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Shocker: See How Georgia’s Largest Lake Has Been Affected By Climate Change… or not?

The Blue State Conservative

Created in 1956 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and situated just north of Atlanta, Lake Lanier is the largest lake in Georgia, encompassing 38,000 surface acres and 692 miles of shoreline at normal level, or “full pool.”

In 1999, Georgians were told that Lanier was in a perilous state, as the region was in the grips a protracted drought described by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) as the “Drought of the Century.” Roy Barnes, Georgia’s Democratic governor at the time, issued a terrifying warning that lake levels might never recover unless immediate steps were taken to mitigate global warming. Those steps were never taken, but the drought of 1998-2003 eventually met a natural ending when plentiful rainfall returned Lanier to full pool.

In 2009, Georgia’s citizens were told that Lanier was once again in a perilous state, so much so that it could dry up permanently along with the rivers and streams that feed it. Nearly three years of drought had left the lake hovering at 20 feet below full pool, the lowest on record. Things were so bad that floating boat docks rested on dry land far from water, in some places as much as 100 feet away – photo. Mainstream media warned readers and viewers that the drought of 2007-2009 likely marked the arrival of the long-predicted environmental “tipping point.” But by the next year, the drought went away as plentiful rainfall returned Lanier to full pool.

Fast-forward to 2013. After an extremely hot summer the preceding year, Lanier had fallen to 13 feet below full pool, providing the climate crisis industry yet another opportunity to raise their ominous warnings to deafening levels. But by May 2013, less than a year after the drought of 2012, Lanier was restored to full pool as north Georgia experienced abundant rainfall and one of the coldest spring seasons on record.

Do you see a pattern? As one drought leaves and another arrives, climate crusaders seize upon the new one to frighten voters into accepting the stratospheric carbon taxes they say are urgently needed to address global warming. When drought conditions don’t exist, they move on to something else and start yelping about another “climate emergency,” such as blizzards, hurricanes, floods and forest fires. All of those extreme weather events are natural components of earth’s ever-changing climate, which has been in an inexorable state of flux long before dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago.

So, after three droughts in the last 23 years, how has Georgia’s largest lake been adversely affected by climate change? The answer is not at all. You won’t hear climate carnival barkers trying to horrify you about Lake Lanier this summer, because Georgia’s No. 1 reservoir is holding a straight flush with a water level standing at full pool.

More about north Georgia’s drought history …

In April 1865, the month President Lincoln was assassinated and 91 years before Lake Lanier existed, north Georgia entered a drought phase. Over the next century, the region would experience protracted droughts from 1903-1905 and 1924-1927, the latter of which was so severe that the lowest stream levels ever recorded in Georgia were reported by the Weather Bureau, known today as the National Weather Service.

The next droughts to impact the region occurred in 1930-1935 and 1938-1944. Fifteen years later, north Georgia suffered through the drought of 1950-1957. Thirty years down the road, Lanier reached the lowest levels since its creation during the drought of 1985-1988 before recovering to full pool when abundant rainfall returned.

Bottom line: Periodic droughts in north Georgia—and everywhere else on the planet—are an inevitable part of the ever-changing climate cycle that existed long before the climate crisis industry concocted the global warming hoax in the early 1980s.

By John Eidson

Featured photo is of Lake Lanier on December 28, 2008, courtesy of blakev at Flickr.

Content syndicated from TheBlueStateConservative.com with permission.

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One Comment

  1. The sky has been falling for decades.
    Will Al Gore, climate whore and his climate friendly private jet be next?

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