>> >> BRUCE: Hi everyone.
This is Bruce Moravchik.
I'm one of the coordinators of NOAA Climate Stewards Education
Project along colleagues,
Peg Steffen and Molly Harrison, and our external evaluator,
Hilary Davis.
I'm really glad to welcome you to this evening's webinar,
Water Water Everywhere.
Will there be enough to drink?
Our p McInerney senior hydrologist
from our Salt forecast office.
I have a few announcements.
We will turn the reigns over to Brian.
He has a terrific p for this evening and then,
I have some additional education resources that you
can take advantage of on this subject as well as some closing
announcements.
Why don't we get started.
For those of you who a aware,
tonight's webinar recorded and we will be sending
you links to a video within a week of tonight's
broadcast.
Now, if you don't receive the links,
definitely send me an email to Bruce Moravchik at NOAA.gov
with the subject request November 7th, 2016 webinar.
Now, if you want links to the video archive and all the
slides presented tonight, and of all of previously broadcast
webinars that we have done over the last few years,
you can find that on Climate Stewards Google website
with the link over here.
Now, if you can't access the website,
you can send an access request through Google
or you can send me an with the subject,
request access to CSEP Google site.
For
everyone who is in attendance for the full hour of this
evening's webinar, we will be sending you a certificate to
recognize that you've gotten one contact hour of
professional development.
And another note, a microphones are going to be
muted during the broadcast.
If you'd like to ask B myself or Peg a question,
please type it into your Go To Webinar control panel which
should be located on the right-hand side of your screen.
If you don't see it, you should see a small orange arrow up in
the top right side of your screen.
Click that and the c panel will be expanded.
Please save the dates, Monday, December fifth,
we will have our next webinar.
The topic, You g What's that going to look like
in the future?
Climate Change Impact on Food?
We are nothing have will some of colleagues from the FDA talk
to us about that.
And on Monday J January 30th at 8:00 p.m., we
are going to Climate Stewards book club and
we are going to be about,
Will Jelly Fish rule the world?
A book about c Leo Hickman.
Now, it's available in digital or used condition,
very inexpensively.
The book breaks down the causes and effects of climate change
in a fresh format that are packed with practical every day
things that we can all do right now to make a difference.
So, will jelly fish rule the world.
It is really comprehensive easy to use handbook for classroom
use.
And, another announcement if you were not over there,
do you want
to do more than just learn about climate change?
Joined educators across the United States.
You can apply now to b part of NOAA Climate Stewards
2017, 2017 stewardship community.
Now, selected e might to project requirements
are going to be to $2000 to support the
execution of a stewardship project,
travel reimbursement to attend selected workshops or national
conferences.
There are going so b professional development
opportunity as well and education resources.
Now, all additional information about acceptable types of
projects, examples of previously projects are on the
website as application.
And These are going to be accepted until l midnight,
November 20th.
An important n currently a member of
stewardship community funding to career out a
stewardship project and you want to extend your project for
the 2017-2018 academic year, or you want to do another project,
you'll have to reapply this year.
If you have specific q about this, please send myself,
Molly Harrison or an email.
Now, in addition -- now, to supply just some demographic
information, application has been greatly
reduced from previous years.
You only have to answer four short questions.
One, why do y NOAA climate steward?
Two: What's your idea of stewardship project,
and why do you want to do it?
Three: Who's going to be involved with the project?
>> And four: What do you hope to accomplish?
We think this w lot easier than previous years.
All right, and w would now like to introduce
Brian McInerney and start his presentation.
So I would like to introduce Brian for a moment.
Brian McInerney is the senior hydrologist with NOAA's
National forecast office in Salt Lake
City, Utah and he position the last 27 years.
He has a masters d forest hydrology in Montana and
St. Mary's in Minnesota.
His duties include o the water supply, climate,
climate change, flood flood programs for most of
Utah.
He has been p change information and
hydrology forecasts since the early 90's and have seen Utah's
hydrology regime slowly evolve due to the warming climate.
He is frequently asked to speak at conferences throughout the
State on the subject of climate change and its effect on Utah's
slow pack and overall water supply.
He originally hails from Chicago,
Illinois and currently in part city Utah.
Brian, the mic is yours.
>> >> BRIAN: Can you see the screen?
I guess we will start w that.
>>BRUCE: Looks great.
>> BRIAN: Okay, good.
So some background in this.
Thanks for t Bruce.
That was fabulous.
I'm a hydrologist t National Weather Services at
Salt Lake City and I climate change talks
back in the early 90's and it's kind of an interesting topic.
It was like any other subject and at some point,
it got put aside, got twisted and kind of odd to give talks
on this subject.
Now, you see as we're m along,
people are starting to embrace the data and embrace what's
going on.
And I had given this talk in asteria in a little different
format and audience with a group of
teachers that were from NOAA branch touring Utah and
all the different parts of hydrology and the mountains and
such.
And Bruce asked if I w and do this talk which I was
delighted to.
So the background for this is something that I give water
users and people from Utah on a regular basis,
where we are with change because snow hydrology
is such a big deal talk and the form of this talk,
I get requests all provide this information.
So I hope this will be entertaining for you tonight
and give you some good information to do some further
research and going to affect.
So why don't you say we get started here.
So, before we get into the details,
let's talk about basics.
And this is essentially a NASA study to talk about what's
really warm.
There is an observed temperature from 1880 to 2014
of the land and the ocean.
