US West drier, hotter despite its wet winter
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz, Aug 15, (AP): Snow swamped mountains across the US West last winter, leaving enough to thrill skiers into the summer, swelling rivers and streams when it melted, and largely making wildfire restrictions unnecessary. But the wet weather can be misleading.
Climate change means the region is still getting drier and hotter.
“It only demonstrates the wide swings we have to manage going forward,” James Eklund, former director of the Upper Colorado River Commission, an interstate agency that ensures river water is doled out properly, said earlier this year. “You can put an ice cube – even an excellent ice cube – in a cup of hot coffee, but eventually it’s going to disappear.” For the seven states relying on the Colorado River, which carries melted snow from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California, that means a future with increasingly less water for farms and cities.
Climate scientists say it’s hard to predict how much less. The river supplies 40 million people in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming as well as a $5-billion-a-year agricultural industry.
The US Bureau of Reclamation on Thursday will release its projections for next year’s supply from Lake Mead, a key reservoir that feeds Colorado River water to Nevada, Arizona, California and Mexico.
After a wet winter, the agency isn’t expected to require any states to take cuts to their share of water.
But that doesn’t mean conditions are improving long term. Arizona, Nevada and Mexico could give up some water voluntarily in 2020 under a drought contingency plan approved by the seven states earlier this year.
Here is a look at the Colorado River amid climate change:
Colorado River flow
Much of the water in the Colorado River and its tributaries originates as snow.
As temperatures rise and demand grows, the water supply declines. Even if more snow and rain fell, it wouldn’t necessarily all end up in the river. Plants will suck up more water, and it will evaporate quicker.
Brad Udall, a water and climate research scientist at Colorado State University, said the river’s flow could decrease even further to 20% by 2050 and 35% by 2100.
“On any given day, it’s hotter, we have more days for a growing season to occur, we have a thirstier atmosphere,” he said. “When you put all those things together, you lose flow in the river.”
Climate change
Climate change doesn’t mean the American West will be hot and dry all the time. Extreme swings in weather are expected as part of a changing climate – something Udall has called “weather whiplash.”
The Southwest got a reprieve this year with average and above-average snowfall following a year that sent many states into extreme drought. Nearly empty reservoirs quickly rose, including Lake Mead and Lake Powell – the largest manmade reservoirs in the country that hold Colorado River water.
The lakes still are far below capacity, steadily declining since 2000 with a bigger spike after winter 2011.
A wet year interrupting years of dryness isn’t uncommon.
“We’re very thankful for this gain in wet hydrology and storage in the reservoirs that happened this year, but we know we can lose it just as fast,” said Carly Jerla with the US Bureau of Reclamation.
Drought
Many states declared an end to short-term drought this year, based on the US Drought Monitor, which looks at land conditions.
The map is produced by the National Drought Migration Center, the US Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
But not all agencies use the same indicators for drought. often on plant palm and pulp plantations. Indonesia’s President is Joko
Widodo.
The disaster mitigation agency (BNPB) recorded 1,092 hot spots as of Thursday, the highest since the 2015 fires, and at least six provinces on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo have declared an emergency.
About 200 hectares (494 acres) of land had been sealed in Borneo’s West Kalimantan province, the environment ministry said.
Warning letters were also sent to 58 plantation firms with hot spots indicating fire or a high risk of fire, said Rasio Ridho Sani, the ministry’s director general of law enforcement.
“Corporations which are found to be involved in forest burning must be punished severely,” Sani said in a statement.
The fires had mostly broken out in palm and timber concessions, said the ministry, which only identified the companies by their initials.
Authorities have deployed 36 helicopters and 9,072 personnel to monitor the situation and put out fires when detected.
President Joko Widodo has threatened to replace military and police officers fighting forest fires from their posts if they fail to extinguish the flames.
In Sumatra, fire had also broken out in Tesso Nilo, a 81,700-hectare national park in the province of Riau, according to the environment ministry.
The park is a habitat for critically endangered tigers and elephants. (RTRS)