Global warming to cut snow water storage 56 percent in Oregon watershed [View all]

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http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2013/jul/global-warming-cut-snow-water-storage-56-percent-oregon-watershed

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Global warming to cut snow water storage 56 percent in Oregon watershed[/font]

07/25/2013

The study this story is based on is available online: http://bit.ly/13ZLzl1

[font size=3]CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new report projects that by the middle of this century there will be an average 56 percent drop in the amount of water stored in peak snowpack in the McKenzie River watershed of the Oregon Cascade Range - and that similar impacts may be found on low-elevation maritime snow packs around the world.

The findings by scientists at Oregon State University, which are based on a projected 3.6 degree Fahrenheit temperature increase, highlight the special risks facing many low-elevation, mountainous regions where snow often falls near the freezing point. In such areas, changing from snow to rain only requires a very modest rise in temperature.

As in Oregon, which depends on Cascade Range winter snowpack for much of the water in the populous Willamette Valley, there may be significant impacts on ecosystems, agriculture, hydropower, industry, municipalities and recreation, especially in summer when water demands peak.

The latest study was one of the most precise of its type done on an entire watershed, and was just published in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, with support from the National Science Foundation. It makes it clear that new choices are coming for western Oregon and other regions like it.

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