From the University of California – Los Angeles, apparently there will be no more skiing at Big Bear.
UCLA climate study predicts dramatic loss in local snowfall
By midcentury, snowfall on Los Angeles–area mountains will be 30 to 40 percent less than it was at the end of the 20th century, according to a UCLA study released today and led by UCLA climate expert Alex Hall.
The projected snow loss, a result of climate change, could get even worse by the end of the 21st century, depending on how the world reacts. Sustained action to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions could keep annual average snowfall levels steady after mid-century, but if emissions continue unabated, the study predicts that snowfall in Southern California mountains will be two-thirds less by the year 2100 than it was in the years leading up to 2000.
“Climate change has become inevitable, and we’re going to lose a substantial amount of snow by midcentury,” said Hall, a professor in UCLA’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. “But our choices matter. By the end of the century, there will be stark differences in how much snowfall remains, depending on whether we begin to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.”
“This science is clear and compelling: Los Angeles must begin today to prepare for climate change,” said Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. “We invested in this study and created the AdaptLA framework to craft innovative solutions and preserve our quality of life for the next generation of Angelenos.”
Less snowfall in general and a complete loss of snow at some lower elevations doesn’t just have implications for snow enthusiasts who enjoy skiing and sledding in the local mountains; it also could mean sizeable economic losses for snow-dependent businesses and communities. Less snow could also mean changes in the seasonal timing of local water resources, greater difficulty controlling floods, and damage to mountain and river ecosystems.
The impact to actual snow on the ground may be even greater because the researchers quantified snowfall but not snow melt, said Hall, whose previous research found the region will warm 4 to 5 degrees by midcentury. By then, researchers estimate, the snowpack could melt an average of 16 days sooner than it did in 2000. “We won’t reach the 32-degree threshold for snow as often, so a greater percentage of precipitation will fall as rain instead of snow, particularly at lower elevations,” Hall said. “Increased flooding is possible from the more frequent rains, and springtime runoff from melting snowpack will happen sooner.”
“As a California resident, I spend my winters snowboarding in mountains throughout our amazing state,” said Jeremy Jones, founder of Protect Our Winters, an environmental nonprofit composed of winter sports enthusiasts. “It breaks my heart to see America’s great natural resources harmed by climate change. We must, immediately, begin to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There is no choice.”
The UCLA study, “Mid- and End-of-Century Snowfall in the Los Angeles Region,” is the most detailed research yet examining how climate change will affect snowfall in the Southern California mountains. The report was produced by UCLA with funding from the city of Los Angeles, and in partnership with the Los Angeles Regional Collaborative for Climate Action and Sustainability at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. The complete report, maps and graphics are available online at C-CHANGE.LA/snowfall, including a password-protected media site.
The study examined snowfall in the San Gabriel Mountains, San Bernardino Mountains, San Emigdio/Tehachapi Mountains and San Jacinto Mountains. The research team scaled down low-resolution global climate models to create high-resolution models with data specific to towns such as Lake Arrowhead, Big Bear, Wrightwood and Idyllwild. Hall’s team included UCLA researchers Fengpeng Sun and Scott Capps, graduate student Daniel Walton and research associate Katharine Davis Reich.
The researchers used baseline snowfall amounts from 1981 to 2000 and predicted snow amounts for midcentury (2041 to 2060) and the end of the century (2081 to 2100) under a “business as usual” scenario, in which greenhouse gas emissions increase unchecked, and a “mitigation” scenario, in which the world significantly reduces emissions. By the end of the century, the contrast between the scenarios would be dramatic. In the mitigation scenario, midcentury snow levels would be 31 percent lower than baseline, but would remain relatively steady at only 33 percent below baseline by the end of the century.
In the business-as-usual scenario, 42 percent of the snow is expected to disappear by mid-century before dwindling dramatically to a 67 percent loss of snow by the end of the century.
“The mountains won’t receive nearly as much snow as they used to, and the snow they do get will not last as long,” Hall said.
The snowfall study is the second part of UCLA’s ongoing research project, “Climate Change in the Los Angeles Region.” Through the Los Angeles Regional Collaborative for Climate Action and Sustainability, the city of Los Angeles obtained a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to study and share climate research, with $484,166 for UCLA’s climate-change studies. Additional funding came from the National Science Foundation. Future studies will cover other elements of climate change including precipitation, Santa Ana winds, soil moisture and streamflow.
