Friday, November 1, 2019
CapitalPress.com 11
NW snowpack at center of hot debate
It’s not necessarily
whether mountain
snows are shrinking,
but how fast
RESOURCES
Washington State Clima-
tologist: https://climate.
washington.edu/
Oregon State Climatolo-
gist: http://ocs.oregon-
state.edu/
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
The snowpack that irri-
gates Northwest crops has
been measured extensively,
studied deeply and politicized
thoroughly.
Yet, it won’t easily reveal
its past or the outlook for its
future.
Some scientists have
reported astonishing snow-
pack declines over the past
century but are hard-pressed
to quantify much change in
the Cascades over the past 40
years.
Politicians and scientists
both say the 2015 “snowpack
drought,” when much of the
high-altitude
precipitation
fell as rain, foreshadows the
future.
But, they say, not the
immediate future. For the fol-
lowing three years, Washing-
ton’s snowpack was above
normal. Overall, the average
statewide snowpack on April 1
has been above normal during
7 of the past 10 years.
Even the 2015 snowpack
drought itself wasn’t indic-
ative of climate change,
according to climatologists.
An unusually warm Pacific
Ocean, unrelated to global
warming, caused the ample
winter precipitation to fall as
rain instead of snow that win-
ter, they said.
So what is happening to the
Northwest’s snowpack? Is the
region on the verge of warmer
winters, more rain and less
snow? And if so, what can
been done to preserve the pre-
cipitation that falls?
The answers to these ques-
tions and others will impact
the farmers who depend on
mountain runoff for up to 80%
of their irrigation water.
Science vs. politics
The terms “depleting
snowpack” and “reduced
snowpack” appear in legis-
lation. Lawmakers cite it as
proof of global warming and a
reason to urgently rework the
economy.
But some scientists say the
evidence is exaggerated — by
their peers as well as politi-
cians — and that the hype pro-
motes the myth of a vanishing
snowpack and interferes with
a more reasonable discussion
about what to do.
Natural Resources Con-
servation Service water sup-
ply specialist Scott Pattee in
Mount Vernon, Wash., said the
snowpack debate is so hot that
it’s risky to stick your neck
out. “Heads will roll over this
kind of thing,” he said.
Pattee has studied Wash-
ington’s snowpack for more
than two decades. Less snow
is probably accumulating at
lower elevations, he said.
“I think it’s mostly true, but
it’s not as big a slap-in-your-
face as some people are mak-
ing it sound,” he said. “The
trends we’re seeing are just
not that steep. And just when
you think you see a trend, it
changes.”
Nevertheless, trends have
been proclaimed.
Then-Seattle Mayor Greg
Nickels wrote in an opin-
ion piece in 2007 in the Seat-
tle Times that “the average
snowpack in the Cascades has
declined 50% since 1950. ...”
The 50% figure had
appeared in a 2004 report from
Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongos-
ki’s advisory group on global
warming. “Already, according
to Northwest scientists, we’ve
lost 50% of the snowpack in
the Cascades since 1950, with
global warming identified as
the probable cause,” the report
stated.
The report echoed a “sci-
entific consensus statement”
signed by 50 academics in
Oregon and Washington. The
statement had caveats not
included in the governor’s
report. “Model simulations”
showed that half the reduction
could be attributed to “down-
ward trends in precipitation,”
not rising temperatures.
Also, according to the mea-
surements, the years imme-
diately before and after 1950
were snowy. If the time period
Dan Wheat/Capital Press File
Ellensburg, Wash., elevation 1,542 feet, in a snow-covered Kittitas Valley with an
orchard in foreground and Mount Stuart in background on Feb. 2, 2017.
30 years of snowpack in Washington and Oregon
200%
193
Percent of normal as of April 1*
Wash.
Ore.
168
150
80
102%
100*
81%
79
50
22
0
Source: NRCS
1990
14
*Normal based on previous 30-year period and adjusted every decade.
’95
2000
’05
2010
’15
2019
Don Jenkins and Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
Urban
Eberhart
Phil
Mote
were stretched back to 1916,
the snowpack had declined by
about 20% over 82 years.
