Sweetheart, Get Me a Climatologist

By Dan Whipple, 12-07-06

I was about to mail the $300,000 check for our membership in the Yellowstone Club, which would get us access to our own private ski mountain, a Tom Weiskopf golf course and lord knows what all, when I stopped to think: I’d better check with a climatologist about this.

It seems pretty clear that global warming is going to change snowfall patterns in the West. In fact, it will change the snowfall patterns around the world. This is something the ski industry is keenly aware of. Shelling out three hundred grand for a ski hill without snow seems a little profligate. Much as I like Tom Weiskopf, I can buy a lot of golf for 300 Gs.

A few years ago, at the Fifth World Conference on Sport and Environment in Turin, Italy, University of Zurich professor Rolf Burki found that low mountain elevation snowfall at European ski resorts would become increasingly unreliable. He didn’t look too hard at the U.S. ski industry, but he did say that resorts here may have to increase artificial snowmaking by 48 percent to 187 percent by the year 2070.

This year, the European Alps are undergoing their warmest winter period in 1,300 years, according to Reinhard Boehm, an Austrian climatologist quoted by Reuters. Ski resorts have delayed opening by at least a month.

Here in the U.S., a white Christmas is becoming an endangered species. The U.S. is getting fewer snowfalls between Thanksgiving and Christmas. In states that typically get snow, two-thirds of weather stations have reported fewer days with snowfall since 1948. This trend has been more pronounced east of the Mississippi River. When I was a kid in Maryland in the 1950s, we’d get snow days off from school several times a year, with enough snowfall to operate our Flexible Flyer. By my high school years, those snow days had ended. The change in the weather was obvious to everyone. My mother blamed it on atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. Everybody’s a climatologist.

“Climate change” is not one thing, and it doesn’t affect everyone or every place equally. Some of the things that can occur could be called positive, depending upon your point of view. But few of them are without cost.

Let’s look at this snowfall thing a little more closely. In a paper in this month’s journal Climate Change, researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research found that most areas above 40 degrees northern latitude will see more days of heavy precipitation. But at the same time, other studies report that the total amount of moisture falling may decrease and the “snow line” will rise. In California, for instance, it could be 1,000 to 1,500 meters higher than it is now. The NCAR scientists also found that dry spells could increase across the West, possibly intensifying droughts. But the growing seasons would be longer.

The implications from all theses changes can be subtle. For instance, over the last 40 to 50 years, there has been a pronounced trend for an earlier snowmelt across the West from Mexico to Alaska. This means that the timing of maximum spring stream flows is about two weeks earlier than in the middle of the 20th century.

This, in turn, may mean less water in streams in the late summer. In the interior West, this is not such a big deal, because there are already reservoirs built to hold water for municipal and irrigation purposes. But in the coastal West, this isn’t generally the case. The change in timing of streamflows may require a new approach to water management in those areas.

The United States is not likely to be terribly hard hit by any of the predicted changes in climate. Two years ago, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change issued a report on this question that found “the country as a whole has a high capacity to adapt to anticipated climate change, although the effects to natural systems, different economic sectors and different regions will vary.”

For every assertion, there is a “...but ... .” Take the aforementioned longer growing season in the West. Most of us would probably consider it a good thing. And more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere helps plants grow, up to a point. And here’s the “... but ... .” But plants don’t need only CO2 for good health. They also need other nutrients, which are not being increased by higher CO2 concentrations.

And the insects and symbionts that feed on these plants also need other nutrients, like nitrogen. As the carbon dioxide content of plants goes up, the relative amount of nitrogen goes down. The insects have to stay on plants longer to get their required nitrogen. They are more vulnerable to predators. So what? most people will say. Fewer bugs. What’s wrong with that? This is the burden that entomologists carry. Nobody cares about bugs. But if insect populations fall, there is less food for birds. So bird populations may suffer.

The definitive work in this field has been done by biologist Peter Stiling at the University of South Florida. Stiling found that, contrary to expectations, increased CO2 does not lead to better plant health. “Lowered foliar nitrogen levels increased host-plant related mortality,” he found. The increased development time of insects resulted in higher mortality from natural enemies -- predators and parasites. The populations go way down. There is a lot of green plant material, but one observer said, “It’s like eating cardboard.”

Another study by University of Rhode Island researchers found that “birds that primarily eat herbivorous insects like caterpillars may find themselves without enough to eat as atmospheric CO2 levels increase.”

But these results probably don’t apply to plant food grown for humans. Nitrogen and other nutrients can be added to cultured crops with fertilizer, at least in wealthy nations like the U.S.

The places that will be hurt are those that are already poor. They can’t usually afford to add fertilizer or build reservoirs. Or go play golf. Your attitude toward climate change says a lot about your attitude toward the future. Is it a legacy to pass down to our descendants? Or is it a foreign enemy?

In either approach, it might be best to give up skiing and take up golf. [End of article]