So when you hear a denier say, well,
it's the earth's orbit, they model that and if the two lines
should match up, you should see they don't.
So it's an awesome thing
How about the sun?
Solar max a that these changes have had
little effect overall climate.
How about volcanos?
If anything, the volcanos make things cooler.
When you get all t reflects back in space.
So when you do those t things combined,
it doesn't even come close.
So there is another variable out there that's causing our
temperature to increase over time.
And they were asked the question,
how about the forestation?
And if anything, wh down a tree,
you get more activity back in the space and you have less
synergry and then you think how about ozone?
You know ozone causes p to trap heat.
Maybe a little warmer but it still does not match up.
And you look at aerosols.
Again, aerosols r back in the space and it cools
things off.
So one b through all the different
things that could then, they do greenhouse gases.
And that was pretty good.
But you see it's a higher.
But it's right - pretty well.
And then, what they did, they modeled everything together,
all the different variables that they had and it matches.
So when you think of climate change,
and you think of what's it,
it's and it's this is not a claim disputed
any more.
97.4 percent of the scientists that do the research and
publish in accredited journals, agree that it's happening and
we're causing it.
And that's really been the c for about five to seven
years or even longer.
That's just my impression.
I know some o I would ask them way back when
and they would just look at me like, this is the way it is.
We have known this.
Now, we're working on precipitation patterns.
So when you look at a direct measure of C02,
I think the thing that me when I saw this draft when I
was as in graduate school 1988, that's where we were.
And we were roughly, maybe 35 parts per million.
That's when I and before I started my job
with the weather service.
Since then, we are now above 400 parts per million and if
anything, we're going at a faster rate.
So you see if t you can slow this down.
We're trying but w not making much headway.
And so when you look a different scenarios,
we're on the fast track to put more C02 in the atmosphere.
This another NASA Goddard study that looked at one day every
day for an entire year in 2006.
When you look at the regs, that's the 400 parts per
million C02 concentration.
And what struck me when I saw this was how global the
atmosphere is.
You could basically say, o we'll shut things off.. And you
ask, you need China, India,
you need Europe this and you can see when we
are into the cold is greatly enhanced because
we're warming our houses cold fire power plants and
using more electricity which is done by cold power plants to
keep our houses warm, to keep the lights on and all these
things.
So you see these c quite high in the late winter
and in the early spring.
And then, what you are s with this as it thins out and
that's been shown on wiggly graph that I just showed
where the photosynthetic process takes over,
takes up C02 then,
puts out summer month and you see a
decline n the the atmosphere during the
northern hemisphere months.
And you see this b about now.
And then, what will happen is when we get back in October and
start again, we will see more C02.
And the thing that reminded me of this was,
say if you took party,
you and your wife and it was a neighborhood party and they had
little kids.
And all the little k into a room and they all
started destroying the room.
Well, you can pull your kid out of the room and sit them down
and say, you know, knock it off.
You got to quit messing around.
He's not having any fun.
He's sitting there, yet the room is still being destroyed
and everybody needed to grab their kids, pull them up,
explain to them what's going on in that room, and then,
let's try and fix the room.
You can't just do it one household at a time.
It gets to b worldwide and I think that's
what this graphic shows over time.
You know right now on this graphic where it's September
20th and now, we're evolving back into the winter months,
and you can emissions start picking up and
we will go
through the cycle again.
The problem is we keep adding more C02 to the atmosphere than
the year before.
And that's problematic.
The atmosphere, 5 the atmosphere,
the great majority of it is about 18,000 feet.
And if you t feet per mile,
if you stood it up and straight out,
it's about three miles.
You can run a 5-K pretty quick.
And so you see h atmospheric level is and we
don't have a lot at stake.
If we keep putting more a more greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere.
That is warming w going.
And that's a problem.
So when you look at t indications of a warming
climate, when you look at the satellite data from NASA's
satellite and the satellite bowie data,
the rate of change is about 3.
4-millimeters per year.
And you see the lines j steadily going up.
And that's sea level.
And when you l source of data,
it's always good to look at different data.
This is ground d back to 1870.
Basically, it's the same trending line but this data
goes even further back.
And they found similar rise.
So sea levels are rising.
And when you t living,
you think of the majority of the population and the world
and the U.S, the people live on the coast.
That's where they are.
And when you think of more intense weather,
the atmosphere moisture.
The heat fuels greater and more intense storms.
We're going to s coming into these coastal areas
until
eventu uninhabitable.
But when you l temperature increase,
this is again, a NASA space flight satellite.
It goes back to 1884 and they go year by year.
Cooler colors i than what would be the norm.
Warmer colors i warming.
And when you look 1915, 1920, there is a slight warming
because right that the industrial revolution,
we started to put more greenhouse gases.
We know we're nowhere n where we are right now.
But when you look at the globe, the atmosphere,
we're about 1950.
Right around 1980 is when t signature really picked up and
it was obviously warming in really rapid way.
Or when we t we're warming,
it's about 100 to 150 with the last 30 to 40 years being the
greatest.
And you see that r 1980, warmer colors,
atmosphere 1995 and then, 2000.
It gets very, very d red, very fast.
And that's the difference in people saying, well,
the climate is and it's been changing since
the earth has been around.
And that is true.
But it's the rate of change phenomenally past that we're
doing this and things are warming up much faster.
