Study: Global warming would hit Utah hard

OGDEN — While Gov. Gary Herbert is putting together a conference on climate change to decide if humans have anything to do with it, the Nature Conservancy has issued a warning on what global warming will do to the humans in Utah if current trends do not change.

Average temperatures will rise just a bit over nine degrees in the next 90 years. Lakes will dry up faster, snowpack will be less, grasslands will die and huge chunks of the state’s economy all will be affected if the latest projections of the effect of climate change come to pass.

That puts Utah at number nine in the list of 10 states that will see the largest change.

Since he came to office, Herbert has expressed skepticism about climate change being caused by humans.

"For anybody to say that the debate is over is to not be out in the marketplace and see that the debate is raging," Herbert said in June. He said he wants to put together a conference to allow "legitimate" discussion of the issue.

Herbert’s predecessor, Gov. Jon Huntsman, put together a blue ribbon panel of Utah climate experts in 2007.

That panel, with representatives from Utah’s three major universities, said "there is no longer any scientific doubt" that climate change is occurring and said "there is a very high confidence that human-generated increases in greenhouse gas concentrations are responsible for most of the global warming observed during the last 50 years."

The Nature Conservancy’s study took much of the same data and, using a wide variety of existing computer models, projected what the continuing trends will do.

The Nature Conservancy is opening a research center on climate change in San Juan County. Dr. Barry Baker, the new director of the center, said the predicted changes would have broad effects not just on humans but on animal life of all sorts.

The study looked at climate models on all 50 states through the year 2100, measuring the impacts of climate change on the mean temperature of each month and then averaging them.

Utah’s would rise 9.4 degrees. The state with the largest change is Kansas, with 10.4 degrees. Hawaii changes the least, at 4.9 degrees.

The effect on animals is a large part of the conservancy’s concern, he said. As areas grow warmer and drier, the animals that live there either will have to move or be threatened by habitat changes.

He said the center will work with the state and federal governments to do "a statewide vulnerability assessment, which is actually going to get an idea of how future climate might affect a particular species."

"Some species are going to run out of habitat, others are going to move in," he said. "That’s really one of the things we want to look at in this new center."

Human beings can’t move their cities easily, so they’ll have to adapt in place.

Dan Bedford, a professor of geology at Weber State University, said the study by the Nature Conservancy reinforces what other studies he’s seen over the past several year have told him.

"As far as the West is concerned, there’s been research out there that the West is really going to get pretty toasty," Bedford said.

That includes his own research. Bedford recently published a study in "The Professional Geographer" titled "Changing properties of Snowpack in the Great Salt Lake Basin, Western United States, from a 26-year SNOTE: Record."

Bedford analyzed 26 years of snowfall records in the Wasatch Mountains. "The major finding is a shift toward an earlier date of peak snow water equivalent by around 15 days," the study says, with "less robust" findings of reduced amounts of water in the snow overall.

Combined with increased population, the study says, "this suggests increased chances of late-summer water shortages."

Bedford said all of the climate predictions are based on computer models, which he said have been criticized by economists.

For example, it’s hard to say what the economy of China will look like in 100 years, he said, and that will have a large effect on world climate change.

If trends do continue, he said, Wasatch Front residents will see smaller spring runoffs because the snow will melt sooner and evaporate faster in warmer temperatures.

"Which is one of the issues, of course, because the hotter it gets, the more air conditioning we need which means the more energy we produce," he said. Since electricity is mostly generated by burning coal, that means even more carbon dioxide adding to the global climate change.

Other climate scientists have been measuring similar changes in Utah and its surroundings because of climate change.

In April, at Utah State University’s annual spring runoff conference, David Pierce of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego said new studies have begun to quantify effects on the Colorado River Basin.

Drops of as little as 10 percent in the amount of water reaching the Colorado River mean cities such as St. George, Las Vegas and others face even greater shortages than they do now.

Baker said the Nature Conservancy Study lists a number of changes Utah residents can expect as temperatures rise:

• Damaging dust and water losses: Higher temperatures and prolonged drought will reduce plant cover and leave soils loose and more vulnerable to erosion.

• Water: Recent science generated in Utah shows that dust deposited on snow packs makes snow melt faster, causing earlier, faster runoffs which have in serious impacts on water supplies and quality.

• Soil fertility: Dust decreases soil fertility, as nutrients become attached to dust particles and are blown away.

• Air quality: Dust cuts visibility on highways and endangers travelers. Fine particles cause respiratory disease.

• Major industry impacts: Hundreds of thousands of jobs are directly linked to Utah’s natural resources. The state’s outdoor recreation industry contributes $5.8 billion annually to the economy, supports 65,000 jobs, generates nearly $300 million in tax revenues, and produces nearly $4 billion in retail sales and services, accounting for almost 5 percent of the gross state product.