Guest essay by Eric Worrall
UCLA thinks that by the end of the century, Climate will reduce the Sierra Nevada snowpack by 85%.
Climate change puts California’s snowpack in jeopardy in future droughts
UCLA research shows how warming trends affect the Sierra Nevada now and in the future
Belinda Waymouth | March 09, 2017
Skiing in July? It could happen this year, but California’s days of bountiful snow are numbered.
After five years of drought and water restrictions, the state is reeling from its wettest winter in two decades. Moisture-laden storms have turned brown hillsides a lush green and state reservoirs are overflowing. There’s so much snow, Mammoth Mountain resort plans to be open for business on Fourth of July weekend.
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The Sierra Nevada snowpack, which provides 60 percent of the state’s water via a vast network of dams and reservoirs, has already been diminished by human-induced climate change and if emissions levels aren’t reduced, the snowpack could largely disappear during droughts, according to findings in the study published today in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
“The cryosphere — frozen parts of the planet — has shown the earliest and largest signs of change,” said UCLA climate scientist Alex Hall, who along with study co-author Neil Berg modeled what future California droughts will look like in terms of snowpack loss. “The Sierra Nevada are the little piece of the cryosphere that sits right here in California.”
During a drought we see less overall precipitation. Adding in warmer air caused by climate change a greater share of precipitation falls as rain, and snow melts more rapidly. So a frozen resource that gradually melts and recharges reservoirs is particularly vulnerable to a warming climate and droughts that are expected to become increasingly severe.
To protect California’s future from the threat of warming temperatures California needs to rapidly reconfigure its water storage systems and management practices.
“I think there are serious questions about the suitability of the current water storage infrastructure as we go forward,” said Hall, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences said.
Besides offering a window into the future, the UCLA study revealed some climate effects that are already happening. Hall and Berg found that the Sierra Nevada snowpack during the 2011 to 2015 drought was 25 percent below what it would have been without human-induced warming. The effect was even worse at elevations below 8,000 feet, where snow decreased by up to 43 percent.
“Seeing a reduction of a quarter of the entire snowpack right now — not 20, 30 or 40 years from now — was really surprising. It was almost as if 2015 was the new 2050 in terms of the impacts we were expecting to see,” said Berg, who is a scientist at RAND Corp.
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Read more: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/climate-change-puts-california-s-snowpack-under-the-weather
The abstract of the study;
Anthropogenic Warming Impacts on California Snowpack During Drought
Authors Neil Berg, Alex Hall
Accepted manuscript online: 9 March 2017
Sierra Nevada climate and snowpack is simulated during the period of extreme drought from 2011 to 2015 and compared to an identical simulation except for the removal of 20th century anthropogenic warming. Anthropogenic warming reduced average snowpack levels by 25%, with mid-to-low elevations experiencing reductions between 26-43%. In terms of event frequency, return periods associated with anomalies in 4-year April 1 SWE are estimated to have doubled, and possibly quadrupled, due to past warming. We also estimate effects of future anthropogenic warmth on snowpack during a drought similar to that of 2011 – 2015. Further snowpack declines of 60-85% are expected, depending on emissions scenario. The return periods associated with future snowpack levels are estimated to range from millennia to much longer. Therefore, past human emissions of greenhouse gases are already negatively impacting statewide water resources during drought, and much more severe impacts are likely to be inevitable.
Read more (paywalled): http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL072104/abstract
Climate scientists regularly embarrass themselves with “end of snow” predictions, because they are an inevitable consequence of the “projections” (don’t say predictions) of their runaway climate models.
“End of snow” is one of the funniest and most revealing manifestations of this silliness, though at least some scientists appear to have learned from previous red faces to put the date of their predictions well into the future, presumably so they will never have to answer for their accuracy.
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wonder if there is a way to recharge groundwater with the “excess they have been dumping into the ocean
True, There is but you won’t see the climateers pushing for this. It takes a little engineering. With the ‘cold blob’ replacing the Warm Blobs of several years, it could be wet in Cali for a few years and that will return some water to aquifers. Good time to build some water reservoirs.
During the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, Crater Lake averaged 614.48, 623 and 571.51 inches of seasonal snowfall, respectively. By 2000 to 2013, the average was 459.73 inches. The decrease in snowfall across the Pacific Northwest is clearly visible in this EPA graph.
1.2 percent change?? Really? Dude, they’re playing around in the Noise. This is baloney.
Seems to be cherry picking endpoints. Comparing a 10-year average to a 4-year average that contains 2 drought years is a little disingenuous, isn’t it? If we add the last 2 years, the recent average will increase.
Bear in mind that the paleo record for the west coast shows past droughts that lasted for many decades, so a 10-year ‘average’ itself is not very meaningful.
It would be nice to specify the time frame…
Not a scientist but I’m wondering. Is it standard practice nowadays to issue Ouija boards with diplomas at science school graduation? I thought the idea of science was to learn things.
“There’s so much snow, Mammoth Mountain resort plans to be open for business on Fourth of July weekend.”
My sources tell me that Mammoth will be open all summer long and even Squaw will be open on the 4’th. Other resorts are thinking about it as well. The demand for skiing this winter has been very high and the conditions are outstanding.
