global climate change

Global & Regional Climate Change: What do we know & What don’t we know?

lynellg — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:55:27 -0700

This is a slide show given by Klaus Wolter, Ph.D.- at the Rocky Mountain National Park Research Conference, Estes Park, April 7-9, 2008

Klaus is from University of Colorado at Boulder, klaus.wolter@noaa.gov
and gives Kudos to Susan Solomon (marked slides)
(Co-Chair of WG 1, IPCC 4; a.k.a. “The Horse’s Mouth”)

Powerpoint Outline:
• Background on IPCC & Global Change modeling
• Observed climate changes & how well they are modeled
• What’s happening with Colorado temperatures?
• Projections through the 21st century
• Closing thoughts

To download this powerpoint slide show, please either visit website or download below.

Hearings to debate impact of solar farms on threatened species

lynellg — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:28:18 -0700

By JENNIFER BOWLES, The Press-Enterprise
June 14, 2008

State and federal agencies have their hands full with an onslaught of applications from companies eyeing the Southern California desert for its solar power potential.

The federal government is holding hearings beginning Monday in Riverside to get public input on the environmental impacts of solar farms, while state agencies are seeking to balance Gov. Schwarzenegger's push for solar energy with the need to protect endangered species that live on the sun-drenched landscape.

Habitat for the desert tortoise, Mohave ground squirrel and other imperiled species is scattered across eastern Riverside County and much of San Bernardino County.

"Solar projects in particular have a footprint that reduces the habitat suitability for those species; there's the potential for conflict," said Kevin Hunting, deputy director of the California Department of Fish and Game.

"It's all about planning and siting, and we believe there's room for both out there," he said Friday.

Renewable energy reduces the state's reliance on coal-generated power, a major contributor of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change. Such projects have been a prime focus for Gov. Schwarzenegger, who criticized the Fish and Game Department during an April speech at Yale University for slowing a solar project in Victorville to protect habitat for the Mohave ground squirrel, a species threatened with extinction.

"So a squirrel that may not exist (at that location) is holding up environmental progress on a larger and more pressing fight against global warming," the governor said.

...For entire article, please visit website.

Tahoe's ski industry mindful of climate change

lynellg — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Julie Brown / Sierra Sun
June 13, 2008

This is the first in a two-part series on the effects of climate change on the Sierra Nevada. The once-legendary winters of the Sierra Nevada have shortened and drop less snow.

This portrait, according to climate change projections cast by local, state and national scientists, may no longer be fiction by the end of the century - or even in 50 years. And ski resorts are well aware of what climate change scientists are saying.

"It's integral that we take on climate change," said Savannah Cowley, spokeswoman for Squaw Valley. "It's something that, since we are directly impacted by (global warming), everyone (in the ski industry) is taking responsibility. And it's a great thing."

Climate projections
This is what the scientists are predicting: The snowline will rise, spring runoff will melt sooner, and more precipitation will fall as rain instead of snow, especially at lower elevations.

"There's a consensus that we will lose snowpack," said Dan Cayan of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. "The degree of loss could range by quite a broad amount, depending on how much warming occurs. And I think that's pretty well agreed upon - that higher amounts of warming will result in greater losses" of snow.

By the end of the century, if temperatures rise 3 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit, the Sierra Nevada ski season will shrink by a month, according to the 2006 California Climate Change Center summary report's base projection. If temperatures rise even higher, the state report says that in 100 years, the Sierra Nevada may see many years without enough snow to ski at all.

"If the world economy continues on this sort of high-carbon diet, it's not good," Cayan said. "And these changes will happen faster and to a larger degree than if things are moderated."

For entire story, please visit website.

USDA: The Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture, Land Resources, Water Resources, and Biodiversity

lynellg — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:44:26 -0700

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program report “Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.3 (SAP 4.3): The Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture, Land Resources, Water Resources, and Biodiversity in the United States ” integrates the Federal research efforts of 13 agencies on climate and global change. This was released 5/28/08.

USDA is using the report’s findings in the development of a new Strategic Plan for Climate Change research. The Forest Service is integrating climate change into National Forest Service Management Plans and is providing guidance to Forest Managers on how to respond and adapt to climate change. The Natural Resources Conservation Service and Farm Services Agency are encouraging actions to reduce GHG emissions and increase carbon sequestration through conservation programs. USDA’s Risk Management Agency has prepared tools to manage drought risks, and is conducting an assessment of the risks of climate change on the crop insurance program. USDA is also providing guidance to landowners to enable them to estimate their greenhouse gas footprints.