When you will look at the ocean,
there was a team of NOAA scientists that compared
basically the first half of 1950 to 2005 and came up with
an average ocean temperature, which then,
we projected out from 2050 2099,
the second half of century.
And these are t that they saw.
And the gray areas are the land masses.
The red areas are the oceans.
And you can see areas u Maine in the U.S.
is the somewhere around 3-degrees.
Most of the Pacific is about 2.
4, most of the Atlantic.
There are parts o that are warming greater but
you look up into Alaska and those regions are
warming much faster.
So you can see we're warming the ocean and increases the
acidity when you have more CO2 in the oceans which is harmful
to corral reefs.
And also, the o sink for heat.
So the thinking is the oceans's ability to uptake heat into the
ocean is limited and at some, point,
let's be a great sink a be off of to the races with
warming.
When you look at i are looking at Antarctica ice
sheets.
They are losing about 3.
3, -- 13.
3 percent per decade on the amount of ice on the
Antarctica.
And I gave this talk about a week ago and there was a lady
who said she read that the ice on Antarctica ice sheets is
actually increasing.
And when y there's two ways to look at
this.
The ice sheets that go across the ocean,
they are actually expanding because we're getting run off
of the Antarctica and it's creating more ice on the
surface of the ocean.
Additionally, it is a d the Antarctica It gets so
little snow and it's so down there,
it does not snow very often and there are parts of the
Antarctica that is more snow.
And that's just due to the balance of the ocean.
But if you look
at Antarctica ice sheets, in total,
you're losing at the rate see there and it's really
kicked in at about 1995 and started losing a great deal
more.
When you look at G they are losing 281 gigatons
per year.
And if you've ever seen images of Greenland ,
how fast it's really quite stunning how fast
this is going the trend there.
When you look at the e of the ice that's on Greenland,
and you knock that goes into the ocean,
this is what causes sea level rises in addition to some
warming that expands the molecules but it's really
melting off of Greenhouse and Antarctica.
If you look at the Antarcticia, that analogy is like if you
have a drink with ice cubes in it, when the ice cubes melt,
the level does not go up because it's already in the
water, itself.
But Greenland and A are on top of the land mass.
When you look at the A this time series goes from 1979
to 2015.
And it shows i the artic ice is at its minimum
every year from 1979 to 2015.
And if you can un-focus your eyes,
you see that it's getting smaller.
And when you look at t graphic on artic sea ice,
the aerial extends, again.
It's declining quite rapidly.
They have lost 13.
3 percent per decade.
And really, I think t way as to look what this.
You look at the aerial e of the image and it's telling.
But then when you a at the actual
data -- and the problem when you lose artic sea ice is
there's feedback groups that happens.
As the sun hits the artic in past years let's say back in
the 18th century a good amount of that energy was reflected
back in space and not observed into the ocean's atmosphere.
When you shrink that sea ice area,
more of the sun's energy goes into the ocean.
This is observed by that dark ocean water and that heat melts
more of the artic, same ice which then causes more energy
going into the oceans.
>> And these feedback groups, they think when we reach 2
degrees centigrade, we'll have run away climate change because
these feedback groups will be going at such a rate.
Another example of that, there are the permafrost layers in
Siberia and up in Alaska.
When those melt, it release Methane.
The more Methane you have, the greater warming which melts
more of the permafrost and then,
you have more warming and feedback.
And they have these things going on as we speak right now.
When you look at glaciers and there is something I didn't put
up too much.
These are locations that N has measured and the glaciers
in those locations in the Rocky Mountains,
the Andies, places in Africa, the Elks and the Himalayas
basically they lost 400 billion tons of ice per year since
1994.
Glaciers are melting at a very rapid rate.
And when I would do t to a group of people that were
climate deniers, I say, the thing was,
all you had to do was read the planet.
Look at the planet.
You receive glaciers retreat, bugs are changing.
We got out h beetle forest where massive
amounts of pine dead because of the bugs.
The beetles used to be k off in the late fall before the
snow got there.
We would get down to 40, 50 below some nights in the high
mountain areas and it would kill the bugs.
Now, we don't see those low temperatures getting that cold.
And as a result, the bugs are flourishing and they are
killing the forest and all you have to do is drive through
Summit County, Colorado where asteria and you see the force
of brown dead trees and it is quite depressing.
These are the t would point out to people.
In addition to saying y should really look into the
support, look at the planet, look at the earth.
This is what w now.
When you look at Greenland, the glaciers on Greenland,
they are losing 287 billion metric tons of ice per year.
And there is nothing on this.
also, Iceland on the other side of the glaciers there,
there is just another example.
I found the pictures and the data and the research that's
being done on Greenland to be shocking too because when that
ice comes off, raise sea levels quite large
and we're seeing right now.
So when you look at all the sea levels,
the ocean mass and the changes,
when you look levels,
the ocean mass and the steric height.
The steric height and the term that's used for the expansion
of
the molecules, water molecules due to heating and the amount
of salt in the ocean.
When you look at that, that's causing it to go up.
8-millimeters per year.
The ocean mass itself is g up 1.
8 million per year global sea level is 3.
4-millimeters per year.
And then, when you look at the Greenland ice mass change,
you see the decline of what we just looked at.
And this is really problematic.
Not so much itself.
And with climate c are so many -- associate
behaviors that we will time goes on.
