Tag Archive for: Climate Change

California’s Snowpack Shrivels, Raising Fears of Future Wildfires

/in , , /by /Discover Magazineby Tom Yulsman

What a difference a year makes.

As the comparison of satellite images above shows, last year at this time California’s Sierra Nevada range was buried in snow. And even as recently as January of this year, snowpack was looking pretty good.

But since then, the jet stream has ferried storms north of California, causing the snowpack to shrivel — from about 150 percent of average last February down to just a little more than 50 percent now.

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Rising Temperatures are Taking a Worsening Toll on the Colorado River, Study Finds

/in , , /by /azcentral.by Ian James

Scientists have documented how climate change is sapping the Colorado River, and new research shows the river is so sensitive to warming that it could lose about one-fourth of its flow by 2050 as temperatures continue to climb. Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey found that the loss of snowpack due to higher temperatures plays a major role in driving the trend of the river’s dwindling flow. They estimated that warmer temperatures were behind about half of the 16% decline in the river’s flow during the stretch of drought years from 2000-2017, a drop that has forced Western states to adopt plans to boost the Colorado’s water-starved reservoirs.

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Climate Change Has Stolen More Than a Billion Tons of Water From the West’s Most Vital River

/in , , /by /Washington Postby Juliet Eilperin

The Colorado River’s average annual flow has declined by nearly 20 percent compared to the last century, and now a new study has identified one of the main culprits: Climate change is causing mountain snowpack to disappear, leading to increased evaporation.

Four recent studies have found that up to half of the drop in the Colorado’s average annual flow since 2000 has been driven by warmer temperatures. Now, two U.S. Geological Survey researchers have concluded that much of this climate-induced decline — amounting to 1.5 billion tons of missing water, equal to the annual water consumption of 10 million Americans — comes from the fact that the region’s snowpack is shrinking and melting earlier. Having less snow to reflect heat from the sun, known as the albedo effect, creates a feedback loop, they say.

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Oceanside Breaks Ground on Advanced Water Purification Plant

/in , /by /KUSI News (San Diego)by Dan Plante

OCEANSIDE (KUSI) – Oceanside officials broke ground Wednesday on Pure Water Oceanside, a recycled-water purification plant billed as the first of its kind in the county.

The $67 million project will take water from Oceanside’s San Luis Rey Water Reclamation Facility and purify it to drinking water standards in a way project proponents describe as “clean, safe, drought-proof and environmentally sound.”

The site’s technology will be used to replicate and accelerate the natural recycling process to provide 3 million to 5 million gallons of fresh water a day, more than 32% of Oceanside’s water supply.

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Driven by Climate Change, Desalination Researchers Seek Solutions to Water Scarcity

/in , , /by /Here and Now (WBUR, Boston)by Tonya Mosley and Samantha Raphelson

The state of California has dedicated $34 million for eight desalination facilities across the state amid growing concerns about water scarcity in the U.S.

Desalination is when saltwater is converted into freshwater. Though 71% of the Earth is made up of water, extreme weather linked to climate change is adding to concerns about water scarcity.

Scientists estimate that by 2071, nearly half of the 204 freshwater basins in the U.S. may not be able to meet the monthly demand for water, according to a study published in the journal Earth’s Future.

Extracting salt from water seems like an easy fix to a global problem, but the process of desalination can be expensive, and it can also have a huge impact on the environment. That’s why some researchers are looking into how to lower the cost and improve efficiency.

Desalination technology can cost anywhere between two to 10 times the cost of traditional freshwater sources, says Meagan Mauter, research director for the National Alliance for Water Innovation and an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University.

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How is Climate Change Affecting Winter in My Region?

/in , , /by /Yale Climate Connections by Sarah Peach

Winters are getting warmer and shorter. Here’s the impact in your area.

“Dear Sara,

I would like to read your prediction of the effects of climate change on the traditional four weather seasons.”

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How Native Tribes are Taking the Lead on Planning for Climate Change

/in , , /by /Yale Environment 360by Nicola Jones

On a hot summer’s day, marine ecologist Courtney Greiner walks the shore of a rocky Washington beach at low tide with a handful of staff and interns. They stake out the ground and hunch down, digging up the top two inches of mud, silt, and gravel looking for baby clams.

For thousands of years, the indigenous peoples of the West Coast would build rock walls at the low tide line, allowing sand to pile up behind them, making the slope of the beach gentler, and expanding the area of the intertidal zone that clams like to call home.

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Southern California Climate Change Over 100,000 Years

/in , , /by /Eos by Kate Wheeling

Southern California is one of only a few places outside the Mediterranean Basin to enjoy a Mediterranean-like climate. Mild summers and wet winters have long supported some of the state’s (and the country’s) most bio diverse locations. But Southern California is warming faster than nearly anywhere else in the contiguous United States, and climate projections for the state forecast higher temperatures and increasingly erratic precipitation—conditions that could drive the Mediterranean region farther north and leave in its place a subtropical desert.

 

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Meet the Veteran Insider Who’s Shepherding Gov. Newsom’s Plan to Bring Climate Resilience to California Water

/in , , /by /Western Water / Water Education Foundationby Gary Pitzer

Shortly after Gov. Gavin Newsom called on state agencies to deliver a Water Resilience Portfolio to meet California’s urgent challenges — from unsafe drinking water, flood and drought risks from a changing climate to severely depleted groundwater aquifers and declining native fish populations — he appointed Nancy Vogel, a former journalist and veteran water communicator, to get it done. In an interview with Western Water, Vogel explains how the draft portfolio released Jan. 3 came together and why it should matter to average Californians.

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2020 Snow Report

/in , , /by /Climate Central

A new Climate Central report analyzes snowfall trends over the past fifty years, finding that snowfall has been decreasing in the spring and fall seasons across much of the U.S. but with clear regional differences.

The impact of climate change on snow can be a tricky story to tell. While warming winters would suggest that more precipitation will fall as rain instead of snow, a warming climate is also associated with increased precipitation which, in cold regions, can lead to an increase in snowfall. A new report from Climate Central aims to make sense of this challenging subject—analyzing snowfall data collected between 1970 and 2019 from 145 stations across the country.

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