Climate Forecast

The predictions for climate change in the Pacific Northwest are relatively benign compared to most of the rest of the world.  According to Cliff Mass, climate scientist at the UW and weekly commentator on KUOW, the increase in water vapor in the atmosphere due to higher average temperature, will mean a predominance of offshore marine air for us here in the Northwest.  That means cooler and wetter weather.  The only change for the worse might be that the increased rainfall we are expected to get will fall more in shorter, harder rains.  That means that it will not be able to percolate into the soil as readily as our lighter rains do now.  Another possibility is that we may not be able to maintain adequate snow pack during the summer leading to summer shortfalls.  We on Vashon, having a sole source aquifer, supposedly do not access water from snow pack, so that doesn’t affect us. 

As much of the world is warming and drying out, water will become an even more precious commodity, and we can expect refugees from areas with more or less permanent drought.  Historically dry areas that depend on imported water, such as all the Southwest and most of the state of California are in immediate trouble.  The tens of millions living in the Southern California basin are dependent on water from the Colorado River.  I expect that the Colorado’s waters will be co-opted by its users upstream.  Right now, the Colorado is basically gone before it gets to its historic mouth at the top of the Bay of California in Mexico.

The drying up of California has repercussions for us because a great deal of the food we consume comes from irrigated fields in the interior valleys there.  For this reason alone, we need to step up our efforts to grow more of our food locally.

We know as well that stronger, more destructive weather events can be expected.  Again, it appears that we will escape the worst of that.  We do have severe weather that causes flooding and wind damage, but nothing that holds a candle to the more destructive cyclones and hurricanes that others face.  We do have an occasional tornado, and I’ve noticed, for the first time, hurricanes in the Pacific approaching Mexico from the west. I don’t know if I’ve just not noticed them before or if it is something new.  I suppose the warmer ocean temperatures could bring hurricanes farther up the coast.  It’s still a long shot for us.

We need to understand that any change in climate will put a lot of stress on all life forms as they struggle to adapt.  The web of life is so complex and finely balanced that the appearance or disappearance of some seemingly insignificant microbe could have huge ramifications; we really can’t predict such things.

What can we do to lessen the severity of climate change?  Put as little carbon as we can in the atmosphere and sequester as much as we can.  We would need to get to 350 ppm of carbon in the atmosphere to support the climate that we know.  However, we can’t remove the carbon we have already released. Scientists have determined from past events that it has taken about 1000 years to scrub carbon out of the atmosphere after the inputs have stopped.  We are now approaching   500 ppm.  The media and our government tell you that we have 20 or 30 years to reduce our output.  We don’t!  We have yet to see the effects of the carbon we have already put in the atmosphere. That carbon is there to stay for many lifetimes ahead, and we will not be returning to the climate we know in less than geologic time. We can lessen the severity by drastically reducing our output right away.  Don’t expect your government to act on this; their actions thus far have been dismal.  The impact on our fossil fuel economy is simply too great to allow our government to take appropriate steps.  What the government can’t ask of us, we can ask of ourselves.  We have the intelligence to see trends into the future and to modify our behavior accordingly. For those of you who are not yet convinced that humans are causing climate change, I suggest that you hold on to your hats because the change that has occurred thus far will continue with or without us.  In any case, we can all agree that we don’t want a future scenario in which our grandchildren have to ask us:  “Why didn’t you do something while you had the chance?”