Drought already has reshaped the West, and hot, dry weather will continue to change life in the region, according to a new analysis of Western weather patterns.
“Global warming is underway in the West,” said Stephen Saunders, president of the year-old Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and lead author of the report released Wednesday.
“These disruptions threaten the quality of life we all enjoy,” Saunders said.
The report reviewed 110 years of government data collected in four Western river basins: the Columbia, the Colorado, the Missouri and the Rio Grande.
In each of those basins, Saunders said, temperatures have been significantly hotter than average in the last five years.
In the Colorado basin, including Denver, it’s recently been 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the average recorded in 1895-1990, according to the new report.
In 11 of the past 16 years, Colorado Basin snowfields have collected lower-than-average snowfall, the study found.
About 70 percent of water used in the West comes from snowpack, Saunders said.
Chips Berry, manager of the Denver Water Department, said he worries most that climate change will increase the variability of Western snowpack.
“All of us operate our lives on the supposition that the future will be pretty much like the past,” Berry said. “For water utilities, global warming has cast greater doubt on the validity of that statement.”
Denver Water and other utilities will need to have drought- type response plans on the shelf, ready to go in low-snow years, he said.
John Stencel, president of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, said climate change is already reshaping Western agriculture. The recent drought and warmer-than-average temperatures, he said, pushed many of the state’s ranchers and farmers into new livelihoods.
“The old-timers tell me that they don’t remember the weather patterns being as severe as they are today,” Stencel said.
The farmers group is pushing for increasing the capacity of the state’s reservoirs, building small reservoirs at higher altitude and increasing the use of renewable energy, Stencel said.
“A lot of people are speculating about what the impacts will be,” said Kim McNulty, director of Colorado’s tourism office. “But right now, we really don’t know.”
Staff writer Katy Human can be reached at 303-820-1910 or khuman@denverpost.com.
