water isn’t always a reliable source. In dry times, cities are more reluctant to lease water to farmers and ranchers. And as cities in northern Colorado continue to grow and their water supplies become more stretched, they’re expected to lease even less water to agriculture.

Because of that, agricultural users have stressed the need to buy more of their own water supplies. But the sky-rocketing price is making it difficult for Ray and others who are trying to buy water on behalf of agriculture. “The prices certainly aren’t making things any easier,” Ray said. “But we’ll keep looking.”

From The Denver Post (Howard Pankratz):

The drought that has scorched the state is sending hay prices skyward and forcing horse owners to make painful decisions. Many owners, who struggled to keep their horses through the economic downturn, are giving up their animals — either selling them for a pittance, euthanizing them or sending them to Mexico or Canada for slaughter.

“The drought has really decreased the amount of hay,” said Scot Dutcher, chief of Colorado’s Bureau of Animal Protection. “It is basically simple economic rules of supply and demand. When the supply is high, the price goes down. But when the supply is low, obviously the price goes up — and it went way up.”

The price of hay in Colorado, which once was $120 a ton, now ranges from $250 to $350 a ton, Dutcher said…

Over the course of the past year, Wallden has gotten rid of three of her horses, placing two on what she and other owners refer to as “the killer truck” to be sent outside the U.S. for slaughter, while a third was sold at auction, a purchase she suspects was also for slaughter. Because of the drought, Wallden said she can no longer grow hay on her Kiowa property and can’t keep up with the rising prices being charged by other growers.

From the Summit County Citizens Voice (Bob Berwyn):

June, the second-driest month in Summit County, ended up especially dry this year, with only 0.26 inches of precipitation at the official National Weather Service site in Breckenridge, and even less — 0.19 inches at the Dillon station. Averages for the two sites are 1.37 inches in Breckenridge and 1.14 inches at Dillon, where there was measurable precipitation on two days, June 18 and June 29.

The sparse total in Breckenridge made it the fourth-driest (tied with 2006) on record, dating back more than 100 years, said weather observer Rick Bly. The driest June ever (0.06 inches) was in 1980, during another notable Colorado dry spell, followed by June 1891 (0.10 inches) and June 2002 (0.24 inches).

From the Fort Collins Coloradoan (Bobby Magill):

The spring storms brought too little water too late, and late May and June were dry enough to wither some farmers’ hope. The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday declared 38 Colorado counties natural disaster areas because of the drought, making farmers eligible for additional Farm Service Agency assistance. Those counties include Larimer County, which is suffering through one of the 25 driest water years on record. Weld County is not included in the natural disaster declaration…

In March, Wellington farmer Richard Seaworth expected just such a bleak growing season this year as he considered a dry summer ahead and possibly laying off staff as a result. But the spring storms kept the worst from happening, and he didn’t lay off any workers. “We were able to get the crops up without using all our water,” he said.

Seaworth, who primarily grows sugar beets, beans and wheat, fallowed 20 percent of his land this season because of the drought. The remaining 80 percent has been planted and looks good right now, he said. But with water supplies dwindling, Seaworth said he’s unsure if there will be enough to finish the crops he started. “It’s our own fault,” he said. “We were warned.”

From KOAA (Kirsten Bennet):

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has designated 38 Colorado counties suffering from severe losses due to drought as natural disaster areas. The designations mean that farmers and ranchers in these counties are eligible for additional Farm Service Agency assistance. Fourteen counties were declared primary natural disaster areas, while 24 counties were designated as contiguous disaster counties…

Producers in the following counties are eligible for assistance: Adams, Alamosa, Arapahaoe, Archuleta, Boulder, Broomfield, Chaffee, Clear Creek, Conejos, Costilla, Custer, Delta, Denver, Douglas, Eagle, Fremont, Garfield, Gilpin, Grand, Gunnison, Hinsdale, Huerfano, Jackson, Jefferson, Larimer, Mesa, Mineral, Moffatt, Montrose, Ouray, Park, Pitkin, Rio Blanco, Rio Grande, Routt, Saguache, San Miguel, and Teller.