The higher t you throw in that you have a
warmer sea surface as a warmer ocean,
you have an atmosphere that's warmer than it can have more
energy.
The storms are going to be more intense which causes more surge
onto the coastal areas.
And these are phenomenally expensive for our economy.
We're going to see more of these events as we go.
We're just t oceans right now or just
talking about some mass changes.
Not even getting to some of the other topics.
We will talk here.
And we will talk about t right now.
When you talk a increase in intense weather,
the heavy downpours are increasing.
And I do my work a this for 27 years in Utah.
I grew up in Chicago.
I went to school in Minnesota and Montana and ski patrol in
Colorado.
But when I moved to U was a brand new place.
I had to really learn all about hydrology and how it went.
And over time what I noticed is that we're seeing 100 year
event
on a much more frequent basis.
And a 100 year event is basically a one percent of that
event occurring on any given day or any given episode.
And I'm seeing much more of that being the flash flood
person for the Service on an anecdotal basis.
We just had a f year,
one year ago in September that killed 21 people.
And it was three d groups.
One was a g children that Pa ripping mist
community on the Arizona and Utah.
That same thunderstorm complex moved north into Zion National
Park and killed seven people.
And then, that evening, a long driver tried to drive through,
lost 21 people one thunderstorm complex is incredible for us.
And it's the biggest loss of life per one weather event on
the Conus.
And every year, we h one,
maybe two people floods because it's pretty
scary.
But we're seeing m downpours increasing and it's
concerning getting more people into Utah
in the desert our thunderstorms are
increasing and the people come to visit here are not
aware of hydrology or how you can be in a slot cannon and
this will go off within minutes.
And it's incredibly dangerous.
And this concerns me a deal as a hydrologist here in
Utah for the National Service.
And we're mandated to warn for these events.
And our atmosphere is c and our precipitation rates are
changing.
And when y observed U.S.
tr precipitation,
the scientist actually tied to the science who did this
research.
And what they looked at, they looked the at a two day precipe
total.
That was a one in five y event.
And they summed all t throughout the country and it
was a big undertaking.
And what they found was right about 1960's,
we started getting in the relative number of
extreme events.
And that continues to go up and this goes to 2000.
They looked at 2000 and 2012.
We're now in 2 number is even greater.
And the idea behind t have an air mass that's warmer
that can hold more can hold more moisture.
And as a result, you g downpours that are much larger
than what the occur, can handle.
And when you think of y stream channels,
the next time you walk by a river or small stream,
look at it for a yourself,
how did this get here.
And these channels are formed by routinely seeing over
thousands of years.
What happens now that the storms are heating these
channels and much greater than what we've
seen in the past?
And we're going to see m river flooding or we're going
to see more aerial extent flooding and for us here in
Utah in the southern part, more flash floods,
more intense rainy these areas are not used to
seeing and cannot handle.
And they are really q dangerous.
When you look a change in every precipitation
by the last mass, you New England has
the greatest change at 71 percent increase in these
intense weather events, we see that and midwest,
I grew up in that area.
Down by us and Utah five percent in southwest
California.
And you see Hawaii with a decrease in the amount of
intense weather precipe event.
So the U.S.
has more intense events.
It's not unform a Conus.
What you see i New England and really for that
matter, the southeast.
They are getting way more intense weather in the form of
heavy precipitation than they have in the past.
When you look a acidification,
the oceans are 30 percent acidic than 1751.
And this is a p corral reef and the health of
the ocean.
They absorb about 33 percent of human relating to the
greenhouse gases.
They absorb about 50 p fossil fuel emissions and you
have to ask yourself, at point is this ability to absorb
all over these emissions to stop?
And if they don't and they keep up taking these greenhouse
gases, CO2, our oceans are more acidic and they changing in a
great deal.
And that's a big problem when it comes to corral reef and the
health of our oceans and what we think of what type of life
is there, what are we doing with our oceans.
It's frightening.
My end of this, really I don't have a lot of knowledge.
This is not my realm.
I'm kind of land locked here.
when I talked to some of NOAA scientists that do oceans,
they see corral reefs that are just
devastated by this and they are doing research to see what's
going on with the health of the oceans.
Something a little more c to home for me and when I talk
to Utah people, this is talk about,
a snow packed climate.
When you think of our sn pack,
this was the study done by the National Science
Foundation.
CS employs a model that is run by Anne Car which is the
National Center Research and the National
Science Foundation.
And he put a graphic display starting from the mid-1800's
showing snow pack in the depth of the snow pack.
It is a course.
It was done maybe in t 2000's era.
But it's a good illustration of is it snow pack shrinking over
time.
And when you think about where we are in 2016,
now we're into this is model snow pack.
And now we're at 20 2070, 2080, 2090,
and by the 21st Century.
And when you think we're at 2016, 84 years from now,
the snow line roughly half way up Canada.
We won't have snow i Mountains and Rorschach
Mountains for the the area.
It will be in smaller areas and essentially,
we will have hydraulics.
When y precipitation changes,
this is another NASA Space Flight and this is a
precipe in the low emissions.
So green is above, ground is below and we see kind of a
little change.
And then, when y high emissions,
this is the annual, precipe.
I remember the colors were a little muted there on the low
emissions meaning we could still change what we do.
Right now if w rain fossil fuel and get their
act together, emissions that we saw earlier.
But unfortunately, what you see is a great drying of the desert
southwest.
You see an increase in precipe across most northern U.S.