The report has 38 authors from the universities, national laboratories, non-governmental organizations, and Federal service. SAP 4.3 has undergone expert peer review by 14 scientists through a Federal Advisory Committee formed by the USDA, and includes over 1,000 references. USDA was the lead agency for this report as part of its commitment to CCSP.

The report focuses on the next 25 to 50 years, and finds that climate change is already affecting U.S. water resources, agriculture, land resources, and biodiversity, and will continue to do so.

If you would like to receive the printed final report when it becomes available please send your request to ClimateReport@oce.usda.gov.

Extracted from the Executive Summary:
The CCSP agencies agreed on the following set of topics for this assessment. Descriptions of the major findings in each of these sectors can be found in Section 4 of this Executive Summary.
• Agriculture: (a) cropping systems, (b) pasture and grazing lands, and (c) animal management
• Land Resources: (a) forests and (b) arid lands
• Water Resources: (a) quantity, availability, and accessibility and (b) quality
• Biodiversity: (a) species diversity and (b) rare and sensitive ecosystems
The CCSP also agreed on a set of questions to guide the assessment process. Answers to these questions can be found in Section 3 of this summary:
• What factors influencing agriculture, land resources, water resources, and biodiversity in the United States are sensitive to climate and climate change?
• How could changes in climate exacerbate or ameliorate stresses on agriculture, land resources, water resources, and biodiversity? What are the indicators of these stresses?
• What current and potential observation systems could be used to monitor these indicators?
• Can observation systems detect changes in agriculture, land resources, water resources, and biodiversity that are caused by climate change, as opposed to being driven by other causes?

If you would like to receive the printed final report when it becomes available please send your request to ClimateReport@oce.usda.gov

For chapters of the report, please visit website listed.

Climate Change: Forests, wildlife, fire danger all expected to be affected by warming Sierra

lynellg — Sat, 31 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

By Greyson Howard, Sierra Sun

Many doomsday predictions of climate change focus on rising oceans, flooding coastlines and submerged cities, but some scientists are watching the Sierra to gauge other significant impacts.

Looking into the future it isn’t hard for researchers to picture the many different Sierra ecosystems — wrapped like bands around different elevations — retreating rapidly upward, squeezing each other and eventually running out of elevation to climb.

As future temperatures rise, predictions are for snow to melt faster and streams to swell earlier, out of sync with the breading cycles of aquatic species like fish and frogs. Dry summers would leave entire forests more susceptible to fire and pests than ever before.

And, many experts agree, the changes become amplified as they move up the food chain, throwing the Sierra Nevada’s entire ecosystem, meticulously established over millennia, out of balance in a matter of decades. The bottom line, some scientists conclude, is the extinction of vulnerable mountain species and increased fire risk for the Sierra’s human inhabitants.

“Our concern is with the rapidity of change — most species can evolve over time and the planet has always been in flux — but it’s the rate of change, which is really unlike anything we’ve been able to study,” said Josh Viers, assistant research ecologist at UC Davis.

The Sierra Nevada has been characterized as the “canary in the coal mine,” according to the U.S. Forest Service, an early alarm for the deleterious effects of rising temperatures. But all parts of the Sierra won’t be treated equal. Despite Truckee-Tahoe’s more northern latitude, the area will likely be hit harder than the taller mountains to the south.

“The area around Tahoe and Donner Summit, for example, would be more affected then Kings Canyon,” Viers said.
And so Tahoe National Forest has been picked as an open-air laboratory for climate change — a focal point in a global issue — with researchers from academic bodies, conservation groups and the U.S. Forest Service gleaning whatever they can learn from the surrounding woods.

“When I started I was a naysayer, ready to poke holes in global warming,” said Carol Kennedy, the watershed project manager for Tahoe National Forest. “I don’t poke holes anymore.”

Retreating trees
Perhaps easiest to predict and already in progress in some cases is the steady retreat of vegetation away from rising low-elevation temperatures and towards ever-shrinking snow melt, said UC Davis’ Viers.
...
The water problem
While rising temperatures will directly affect many species, indirect affects through changing water availability may be even more drastic.

“Between 7,000 and 9,000 feet the rain/snow mix line will be most severely affected,” Josh Viers said.
This means the timing and flow of streams and river could change, possibly three to seven weeks earlier, he said.

“Everything from what’s in the streams — frogs breeding to vegetation along the side of the streams — a whole series of affects, will come from just the timing,” Viers said. The breeding cycles of both the mountain red- and yellow-legged frogs of the Sierra may no longer match with stream flows he said.

Trout require cold water, no more than 20 to 21 degrees Celsius, meaning many streams could become too warm, Viers said. Flowering plants may bloom with high flows before pollinators like bees and mosquitoes emerge.