Here’s the release from Governor Hickenloope’s office:

Gov. John Hickenlooper was notified today by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack that 14 counties qualify for federal disaster relief because of drought conditions. Fourteen counties were declared primary natural disaster areas due to a recent drought and an additional 24 were declared as contiguous disaster counties.

The primary counties are Alamosa, Conejos, Delta, Garfield, Gunnison, Jackson, Jefferson, Mesa, Moffat, Montrose, Rio Blanco, Rio Grande, Routt and Saguache. The contiguous counties are Adams, Arapahoe, Archuleta, Boulder, Broomfield, Chaffee, Clear Creek, Costilla, Custer, Denver, Douglas, Eagle, Fremont, Gilpin, Grand, Hinsdale, Huerfano, Larimer, Mineral, Ouray, Park, Pitkin, San Miguel and Teller.

The federal disaster relief includes Farm Service Agency (FSA) emergency loans. Farmers in eligible counties have eight months from the date of the declaration to apply for emergency loan assistance. FSA will consider each emergency loan application on its own merits, taking into account the extent of production losses, security available and repayment ability.

Local FSA offices can provide farmers with more information.

From Reuters (Christine Stebbins):

Drought conditions expanded in the contiguous United States over the past week given persistent heat and dryness in the southern Plains, while the eastern half of the country is out of drought amid steady rains, according to a weekly drought report. The U.S. Drought Monitor, issued by state and federal experts on Wednesday, said drought areas in the “moderate to exceptional” categories grew to 44.06 percent, from 43.84 a week ago. “This is the third straight week of the drought expanding,” Matthew Rosencrans, with the U.S. Climate Prediction Center and author of the drought monitor, told Reuters. “The biggest expansion was in northeast Texas but the drought also expanded into southeast Texas and Oklahoma.”[…]

Of the big U.S. crop states, Nebraska – the fourth largest corn state and a leading producer of cattle, sorghum and wheat – is the driest with 88.41 percent in moderate to exceptional drought. That compares to 88.36 percent a week ago and 64.63 percent a year ago.

From the US Drought Monitor:

The U.S. Drought Monitor map for the seven days ending Sept. 18 showed little change from the preceding week, although the total area of the country in moderate or worse drought crept up to yet another record high in the 12-year U.S. Drought Monitor data.

Statistics released with the map showed that 54.25 percent of the country was in moderate drought or worse, the largest percentage so far recorded at that level, up slightly from 53.70 percent the week before. The map showed 34.35 percent in severe drought or worse, down from 34.97 percent a week earlier; 17.35 percent in extreme drought or worse, compared with 17.63 percent the week before; and 4.98 percent in exceptional drought, compared with 5.20 percent the preceding week.

Moderate drought expanded in Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas. Although all of Kansas is still in severe drought or worse, the area in exceptional drought decreased to 51.04 percent from 60.61 percent. Oklahoma saw slight intensification, with the area in extreme drought increasing to 95.33 percent from 94.68 percent, and the area in exceptional drought increasing to 42.09 percent from 39.66 percent.

From The Greeley Tribune (Eric Brown):

Well below average rainfall in June put the Greeley area back in the “drought” category, and also evaporated some of the optimism local farmers had earlier in the growing season.

Weld County and the rest of the South Platte River basin entered June with a snowpack that was about 50 percent above normal. The snowmelt from the mountains, farmers thought at the time, would keep their irrigation ditches running with water well into the summer.

But the Greeley area last month received about one-third of an inch of rain — less than 20 percent of the historic average — and the dry conditions forced some local farmers to use more of their irrigation water than originally anticipated.

Northern Colorado is now back in a “moderate drought,” according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, after it had briefly shaken its drought status in early June.

The lack of rain and increased use of irrigation water last month now has ditch levels dropping, local farmers say. “If we don’t get some decent rains in the next 10 days to two weeks, things could get ugly pretty quickly,” said Dave Eckhardt, a LaSalle-area grower of corn, onions, sugar beets and wheat.

Storm clouds rolled into the Greeley area only a few moments after Eckhardt made those comments Monday afternoon, and rains were expected again Friday and Saturday. Local farmers are hoping it will be enough to keep their crops growing, since irrigation water for some of them might run out before the end of the growing season.