Mostly south gets drier.
Most of the north gets wetter.
But, w mountainous areas where they
get water supply and the west, it's a wonderful system.
It snows.
It stays in the mountains and it stays clean.
When you need it, it gets warm.
It melts.
It comes down channels that are formed over thousands of years.
And we built reservoirs right at the end of those channels
and then we dole out the water.
What happens when it rains all winter?
And what we also found i these storms are becoming more
tense and less frequent.
I'll show you a graph on that.
>> How are we going to get water supply?
We have more people all t time.
California, Montana, Washington, Oregon,
all of these snow melt, run off.
That's how he get water.
That's how the Colorado is formed.
All the l major rivers a run off.
What if it quits raining in the wintertime and we don't see
snow?
That's forecasted to be the case about 2100.
It's not going to be pretty.
There's going to be a l pain involved with this.
When you look at the precipitation,
we will go season emissions high emissions
scenario.
So in the
fall months, you want a lot of moisture,
as much as possible to for the winter,
especially in a spin run-off scenario.
And if things don't l too bad,
Florida actually gets quite wet.
Parts of Florida, Arizona, Mexico, they get wet.
And then when you g north,
it is where you see the drying is in the middle of the
country.
North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma,
parts of Texas, these really quite dry.
And then you look on the west coast and in California.
And any type o hydrology you want,
the fall months to be as wet as possible to have as much rain
as you can to make that sponge that the snow is going to rely
on as saturated as possible.
If it's r melts in the spring,
it just infiltrates into dry soil and melts and you get
a lot of loss through evaporation, transformation.
You can lose up to 50 percent of your snow pack just to
infiltration and to sound moisture, evaporation,
transaction formation.
It just goes away and that's a problem.
When we look at the wintertime and this is again,
emissions scenario, what we see is that most of the U.S.
is wetter months.
And that's expected to occur.
That's a good thing if you're looking for water.
If you're down by Mexico, they dry out a lot and that's a
problem for the Mexico and if I could make this
graph go even further Central America is also really
quite dry.
Uniform, you k two thirds of the U.S.
will be a lot wetter in
the winter.
And then, the parts o bottom, Texas,
southern U.S., and parts of Arizona,
they are going to be much drier.
When you look at the spring, though and this is telling,
remember we talked about spring?
You want a cool wet spring.
You want less evaporation, less infiltration into soil Where
you see California, you see Arizona, New Mexico,
California, Utah, need cold wet springs to get a
very efficient run-off.
When you have cold wet s the snow last a lot longer and
then, you get into months early June,
you flip the switch, turn the sun on, bring the heat out,
melt where it works really well.
You get almost for one to one yield if you can do this
properly.
If you start melting early, plants dome back to life
evaporation moisture starts drying out the
snow line from further and further away.
South aspects dry o get a lot more evaporation.
It's a very dry environment.
That's what we're e the precipe in the spring,
we talked about due to those poor inefficient
conditions and we're headed for which is
unfortunate.
When you look at summer, this is a very different pattern.
What we see d months,
most of the country is going to be drier during the summer,
especially the Pacific Northwest and parts of the
interior of the little sliver down by Mexico
and that's because the Monsoon kicks up from the Pacific.
But essentially, the U.S.
is going
to be much drier.
Maybe in the c the East Coast,
they will be normal to a little dry.
But the Pacific Northwest i expected to be quite dry during
the summer months.
And when you think summer's going to be hotter as we
continue to get going to have a lot more
evaporation throughout seasons.
So when you think o have a lot more precipe during
the winter, it's warmer and fall as rain.
The atmosphere will be warmer.
We're going to have a l evaporation.
Plants that were dormant in a very cold environment are going
to come back to life.
Vegetation is going to change.
Overall, the w going to be less than we
anticipate on being drier.
So when you look at the s moisture,
sun motion sure is indicator of where you are with
precipitation and a reminder done taunt wait.
But I thought I would s this.
So high emissions scenario, this is what the drier weather
is aqua color.
This is high emissions scenario.
Look at how more drier we're going to be in the high
emissions scenario.
So if you can kind of keep that in your head.
Now, what we will do is look at the low emissions scenario.
Now the low emissions scenario is going to be painful to say
the least, but it's not nearly as bad as what we could have.
The thing to consider is that C02 stays in the atmosphere for
a thousand years.
Susan Soloman, the head of NOAA Sciences,
she did this research that it stays in the
atmosphere for a thousand years.
Now, when we go side by side, we'll look at these two.
High emissions versus low emissions and we will let this
run out to 2030, 2040, 2050, 2060, 2070, 2080, 2090.
Fine.
You see the difference.
So what we do now a unfortunate that in the last 30
years, we have not this in a t more productive
fashion.
We even had t the 80's.
What we did was we politicize it.
The people who did the s were attacked.
It's very similar to the tobacco industry when they
tried to deny gives you cancer.
They attacked the people doing the research,
the medical community that said it was going to give you
cancer.
This is what we have seen with this climate scientists that do
their work.
Like I said earlier, 9 percent that published in an
accredited journal, it's happening and we're causing it.
There really was not much of a discussion even back in the
70's when computer power was really light.
They still found it was warming.
So, we've kind of b 30 years.
Now we're on our way and when I give this talk to people who
still don't believe it, I always say you owe it to your
children and your grandchildren to look into this so we can
turn this around emissions scenario to a low
emissions scenario.
