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Climate change accelerates in West
As
if it weren't bad enough that scientists believe our climate is
changing, researchers are telling us that the Western United States is
heating up twice as fast as the planet as a whole.
That has
scary implications for Southern California, according to the climate
scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
The region's water supply could shrink gradually over this century as mountain snow melts, rainfall totals decline and droughts lengthen, said Dan Cayan, a Scripps climate researcher. Cayan said the weather could get a lot hotter, making summers along the coast more like those of the inland valleys today, and August valley heat could become as unbearable as it is in the desert.
Flooding
could occur in low-lying communities near the ocean by the end of the
century and North County's picturesque bluffs could erode at
accelerated rates, he said. In the mountains, backcountry residents and
visitors could find themselves fretting over dying trees as evergreen
forests begin to retreat to higher altitudes to search for moisture.
"We'll
see snowpack melting earlier in the spring," said Jonathan Overpeck,
director of the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth at the
University of Arizona in Tucson. "That, combined with the temperature
increase, will reduce the amount of water flowing in our streams."
And
the tree die-offs, combined with the thinning protective blanket of
snow, will spark some hellacious wildfires, Overpeck said.
"We
in the West are likely to be the ones who will feel the significant
impacts of global warming more than many other people in America," he
said.
Overpeck, who recently lectured on the trend and its
consequences at a climate change conference in Colorado, said in an
interview that weather records show the West has warmed 2 degrees
Fahrenheit since 1960, compared with 1 degree for the country overall.
"That's
primarily in the intermountain West," he said. "It's the states of
Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, west Texas and a little
bit of southeastern California."
Temperatures aren't warming
quite as fast in Southern California because of the ocean's moderating
influence, but the air is getting hotter faster than in the southern
tier of states from Texas to Florida, in parts of the Midwest and all
along the entire Atlantic Seaboard, according to Scripps climate data.
On the other hand, the warming process has shifted into overdrive in
the nation's northernmost state, where the ice sheets that once bounced
the sun's radiation back into space are retreating and exposing
heat-absorbing vegetation.
"Alaska is warming the most,"
Overpeck said. "The whole Arctic is warming faster. It is something
that was predicted years ago because climate change gets amplified in
the Arctic."
As for why the West is warming at a more rapid pace
than the rest of the country, Overpeck said that is largely due to
sea-surface heating in the tropical Indian and Pacific oceans, the
giant engines for much of the weather in California, Arizona and
Nevada. He said the Eastern United States tends to be influenced more
by the Atlantic Ocean.
Cayan said the West's warming trend is most pronounced in winter and spring.
Across
Southern California, Cayan said, wildflowers are blooming earlier than
they did historically, deciduous trees are leafing out earlier and more
precipitation in the middle elevations of the mountains is falling as
rain instead of snow.
It is heating up in summer, too, but more
at night than during the day, Cayan said. This past July, one of the
hottest and consistently humid months on record, was a prime example,
he said.
Cayan was careful to note that the documented warming
is not something that is occurring only in the West's big urban areas
such as San Diego, Phoenix and Denver, where concrete jungles of
buildings and highways absorb heat and make cities warmer than their
rural surroundings. He said scientists also have documented a
pronounced warming trend at rural weather stations across the West,
strong evidence that the entire region is heating up.
Scientists
such as Cayan and Overpeck blame much of the region's ---- and world's
---- climate change on the buildup of greenhouse gases such as carbon
dioxide that is being triggered by the burning of fossil fuels. Key
contributors are America's millions of cars and its many power plants
and factories.
While the current trend is almost universally
accepted as fact, some scientists doubt that fossil fuel burning is
causing most of it. Some attribute the warming to the natural climatic
fluctuations that occur periodically, and disagree that the trend will
continue, let alone accelerate.
Overpeck is one who believes the trend will accelerate.
"We're not just changing climate, we're changing it faster than Mother Nature has done it in the past," he said.
Whereas
temperatures across the West have risen a couple degrees over the last
half-century, Cayan said, they could soar 5 to 12 degrees above today's
readings by the end of this century.
During the last century,
sea levels rose 6 to 8 inches along the West Coast, Cayan added.
Between now and 2100, the ocean could swell by an additional 3 feet, he
said.
