According to a new study by the University of California, Davis, scientists
identified that Lake Tahoe, famed for its crystal blue waters, is threatened
by climate warming that will swiftly melt the Sierra snowpack, along with more
rainfall than snowfall, floods, droughts and a new threat to the lake's unique
ecology, one that will come from the very bottom of the lake.

The university says it’s the most detailed forecast to date of likely climate-
change effects at Lake Tahoe.

Highlights:
• The average snowpack in the Tahoe Basin will decline by 40 percent to 60
  percent by the year 2100;
• Floods will increase in the middle of the century;
• Prolonged droughts will become more common at the end of the century.

The report considers two possible future carbon emission scenarios -- one "business
as usual" -- in which population growth and national and international policies
affecting global climate change remain unchanged -- and the other "optimistic,"
assuming slower growth and aggressive climate action.

The report identifies that floods will be larger and more frequent in the middle
of the century. Peak water flows in the Upper Truckee River, the largest river
flowing into Lake Tahoe, will more than double, with the future "100-year flood"
resembling today's "1,000-year flood."

Wait, floods?  And it will resemble a 1,000 year flood?  This is a game changer,
or is this a doomsday prediction or more of that fuzzy math used by scientists
who have miscalculated the carbon emissions total by 340 percent?  And these
rains have to come across the vulnerable Sacramento Valley. So much for the Capital
Region.