We're not doing that right.
They are trying, but we tend to keep messing around with this
which is highly unfortunate.
When you look at our weather patterns,
let me give you an low pressure.
Low
pressure is associated with a lot of storms,
wintertime storms.
summertime.
Low pressure is what you want.
So if you can visualize this is the jet stream,
that green area blowing around.
Low pressure is counter clockwise.
So if you look up by A you see that counter clockwise
rotation, that's low pressure.
Storminess, cold, now is great.
If you look at the h pressure that's out by Hawaii,
that big rotating circle nice weather over there.
High pressure equates nice weather.
Low pressure is stronger.
We want stormy w winter for skiing industry,
throughout the west, coast for water supply for all
of these things.
You want that high pressure to be gone or you want it out of
the Pacific so the doors open so low pressure can come into
the west and you get a lot of snow.
It kind of wiggles around down by southern U.S.
and then going up the midwest.
Low pressure is what you want.
Now, let's take a look at high pressure.
High pressure has b dominant weather feature in the
western U.S.
since the fall of 2011.
As a result, we are under a very difficult drought scenario
and if you can see where the jet stream goes,
low pressure is out illusions.
All sorts of good energy, good storminess is coming but then
hits that high pressure.
The weather gets s into Canada,
drops down into the midwest and then goes up the East Coast.
So when this was taken, it was back a couple of years.
The East Coast
was doing really quite well.
This is the year that Boston had record snows.
The term polar vortex was used frequently in the midwest.
And it's because the air mass was going up to Alaska,
up into pulling all of that cold air
and then dropping the mid-west.
People would say, it's freezing out.
How do we have climate change?
How do we have global warming?
If you lived in the W part of the U.S., you saw sunny
days.
This is also a air trapped between the
mountains where the cities lie and it's an
aversion.
An aversion tracks p and it's very,
is a bad for your health.
And yet, we see this: Weather pattern on a regular basis.
And this high p pulled out of goes all the way
down into the equator and up to Alaska.
It's monstrous.
Stanford University i this and may be even term it
the ridiculously ridge.
We're trying t so big,
so anonymous and it doesn't move off the western U.S.
As a result, California's mired in a horrific drop.
West is doing poorly.
If you look at C great Salt Lake is that one
little feature kind of and if you go a little east
from there, Colorado had benefits and so they are doing
a little better.
But if y western U.S., you're in this
tough drought and the midwest and the East Coast
has all sorts of salt.
Yet, last year if I r right,
the east East weather.
They
had the lack of I mean any cold storms and it was quite dry.
It was almost a flip flop of what he had before.
So out West, w this high pressure is not going
to be as dominant as it has been or troy Gays out over the
Pacific and if opens the door for more low
pressure and a lot more coming into the yes stern U.S.
California needs it very bad.
So here's an example.
Here's where I live.
There is where I'm calling you from.
Let me go out over the I will laws.
Now, the air mass over the high lush an island in the Pacific
is really cold.
It's really moist a all sorts of cold air that
forms these cold fronts are counter clockwise and low
pressure.
Goes across the c down a lot of precipe and then,
goes into Utah get a bit of enhancement from
the great Salt Lake effect.
It's nothing like w along and then,
what happens is the air mass hits these mountain areas and
if you're not familiar with Utah,
cot have some of the best powder skiing in the world.
And this a mountains are oriented
perfectly.
So the air m the mountains.
The air mass cools, t moisture confidences and it
drops roughly on average percent density snow which is
really great do.
Sky through.
You don't ski, come out here before it's all gone.
But it's o things.
It is a g attraction.
People come out here from all across the world to ski in
these areas and this is going to go away because this snow
pack is
slowly evolving from a snow hydrology in the cold months,
December, January, February.
It slowly evolved into a rain driven hydrology.
We're seeing more rain.
We're seeing less storms.
The storms that do o this location are less frequent
but they are more tense.
When they hit on this a they are violent.
They are big, they are scary.
And then, they go away under high pressure for elongated
periods of time.
That's been our w past five years.
Hopefully we will not see this but we don't know.
It's changing our weather worldwide.
I think that's the difference on what we're seeing.
It's a change from what you typically get.
We're not used to this and i going to cause us all sorts of
grief until roughly, down the road,
we just will have such a hard time and have it in the planet
if we just keep warming at the rate we're going.
But if you look at these s when you talk about change,
31 % reduction in snow producing storms.
And this is j most of you are on the East
Coast that are this or I really don't know,
I think it's kind o giving this talk so far away.
But your area is b as our area is here by the
difference in all of energy bound,
these weather patterns.
And it's a problem.
And I think what my p that we're in for an uncertain
future.
It's going to be warmer.
We know that.
And here in Utah, there's two scenarios.
In Salt Lake City, w to warm 7-degrees if
we get our act together in the emissions scenario.
We're going t by 2100 and then,
it's off to the races that.
And when you think, w set records of 21 straight days
of 95-degrees this think of 107-degrees here.
People are not used to that.
We broke 17 heat records a continually break heat records
all throughout the really, the world.
But yet, the scientists that have been on this.
But it seems t get going on this was kind of
mired.
Most people that I know, my friends that are educated
people, engineers and you know, marketing people,
whatever they they still have that yeah,
but is it really true?
You think it is?
Is it something else?
If I can do a guys,
don't hesitate and Bruce is a little concerned that I'm
putting my into the world.