The complete study, “Mid- and End-of-Century Snowfall in the Los Angeles Region,” along with interactive maps and ways to get involved, is available online at http://www.C-CHANGE.LA.
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Nolo Contendere says:
June 14, 2013 at 12:51 pm
Am I the only one who politely giggles every time he reads a Stephen Mosher comment?
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Does guffawing heartily & slapping the knee count as polite giggling?
“””””……Jim says:
June 14, 2013 at 10:35 am
I understand there are a lot of blondes in California? No this was not an attempt at a blonde joke, but rather, it reminds me of an article I read maybe 30-40 years ago. The article was about how by the year 2000, no more true blondes would be born in the world, based upon the thesis that the blonde gene was recessive. I guess the topic of California and stupid projections milled around in my mind, and I came up with the opening line, above……”””””
Well you must not be aware that in California, Caucasians are a minority group. We have State sponsored programs, that ensure a net emigration of Caucasians, and a net immigration of non-Caucasians.
That will ensure that any blondes in California, are likely to be fake.
Off hand, I can’t name anybody I know, who is blonde, either real or fake.
“could get even worse” <—————————–<<
Would twice the snow be even better?
AleaJactaEst says: June 14, 2013 at 10:23 am
so their baseline end date for ACTUAL snow stopped in 2000, wondered what happened after for snowfall between 2000 and 2013. Idiots.
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I live about 50 miles north of Big Bear and the lights of the ski resort are obvious. This past season, the resort has been open about an average number of days per year, but in the past few years they have had noticeably longer longer ski seasons. Maybe that’s *why* the study ended in the year 2000; it’s been colder with more snow since then.
On a related note,
Last night, I watched a local TV news report which featured Hollywood film giants, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas talking about the coming shakeup in filmdom, with all the mega movies that flop.
All that is going to change, and there will be consolidations and losses of current players, leading to the age of truly giga-movies.
Within a few years predicts Spielberg/Lucas, movie goers will be paying from $50 to $150 a ticket to go to the movies, instead of the $8, $10, $12, that they are now used to paying.
I have news for you George/Steve. I stopped watching your movies long before the tickets got to $8. I would guess $5 is my limit to pay to watch a movie; and it would have to be a good one, to even tempt me to go. No I don’t watch them on Netkicks or T&V either. I’d rather watch Jewellery Television for free on my rabbit ears, than waste 5 bucks on 90 minutes of your overpaid “actors”, any of whom could be computer generated anyway
By the way, that show was on the “Nightly Business Report” on PBS
Who Cares!!!
Sorry to offend all the snow fanatics out there, but the world faces far greater problems than a (possible) shorter snow-season.
Hunger, Infection, War, all present far greater challenges that deserve our attention
Plus – who can predict what recreation people will be enjoying in 2100? Look back at the early 20th Century and compare that to today’s – Skateboards, Mountainbikes, Quads, Trail-Bikes, 4WD’s (or SUV’s) – none existed back then. Perhaps only horse riding was around as a source of outdoor “motorised” recreation.
Society will evolve solutions to problems – including how to have fun
Andi
Following “expert” crap studies like this, “children aren’t going to know what a climate expert at the UCLA is”, but they are going to know they need to join the alarmist bandwagon in order to receive limitless funding.
Steven Mosher says:
“He input data into a model and ran different scenarios.”
By “data”, you mean “output from dozens of state of-the-art global climate models” and we know how accurate those have been.
Models modeling model output.
MattN says:
June 14, 2013 at 10:06 am
Laughable…
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It isn’t laughable anymore when these mainstream news outlets blindly support a false reality.
george e. smith says:
June 14, 2013 at 1:39 pm
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Ditto about not going to the movies anymore. I stopped about 25 years ago. Mainly, because much of what was produced wasn’t worth the price of admission.
george e. smith says:
June 14, 2013 at 1:39 pm
On a related note,
Within a few years predicts Spielberg/Lucas, movie goers will be paying from $50 to $150 a ticket to go to the movies, instead of the $8, $10, $12, that they are now used to paying.
