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Climate change

Impacts in the third dimension

Nature Geoscience volume 7, pages 166–167 (2014)Cite this article

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Despite reports of no trends in snow- and rainfall, rivers in the northwest USA have run lower and lower in recent decades. A closer look at high- and low-altitude precipitation suggests that observational networks have missed a decline in mountain rain and snow that can explain the discrepancy.

Mountain catchments are key sources for river water and water supply. In the western US, for example, they contribute as much as 75% of surface-water and groundwater supplies. High-altitude catchments play this crucial role as they tend to receive more precipitation than surrounding lowlands. And mountain precipitation often forms thick snowpacks, which hold water in deep freeze until the following warm season. As the weather warms, just in time to meet high water demand, melt water feeds the streams. When a long-term decline in streamflow trends was diagnosed in the Pacific Northwest1,2 in the late 2000s despite widespread reports that precipitation showed no corresponding trend3,4, the discrepancy was cause for concern. Writing in Science, Luce and colleagues5 suggest that a decline in high-mountain precipitation resulted from a climate-change-induced slow-down in the westerly winds that normally bring mountain rain and snow.

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Figure 1: Changing winds.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Michael Dettinger is at the US Geological Survey and Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California 92093-0224, USA,

    Michael Dettinger

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  1. Michael Dettinger
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Correspondence to Michael Dettinger.

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Dettinger, M. Impacts in the third dimension. Nature Geosci 7, 166–167 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2096

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