{"id":3771,"date":"2015-07-15T14:50:03","date_gmt":"2015-07-15T18:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/?p=3771"},"modified":"2015-07-07T14:59:57","modified_gmt":"2015-07-07T18:59:57","slug":"the-coming-dry-wet-knockout-in-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/2015\/07\/the-coming-dry-wet-knockout-in-california\/","title":{"rendered":"The coming &#8220;dry-wet&#8221; knockout in California"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Association of American Geographers (AAG) recently posted an article about the future of California&#8217;s drought. \u00a0They point out that even after multiple dry years, the rains will come back, and if El Nino is as strong as forecast this coming winter, they will return with a vengeance. \u00a0The writer describes the situation this way:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They have been called \u201cdry-wet knockouts\u201d because drought weakens ecosystems, and the following floods deliver a \u201cknockout\u201d blow. Vegetation that holds the soil in place withers during droughts, and the soils desiccate and are more easily eroded. Forests become dangerously dry and susceptible to wildfires sparked by summer lightning strikes. Then the knockout: a winter with storm after storm spawned out over the Pacific slams into the west coast. Heavy rains easily erode the fire-charred slopes, washing massive amounts of sediment downhill, eventually choking streams and lakes. The sediments raise the bed-level of rivers, exacerbating floods. Once on the move, the slurry of sediment-laden waters disrupts downstream aquatic ecosystems in ponds, lakes, estuaries, and even the coastal ocean. Dry-wet knockouts become natural disasters for Californians, as economic losses due to drought are compounded by the subsequent devastation of deluges. Homes \u2013 sometimes entire neighborhoods \u2013 can be buried in massive mudslides; roads and highways buckle as the once-solid earth is eroded out from beneath them; agricultural fields are inundated and crops lost. The floodwaters can take months to finally drain.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Western climates have a way of swinging from one extreme to another, while in the Southeast changes are often more subtle. \u00a0What will the impacts of the next &#8220;dry-wet&#8221; cycle have on California agriculture and the associated markets?<\/p>\n<p>You can read the article <a href=\"https:\/\/news.aag.org\/2015\/06\/the-coming-dry-wet-knockout-in-california\/?utm_source=July+2015+Newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=AAG+News&amp;utm_medium=email\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3772\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3772\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2015\/07\/el-nino-mud-slide.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3772\" src=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2015\/07\/el-nino-mud-slide-300x210.jpg\" alt=\"Source: FEMA\" width=\"300\" height=\"210\" srcset=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2015\/07\/el-nino-mud-slide-300x210.jpg 300w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2015\/07\/el-nino-mud-slide-197x138.jpg 197w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2015\/07\/el-nino-mud-slide.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3772\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: FEMA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Association of American Geographers (AAG) recently posted an article about the future of California&#8217;s drought. \u00a0They point out that even after multiple dry years, the rains will come back, and if El Nino is as strong as forecast this coming winter, they will return with a vengeance. \u00a0The writer describes the situation this way: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":3772,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-and-ag-in-the-news","category-drought"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3773,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771\/revisions\/3773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}