[Texgreen] Gloom n' doomers try to bad-trip Texas

[Roger Baker]

Now they got some idiot scientist trying to claim he knows more about  
Texas water than our Governor Rick Perry. -- Roger

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<http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/ 
11/19/19water.html>

Texas water plan ignores global warming, scientist warns
Climate changes will raise temperatures, possibly cut rainfall, A&M  
professor says.

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sunday, November 19, 2006

A new state water plan adopted last week largely ignores global  
warming effects that could create a greater than estimated water  
shortfall in the next 50 years, a leading climate scientist warns.

The plan approved by the Texas Water Development Board aims to meet  
an estimated 8.8 million acre-feet water shortfall by 2060, when the  
state's population is projected to more than double.

But Texas A&M University geosciences professor Gerald North said the  
plan doesn't adequately take into account climate changes that will  
raise temperatures, potentially decrease rainfall and cripple the  
state's rivers.

This year, North led a panel convened by the National Academy of  
Sciences that determined that the last few decades of the 20th  
century were warmer than any comparable period in the past 400 years.

"They completely neglected the whole thing. It is really troubling,"  
North said.

A spokeswoman for the Water Development Board said that the agency  
reassesses the state's water needs every five years and that plans  
are adjusted as the climate changes.

"We're open to looking at anything that will affect water supplies in  
Texas," Carla Daws said. "It's a constantly evolving science."

The state's plan lists 4,500 proposed projects and strategies to meet  
water demands as the population balloons to a projected 46 million  
over the next five decades.

Failing to meet the estimated water shortfall could cause as much as  
85 percent of the state's population to face shortages during a  
drought, according to the board.

North said computer estimates indicate that temperatures will rise 4  
to 9 degrees by the end of the century, increasing evaporation  
exponentially.

North said a simulation conducted by the University of Texas a decade  
ago showed that a 4-degree increase in temperature and a 5 percent  
decrease in rainfall would reduce runoff in the state by about 25  
percent. The same model showed river flow decreasing by one-third,  
with the effects becoming more pronounced during a drought.

"I'm not a zealot who is out there hugging trees," North said. "But  
things have changed over the past 10 years."