Aspen trees, already diminishing in the West, are at risk because of drying stream habitat, Nechadom said.

And moisture could be dropping on the order of 40 to 60 percent by the year 2100, Kennedy said.

To view the entire story, please visit website.

USDA Weighs In: The Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture, Land Resources, Water Resources, and Biodiversity

lynellg — Wed, 28 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The report focuses on the next 25 to 50 years, and finds that climate change is already affecting U.S. water resources, agriculture, land resources, and biodiversity, and will continue to do so.

If you would like to receive the printed final report when it becomes available please send your request to ClimateReport@oce.usda.gov.

Extracted from the Executive Summary:
The CCSP agencies agreed on the following set of topics for this assessment. Descriptions of the major findings in each of these sectors can be found in Section 4 of this Executive Summary.
• Agriculture: (a) cropping systems, (b) pasture and grazing lands, and (c) animal management
• Land Resources: (a) forests and (b) arid lands
• Water Resources: (a) quantity, availability, and accessibility and (b) quality
• Biodiversity: (a) species diversity and (b) rare and sensitive ecosystems
The CCSP also agreed on a set of questions to guide the assessment process. Answers to these questions can be found in Section 3 of this summary:
• What factors influencing agriculture, land resources, water resources, and biodiversity in the United States are sensitive to climate and climate change?
• How could changes in climate exacerbate or ameliorate stresses on agriculture, land resources, water resources, and biodiversity? What are the indicators of these stresses?
• What current and potential observation systems could be used to monitor these indicators?
• Can observation systems detect changes in agriculture, land resources, water resources, and biodiversity that are caused by climate change, as opposed to being driven by other causes?

For a download of sections of this report, please visit the website.

UC Davis global warming researcher paints dire picture for Lake Tahoe

lynellg — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:38:08 -0700

By Tom Knudson
March 22, 2008
MAIN NEWS section, Sacramento Bee

INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. – As environmental engineer Geoffrey Schladow launched this week into his startling new findings about the potentially dire consequences of global warming at Lake Tahoe, a member of the audience gasped.

"That was the correct response," said Schladow, who directs the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center.

The news about one of California's recreational jewels was grim. According to a study by Schladow and other Davis researchers, a warming trend already under way could shut down the deep churning of oxygen and nutrients that supports life in the lake – in just 11 years.

That, in turn, could trigger a wave of ecological disruptions from a "dead zone" at the bottom to unprecedented algae blooms near the surface, changing the clear, predominantly cobalt blue lake to murky green.

Schladow characterized such a change as "a really scary thing."

Just as the melting permafrost in the Arctic has proved a living laboratory for studying climate change, scientists are examining large, deep-water lakes – in part because water temperatures at lower depths reflect long-term climatic changes more accurately than temperatures at the surface.

For entire article, please visit website.

FISHES OF THE EASTERN SIERRAS: Saving the Natives, Lecture with Peter Moyle, Feb. 19

lynellg — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:28:18 -0800

Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Time: 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
The Eastern Sierras of California has a special and distinctive native fish fauna of about 10 species with about 10 endemic subspecies. These native fish communities have been disrupted by invasions of about 15 alien species and numerous disturbances to their stream habitats. Nevertheless, native fi shes persist in many places and can benefit from conservation efforts. In this talk, I will present an overview of the natural history of native fishes and then discuss recent studies focused on understanding the fish communities of Martis and Sagehen creeks, and conservation of Lahontan cutthroat trout and Eagle Lake rainbow trout. The talk should provoke discussion on how to conserve native fishes and their habitats in the face of growing human use of the eastern Sierras and climate change.

For more information, visit website below.

Climate change shrinking water in western U.S.

lynellg — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:12:50 -0800

Program #5460 of the Earth & Sky Radio Series
with hosts Deborah Byrd, Joel Block, Lindsay Patterson and Jorge Salazar.

A 2008 study shows that Earth’s changing climate has caused available water to shrink in the western U.S. during the last half century.

And even bigger changes lie ahead, according to lead author Tim Barnett of Scripps Oceanographic Institution in San Diego.

Tim Barnett: It’s a 20 percent decrease on average over the western U.S. in the snowpack as it exists on the first of April.

Barnett’s study compared 50 years of river and climate data with computer models. It showed that in the western U.S., about 60 percent of changes, such as shrinking snowpack, can only have a non-natural explanation: a human-induced rise in temperature caused by greenhouse gases. Barnett added that water supplies in the western U.S. might be disrupted within 20 years.

Earth & Sky asked Barnett how people will adapt.

Tim Barnett: Some of the adaptations will be conservation. Some will be taking it from farmers and giving it to a growing population. A decent adaptation would be to limit the population growth and development in the western United States. I don’t think that will ever happen. But those are the kinds of things that we’re going to have to do.

