Pederson says he's confident his tree-ring results are accurate in part because during a brief period of overlap during the 20th century, the snowpack depth derived from the tree rings and modern observations look like "photocopies" of one another.
Although the new study describes ongoing decline in snowpack throughout the Rockies, this year has bucked that long-term trend. Record snowpacks have been recorded in the northern West, according to the Agriculture Department's Natural Resources Conservation Service, which monitors snowpack.
Experts characterized it as a brief blip in a longer-term trend of decline. They attributed last year's unusually wet winter to the La Niña weather pattern that was in place from August to May.
"We're seeing 200 to 400 percent of normal for this time of year," said Michael Strobel, director of the service's National Water and Climate Center.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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Add CommentBut if it is not snowing there more, then it must be raining more, right? I do not see how this affects the river system, if the water comes as rain or as snow it is still there and going to run down the mountain and into the rivers and streams. No where in the article did it state there was less percipitation just not as much snow.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<quote>But if it is not snowing there more, then it must be raining more, right? <end quote>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot necessarily. If the prevailing jet stream moves further north or south, the prevailing pattern of precipitation will change to follow the jet.
<quote>I do not see how this affects the river system <end quote>
The effect of all the winter precipitation arriving as rain - there's very little summer precipitation in these areas relative to the winter snows - means that seasonal flooding will be catastrophic every year, increasing the amount of erosion. It's likely those rainy-wet winters will be followed by prolonged summer droughts and major wildfires, and the loss of any marginal ecosystem in the region such as alpine meadows, treeline level forests, grasslands converting to scrub or outright desert. The loss of snowpack will change the ecosystem of the mountain west and the western coast states in ways with which we and the species living there are simply not equipped to cope.
When water is frozen as snow, it stays in place for MUCH longer than if it was water. Even if rainfall patterns weren't being disrupted by man-made climate change, having the same amount of precipitation fall as rain is a huge disruption to the usual moisture patterns the ecosystems in he area have adapted to. With less snow and reduced snowpack, the flow of water comes in pulses as storms pass by instead of the steady, months-long flow that the snowpack melt of the past provided. Accordingly, more of the water escapes the area as runoff instead of soaking into the soil and dry periods of the year where water is scarce for plants and animals are longer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, since the climate is getting warmer, the soil dries out quicker, leading to increased water stress on areas already feeling the pinch of drought and increased aridity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClimate Change is due to the following:-
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Sorry Narayan, there is ZERO evidence that the climate forcings you mention are anywhere near large enough to produce the observed warming signal in the climate record.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdrafter ""This time, no return to cooler period" thats [sic] probably what the native's [sic] said during the last Medieval mega-drought that lasted a couple of hundred years.I think Scientest [sic] need to start looking more than 30 years ago."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou must have missed the second sentence. The one that said they had reconstructed 800 years worth of snow pack. The 30 years refers to time during which the huge decline in the snow pack has been seen, which is unprecedented in the 800 year record.
Even if we were to stipulate your comment, we still need to make policy at the human time scale, where a hundred years of drought would be unbelievably catastrophic.
So I'm not sure your comment supports the position that you mean for it to.
What are you talking about! Anybody take a look at the last 3 years! Lets spin the clock back a few. In 2004 Ft Peck reservoir along with all other Missouri river impoundments recorded record lows. Predictions were dire: we would never see the dams full again in our lifetimes. If you noticed, this last week every impoundment on the Missouri drainage is at maximal emergency release in anticipation of record snow melt. This is by no means limited to the northern plains. Every drainage from Canada to Colorado is at or near record stages.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem in the West is water: either too much or too little. I suggest you visit the USGS drought monitor website and start looking at the data that extends into the late 19 century. You will see very cyclical data running on a 15-20 year pattern. Yes we have been in a drought in the west and a bad one at that. However, as is normal, that reversed over the past 3 years. We can look forward to a stretch of winters the more closely resemble the last two which I can assure you is not a completely comforting thought for many.
Climate stresses, all throughout the evolutionary history of life on earth, have been vital to the rise of increasing complexity of the life on earth. Regardless of the cause, or the patterns occurring locally as these stresses continue, homo sapiens cannot continue their evolutionary path to their destiny without these cycles.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisloudmouth says, "But if it is not snowing there more, then it must be raining more, right?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this------------
Wrong!
Most of the areas in the Rockies that get a snowpack, ONLY get their precipitation as snow for 6 or more months out of the year. I had never seen it rain in Rockies during the winter until this past winter, and due to the Pineapple Express from Hawaii, we actually had several warm rain storms at altitude.
While we 'might' get a heavy, wet snow early in the autumn and late in the spring, indicative of a warmer storm from the southwest and not the northwest, we can always count on dry, powdery snow for almost 6 months.
sault says, "Also, since the climate is getting warmer, the soil dries out quicker, leading to increased water stress on areas already feeling the pinch of drought and increased aridity."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this------------
We also get spring winds -- not quite as bad as in the lower latitudes like AZ and NM -- but still quite strong and very consistent for my wind generator, which also helps dry out the soil even quicker, leading to increased aridity. Although we did not get a huge dust storm this spring like in 2009 and 2010, quicker snow melt has been magnified beyond the warmer spring weather with brownish-reddish AZ/UT dust coating the white snow.
The Wallow Fire in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest has unfortunately been given great conditions due to years of drought and spring winds adding to the aridity.
"Although the new study describes ongoing decline in snowpack throughout the Rockies, this year has bucked that long-term trend.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExperts characterized it as a brief blip in a longer-term trend of decline. They attributed last year's unusually wet winter to the La Niña weather pattern that was in place from August to May."
