California's drought shows no signs of ending any time soon, a conference of climate scientists and water resource managers said Tuesday, but some of its effects may not be as catastrophic as feared, according to dpa. "We have to prepare for the worst, and hope for the best," said California Department of Water Resources manager Jeanine Jones, speaking at the University of California, Irvine, at a conference convened by the American Geophysical Union to look for ways to mitigate drought's effects on the state's economy and environment. California is in the fourth year of a historic drought, with reservoirs depleted and mountain snowpack, which supplies the region's streams and rivers through dry summers, at its lowest-ever level. The winter rainy season, which runs from November through March, ended without relief, and the state is looking forward to another hot, dry summer. "We are going to suffer with this drought," said Jay Lund, director of the Centre for Watershed Sciences at the University of California, Davis. Farmers have been forced to fallow land as surface water allocations have been cut. Thousands of rural wells ran dry last year, and widespread drilling into groundwater reserves - the state's "long-term savings account," according to Lund - have caused ground subsidence as land dries up like a sponge. But scientists pointed out that the drought, while painful, isn't a first. California's 1923-1924 winter rainy season was a far drier one than 2013-2014, and the state received less rainfall during the 1987-1992 drought than in the current one, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist Marty Hurling said. "Droughts are a nature of the beast in this area," he said. What's new about the current drought are the record temperatures that accompany it. Last year was southern California's warmest on record - and this year is set to be even warmer. While climate change isn't demonstrably a cause of the drought, Hurling said, warm temperatures may worsen it in ways science does not yet understand. However, fears about spiking food prices are not likely to be realized, Lund said. Agricultural products likely to be lost to drought this year are those grown in other places too, while high-value crops grown only in California, like almonds, will get the water they need. "I think we will largely preserve the long-term economic prosperity of California through this drought and the long term," he said. That's assuming the drought, eventually, will end. Kingtse Mo of the NOAA Climate Prediction Centre said the agency's three-month forecast for the US west shows above-normal temperatures - and no precipitation in sight. "That's not a very good sign," she said. "I do hope our forecast is wrong."