These idiots predicting the end of snow don’t have a clue. If it actually was getting warmer, we would have more seasons like this, not less. Droughts happen when there’s no rain and warming increases evaporation which increases precipitation. The driest place on Earth is in Antarctica.
https://ourplnt.com/top-ten-driest-places-earth/
The average temperatures during winter storms in the Sierra are well below freezing, even at 6000′, so a degree or 2 of extra warmth will not stop the snow, nor will it melt Antarctica, whose average temperatures are far below freezing. What these narrative driven prognosticators seem to ignore is the effect of altitude on temperature.
Very unlikely that Mammoth will be open for skiing all summer. Possibly until the end of July. Partly depends on temps and snowfall in April and May.
I’m at Mammoth now and there’s a ton of snow. Based on the last time they were open all summer long, the snow is comparable and there is a lot of season yet to come.
It takes time to publish a paper so these clowns missed the latest data where the snowpack is ~200% more than normal for 2016/2017 season! I know the paid rapid responders will advise they are talking about a 100yrs from now, but we all know this worthless paper would not have been written if the big dump had occurred in 2015.
Does that mean without global warming it would be 25% greater than the already record depth this year? Or does global warming only have an impact during drought years? Mammoth was open for skiing last year on the 4th of July so it’s not all that unusual.
No snow, no water, drought, flood, warm, cold? Hey folks, forecasting is very difficult, especially about the future. So, here are the conclusions, let’s try to find some facts to support them!
Once they get a climate alarmist in charge of the snow pack measurement data, after a couple of decades of adjusting the data the 2016/2017 winter snow pack level will be no where near record levels.
The problem with natural weather pattern variation is that they can trend in one direction or another for as long as a human life span. Therefor when liberal thinking environmentalists (who consider all negative weather experiences to be human caused) hold sway in the Ivory Towers AND in government you have the makings of a perfect storm that can last for decades. And that storm is generally pointed at the rest of “us”. Thank God for Trump. Love him or hate him, he will hopefully save the world from those who erroneously think we need to be saved from ourselves.
“UCLA thinks that by the end of the century, Climate will reduce the Sierra Nevada snowpack by 85%.”
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As I understand it, the researchers estimate that snow-pack between 2011-15 was 25% smaller than it would have been without the warming attributed to human activity. If the warming continues as forecast, depending on emissions scenario, then their model shows that during future similar droughts snow-pack could be 60-85% smaller than it would have been without man-made warming.
Assuming the warming continues, as these authors do, then that doesn’t seem such an unreasonable conclusion.
Yawn. Easy to make predictions for 80 years hence. So what? And even it if comes to pass, I’m sure that 80 years of technological progress will allow the people of 2100 to be able to deal with it anyway. I’m sure that adults living in 1940 could not imagine how we would solve many of the future problems facing them at the time. And yet we did.
Paul Penrose
“I’m sure that 80 years of technological progress will allow the people of 2100 to be able to deal with it anyway.”
______________
Can’t say I disagree with you Paul. It just seems to me that the headline of the article is slightly misleading given the content of the paper it refers to.
No one is forecasting an ‘end of snow’. They are explicitly referring to future periods of drought and extrapolating simulations out with the assumption of further warming.
That assumption may turn out to be wrong; but if it turns out to be right then this is precisely the sort of information that will inform the technological process you refer to.
DWR54,
My point is that those kinds of extrapolations are worthless for future planning as they don’t tell us anything new. We already know that part of the country experiences cycles of deep drought and monsoon-like precipitation. History tells us this. The prudent person/society would use this information to plan for these cycles so as to be able to ride them through.
The best part about this prediction is that some of our children might still be alive at the end of the century. Of course they won’t remember this prediction but it is pretty scary today which serves the purpose.
Well gee, perhaps they should figure out how to harvest and store the bounty they are receiving now. I saw something about how some are trying to refill the aquifers but they need to do a better job of it.
Just sayin’
Is it the college educational system that makes “climate scientists” so f**king stupid, or is there some other cause? Why do these pinheads keep wasting their lives by continuing to screech all this Chicken Little wolf crying bullsh*t? Get real jobs and do something useful. Worried about potable water for future generations in southern Cali? Then go to work for a company building desalination plants. Scared of the persistent wildfires there? Gather all your ecotard buddies and go clear the non-native species and dead underbrush so it won’t burn. Start a campaign to have only native, drought resistant plants in landscaping throughout the region. Why is all of this so difficult for college “educated” people to figure out?
And the difference between this study and Dakota James’ scribblings is? …..
James, writing during the mid 80s, depicted the year 1997. In that depiction, the Great Lakes had dried up, they were selling vacation properties in Antarctica, and, here in California there was no more need, even in our coastal areas, for outer clothing.
Reality in 2017, 20 years after that prog? I hate … hate … hate cold winters. Especially when it comes time to pay my PG&E bill. Silver lining … skiing on Memorial Day … to the sweet melodies of Rasta tunes wafting in from the band playing on the patio of the lodge.
I do hope that UCLA ends all snow predictions. Since snowfall is demonstrably a broad-band random process, it’s an otiose exercise.
I’m sure that most of the residents in northern Nevada and California had known this before getting dumped on by 700 inches (and counting) this winter.
May have been comforting