But I do this on every talk I get.
I asked some people if t want to get more information,
if they want to discussion on this,
there's my email and that's my Government email to the
national Weather Service.
There's my cell phone.
I keep this with me a time.
And really, the p have called me are concerned
people or they are professionals that need more
information.
That's as far as m presentation goes.
I thoroughly enjoyed the evening tonight and I hope you
did and beneficial for you.
And maybe you picked up a f facts here and there.
But what I do encourage you is to
learn more about this.
It 's not very difficult.
Learn more a to happen.
We need this change.
You just need to look at your kids and your grandkids and let
them know where this is going, what did you do to stop it?
That's my thinking when I did this talk in front of hostile
crowds which are becoming less and less.
But I used to have politicians yelling at me standing up and I
would say, let's talk about this.
What part of the science d want to talk about?
And in every case, it was bad science on that end.
It's an emotion issue, so learn more.
I hope this helped you a can do anything else,
give me a call.
And thanks for the evening.
>> BRUCE: Brian, thanks a lot.
A really great, great presentation.
I have a couple of questions.
By the way.
By the way, for those of you who would like to ask Brian a
question now, if you type it into your question panel on
your control panel on the right-hand side of your screen,
I'll be glad to convey that to Brian.
For some time that we have.
One question that we have, if students and educators want to
start finding out about changes in their local weather or water
patterns, where would you suggest they start?
>> BRIAN: You know, the National Weather Service is a
place that has the up-to-date weather conditions.
But if you do a search on NOAA climate Tool,
the NOAA Climate Toolbox, will give you an indication
city by city of the expected increase up to 2, 100.
And I
got my information just by going into this NOAA Climate
Toolbox and looking at Salt Lake City and it gave the
projections for and for low emissions.
It's an awesome t can grasp and show people.
This is where we're headed.
Do you want to be 2 107 degrees or 110-degrees and
it's a powerful tool.
NASA also if you look at t talk I did,
almost a great is NASA science.
I work as a NOAA hydrologist but NASA does phenomenal
graphics that you can show and really show to your students or
your community.
That way they u because science can be somewhat
confusing.
And how we used to share science was by publishing.
And we're f general public does not read
that.
They can use this.
This presentation is a that was done on a Mac laptop
using almost all NASA data.
And NOAA data that I put together over time,
that makes me.
>> BRUCE: Well, thanks and I have some additional resources
that educators can use afterwards.
But, we also have s questions.
Terry is asking if you think that it's possible that the
amount of force of land in the northeast may have any kind of
mitigating effect on climate change?
He was actually s learn that there was a high
percentage of change precipitation in the northeast?
>> >> BRIAN: Yeah, when you look at the forest,
when you talk circumstances,
we saw on that first graph when
they t deforestation.
It really doesn't have much effect and for the forest in
the northeast, what the problem is going to be either far field
and insects that are going to say geometry and it's going to
change.
Also, when you talk a increase in temperature and the
different precipe parameters, vegetation is evolving as we
speak.
But I think the idea that one forested area can mitigate
this.
You have to think of that graphic with the red swirls
that were moving around the globe.
We're just putting out too much C0 2,
neutrocyte and Methane atmosphere to really have any
mitigating effects from forest or from a small scale
event.
We need to stop putting out greenhouse gases at the rate
we're doing.
And then, we need t how to get the levels back to
about 250 parts per million.
Because it stays i atmosphere,
this is C02 years.
And, unfortunately, the small scale things that maybe if we
plant more trees, I think it has a little bit better help
and we saw the photosynthetic process.
That was great during the summer.
One needs more vegetation.
But if we keep c greenhouse gases,
the small mitigating effects won't help us in the long run
BRUCE: Thanks Brian.
So you know, we do have like one interesting question which
is, one educator is interested to be able to back up this
information sort of correctly and would do you have -- would
you be able to sort of the
references to where you gotten some of this information as
well?
>> BRIAN: Absolutely.
Sure.
BRUCE: And I'll distribut these to folks.
I tell you what.
I'll leave this line up s people want to ask some more
questions, they can but now,
what I would like to have a few and I'll leave your
line open Brian as have a few other resources for
folks I'd like to share.
First of all, you know, a of information that was here,
you can find in the Climate Assessment,
the Water Resources.
There is information on changes in precipitation patterns and
reduced snow patterns that affect both the quality and
quantity of water available to Americans.
And there is a lot o easily readable text and data
images.
And as well as the N Climate Assessment of Teaching
Resources, or learning to uncover concepts to
authentic data, key messages for each region of the United
States and as you presented along with guiding questions
for classrooms well as links to more resources
and data images.
On climate.gov, there i something called the Water
Resources Dashboard.
This is a g site for data and information
on drought and precipitation,
climate and other water-relayed risks and about opportunities.
And as well, you know, we got you know,
we got that NOAA archive from about a year,
a year and a half ago.
This was on the Western W Resources climate and science.
And Kevin Warner,
NOAA's western regional climate services director,
he actually water resources environment in
the western United States and the impacts that climate change
is having on described his own experience
working with decision the water resources sector of
using forecast and NOAA.
And then, we also g climate impact on water
resources, an excellent guide.
And two terrific r NASA, Water,
Water Everywhere which is a short NASA video on the water
cycle and the importance of the water cycle nearly every
natural process on earth.
So I definitely climate kids fresh waters is terrific.