Artie Elmquist, a Mead-area farmer, said he’s wanting to see 60-70 percent of his sugar beet crop survive. He got a late start planting this year because rains in April and May muddied his fields. The June dryness set in not long after he finally planted his beets. He’s typically finished planting in April, and then uses May rains to get the crop growing out of the ground. But this year, with June giving him little moisture to work with, he had to irrigate his crop out of the ground — something he has to do only once every 10 years or so, he noted. Crop insurance can help, if it stays dry and his crops suffer, Elmquist said. But, in many cases, insurance payments only help re-coup some of the farmer’s input costs. “You’re certainly much better off if you can just grow a crop,” Elmquist said.

Despite the lack of rain last month and increased water use, overall conditions are so far better now than they were a year ago, Eckhardt and Elmquist said. In 2012, the two irrigation ditches that run water to Eckhardt’s fields ran dry by mid-June. On one ditch, the Eckhardts could use extra water from the Colorado-Big Thompson Project — the largest water-supply project in northern Colorado. Last year, the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District board of directors, which oversees C-BT operations, set a high water quota, and that freed up additional water for the Eckhardts and other farmers in the region. However, the other irrigation ditch used by the Eckhardts doesn’t have access to C-BT water, and last year the Eckhardts had to let 700 acres of crops along that ditch dry up.

Since the C-BT Project went into use in 1957, the Northern Water board has set a quota each year to balance how much water could be used through the growing seasons and how much water needed to stay in storage for future years. The Northern Water board upped its water quota to 100 percent last year, because reservoirs were filled to historically high levels, thanks to a record snowpack in 2011. But that extensive use during the 2012 drought drained some of the C-BT Project’s 12 reservoirs to historically low levels, and they now need to be filled back up, Northern Water board members have said.

Cities in the area, which in many years lease extra water to local farmers, are also holding on tight to their water, trying to re-fill their low reservoirs. Additionally, a number of farmers in the area are limited in their ability to pump water out of the ground to make up for any lack of rain. In the mid-2000s, augmentation requirements were made more stringent in Colorado. Augmentation water is required to make up for depletions to the aquifer. With those changes, many farmers and their irrigation ditch companies today can’t afford enough augmentation water to get their wells pumping at full capacity. With groundwater-pumping limitations and city officials and Northern Water board members reluctant to release water from their reservoirs, farmers are left to hope that Mother Nature cooperates better in the upcoming months than it did in June.

Helping a number of farmers, including Alan Frank, who farms near LaSalle, is the fact that they planted more acres of wheat — a crop that requires less water. Many farmers in Weld County doubled or even tripled their wheat acres back in the fall, anticipating water-availability issues when the spring and summer rolled around. “It’s helped save water,” Frank said of growing more wheat this year. “But we’re still going to need more help from the weather to make sure everything else can survive.”

From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):

If you thought June was exceptionally hot and dry . . . Not even close. In terms of temperatures, it was just the seventh hottest June since record-keeping began in the 1890s. But June can be very dry in many years, and it was only the 16th driest on record. The average temperature for the month was 74.3 degrees, which is well above the average of 70 degrees. The hottest June was 77 degrees in 2012.

Just 0.27 inches of rain fell in June. In June 1990, the driest, there was no rainfall. Try telling that to your lawn or garden. So far this year, Pueblo has received just 2.2 inches of precipitation, even less than at this time last year, which ranked right behind 2002 as the driest.

Puebloans poured water on their lawns, but not as much as last year. The 1.3 billion gallons pumped by the Board of Water Works was 3 percent above average, but 7 percent lower than last year. Pueblo is not under water restrictions, but wise use of water still is encouraged and customers are advised to avoid watering between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Meanwhile, flows on the Arkansas River have dropped as runoff slowed in the past two weeks. The flow near Salida was 776 cubic feet per second at the end of June, about one-third of the peak reached earlier in the month.

The Fryingpan-Arkansas Project is close to meeting its goal of 47,231 acre-feet of imported water across the Continental Divide. So far, about 44,750 acre-feet have been brought over, which is helping to fill some of the holes left in reservoirs by three years of drought. But hot, dry weather is expected to continue, so levels should continue to decline until winter storage begins in November.