‘Dramatic’ research
Oregon State Climatologist
Phil Mote, formerly Washing-
ton’s state climatologist, has
been at the forefront of snow-
pack research for nearly two
decades. In 2018, he and col-
leagues updated previous
research and reported that the
Western U.S. snowpack had
declined by 15% to 30%, or
by enough water to fill Lake
Mead, the largest reservoir in
the U.S.
Their study was pub-
lished in an academic journal
under the headline, “Dramatic
declines in snowpack in the
Western U.S.”
Oregon State University
issued a press release using the
word “dramatic” and quoted
Mote: “It is a bigger decline
than we expected.”
The word “dramatic”
appeared in so many media sto-
ries that University of Wash-
ington atmospheric sciences
professor Cliff Mass pulled out
the Oxford Dictionary.
Mass found “dramatic”
defined as “sudden and strik-
ing,” and wrote on his weather
and climate blog that the find-
ings were neither. Strip away
the hype, Mass wrote, and the
findings confirm a gradual
decline. For the past 35 years,
there hasn’t been much of a
trend at all, he wrote.
Mote, in an interview
with the Capital Press, said
he understands why someone
would characterize the study in
another way than “dramatic.”
But he said he found striking
that more than 90% of long-
time snow monitoring sites
across the Western U.S. had
shown declines.
“What was dramatic to
me was the enormous num-
ber of sites showing decreas-
ing trends,” Mote said. “Imag-
ine 90% of people agreeing on
anything.”
The declining trend was
observed for all months, states
and climates, and were largest
in the spring in the West Coast
states and in places with a mild
winter climate, according to
the research.
Mote’s report asserted
that reservoirs “could not be
built fast enough to offset the
loss of snow storage.” The
solutions would have to be
“water policy” and “demand
management.”
Mote said that by the 2040s,
years like 2015 won’t be such
an anomaly. “2015 gave us a
glimpse into that much warmer
world,” he said.
Nick
Bond
Cliff
Mass
In his blog, Mass challenges
the conventional beliefs of cli-
mate-change activists. Is global
warming an existential threat?
“Probably not.” Was the deadly
Camp Fire in Northern Califor-
nia caused by climate change?
“Clearly no.”
Mass observed that a study
that provoked a banner news-
paper headline — “Seattle heat
wave could kill hundreds” —
assumed that newly swelter-
ing Seattle residents would
stubbornly refuse to buy air
conditioners.
He has written that the
combination of “poor journal-
ism” and “problematic papers”
undermines
progress
in
addressing what he’s called the
“profoundly serious threat to
mankind” of global warming.
Mote and others have used
1950 as a starting point because
snow records since then have
been fairly consistent. Before
then, the quality of the records
drops off, particularly before
1930, according to researchers.
The oldest automated
snow-measuring sites that
transmit daily readings are
about 40 years old. Before that,
the records were based on man-
ual measurements taken every
month or so, meaning they are
not directly comparable, said
Pattee, the NRCS water supply
specialist.
“You’re almost compar-
ing oranges and tangerines —
close but not quite there,” Pat-
tee said. “We’ve only been
collecting good snow data for
30 years.”
To extend the record back in
time, scientists estimate snow-
packs based on temperature,
precipitation and streamflow
records. The models are widely
used and accepted, but, Mote
said, a couple more decades of
solid measurements would be
“really fantastic.”
Time matters
View of the future
In an interview with the
Capital Press, Mass said the
vast eastern Pacific Ocean has
been slow to heat and that has
so far blunted climate change
in the Northwest. “The ocean is
basically buffering us,” he said.
While chastising claims of
dramatically shrinking snow-
packs, Mass says a reduced
snowpack will become “obvi-
ous” by about 2050 and “really
obvious” by 2080.
“It’s not going to be all of
a sudden, ‘Boom!’” he said.
“But it will become more and
more serious.”
Mass has recently projected
how rising temperatures will
diminish the snowpack by the
end of the century. “It’s the best
view of the future anybody has
seen,” he said.
The projections rely on a
dozen forecasting models. By
2099, the snowpack is pro-
jected to resemble the snow-
pack drought of 2015.
The snowpack drought
was followed by a hot and dry
spring and summer that pro-
duced one of the most severe
droughts in Washington’s
history.
The state Department of
Agriculture estimated $703
million in drought-related
losses. Nevertheless, the
USDA found that Washing-
ton farmers and ranchers set a
record for the value of the live-
stock and crops they sold that
year.
