Author Archives: Tara Zimmerman

CIRC’s Big Wood Project Reaches Completion

By John Stevenson

Reprinted from: The Climate CIRCulator

Map of the Big Wood Basin study area.

Map of the Big Wood Basin study area.

LYING ROUGHLY DEAD CENTER in the lower half of Idaho, the Big Wood River Basin is more than 3,000 square miles, an area larger than Delaware. As with much of the U.S. West, the Big Wood is facing potential water scarcities as warming temperatures lead to less snowpack, changing the Big Wood’s hydrology and potentially affecting everyone from ski resort owners to farmers growing alfalfa and row crops.

To understand how climate change could impact life in the basin, my colleagues and I at CIRC, including Denise Lach, Co-Director of CIRC and Professor in Oregon State University’s School of Public Policy; John Bolte, CIRC researcher and Professor and Head of OSU’s Biological and Ecological Engineering Department; Allison Inouye, Bolte’s graduate student; and others tried out a somewhat new and largely untested methodology: for five years we engaged a stakeholder network in the co-production of science. Continue reading

Climate Change and Groundwater

By CIRCulator Editorial Staff

Reprinted from: The Climate CIRCulator

The Spokane River. (Photo: Nick Bramhall, some rights reserved.)

The Spokane River. (Photo: Nick Bramhall, some rights reserved.)

A GREAT DEAL of attention has been paid to how climate change will affect water availability as it relates to snowpack. But far less attention has been paid to how climate change could affect ground water recharge.

A recent paper in the Journal of Hydrology addresses the issue of ground water recharge and climate change. In the study, Thomas Meixner of the University of Arizona and colleagues examined the impact of climate change on groundwater recharge in eight basins across the western U.S., including the Northwest’s Columbia Plateau and Spokane Valley. Continue reading

Weathercatch: Warmest April since 1934

By Cynthia King

Reprinted from: WSU News AgWeatherNet

By Nic Loyd, WSU meteorologist, and Linda Weiford, WSU News

SPOKANE, Wash. – The last time the Inland Northwest saw such a warm April, Franklin D. Roosevelt was president and a gallon of gasoline cost 10 cents.

Now, with gas costing $2.20 a gallon and the term of the country’s first black president winding down, we just emerged from an April that was almost as balmy. It got so warm that on some days temperatures in eastern Washington were on par with southern California and even Miami.

On April 20, we broke an all-time record for that date when the mercury in Spokane surged to 85 degrees. It topped out at 80 degrees the day before and the day after. The thermometer read unusually high early in the month as well, with April 1 reaching 68 degrees and the 8th day hitting 78. Continue reading

Shortcomings in Modeling Precipitation

By CIRCulator Editorial Staff

Reprinted from: The Climate CIRCulator

Columbia River Gorge. (Photo: Peter Roome, some rights reserved.)

Columbia River Gorge. (Photo: Peter Roome, some rights reserved.)

MANY CLIMATE ADAPTATION plans are largely based on climate model projections of precipitation. However, many of these models are notorious for their inability to accurately simulate seasonal rainfall at the regional level. This is especially true for the Pacific Northwest where models consistently depict summers as being much wetter than observed when they simulate past climate. Continue reading

El Niño declining; cool sister may take its place

By Cynthia King

Reprinted from: WSU News AgWeatherNet

By Nic Loyd, WSU meteorologist, and Linda Weiford, WSU News

Thumbnail for 92700SPOKANE, Wash. – One of the strongest El Niños on record is waning. Now the big question is whether La Niña is on the way.

A temperature shift in the tropical Pacific Ocean, combined with climate model outlooks, suggest that she probably is.

In fact, if surface sea waters continue to cool, La Niña could emerge as early as this fall, say scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and an increasing number of international forecasters.

Why is this significant? Continue reading

Miniature heat wave coming our way

By Cynthia King

Reprinted from: WSU News AgWeatherNet

By Linda Weiford, WSU News

PULLMAN, Wash. – A rare, early-April warmup will bring Washington state its first dose of summer, with temperatures surging into the upper 70s and low 80s in the region east of the Cascade Range.

If you’re suffering from a vitamin D deficiency on the heels of winter, tomorrow and Friday are days you will want to get outdoors and soak up the sun. The state will experience a miniature heat wave, with temperatures expected to run up to 25 degrees above normal, said meteorologist Nic Loyd of Washington State University’s AgWeatherNet. Continue reading

Wettest Winter

By CIRCulator Editorial Staff

Reprinted from: The Climate CIRCulator

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Oregon State University Webcam Marys Peak Realtime Observatory.

THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST has been in an historic drought for years. Nonetheless, if you ask someone on the East Coast to picture our region, they’re bound to conjure up images of thick flannel, immaculately trimmed beards, artisanal coffee, and, yes, rain, lots and lots of rain. These are tired stereotypes, but it’s no secret that Pacific Northwest winters can be very, very wet. Continue reading

Vulnerability of 11 Tree Species to Climate Change

By CIRCulator Editorial Staff

Reprinted from: The Climate CIRCulator

Leaves of Quercus garryana or Garry Oak, also known as Oregon oak and Oregon white oak. (Photo: Brewbooks, some rights reserved.)

Leaves of Quercus garryana or Garry Oak, also known as Oregon oak and Oregon white oak. (Photo: Brewbooks, some rights reserved.)

TREE MORTALITY EVENTS spotlight forests’ vulnerability to climate change, but most studies of forest vulnerability tend to focus on one or two economically important tree species or groups of tree species. The vulnerabilities of other tree or non-tree species are often omitted, along with the interactions among species. With so little information, managers of multiple-use public forests have a problem. A recent article in Climatic Change helps address the problem. Continue reading

Stripper headers – a new, cool tool for adapting to a changing climate (w/ video)

By Georgine Yorgey

Adaptations can include new equipment to handle harvest differently, like the stripper header, mounted on this combine. Photo: H. Davis

Adaptations can include new equipment to handle harvest differently, like the stripper header, mounted on this combine. Photo: H. Davis

At this point, we have learned quite a bit about the likely implications of climate change for agriculture. A couple of good summaries of national implications and likely impacts in the Pacific Northwest are good places to start, if you want to get more detail.

Though significant questions remain, it’s clear that producers across our region will need to adapt to warmer and drier summers, warmer winters, and changes in when irrigation water is available. But what does that adaptation look like? Continue reading

Good News for Pikas?

By CIRCulator Editorial Staff

Reprinted from: The Climate CIRCulator

American Pika in Yosemite National Park. (Photo: Alice Cahill, some rights reserved.)

American Pika in Yosemite National Park. (Photo: Alice Cahill, some rights reserved.)

FOR YEARS, scientists have been trying to figure out why many populations of pika, those tiny, cute, furry animals found in rocky slopes in the American West’s Great Basin and surrounding areas, were moving upslope to higher, cooler elevations. Since the distant relatives of rabbits perish under higher temperatures, a warming climate seemed to be an obvious culprit. The conclusion: the animals were fleeing the rising temperatures. But it turns out the answer is not so simple. Continue reading