of special interest of Wash. State and surround ( & the rest of us)

[ensho]

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index.php?smp=&lang=eng



Area: USA, State of Washington, Puget Sound area,



The natural features that make Washington uniquely beautiful also make the state especially vulnerable to climate change. Take the mighty Cascade mountains. They are home to glaciers and snowpack that feed many of the state's rivers, which, in turn, supply water to central Puget Sound cities, nourish Eastern Washington crops, sustain salmon runs and spin the turbines at hyrdroelectric dams that generate clean, inexpensive power — the backbone of the region's economy. But an increase of 1.5 degrees in the state's average daily temperature between 1900 and 2000 in Washington has contributed to a 30 percent decline in the spring snowpack in the lower Cascades and a similar decline in summer stream flows in several sensitive river basins. Global climate models suggest the average annual temperature in the state will continue to climb about 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit each decade over the next 50 years, leading to milder winters, hotter summers, less water, more wildfires and drought, loss of hydropower and diminished summer water supplies, according to a 2008 climate change report issued by the state Department of Ecology. "It's more than climate change; it's climate chaos," Janice Adair, an Ecology climate-change specialist, said. Take the iconic Puget Sound. Cities that have grown to the water's edge, including Olympia, will be susceptible to sea-level rise, which is predicted to be 6 inches by 2050 and 14 inches by 2100, according to a 2008 study by the University of Washington's Pacific Northwest Climate Impacts Group. Nowhere is the problem more acute than South Sound because the high tides are higher at the southern end of Puget Sound, noted Philip Mote, a UW research scientist. Previous studies by the city of Olympia predict that it would take a sea-level rise of 3 feet to flood most of downtown during the one or two extreme high tides each year. But the more likely 1-foot elevation in sea level would be enough during extreme high tides to create pools of water on some city streets and flood low-lying buildings on the Port of Olympia peninsula and other areas built on fill. The projected floods from sea-level rise almost mimic the original shoreline of the city before the filling occurred, city Public Works Director Michael Mucha said. Sea-level rise is starting to factor in to decision-making on city projects such as the reconstruction of Percival Landing and the new City Hall, Mucha said.
-------------------------


priorities

[LWolf]

1. I live just east of the cascades

a little further south, in Oregon. We generally have COLD winters; hard, hard freezes and often temps that never make it into the 30s for days or weeks at a time.

In the fall of '07, it was a little milder than usual. It took winter a long time to get started, but once she did, she didn't let go of us until June, when, with a last, fast storm of quick snow flurries that did not stick, she finally moved on.

This fall has been the mildest I've ever experienced here. We had one week of cold temperatures in mid-october. Since then, I've only had a few fires, and we've had 1 or 2 mild frosts. I haven't needed heaters for livestock water tanks, and in the last 12 days I had a fire or used a heater for only 2 of those days. The local kids didn't even have to wear coats over their costumes on halloween. Generally, kids get all excited about their costumes, and then, after putting on all the gloves, hats, and coats necessary to being outdoors for trick-or-treating, we only see the possibility of a costume peeking out from under all that stuff. ;)

I've wondered if winter will ever get here; there are still FLIES, for god's sake. At the same time, I've wondered if we will pay for the mild autumn with a hard spring. Will we lose this spring's fruit crop again? Will we need extra cords of wood to keep the stove going months after we're usually done? Or will the mild weather last, up-ending the usual order, and creating the chaos mentioned in this article?

I love the pacific northwest; the mountains, the rivers, the lusher areas west of the cascades, the coastal rainforests, and the high deserts to the east.