Posts tagged: climate change

Study Suggests Climate Change “Largely Irreversible”

January 27, 2009, by 18 comments

I’m not much for panic (stick me near a BWO hatch without my small fly box and you might develop a different impression), but when the NOAA’s senior scientist thinks 1000 years of climate change is now inevitable (how bad it gets depends on what we do right now), you start wondering about buying high-elevation property farther north:

A new scientific study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reaches a powerful conclusion about the climate change caused by future increases of carbon dioxide: to a large extent, there’s no going back.

The pioneering study, led by NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon, shows how changes in surface temperature, rainfall, and sea level are largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are completely stopped. The findings appear during the week of January 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Our study convinced us that current choices regarding carbon dioxide emissions will have legacies that will irreversibly change the planet,” said Solomon, who is based at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.

“It has long been known that some of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years,” Solomon said. “But the new study advances the understanding of how this affects the climate system.”

While the Underground isn’t all about gloom and doom, we do have to wonder what fly fishing’s going to look like in 50 years – will brownliners Singlebarbed.com and Roughfisher.com become the “old guy” tweed sites?

And if that’s true, could the end of civilization be far behind?

See you in the desert, Tom Chandler.

Does Climate Change Mean Kissing All Our Trout Good-Bye?

July 29, 2008, by 4 comments

A new report predicts the impacts of climate change on the Rocky Mountain West’s trout populations, and for trouty types, the news isn’t all that rosy:

If nothing is done to reduce human-produced greenhouse gas emissions—the primary culprit behind global warming—trout habitat throughout the Rocky Mountain region could be reduced by 50 percent or more by the end of the century.

The “Trout in Trouble” issue paper was written by the NRDC and Trout Unlimited’s Montana State Chapter, and is available in two different formats.

A four-page summary paper is available here (.pdf alert), and those wishing to read the full paper should point their browsers at this address (another .pdf document).

Impacts of global warming on trout in the interior westRather than speaking in generalities, the paper looks at the probable effects on eight different Western trout rivers, including Gila, Green River, Fraser River, the Bighorn, the Big Hole, and others.

Will we all be fishing tailwaters in a few decades? And are those even “climate change proof?” (hint: not really).

Even if you’re willing to wave good-bye to a large chunk of our trout populations, the economic impacts are clear:

In Colorado alone, sport fishing in 2002 had a total economic impact of more than $800 million and supported nearly 11,000 jobs.

Sadly, you don’t get a lot of attention from politicians until you start talking pocketbooks. In this case, somebody’s pocketbook is going to take a beating.

The good news? The West is rich in sustainable resources like wind, solar and geothermal, and could actually stem the tide of climate change by developing those resources.

See you in the reading room, Tom Chandler.

The Biggest Casualty of Global Warming? Beer.

April 9, 2008, by 9 comments

Beer

Would you still be driving your 2 mpg Hummer and crushing the environment under the weight of your enormous carbon footprint if you knew you were personally causing the extinction of beer?

We didn’t think so. From Grist:

Malting barley will likely be harder to grow in a warming world, especially in Australia, says climate scientist Jim Salinger. He warned at an Institute of Brewing and Distilling convention Tuesday that within the next 30 years, "either there will be pubs without beer or the cost of beer will go up."

This is either a Sobering Climate Change Fact or a brilliant marketing maneuver designed to bring rednecks, bubbas and college fraternities into the anti-climate change cause.

If this isn’t an apocalyptic vision of a post-warming world, then nothing is.

See you in the pub, Tom Chandler.