Barnett is concerned about the environmental future we’re leaving for the coming generations.

Tim Barnett: We’re altering the climate of planet in ways that we know, and in lots of ways that we don’t know. We’re making a world for today’s children and grandchildren that they’re going to have to live in, in the future. And if they don’t like it, there won’t be a thing they can do about it.

Barnett warns that dam capacity will be insufficient to hold the water coming rushing down.

To view the entire interview/article, please visit the website.

With Climate Change Comes Floods

lynellg — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 10:31:19 -0800

by Anna Vigran, NPR

Climate change is disturbing the delicate balancing act that people have with water. Water is critical to life — for drinking and irrigation, and as a source of food, transportation and recreation. But too much water — or water that comes at an unexpected time, or in unexpected places — can be a big problem.

As global temperatures rise, many places are threatened by flooding. A recent study looking at who is at risk shows many coastal cities could be hit hard, particularly heavily populated cities in Asia. But in terms of economic loss, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development found that the top 10 cities at risk are all in three industrialized countries: the United States, Japan and the Netherlands.

Warming water can cause rises in sea levels and strong storms, with the potential to impact people around the globe. As global temperatures rise, oceans get warmer. And when water heats up, it expands and sea levels rise.

The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that from 1993 to 2003, global sea level rose about 3 millimeters each year, and approximately half of that increase is attributed to the ocean expanding as it warms.

About one-quarter of this rise is attributed to melting glaciers and ice caps. Melting from the Greenland ice sheet and the Antarctic ice sheet combined is estimated to account for about 14 percent of observed sea level rise. If the Greenland ice sheet melted entirely, sea level would rise 20 feet around the world. But such a catastrophic melt isn't projected for thousands of years, if it happens at all. Currently there is no scientific consensus on how much of these giant ice sheets will melt, or when that might happen.

"Scientists do not understand the ice process enough for accurate predictions of Greenland and Antarctica," says Carol Auer, an oceanographer with the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration.

It is also not known exactly how much warmer the planet will get. "We can change this around, at least to a degree," Auer says. "It's not a disaster yet."

A sea level rise of just a few millimeters a year may seem insignificant, but Auer says that on flat land, it adds up. She says that a half-inch of vertical sea level rise translates to about three feet of land lost on a sandy open coast, due to long-term erosion. And even a slightly higher sea level can cause more dramatic tides in deltas and estuaries.

Rising sea levels also make coastal areas more vulnerable to storm surges and, in turn, to flooding.

"Basically the story is because sea level rises have made everything a little higher, when a storm hits that makes for more vulnerability," Auer says. The higher sea level gives a storm surge a boost to reach further inland.

****
A warming planet also means snowy regions become rainy. People who live near rivers could see more flash floods: Melting snow slowly trickles into rivers, but rain can dump large amounts of water all at once.
***

To view entire article, please visit website.

Water in the West: What's On Tap? Lecture at Tahoe, Jan. 17, 08

lynellg — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 09:48:17 -0800

Lecture with Professor Jeff Mount (UC Davis)

Date: Thursday, January 17, 2008
Time: 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. Lecture begins promptly at 6:00 p.m.
Cost: $5 donation requested. No-Host Bar.
Location: Assembly Rooms 139 & 141, Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences, 291 Country Club Drive, Incline Village, Nevada

Water in California and Nevada is a limited resource that moves through an aging water supply system governed by outdated laws and policies. Climate change, population growth, and demands to allocate water for the environment increase the likelihood that water in the West will be managed by crisis in the future. Anticipating these crises--and developing ways to avoid or respond to them can reduce social and environmental costs. Yet history has shown that change, if it occurs at all, typically only takes place during and immediately after a major crisis.

Join UC Davis's own "Dr. Doom" on a look forward to future water crises in the West. From shrinking Sierran snowpacks to regional water transfers to extreme floods, Dr. Jeffrey Mount will examine an array of current and future water resource conflicts, including what to do about them and why, in most cases, we may choose to do nothing at all.

Learn what's on tap for water in California and Nevada.

Dr. Jeffrey F. Mount is a Professor in the Department of Geology at the University of California, Davis, where he was worked since 1980. Dr. Mount's research and teaching interests include fluvial geomorphology, conservation and restoration of large river systems, flood plain management and flood policy. He holds the Roy Shlemon Chair in Applied Geosciences at UC Davis, is the Director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, and chairs the CALFED Independent Science Board. He is author of California Rivers and Streams: the Conflict between Fluvial Process and Land Use (UC Press).

For more information on these meetings and the complete article, please visit website.