California Drought Tests History of Endless Growth

Nagourney, Adam, Jack Healy, and Nelson. "California Drought Tests History of Endless Growth." The New York Times. The New York Times, 04 Apr. 2015. Web. 12 May 2015.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/us/california-drought-tests-history-of-endless-growth.html

The article "California Drought Tests History of Endless Growth" by Damon Winter reports about one of the biggest droughts in California. This drought has been going on for 4 years,
the state of California announced last week to compel people to reduce water consumption. An estimated 38.8 million people live in California today, more than double the 15.7 million people who lived here in 1960, and the state’s labor force exploded to 18.9 million in 2013 from 6.4 million people in 1960. California is very much over populated, making water very crucial and important to California. The mass of high pressure air has been blocking Pacific winter storms from coming ashore in California, deflecting them up into Alaska and British Columbia, even delivering rain and cold weather to the East Coast. Because of the high air pressure this has been changing the climate drastically. The current high-pressure ridge is even stronger and more persistent than a similar ridge that parked over the Pacific Ocean during the 1976-77 drought, one of the driest in the 20th century. Scientists know that changes in temperature cause high- and low-pressure zones around the world. In many ways, air works like water. The deeper you swim in the ocean, the stronger the water pressure, because the weight of the water above is pressing down on the water below. Air it the atmosphere also has weight, and as temperatures of the ocean and land fluctuate, the atmospheric pressure also changes, helping drive much of our weather. In this article, Winter describes the effects of the Californian Drought. The author also wrote about how these findings can be used in the future. It is alarming that is has been going on for 4 years and hasn't stopped, this has scared many people and California might not be a place you can live or visit anymore.