By Gabrielle Roesch-McNally The Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) was just released on November 23, 2018. The Global Change Research Act of 1990 mandates that the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) provide a report to Congress and the President just about every four years. This report focuses on the human welfare, societal and environmental […]
By Laurie Houston The impact of climate change on cattle producers in the Northwest is not expected to be as extreme as other regions of the United States. According to a recent study led by Shannon Neibergs and published in Climatic Change, Northwest producers have a comparative advantage because droughts will be less severe in […]
By Georgine G. Yorgey What will climate change look like on Pacific Northwest rangelands, which cover a huge area of our region? It will undoubtedly have complex impacts on the physical environment, environmental stressors, socio-economic factors, and the animals, plants, and other rangeland organisms. Recently, I took a look at the literature to see what […]
By Sonia A. Hall Water is a precious resource in the Columbia River Basin, and climate change could lead to changes in factors that affect how to most efficiently allocate water to the many uses and values in the region, a challenge even now. This future is not bleak, however. A research team led by […]
By Gabrielle Roesch-McNally The National Integrated Drought Information Systems, via Drought.gov, working with a team of Northwest stakeholders, have just put together and released a new Drought Status Update that highlights current drought conditions that are affecting the Northwest. In particular, they hone in on a few regional impacts that include: Check out the details […]
By Gabrielle Roesch-McNally Multiple climate projections for the Pacific Northwest suggest that our region’s agriculture will be impacted as our climate continues to change. Are farmers preparing for these changes? And if not, why not? These are the questions I hoped to answer as part of my research. Working with the Northwest Climate Hub—where I […]
By Sonia A. Hall Turns out that understanding how changes in climate are affecting the demand for water for irrigation in the Columbia River Basin is really important for our overall understanding of how water use and management may need to change in the future. Check out this Washington State University newsletter article on a […]
By Sonia A. Hall The contrast between the arid west—rangelands, wheat, conifer forests, irrigated agriculture—and the Midwest’s Great Plains—corn, soybean, prairies—is well known. There is a somewhat abrupt line separating arid from humid, close to the 100th meridian. That line is now shifting, as climate change affects temperatures, precipitation, and wind patterns that control that […]
By Chris Schnepf Many countries enthusiastically plant trees that are not native to their shores. One of the best examples is New Zealand, which has extensive plantations of genetically improved Pinus radiata, a species native to northern California and known here as Monterey pine. If you noticed pine forests that humans, elves, and orcs scurried […]
by Sonia A. Hall Yes, more on snow… because there’s less snow. Read Nathan Gilles’s article in the Climate CIRCulator, that discusses research that found that mountains in the western United States have seen snowpack decreasing by an amount similar to the size of Lake Mead over the last 60 years.