Decline in Snowpack Is Blamed On Warming

[Lone_Star_Dem]

Source: Washington Post

Water Supplies In West Affected

The persistent and dramatic decline in the snowpack of many mountains in the West is caused primarily by human-induced global warming and is not the result of natural variability in weather patterns, researchers reported yesterday.

Using data collected over the past 50 years, the scientists confirmed that the mountains are getting more rain and less snow, that the snowpack is breaking up faster and that more rivers are running dry by summer.

The study, published online yesterday by the journal Science, looked at possible causes of the changes -- including natural variability in temperatures and precipitation, volcanic activity around the globe and climate change driven by the release of greenhouse gases. The researchers' computer models showed that climate change is clearly the explanation that best fits the data.

"We've known for decades that the hydrology of the West is changing, but for much of that time people said it was because of Mother Nature and that she would return to the old patterns in the future," said lead author Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego. "But we have found very clearly that global warming has done it, that it is the mechanism that explains the change and that things will be getting worse."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/31/AR2008013101868.html?wpisrc=rss_nation

[truthisfreedom]

1. In other words, whoever owns water rights out west is king.

Very sad.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. Well, I guess I'm in the right state then. We're sitting at 140% of normal moisture...

and their expecting some parts of the coastal range to get over a foot of snow in the next 24 hours.

edit: Or not. :scared: I just read the whole article. :(

[OKthatsIT]

2. CARBON PARTICLES sprayed on the snow can melt any glacier

CHEMTRAILS for human depopulation operations...and CARBON PARTICLES to melt the ice, to fool the world...so BANKS can collect more taxes.

Both the Russians and the Bushies are pleased as punch the Artic is melting.

[Squatch]

8. LOL

"CHEMTRAILS for human depopulation operations...so BANKS can collect more taxes."

Banks want to depopulate the world so they can collect more taxes? :crazy:

[Tesha]

9. There are a lot of people on DU who are, shall we say, "disconnected". (NT)

[GregD]

3. Interesting that this came on the day of our largest storm this year

We are in Northern CA, just south of the OR border. We have had snow on and off every few days since the 10th of this month, freezing temperatures that prevent the snow from melting, and today we got simply slammed - about a foot. I realize "slammed" could refer to much more snow, but relative to last year's drought conditions, this month has been a wet, cold and snowy one.

And no, I'm not a climate change denier. But today's storm was a ripper.

[ben_meyers]

5. I don't know about the last 50 years

but in Arizona we are having our coolest, wettest winter in over 30 years. We've had 200% of "normal" rain since November, the salt river is running for the second time in 3 years and our reservoir system so full that they are releasing water to make room for the record snow pack.

Just in time for the Super Bowl I guess.

[ClintonTyree]

6. The Great Lakes snowpack....

has been almost non-existent for the past decade or so. We used to rely on the generous snowpack melt each year to fill the lakes, from Superior to Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. Each year there seems to be less and less, making it extremely difficult for navigation, not to mention the pleasure boating and fishing industry. Marinas are going under by the hundreds. There just isn't enough water to float their boats, so to speak.

Every year I watch the water level drop and wonder when it will end. I don't think it's going to. It's going to continue getting worse and there isn't a damned thing anyone can do about it now. I think it's too late. We've done screwed the pooch on this one.

[SpiralHawk]

7. "This is just more of that fact-based lib-rul science, isn't it?" - Commander AWOL

"I don't see this kind of stuff in any Republiocn Corporate Crony P & L statements, so it must be a plot by the, smirk, lib-rul media. Screw it. Damn the tree-hugging, lib-rul scientists, and crank up the profit-making smokestacks. Smirk."

- Commander AWOL & Allied Republicon Homelander Corporate Cronies