Mass said it showed that
Washington can survive a
diminished snowpack. “All we
need to do is build a few reser-
voirs. We’re going to get plenty
of precipitation,” he said.
Inexact records
The dispute over whether
the snowpack is vanishing
begins with the records.
Findings also are influenced
by the time period studied.
One study published in 2010
by UW researchers found the
Cascades snowpack increased
by 19% between 1976 and
2007. The same study con-
cluded that man-made global
warming caused the Cascades
spring snowpack to decrease
by 9% between 1985 and 2005.
The Washington State Cli-
matologist website has a
“trend analysis tool” that tracks
changes in snow-water equiv-
alent at sites throughout the
state. Brown dots mean less
water over time; green dots
mean more water.
Starting at 1926 and end-
ing at 2019, the dots are mostly
brown, suggesting the snow-
pack has declined. Slide the
tool forward to 1980 and most
of the dots turn green, sug-
gesting no loss in snowpack in
recent decades.
Washington State Clima-
tologist Nick Bond cautioned
against drawing conclusions
based on short time frames.
He said it was like judging a
Major League Baseball team’s
162-game season on a 10-day
period.
Year-to-year variations in
the weather are still overriding
climate change, he said.
“Temperatures are defi-
nitely going up. There’s no real
legitimate debate about that,”
Bond said. “Is that cause for
alarm or not? If you’re look-
ing at the long term, yeah, I
think it is. If you’re looking at
next year, well, maybe not so
much.”
In assessing trends, “it
depends on where you look
and when you look,” Bond
said. “Generally, high-eleva-
tion sites do not show much of
a trend at all.”
Washington’s
high-
est snow-measuring site is
at Hart’s Pass in the Okano-
gan-Wenatchee National For-
est, at 6,490 feet. For 7 of the
past 10 years, the peak snow-
pack there has been above
normal.
At Stampede Pass, south-
east of Seattle, snow is mea-
sured at 3,850 feet. For 8 of the
past 10 years, the peak snow-
pack has been below normal.
In between, at 4,400-foot
White Pass, it’s been a draw.
The peak snowpack has been
above normal 5 times and
below normal 5 times in the
past 10 years.
Pull back and look at the
snowpack from a regional per-
spective — such as the Olym-
pics, North and South Cas-
cades, and the Upper Columbia
Basin — and the results are
still mixed. The above-normal
years and below-normal years
are fairly even.
The most widely reported
figure is the statewide April 1
average snowpack as percent-
age of normal. There have been
good years such as 2012, when
the snowpack was 137% of
average, and 2017, when it was
121% of average. There have
also been bad years, includ-
ing 2010, when the snowpack
was 76% of average, and 2015,
when it was 22% of average.
Because it is an average,
it doesn’t reflect the range in
different basins. The Olym-
pic Mountains can have a low
snowpack, for example, but the
average is brought up by a lot
of snow in the Cascades.
Pattee, who puts the num-
ber in a water-supply report,
calls it a “very, very general
reference.”
”You can’t really hang your
hat on it,” he said.
Said Mote: “It’s an interest-
ing anecdote, but not a statis-
tically rigorous way of talking
about long-term change.”
Snowmelt impact
About 80% of the water run-
ning in streams during the sum-
mer in the Western U.S. comes
from melting snow, according
to the U.S. Bureau of Reclama-
tion. Washington’s most-valu-
able agriculture region, the
Yakima Basin in Central Wash-
ington, is especially dependent
on the snowpack.
The 60,000-acre Kittitas
Reclamation District around
Ellensburg relies on snow
accumulating at about 3,000
feet, said the district’s manager,
Urban Eberhart, a farmer.
The district gets little rain
to complement snowmelt. An
ongoing initiative to use the
spring runoff more efficiently
to benefit farmers, fish and cit-
ies goes back four decades,
pre-dating concern about
global warming.
In 2015, the district’s farm-
ers received less than half their
normal water supply. “We
know it’s possible for it to hap-
pen because it did,” Eberhart
said.
An early spring that melts
the snow too soon and too fast
is “just as bad as not having
any snowpack at all,” Eberhart
said.
“It’s been more and more
of the flash (snowmelt), rather
than an orderly melting snow-
pack,” Eberhart said. “We’re
trying to survive current
conditions.”
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