Water worries
The study finds that an early spring melt would bring more water into the watershed sooner than usual, potentially flooding rivers, lakes and artificially dammed-river reservoirs.
And with less water available later in the season, chances for more wildfires, pests, and species extinctions increase.
Diffenbaugh says this timing would also exacerbate drought conditions when the demand for water is greatest.
“We can infer that should these physical climate changes occur in the future, that there would be impacts on water supply for agriculture and for human consumption and for natural ecosystems if the water storage and management systems are not adapted to those changes.”
According to climate models, extreme rain events are expected to increase as the planet warms.
However, Diffenbaugh says, that won’t change how the snowpack responds to climate change.
“Even where there are increases in extreme precipitation in the models, there are still robust decreases in the amount of snowpack on the ground at the end of the winter and in robust changes in the timing of runoff.”
California experiencing climate extremes
Frank Gehrke takes these findings very seriously. He heads the California Cooperative Snow Surveys program, which forecasts water flow from the mountains into man-made reservoirs that provide water for crops and people.
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