WY Snowmelt Dates 1-2 Wks Earlier In 2000s Than '72-'99, Critical For What Ag There Is

Last edited Tue Apr 14, 2015, 10:31 AM - Edit history (1)

In 2014, I wrote about the Wyoming state Legislature actively moving to suppress real science education when it came to global warming. As I said,

Science itself has many laws, but it doesn’t give a damn about ours.

Those words still echo loudly when it comes to Wyoming. A new research paper has come out showing that snow melt in the northwest region of that state is occurring earlier all the time, exactly as you’d expect with warmer winters and spring. The scientists used satellite data to measure snow extent over time and found that snow is melting 16 ± 10 days earlier in the 2000s compared with 1972–1999.



This plot shows the amount of snow cover (vertical axis) over the day of year (horizontal). The red line is the average from 1972–1999, and the purple from 2000–2013. The purple line is lower, meaning that at the same time of year, there was less snow in the more recent measurements than there used to be. Snow is melting earlier.

EDIT

Some good news: Happily, the state Legislature in Wyoming managed to reach a compromise that should allow teaching good climate science in their public schools (hopefully). But there is still a provision for them to review specific educational standards, and there's still a passel of climate change deniers in office there. We'll have to see how this plays out. And not to shock you, but both U.S. senators from Wyoming are Republicans, and both deny the impact of global warming. Mike Enzi confuses climate with weather (he’s not alone in that sort of ridiculous bluster, of course), and John Barrasso has a long list of attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency and the science of climate change.

EDIT

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/04/13/climate_change_wyoming_experiencing_effects_now.html




EDIT

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/04/13/climate_change_wyoming_experiencing_effects_now.html