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Data helps climate modelling be more precise

February 19, 2004
Predictions of the impacts of global warming have been debated for years now.

Those who have downplayed that impact include the Bush Administration, which has put efforts to reduce greenhouse gases on the back burner.

But the Administration may have to take new data on the impacts of global warming more seriously, given that this study comes from a U.S. Department of Energy research center.

That study paints a disturbing picture of climate change ahead for the Pacific Northwest.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland used state-of-the-art computer models to predict how climate change from increased greenhouse gasses will affect the Cascade Mountains in the next 45 years.

Researcher Steve Ghan says the models assumed a one percent annual increase in the rate of greenhouse gasses through the year 2100, which he says reliable data indicates is the current rate.

"There's a very good record of CO2 concentrations, both from air measurements on Mauna Loa in Hawaii, going back to 1959," he says, "and there are also very reliable measurements of CO2 concentrations in air bubbles trapped in ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland. That allows us to project the CO2 concentrations back for hundreds or even thousands of years."

Ghan says that data, along with past climate trends, provided the background of the new model, which he says was able to show higher resolution than past computer model for specific geographic regions. He says the result was significantly less snow pack in the Cascade Mountains by the year 2050.

"There will be more incidents of wintertime rainfall, higher likelihood of wintertime flooding, and generally lower snow pack throughout the winter season," Ghan says. "That translates into less runoff during the spring and early summer."

The result could spell major problems for future hydropower generation as well as agricultural irrigation and fisheries. Future population growth is likely to make the issue of less water available even more critical.

PNNL researchers say data indicates that in the past 50 years, coastal mountain ranges have already lost 60 percent of their snow pack. By Steve Jackson