From the Summit County Citizens Voice (Bob Berwyn):

After a short-lived burst of late spring moisture, much of Colorado is veering back toward drought conditions, with soil moisture declining in many parts of the state. Even the north-central mountains, which saw above-average precipitation in late April and May, are drying out again, and parts of Summit and Grand counties are once again designated as experience “moderate” drought conditions, according to the June 18 drought monitor. The far southwestern corner of the state slipped back into “extreme” drought conditions…

Nearly all of the state (with the exception of a tiny area in the far southeastern corner) saw less than 50 percent of average June precipitation, which isn’t very high to begin with. A significant portion of western Colorado received less that 25 percent of average precipitation for the month.

June temperatures were near average across much of the mountains, but slightly warmer than average to the west and east of the Continental Divide…

For Summit County, the second half of July and the first part of August is often one of the wettest periods of the year — if the Southwest monsoon develops normally to deliver periodic afternoon thunderstorms.
Late August and September can go either way. An extended monsoon can sometimes persist through late August, and a developing El Niño can bring autumn moisture, but there’s no indication yet that an El Niño is forming out in the Pacific Ocean. In fact, most long-term climate models are suggesting that the equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures will continue to hover near neutral or perhaps slightly below, with better odds for yet another La Niña year, continuing a string that’s somewhat unprecedented in recent times.

From The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (Paul Shockley):

Coming off one of the driest Junes on record for Grand Junction, there are dim prospects for change for the beginning of July, according to the National Weather Service in Grand Junction. As measured at Grand Junction Regional Airport, the city recorded 0.01 inch of rain for the month just ended, well below a normal value for June of 0.45 inch, National Weather Service senior forecaster Chris Cuoco said. “We’re certainly down there for one of the driest June’s on record,” Cuoco said. “(Saturday) had some of the first raindrops I’ve felt in the valley in quite a long time.”

As dry as the past month registered, June 2012 recorded trace amounts of rain, he said. Don’t look for change anytime soon. “We have the slightest hint of precipitation for July 7 and July 8, but certainly it’s not something we’re banking on yet,” Cuoco said. “We’ll be watching it and hopefully we may see a little bit of moisture coming out of the south.”

Despite the dry June, Grand Junction is still wetter year to date compared with last year. The city has recorded 3.42 inches so far of the year, still below the normal value of 4.29 inches. At the same point in 2012, Grand Junction was almost 3 inches below normal. “April helped us out quite a bit,” Cuoco said of this year’s total.

From the Pikes Peak Courier-View (Pat Hill):

Owner of Becky’s Bovines and Brews in Highland Meadows in southern Teller County, [Becky Sandefur] runs a dairy business that offers fresh milk and homemade cheese from the 80-acre ranch. For the past several years, the enterprise has been self-sustaining. Until now. With one of two wells going dry, in addition to a dry pond and another gradually evaporating, Sandefur has reduced the herd to five cows and a bull. Nonetheless, she has her fingers crossed that the five will produce calves in January. The well supplies water for the household but the pond nourishes the livestock that includes five horses. “If something happens to the pond, I’m finished,” she said.

From the Summit County Citizens Voice (Bob Berwyn):

scientists working at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa say a new tree ring record extending back about 700 years has helped decipher long-term trends. The tree ring samples from both the tropics and mid-latitudes in both hemispheres support the idea that the unusually high ENSO activity in the late 20th century is a footprint of global warming said Jinbao Li, lead author of the study published online in the journal Nature Climate Change.

“Many climate models do not reflect the strong ENSO response to global warming that we found,” said co-author Shang-Ping Xie, meteorology professor at the International Pacific Research Center. “This suggests that many models underestimate the sensitivity to radiative perturbations in greenhouse gases. Our results now provide a guide to improve the accuracy of climate models and their projections of future ENSO activity. If this trend of increasing ENSO activity continues, we expect to see more weather extremes such as floods and droughts.”

The inclusion of tropical tree-ring records enabled the team to generate an accurate archive of ENSO activity, matched with records from equatorial Pacific corals and with an independent Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstruction that captures well-known teleconnection climate patterns.

These proxy records all indicate that ENSO was unusually active in the late 20th century compared to the past seven centuries, implying that this climate phenomenon is responding to ongoing global warming.