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I “might” go $25 if the movie were truly 100% holographic (not the cheapo glasses 3-D).
Jim1953 says:
June 14, 2013 at 11:23 am
http://www.thestormking.com/Weather/Sierra_Snowfall/sierra_snowfall.html
5 heaviest snowfalls at Sierra Central Snow Lab
1952 — 311 inches (26.0 feet)
1969 — 242 inches (20.2 feet)
1971 — 240 inches (20 feet)
1958 — 210 inches (17.5 feet)
2011 — 207 inches (17.2 feet)
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I was living in Tahoe City, on the north shore of the lake, in the winter of 1970/71. Everyone was wondering how good the ski season would be. Well, that winter we received a Donner Party Snowfall. There was decent snow after Halloween and into early December, but around the middle of December a 3 day storm dropped 12 feet. on top of the earlier snow. That was a lot of shoveling to retrieve the vehicle. Just about the time where everyone was partway dug out, a 6 foot in one day came through. That was right at the end of December. I retrieved my Country Squire station wagon at the end of April. The snow that year reached the feet of the Donner Party memorial statue, which marked the height of the snow that they faced in those desperate times. It was an incredible sight to see.
We point out that they are wrong. We explain the science. We point out the facts. Sometimes we even laugh at them. We beg them to change. They don’t change. Fact is – and we have to recognise this – they quite simply can’t change.
No matter what we say and no matter how hard they try to change, no matter what numbers they put into the models, they always get the same answer : catastrophic warming. It seems the only way we can make any progress is to take their models away from them and put them in a safe place until they have gone outside and seen that the real world is actually quite an interesting place to live in.
Steven Mosher says:
June 14, 2013 at 11:36 am
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There is a 4th way. You can examine the excellent studies that have a suitably long range record. This should also include the historical record of physical measurements taken at CET and other somewhat shorter temperature record keeping from other nations. Plus there are many historical anecdotal bits and pieces where good temperature information can be gleaned. This is the foundation that forecasts should be built upon as the repeated cycles of the Earth are beyond dispute. Models are interesting in that one can see how closely they can match the real world, but the results speak for themselves when the models continuously shoot off heavenward as if drawn by some unknown force.
On a side note and completely off topic, do we both share in common a great uncle, who established the San Francisco Gun Exchange?
As a resident of the San Bernardino mountains in southern California (elevation 5250ft or about 1200m), that might not be a bad thing as long as the total precip doesn’t change. I say this because my 14 yr old snow blower is now a 23yr old college student. Also having to share the snowy roads with all of the flatlanders who come up to play in our snow is a pain.
Honestly, in the last two years we have had very late snows and the spring have arrived late. It is mid June, and my wife is complaining about how cold the nights are. Normally by now we would have had a period of warm weather. Three (four?) years ago, we had snow in July.
This is all weather. In a few years I will be complaining about how short the winter was and in a few more years, it will be the other way. In the meantime I will rely on my trusty weather rock and the calendar to know if I need to keep the chains and sand in my car. That combo works every time.
Jim1953 says:
June 14, 2013 at 11:23 am
5 heaviest snowfalls at Sierra Central Snow Lab
1952 — 311 inches (26.0 feet)
1969 — 242 inches (20.2 feet)
1971 — 240 inches (20 feet)
1958 — 210 inches (17.5 feet)
2011 — 207 inches (17.2 feet)
Ah. I’m beginning to understand the 1981-2000 baseline.
Perhaps they should have started one 60 year PDO/AMO cycle ago, i.e. 1953-1973. Then they could have found disasterous reductions since then.
This is awful …. how will I ever convince DOE to subsidize a snow making business in Big Bear if it won’t stop snowing there?
milodonharlani says (June 14, 2013 at 1:16 pm)
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Does guffawing heartily & slapping the knee count as polite giggling?”
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Every time I read what “Stephen Mosher says,” each time (like Charlie Brown and the football), with high hopes that he has finally come around to advocating truth in science, I end up shaking my head and thinking,
“Why does he do that?”
I strongly suspect that Mosher is nobly sacrificing his personal reputation for rational thinking and scientific integrity to be a first-class devil’s advocate for WUWT. His comments almost always elicit EXCELLENT and overwhelmingly winning refutations of his arguments.
