Previously, separation of climate from human effects (cf., Dettinger and Cayan, 1995) seemed too daunting to some, partly because of the cobbled management schemes. Using new methods and the pristine historical database, such as the Yosemite National Park series, it now appears to be possible to identify and at least partially separate human from natural climate effects on discharge and to determine the Bay's salinity response on DAILY to DECADAL time scales. There are few other parameters that come close to this level of information over a broad band of time scales. We need to extract and exploit all of the information content that we can from existing records.

	The future is: excellent observations including real time discharge, analysis and PREDICTION. There are many options, several of which are being explored. The scientist seems to be pondering some of them (in his dreams...).
So many models, so little time...

References

Cayan, D.R. and Peterson, D.H., 1993, Spring Climate and Salinity in the San Francisco Bay Estuary, Water Resources Research, 29; 293-303.

Cayan, D.R., Riddle, L.G. and Aguado, E., 1993, The Influence of Precipitation and Temperature on Seasonal Streamflow in California, Water Resources Research, 29; 1127-1140.

Dettinger, M.D., Cayan, D.R., 1995, Large-scale Atmospheric Forcing of Recent Trends Toward Early Snow Melt Runoff in California, Journal of Climate, 8; 606-623.