Climate change or return to climate norm?

Vice President Kamala Harris used the white ring around Lake Mead as a visual for her claim that the federal government must spend trillions of dollars to combat climate change.

In reporting on the Monday event, the morning newspaper flatly stated, ā€œOver the past 20 years, Lake Mead’s water level has declined by about 150 feet amid climate change-fueled drought conditions.ā€

Or might the current conditions be a return to normal after about of century of wetter than normal?

According to a 2006 University of Arizona study of 508 years of tree ring data, the past 100-year period was wetter than the average for the past five centuries.

Connie A. Woodhouse, who led the research team, said, ā€œThe updated reconstruction for Lee’s Ferry (on the Colorado River) indicates that as many as eight droughts similar in severity, in terms of average flow, to the 5-year 2000-2004 drought have occurred since 1500.ā€ Woodhouse was at the time a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center Paleoclimatogy Branch in Boulder, Colo.

The newspaper quoted the vice president as saying, ā€œAnd it is critical that we as a nation understand that we have within our hands, within our possession, the ability to actually change the course of where we’re headed. … Just look out at this lake. … This is where we’re headed.ā€

Or is it where we’ve been as well? Vice President Kamala Harris speaks as Congresswoman Dina Titus, left, and Representative Susie Lee look on while at Lake Mead on Monday. (R-J pix)
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