Perhaps, Stephen Mosher is the most noble WUWT Science Hero of all.
In any event, thank you, Mr. Mosher. Because you, much truth has been stated.
Re: snowboarding/skiing… hm……
Sounds like the ski resorts may be behind this…
HURRY! TIME IS RUNNING OUT! SNOWBOARD WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!
Aaaand, people will hurry, and hurry, and hurry, until, oh, maybe 5 or 10 years from now, and then, well, they just won’t see the need to hurry anymore. But, 5-10 years of higher demand? That’s a lot of lift tickets sold. Kah-ching!
This prediction is for mid-century, when I will be well past retirement age. It is based on an acceleration in the warming trend of the latter part of the C20th, when this century there has been none.
Oh, and if it the forecast came true the snow season would be shorter, but the summer season would be longer. In the Austrian Alps and in Switzerland, the summer season is just as important as the winter season.
However, I would believe these longer-term predictions more if climate science has built up a track record of accurate predictions in the last twenty years. They have been pretty much hopeless. If they had even a few right, we would never hear the end of climatologists expertize is prophesying the future.
http://manicbeancounter.com/2013/05/29/three-positive-ways-to-counter-climate-denial/
I have screen shots of precip and snowfall history w/ trends for Mammoth Mountain I can send
They are both increasing.
It may seem superfluous to point out the Money interest in this situation, but, while greed isn’t always pretty, it is MUCH to be preferred to false-religion zealotry. Thus, I find it comforting.
Personally, I think the number of true believers (the cult members) is too small to significantly advance the Cult’s agenda. The average voter is not a true believer; Joe and Maria just want to earn a decent living and have a little fun — they don’t deeply care (as a true believer does) about saving the planet. Thus, ignore the cult members.
Focus persuasive writing and speaking on:
1. high school graduates working hard for a living who vote (for JOBS); AND
2. those who are merely cynically making money by exploiting the Cult’s Priests’ teachings — when you show investors that they are tagging along after P. T. Barnum’s circus wagon and that the average buyer couldn’t care less about “green,” they do a 180 in a hurry.
Money is an exactly master. It will neither tolerate fools nor waste. It does not mindlessly shuffle down the sidewalk chanting slogans. It flows to where there is GENUINE opportunity to create wealth, based on real-world data. Money does not like to be lied to.
The true believers can drive their Holy Cars to the organic-co-op and walk around filling their grimy fabric shopping bags with tofu and nuts and berries all they like. When, however, Joe and Maria, after briefly succumbing to peer-pressure and joining the cult members in their holiness rituals, go back to buying real light bulbs and real tortillas and real milk and meat (and MOST Joe’s and Maria’s never stopped buying the real, i.e., non-“green,” stuff — some, like me, are even “green”-averse shoppers), Money will notice and stop with the “green” stuff. Some companies already have. I was heartened recently to see that the newest unsweetened Hershey’s cocoa on the shelf NO LONGER had the little “green” bit of promotion on it anymore. Hurrah!
The carbon credit market collapse tells it all. Money has abandoned AGW.
Money will make sure that government doesn’t strangle it with regulations. REAL Money is not being invested in windmills. Hansen and Gore (and all the climate priests and “scientists”) can scream (and they are) at the top of their lungs, but, they have lost. And they know it. The game is over. There is, in the Free World, at least in the U.S., still enough freedom remaining for Money to triumph over Socialist despotism. While in the Soviet Union (it STILL exists, de facto), Money was taken captive by the State long ago, Money can still save the day for the Free World.
It is just a matter of time.
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Note: the above argument citing Money as the savior of the free world is largely for all you (and apparently there are quite a number of you) on WUWT who are a-religious or a-theist.
As for me, while I firmly believe what I wrote above, I trust in God. God and one are a majority. Even if all human effort fails, even if the U.S. becomes a Demonocrat socialist hell on earth, God can, even then, restore us. “‘With God, all things are possible.'”
“‘We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You.'” II. Chronicles 20:12.
“Take heart… “!
Sigh.
“Money is an EXACTING master.”
When will they ever learn……..?