This is the view from Taos Mountain, taken from up on the ski slopes. Being active, trying to Stay A Step Ahead While Aging (an article recommending physical workouts pushing yourself to the limit), is really fun at the moment because our region has way above average snow packs. We're having a La Nina winter and New Mexico has snowfall rates cresting at levels 160 percent of a normal year. Sunday we woke up to yet another morning of snow everywhere and off I went to ski some more in Santa Fe.
It was supposed to be hotter and drier but even with this snow, state still has water deficits due to droughts. The melt starts in April or the end of March. Figuring out weather patterns in Santa Fe is like playing "whack-a-mole" so who really knows with the stats? The data just isn't consistent or reliable.
However, this news isn't necessarily good nor is it natural variability in weather patterns. New research reports say that the persistent and dramatic decline in the snowpack of many mountains in the West is caused primarily by global warming. It could just be an aberration that benefits our new move from NYC to the Sangre de Cristo mountains and our desire to ski alot.
Using data collected over the past 50 years, scientists confirmed that the mountains are getting more rain and less snow, and the snowpack is breaking up faster and more rivers are running dry by summer. Our water issues are huge and will get bigger.
Like most others in the West, in Santa Fe we depend on the snowpack's springtime melt for power, irrigation and drinking water and the spring is warming sooner melting the snow and much of it evaporates with the quicker warming or melts too fast for the dams to contain it for regional use.
Researchers have found that since 1950, the water content of the snowpack as of April 1 each year has decreased in eight of the nine mountain regions studied by amounts as much as 10 percent in the Colorado Rockies. Greenhouse gases will likely mean less winter rainfall. Our area is likely to get less winter rainfall as a result of the buildup of greenhouse gases. Less rain and less snow is not good.
No wonder ski resorts are looking for year-round revenues, turning into spa retreats, in anticipation of global warming changes.
It has been a bit warmer than average and quite dry in Lubbock this winter. Last week we had blizzard conditions for about 2 hours, then the sun came out. Our city leaders are planning other sources for our water due to the sinking level of our primary water source- Lake Meredith by Amarillo.
Posted by: allison | February 06, 2008 at 02:53 PM
We have a little burg up at the Cascade foothills that has 12 feet of snow. They want to lynch Al Gore.
Posted by: GeneMaudlin | February 06, 2008 at 07:05 PM
I know, I need to face reality but this stuff really hurts. It truly does. But, I did read an article somewhere, maybe the WSJ, by a scientists (it was an letter to the editor) who said that global warming or not, this is just part of our planet's evolution... look at how the climate has changed since Jurasic age.
Posted by: susiej | February 06, 2008 at 08:56 PM
I agree with Susie. I live in the mountains and it used to be under water. We have a lake that used to be a desert nearby. I know for a fact that we have greenhouse gasses, but I also know for a fact that the worlds climate has changed on it own, for millions of years, without our interaction and it wasn't cars back then that changed it. We have mountains carved by glaciers, so the ice was everywhere and has been melting, everywhere, since the ice age. Ask a geologist .
Posted by: anthony | February 08, 2008 at 07:05 AM