And you know, I knowledge also want to let people know,
I think that a been on the election,
that's great and it's summer important but the for
those of you that want to away right and focus on climate
and maybe while you're tonight,
some of you may conference of parties the 20
second conference focusing on climate change is
actually going on this measure her mere cash.
What we have here is actually a link to the website which is on
CO22.
M A and it's in french but you use google translate tot
beautifully into English for you.
So just be aware and also, if you want to see what's going on
a ongoing basis, I have also included for those of you who
are really into Twitter.
There is also here the link to Twitter.
The twister sort of f that.
And I wanted
to mention that there is an organization one of our partner
organizations, NOAA Climate Stewards a remarkable group on
climate generation.
And they a small delegation that's
actually going actually at cop 22 right now
and they are going to blogging over there.
So, really encourage folks to go and check that out.
And also, I w know,
please go and check your email.
You have received links to a post-webinar poll.
And I put the link here b it's also that e-mail so please
go to your email.
It will take you, I kid you not,
literally the two minutes or less to complete this post
webinar poll and I promise, I'll look at all of the
information out all the comments.
And I have this i again to save the date for the
next Climate on December 5th.
And the next b January 30th.
So please keep a note of that and we will be sending out a
link to the archive of this.
I also w again,
NOAA Climate Stewardship Community Application is now
open.
It's doing to be open until November 20th midnight.
Wherever you are in the country,
if you want to learn more, go do the NOAA Climate Steward's s
website.
All the information e programs,
applications are over there.
And let's take a look now and see if there are any other
questions for Brian.
Okay, so, there is a question Brian from Kala and she asks
currently, some areas in the northeast,
especially in New Hampshire are experiencing droughts.
Will an i downpours actually help?
>> >> BRIAN: You know, what I think you want and I'm not
familiar with how New Hampshire gets their precipe or water
supply.
My feeling is spring m off.
I mean, you have precipe.
Any time you have a limited amount of events but they are
more intense, that does not help out as much.
What you want are m at less intensity.
So if you're getting less events but more intent,
you see more bank full flows with this.
It's a little b problematic.
But, if you compare how much you're getting to the average,
it can be a little confusing.
But what you want is more water is better.
Even if it comes in t of divulges you,
you take it as opposed to less water.
It's just you have to l the averages.
We have a p had one day precipe event of
five inches which was roughly almost their annual rainfall
amount.
So when you looked at it, you think, we're doing great.
They are up to average.
One event and b wreck the place.
If you find that you're getting a precipe differently an
intense divulges it runs off and then,
you have less in between, that does not help your drought.
But if you have a lot of them, then your drought eventually
will go continually have a wetter cycle
even though it a wild time.
But, I'm not sure on New Hampshire's precipe and how you
guys get it.
But the key is get a spring snow melt run off as
possible with a cool wet spring.
That's really what's g help you guys.
And then, you want to keep the edge off during the summer by
having a lot of storms, a lot of water.
That's what you're looking for the combination of those two.
BRUCE: Thanks.
And you know I h of questions here which may be
in your area, I don't know but, how much -- do you know offhand
how much impact surfaces and urban heat islands
have on local climates?
>> BRIAN: Yes, I can address that pretty clear.
There was a theory going around by climate deniers that said
we're keeping records in urban areas that are
heat island, meaning the ground is heating up,
the walls are heating up.
And NOAA is what's called a cola network.
It's basically f rangers,
people that temperature and precipe in
their backyard for hundreds years.
They worked really well.
And so they looked at w these were located at and they
did a study on where they located and the heat islands
are actually affecting increasing the average,
temperatures.
And they found if a there was a cold bias that went
on.
But really, the s located throughout farm fields
and ranches that it.
If you live in a and you just want to experience
is it getting hotter because of this?
Absolutely.
The buildings will retain heat.
You have more b more heat.
So
all these surfaces absorb that heat and keep it longer than if
it was back 300 years ago which was just forest and that kind
of thing, definitely.
But as far a goes,
it really does not influence because we got a myriad of
stations.
And what was the second part of the question, Bruce?
>> BRUCE: Oh, just to what degree you know the impervious
surfaces as well heat islands have on local climates?
>> >> BRIAN: Okay.
So we're talk about precipe.
And it does h you don't have storm drains,
If you have storm does not really make a
difference because the engineers have channeled the
water to go underground by the flow of underground strength If
you don't have it, it's definitely a problem.
We see it i where people don't have storm
drains and the becoming more intense.
And we're seeing more f of local areas now develop.
Especially.
But I think they try and come up with a way to channel the
water out.
You don't have that and the way things are going,
there will be the future.
>> BRUCE: Thanks.
Well, listen, I again, really NOAA really appreciate you
having been here with us Brian.
We gotten some excellent comments and a lot of kudos for
you.
I will be sending those your way.
And anyone have any additional questions that they would like
to ask Brian before we sign off this evening,
please type them control panel.
I will make sure that they get to
Brian.
You know, as a final w this evening,
tomorrow's a big day.
General election.
Very important election.
Go out there and vote.
Let's all make sure we do o civic duty and vote.
One of our big abilities that we have as an American in this
democracy so make sure that you exercise that civic duty.
And with that, I thank everyone for coming this
evening and staying this evening.
If you're a Brian,
for myself and I'll leave it at that.
And while we sign off, p enjoy the evening.
Thanks everybody.