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Obviously, the winter of 2010/2011 bucked the trend over the past 30 years, but from the long term data, we can see lower amounts of snowpack, earlier spring runoff and more beetle-kill areas due to warmer winters.
ssm says, "Yes we have been in a drought in the west and a bad one at that. However, as is normal, that reversed over the past 3 years."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this------------
While this past winter was the anomaly, and we now have a snowpack of 277% of the June 11th average in the Upper Colorado Basin, the past 2 years were below average, with 2009 well-below average. Even 2008, where we saw some heavier than average snows, only gave us a slightly above average spring snowpack.
This graph clearly shows that the 2011 spring snowpack is completely unusual and the clear anomaly recently:
http://snowpack.water-data.com/uppercolorado/index.php
I think that most, if not all, people who argue that there is not, nor will be, a water crisis, are people who just have to turn on the tap to get the water that falls somewhere else. As someone who depends on century old water rights which will soon be taken away to preserve Useless Vegas, I resent anyone who doesn't understand "WE GROW YOUR FOOD". Lake Powell and Lake Mead are at their lowest levels since they were created, all because so many people live where there is no water. Hoover Dam will stop producing electricity unless the aquifier is tapped and eventually ruined.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvery summer I will savor the Olathe Sweet Sweet Corn, the best in the world, because probably within my lifetime and certainly within my daughter's, our irrigation rights will be stolen.
notslic says, "Every summer I will savor the Olathe Sweet Sweet Corn, the best in the world, because probably within my lifetime and certainly within my daughter's, our irrigation rights will be stolen."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-----------
While I certainly enjoy Olathe sweet corn every year too, I seriously doubt that the CO water rights will be stolen to water the Vegas golf courses instead!
While Lake Mead and Lake Powell have been quite low over tha past few years, and more water has been needed to hydrate a growing Vegas, keep watching the water levels rise as the record snowpack continues to melt:
http://graphs.water-data.com/lakemead/
With the Missouri and Mississippi rivers cresting almost every spring it still seems like a good idea to build man made resevoirs in the American badlands and use current technology to build routing conduits along the interstate system using pumps similiar to those used in hydro electric dams to move the water. Planned diversions could help relieve the threat of floods an help drought struck areas. The excess from one area could be used to aleviate the shortage in others. The build project would be a better stimulus for putting people back to work. Design engineers, construction workers, computer designers to build automated gate systems to route water etc. That stimulus strikes me better than padding the pockets of the already wealthy with federal cash donations funded by the American people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese floods are on the order of billions of cubic meters of excess water over the course of a week or so. This pipeline network would be used once or twice a year, pump about as much as the country's oil pipelines and sit idle for the rest of the year. It would be better to restore areas around these rivers to their natural state as floodplains. With the amount of money we spend on flood insurance and rebuilding, the government should just buy the land that's most prone to flooding and set up marshes and whatnot to slow the water down as much as possible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis would also catch some of the fertilizer and other nasty pollution from the farms of the Mississippi drainage basin, easing the Gulf of Mexico Dead (Anoxic) Zone, and allow the Mississippi Delta to start rebuilding itself again too.
On another note, Mississippi is such a fun word to type, am I right?
Hi Lakota, Former farm and ranch land that has century old water rights, but has been converted to residential land, has had it's rights restricted for years now. The basic legal principle of water rights is that you can't use them to the detriment of the downstream rights. And remember, I'm talking about electricity generation, not golf courses. So if our agricultural uses make it impossible for Hoover to produce electricity, there will be restrictions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI certainly hope you are correct, but family farmers in California's central valley have been virtually put out of business for years now. Their water has been restricted to the point that they can't profit from growing, and the corporations can afford to buy their water and can cumulatively have enough. As I recall, the Endangered Specis Act may be to blame. And, I seem to recall this happening in Eastern Colorado a few years ago. Something to do with flows on the Platte I think. Again, I hope you are correct, but I grew up in the 60's and I don't trust authority.
Cheers
If we stopped using 50% or so of our agricultural land to grow cattle feed and go back to grass fed, this would solve a lot of our problems. Yeah, more people would have to be involved in raising beef and the price would go up a little. But look at 2 of our biggest problems as a country: Unemployment and Obesiety.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConverting all that land that grows cattle feed back to pasture would employ MORE people than the monocrop megafarms that are in place currently. Managing the herds could even breed a new generation of "green cowboys" or something. With higher beef prices, we'll actually get back to eating red meat twice a week or so, which is what we should be doing anyway. We'll start building up soil on the pastures again instead of losing it (along with pesticides and fertilizers that cause dead zones at river outlets) and more water will be freed up to grow people food instead of cow food.
At least you have ideas to go along with your ideals, and I appreciate that. But in one comment you want the government to buy land a restore it to wetlands. In the next comment you want to convert farmland to pasture. First, much of the land that you would want purchased by the government is presently farmland, so you would be taking it out of your equation. Second, the number of acres of pasture in the arid west needed per pair (cow/calf) is far greater than the acres needed to grow the feed because we get multiple crops per year and we presently have enough water for irrigation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: the previous idea of more storage and a pipeline system...might work East of the Rockies, but not a drop of the Colorado makes it to the Gulf of California anymore. And there are so many restrictions on the Columbia that building more dams is impossible.
Specialty farming could indeed employ more people, as you suggest. Feed corn is harvested by machine...Olathe Sweet Sweet corn is harvested by hand. But you would get run out of the corral for calling me a "green cowboy" (~:
There is only one real cause to the problems presented by reduced snowpack. The cause is population centers in places where there is no water. Please don't blame the farmers and ranchers. WE GROW YOUR FOOD.
Don't want to run out of water? Have fewer children. Easy solution if you can wait a few generations. If we don't have generations worth of time then restricting water use will be the only viable solution. That means outlawing lawns of grass, golf courses and swimming pools.
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