California to Undergo Global Warming Changes
Global warming is going to affect much of the planet, and each affected area could be different from the next. The hardest hit will be California, which already has to deal with a multitude of microclimates.
“We need to be attentive to the fact that changes are going to occur, whether it’s sea level rising or increased temperatures, droughts and potentially increased fires,” said Lisa Sloan, a scientist who directs the Climate Change and Impacts Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “These things are going to be happening.”
But in an area a third larger than that of Italy, predicting what will happen by the end of this century is definitely a challenge for scientists. But as a result of a series of interviews taken with scientists each studying the phenomenon, a vague general description has evolved.
Already the Californian snow season is beginning to feel the brunt of extended heat. Further change is expected as well, with snow falling for a shorter period of time and melting earlier, reducing and, in some locations, destroying any snow season.
Scientists also predict that by the end of this century, temperatures will have increased by 3 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit statewide. This sort of temperature rise could very well convert in to even less rainfall in a state that already has to deal with increased wildfires and a population boom that will not quit.
In the desert east of Los Angeles small mammals, reptiles and colonies of wildflowers are used to a three year dry spell. But what will happen to them when they encounter 10 year drought periods. And what of the Joshua tree, apparently a commonplace feature across the state. Scientists are already considering replanting Joshua seedlings to areas which might survive climate change.
“They could be wiped out of California depending on how quickly the change happens,” said Cameron Barrows, who studies the effects of climate change for the Center for Conservation Biology in Riverside.
And the Joshua trees aren’t the only plants at risk, according to Nate Stephenson, a U.S. Geological Survey ecologist who is studying the effects of climate change in the Sierra Nevada. “I suspect as things get warmer, we’ll start seeing sequoias just die on their feet where their foliage turns brown. Even if they don’t die of drought stress, just think of the wildfires. If you dry out that vegetation, they’re going to be so much more flammable.”
And farther north, there are changes occurring which could have drastic consequences for the entirety of California. 35% of the state’s water supply is stored in the snow pack in the high mountains during winter. But with more rain and less snow predicted, this could seriously damage the hydrological nature of the state.
Farmers will possibly be most at risk, considering that if the conditions change, they could lose up to a quarter of their annual average water supply. “Obviously, it’s going to mean that choices are going to be made about who’s going to get the water,” said Brian Nowicki, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, Ariz.
The biggest change, and of course the one with the most variables and thus the most unknown, is what will happen to the coastline. With melting already occurring throughout the planets ice-sheets, at least one scenario predicts a sea-rise around the Californian coastline of 20 feet (which, I will grant, may be on the high end).
“If you raise sea level by a foot, you push a cliff back 100 feet,” said Jeff Severinghaus, professor of geosciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. “There will be a lot of houses that will fall into the ocean.”
There are a lot of question marks, and no real answers. But the implications are there, and once again the question is raised; do nothing and have everything collapse, or do something and be safe. You go decide!
AP - via PhysOrg - Global Warming to Alter Calif. Landscape
