Compounding Climate

    I am a weather geek.  I always have been.  Not everyone is, but if you live around here long enough, you start to notice the weather anecdotally.  Then you attempt to forecast it, but locals know that only newcomers and fools try to predict the weather.  It is the ultimate ‘you take what you get’.  Or is it?

At one time I fancied myself as a Hydro-Meteorological-Engineer but simplified that to plain old Hydrologist since I could not consistently say, let alone spell the first title.  I study weather and climate for my work and for my play, my hobby and my fascination.   I designed big dams for the million-year flood and advised neighbors on a local stream for annual snowmelt routing.  I personally and physically field checked the snowpack here, on every powder day, for 45 years.  The weather, for me, is not only anecdotal but visceral and personal.

I am a data nerd also.  Data is the basis for artificial intelligence as well as common-sense aptitude, and we cannot get enough of it.  When tasked by the State Engineer, to forecast snow-melt runoff from the record snowpack of the early eighties, I found precious little historical climate data for this area and none of the snowpack data correlated with actual runoff flows.  It turns out that the weather in May dominates snow-melt runoff, not the size of the snowpack.   When I saw the dearth of data for our area, I initiated my local Snyderville Weather Station to take the daily readings for the National Weather Service (NWS).  I wanted to be part of the solution.  Recently I won the national annual weather spotter award recently from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  So, I got that going for me.  Which is nice.

Lastly, I am a math bore and have learned how to correlate data with from several sources and locations to predict results at similar locations that have very little data.  When I read about the new PRISM - Geographical Information System (GIS) climate database from Oregon State University and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), I nearly wet my pants.  PRISM takes all the Annual Average Temperatures and Precipitation climate data from the last 125 years from sources like the NOAA, NWS, USDA, State Climatologist for the contiguous states and lays it out on a national GIS Geospatial database. That is one Annual Average Temperature point per year for the Daily Average, Daily Maximum and Daily Minimum temperatures.   That is a lot of Daily data condensed into 3 points per year.  Powerful.

From all those actual data locations it correlates the data from the 3 variables, with regression equations, to the desired locations with no data.  It also considers things like distance, altitude, and aspect to predict equivalent data for any desired location.  This database was built and prides itself on its accuracy in abnormal high mountain meadows and coastal climates that are my favorite places.   How cool is that?

      I downloaded, deciphered and plotted the data for Salt Lake and Summit County, Park City and Snyderville, North Carolina and North Dakota, San Simeon and New York City and noticed the predicted climate warming patterns outlined in most existing climate change prognostications.  The Average Temperatures for most of these locations are going up by the projected 1-3 degrees F over the 100-year period, just like scientists prosaically claim on the news.  Much of the temperature increase is related to the morning Minimum Temperatures rather than afternoon Maximums, with typical exceptions made for different seasons, sunshine and snowpack, cloud cover, wind and urbanization, humidity, ocean and lake affects, orographic, altitude and aspect.  These results correspond nicely to the linear trends in the Global Surface Temperatures data collected by the National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI) and published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This is good, consistent, calibrated peer-reviewed data.  We all know anecdotally this is happening, but we have no idea as to the extent.

      When I looked closer to home at the data for Park City and Snyderville it appears more interesting.  Temperature data trends for the last 100 years are notably higher, particularly for the last 50 years morning Minimum Temperatures.  Summer Minimum Temperatures, for example, have gone up 10 degrees (45-55 F) over a 50-year period in certain mountain meadows like Snyderville.  Wow. 

      I fit regression equations to the data and the standard, flat-line fits show the 1-3 degree increase usually predicted by independent climatologist.  I also installed a 20-year running average that tracked the data well and instituted a better fitting, third-order polynomial equation.  Both exercises follow the 10-degree Minimum Temperature rise of the last 50 years much more accurately, without exceeding the actual measured data.  These are actual data numbers that would make Greta’s bright baby-blue eyes pop right out of her head.

Most alarming are the extrapolations for the future that show the local morning Minimum Temperatures possibly increasing here by another 2 degrees (linearly) or 10 degrees (exponentially) in the next 50 years.  That would give us summer mornings like Salt Lake at best, Moab at worst.  That is real change, real heat.  Luckily, the local Maximum Temperatures do not see such radical rises, discounting common claims of urbanization, and winter minimum temperatures are even flatter, probably because of the tempering effect of our deep snowpack, mitigating and perhaps understating the Average Temperatures.   

Climate and nature, it turns out, are not linear.  The compounding effects of increased greenhouse gases, warming oceans, melting ice caps, frequent wildfires, population growth and economic development accelerate the warming trend exponentially.  If you get outside at all you are aware of these trends, but even I am surprised at these alarming local numbers and feel compelled to share these results with the community.  I can’t predict the future and I don’t have the answers, but I do know that it is getting warmer quicker, and we must stop burning stuff and not elect people who ignore the numbers and the science.  Will we continue to compound this inconvenient climate data or will we address it.  Will we be part of the problem or part of the solution.