Russ Steele
This in the Union this morning here.
Turning up the heat on climate change, 2 separate seminars set for Wednesday in Nevada City, By Laura Brown.
Dying trees, decreased snow pack and their economic consequences for Sierra Nevada communities will be discussed at two workshops on Wednesday.
Two organizations will host separate presentations in Nevada City to address climate change in the region. . . .
I posted this in the comments section of the article. Let's see if it stays. My comment are often removed without explanation, sorry for the information redundancy.
I agree the prudent thing would be to discuss how to accommodate climate change, however first we need to know the magnitude of the change and the direction. A recent study by LaDochy, etal, found that there has been little climate change in California, and most of it in the urban areas, not the Sierra. Here is the Abstract.
ABSTRACT: With mounting evidence that global warming is taking place, the cause of this warming has come under vigorous scrutiny. Recent studies have lead to a debate over what contributes the most to regional temperature changes. We investigated-air temperature patterns in California from 1950 to 2000. Statistical analyses were used to test the significance of temperature trends in California sub-regions in an attempt to clarify the spatial and temporal patterns of the occurrence and intensities of warming. Most regions showed a stronger increase in minimum temperatures than with mean and maximum temperatures. Areas of intensive urbanization showed the largest positive trends, while rural, non-agricultural regions showed the least warming. Strong correlations between temperatures and Pacific sea surface temperatures (SSTs) particularly Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) values, also account for temperature variability throughout the state. The analysis of 331 state weather stations associated a number of factors with temperature trends, including urbanization, population, Pacific oceanic conditions and elevation. Using climatic division mean temperature trends, the state had an average warming of 0.99°C(1.79°F) over the 1950–2000 period, or 0.20°C (0.36°F) decade–1. Southern California had the highest rates of warming, while the NE Interior Basins division experienced cooling. Large urban sites showed rates over twice those for the state, for the mean maximum temperatures, and over 5 times the state’s mean rate for the minimum temperatures. In comparison, irrigated cropland sites warmed about 0.13°C decade–annually, but near 0.40°C for summer and fall minima. Offshore Pacific SSTs warmed 0.09°C decade–1for the study period.
I am currently looking as some issues with the LaDochy study locally. Grass Valley shows no warming, in fact cooling from 1950 to 2000. In Nevada City, the Tmax has shown slight cooling, while the Tmin has shown a significant increase after the sensor was moved to the city water plant. I am investigating the reasons and will be taking some pictures today. I will be posting some graphics to show the trends on NC Media Watch later today. Just Google NC Media Watch.
I will add that the Pacific is in the process of turning to a cool PDO, meaning it will be come cooler in California over the next thirty years. See the influence of the PDO in the study. You can down load a full version here (2.1MB). Download c033p159.pdf
