[env-trinity] CBB: Climate Conference: Higher Temperatures For PNW New Normal No Matter What Happens With Greenhouse Gases

Wed Nov 18 10:31:36 PST 2015

Klamath Basin  acting like Pacific Northwest?

THE COLUMBIA BASIN BULLETIN: Weekly Fish and Wildlife News
www.cbbulletin.com

November 13, 2015         Issue No. 771

Climate Conference: Higher Temperatures For PNW New Normal No Matter What
Happens With Greenhouse Gases

A warming ocean that began long before the most recent El Niño is causing a
West Coast drought, first in California and now in the Northwest.

While the drought in California that began almost four years ago is the
result of a lack of rain, the Northwest drought that began two years ago is
due to a lack of snow, not precipitation. Relatively normal rainfall, but
record low snowpack is causing drier than normal Northwest summers,
impacting stream levels and stream temperatures, causing fish and wildlife
to seek colder water or higher mountain pastures, and killing salmon and
sturgeon in the Columbia River basin.

That’s the dismal picture painted by scientists at the 6th annual Northwest
Climate Conference in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, November 4 through 6.

Some 310 people from six states and British Columbia attended the conference
to discuss the changing climate -- not debate it -- and how to adapt as the
climate warms by up to 8 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century and as
winter snowpack and summer streamflows decline. They discussed how fish and
wildlife could adjust in this century.

Academics, non-profits, government, tribes and the public from Oregon,
Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska and British Columbia were all represented
at the conference. 

Precipitation in 2015 was about 9.8 percent below normal across the
Northwest, but that doesn’t constitute a long-term trend, according to Phil
Mote, director of the Climate Change Research Center at Oregon State
University. It’s a “wet drought” and the projected changes in precipitation
are modest, he added.

“Rain is good, snow is better,” said Ron Abramovich of the U.S. Department
of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service Snow Survey. “We are
not having a precipitation drought, but with the temperature about 1 to 5
(C) degrees above normal, we’re having a snow drought.”

Mote and Abramovich, along with Nicholas Bond, from the Joint Institute for
the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean at the University of Washington, and
Kathie Dello, assistant director of the Oregon Climate Change Research
Institute at OSU, spoke about the reasons and impacts of warming on the
Northwest climate in the conference’s opening session, titled collectively
“Water Year 2015: A prototype for the future climate of the Northwest?”  

Bond explained the reason for the warming seas along the west coast, saying
that since 2013 there have been positive sea surface temperature anomalies
in the Northeast Pacific, sometimes referred to as the “blob.” In his
conference abstract, he said:

“Anomalous air-sea interactions associated with a strong and persistent
ridge of higher than normal sea-level pressure resulted in reduced seasonal
cooling of the upper ocean during the winter of 2013-14. The ridge itself,
at least in part, appears to have been part of a large-scale remote response
to conditions in the far western tropical Pacific.”

He said it looked similar to an El Niño at the time, but had its roots
further west and during the 2014-15 winter it shifted eastward and brought a
lower than normal sea level pressure over nearly the entire Northeast
Pacific Ocean. Beginning in the summer of 2015, it brought warm water to the
entire west coast of North America.

“The warm ocean temperatures have had major and wide-ranging impacts on the
marine ecosystem,” he added. 

The impacts in the ocean? According to Bond:

--Fish are found well-north of their usual ranges, 

--but even more important is the impact to the basic food web off the West
Coast, with cold water high-in-fat copepods being displaced by warm water
copepods with less nutrition,

--massive die-offs of seabirds,

--closure of commercial crabbing,

--closure of clamming caused by massive neurotoxin blooms.

Bond isn’t sure how the neurotoxins would affect salmon and steelhead, but
said it’s possible that salmon don’t accumulate the toxins internally as do
clams and other shellfish or that they simply feed further offshore.

Speaking of the impacts on the Northwest, Mote said there are three
“flavors” of drought. The 1976-77 winter is still the driest winter on
record with the lowest water year. 2003 was a dry summer, but was confined
to west of the Cascade Mountains.

Now, he said, we’ve had two warm winters and springs back to back. In April
2015, 81 percent of the Northwest snow sites were at record low levels. The
Oregon snowpack in April, he said, was above 6,000 feet. In California, it
was above 8,000 feet.

“The higher temperatures will become the new normal regardless of what we do
now with our greenhouse gas emissions,” Mote said. He added that global
emissions measured in 2012 were on a very high trajectory, although Oregon
emissions peaked in 1995 and has declined about 12 percent since then.

But not all of the recent warming in the Northwest has been due to climate
change caused by the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere, he said. Of the
nearly 5 degrees Fahrenheit rise in average temperatures above the 20-year
average, over the past two winters, he said, 3 degrees is likely due to
being an exceptional weather year and just 2 degrees is due to warming from
global climate change.

The impacts on the Northwest? Conference presenters noted:

--Farmers in Malheur County, Oregon had to change to more drought resistant
crops this year at a $100 million loss.

-- Seattle's two small water reservoirs approached empty this summer, with
the City drawing on voluntary curtailments and wells to provide enough water
for residents, according to James Rufo Hill of Seattle Public Utilities. The
utility is exploring the option of beginning to refill the reservoirs early
to ensure full water as they hit summer.

--The John Day River, which has no water storage on the river, had record
low water levels this summer. 

-- One-half million acres of forest and scrub burned in Washington State,
costing the U.S. Forest Service as much as $3 billion dollars in
firefighting bills. That rivaled 1910 in the number of acres burned in one
fire season, said Richy Harrod of the U.S. Forest Service.

--Detroit Lake on the Santiam River has nine boat launches, but all but one
were unusable this summer,

-- The early season projected run of endangered sockeye salmon to Redfish
Lake in Idaho was 4,000, but just 50 of the fish made it all the way to the
lake on their own due to higher than normal temperatures in the lower Snake
River, said Chip Corsi of Idaho Fish and Game.

--On the mid-Oregon coast, the small town of Yachats had no spring rain to
speak of and was running out of water this summer,

--On the southern Oregon coast, Brookings saw saltwater intrusion because
the Chetko River was so low.

-- Summer chinook and resident bull trout in Idaho found their entry to
spawning areas blocked due to low or no water. 

-- A failed huckleberry crop in the Idaho mountains has driven black and
grizzly bears into more urban areas in northern Idaho. 

-- Some deer were lost to "blue tongue," an illness that occurs when deer
concentrate around water holes. 

Also see:

-- CBB, November 6, 2015, “Northwest Climate Conference: Not About Whether
Climate Is Changing, But How To Adapt,”
http://www.cbbulletin.com/435502.aspx

-- CBB, July 10, 2015, “Is ‘The Blob’ Off West Coast Responsible For NW
Drought? Maybe, Looking for ‘Science Volunteers,’”
http://www.cbbulletin.com/434485.aspx

-- CBB, April 10, 2015, ‘Warm Blob’ Of Water Off West Coast Linked To Warmer
Temps, Disruption Of Marine Food Web’ http://www.cbbulletin.com/433648.aspx

-- CBB, Sept, 12, 2014, “Warm Water Expanse From Pacific To Japan Likely
Bringing Changes To Marine Food Web” http://www.cbbulletin.com/432074.aspx

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