As well, he said, "There is a chance that we could get
drier. That's disquieting for areas like ours because we already live
in a semiarid climate."
Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 740-5442 or ddowney@nctimes.com.
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Comments On This Story Add A Comment alex a. wrote on October 28, 2006 11:54 PM:"Wild speculation and some of the facts are plain wrong, for example, cow farts create more "greenhouse gases" than fossil fuels." alex wrote on October 28, 2006 11:55 PM:"Wild speculation and some of the facts are plain wrong, for example, cow farts create more "greenhouse gases" than fossil fuels." Chicken Little wrote on October 29, 2006 7:47 AM:"In 5 billion years, the Sun will explode and vaporize the planet Earth. In the big picture, a 1 or 2 degree change in temperature over the next 100 years doesn't matter all that much. In fact, in Northern Europe and Russia, the change would be beneficial. In any event, if saving humanity is your goal, money spent combatting the cyclical effects of global warming would be spent far more wisely on building clean-water pumps in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia." LK wrote on October 30, 2006 8:12 AM:"The various media outlets, along with the goofy hollywood types just don't want to take the time to look up in the sky. Global warming/cooling is at work.. It's called 'Natural Forces'. The Sun is calling all the shots. Volcanoes routinely belch more Carbon dioxide and Sulpher dioxide on a daily basis than all of Mankind has ever produced. Chicken Little is back on the front page of the 'global warming' cabal." Stop these CLOWNS! wrote on October 30, 2006 9:53 AM:"We the taxpayers demand our money back from the first fairy tale...Bird Flu! It is time we hold these politicans responsible for the stealing of tax dollars on science fiction stories! The only global warming is coming from the politicans lying lips!" ichthyo77 wrote on October 30, 2006 1:25 PM:"Tell me you guys aren't serious with these comments . . . Do you get all your scientific facts straight from Rush Limbaugh? Do any of you have any actual scientific background? Let the intellectual big kids discuss this if you have nothing substantive to say. Reality is that this will affect all of us, whether you believe global warming exists or not." Oh my I wrote on October 30, 2006 2:54 PM:"feel the heat! NOT!" What about the wrote on October 30, 2006 2:56 PM:"Bird Flu, again Europe led the way and the American sleeze followed it up to steal tax dollars!" I feel hot.... wrote on October 30, 2006 3:32 PM:"oh wait its only a hot flash, my mistake!" wtrboy wrote on October 30, 2006 5:33 PM:"I just drove US Hwy 50 from Salina, UT to Carson City, NV. If you have your head where the sun doesn't shine, you are unable to see (or admit) that burning coal across the inter-mountain west has very serious negative impacts on the air we breath. Before you spout off that there is no damage, please go see it for yourself. You cannot see in from NC, OC or SF." Al wrote on October 30, 2006 8:21 PM:"I told all of you this would happen, did you see my film? If not go see it for all the answers. Just another sign of Global Warming. Look at the recent weather, hot and dry one day, now cool and foggy today, I'm telling you... " Gore wrote on October 31, 2006 10:23 AM:"is so out of touch, he probably thinks he still won the presidency! And all the fools follow him on global freezing, oh wait that was 2 years ago, my mistake new lie, global warming!" Henny Penny wrote on November 01, 2006 12:00 PM:"The loss of the Earth's magnetic field and subsequent polar shift will have a much more profound impact on our planet. It's effects may occur sooner than any "doomsday" global warming scenario. Look to Mars past for our future possibilties. Spock out " ichthyo77 wrote on November 01, 2006 4:28 PM:"so yes, as you climate scientists have noted, it can be hot one day and cool the next. The cool day showing up is not a sign that global warming doesn't exist. In fact the end result of global warming will indeed be another ice age. Global warming is a long term trend. i.e - take an average temperature for every day of the year. In doing so, you will see the average temperature has risen dramatically (in geological terms) in the past 50-100 years. Same for ocean temps, which are equally as important (especially for things like hurricanes). The predicted results of global warming are more extreme weather, not no weather changes at all. More extreme droughts, more extreme rain, larger hurricanes, typhoons, etc . . . Once again, how much background do you naysayers have in this stuff? " To ichthyo77 wrote on November 02, 2006 11:44 AM:"Enough background to know we I am being scammed!" Add Your Comments or Letter to the Editor
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