Posted: Mon, 10 Oct 2011 09:46 AM - 14,036 Readers
By: Ari Phillips
photography by Oscar Ricardo Silva
This summer, the weather in Texas was anything but normal. According to the "Societal Impacts of Climate in Texas," produced by the office of the state climatologist, the state led the nation in hot-car deaths; the drought caused higher food prices; high temperatures caused railroad tracks in North Texas to warp; the heat triggered asthma and allergy symptoms; and the heat caused foundation problems for homeowners. The list goes on.
Underneath those wounds of the drought and heat lurks the potential for even more serious damage. The Texas AgriLife Extension at Texas A&M University estimated last month that the drought has cost Texas $5.2 billion in crops and livestock — exceeding the previous record of $4.1 billion during the 2006 drought. And late last month, the state climatologist warned that dry years could stretch on for nearly another full decade.
The climatologist's alert was just the latest signal that, rather than an exception, this summer's weather reflects a "new normal" that will have wide-ranging consequences.
In June, a few weeks after Gov. Rick Perry proposed a "Day of Prayer and Fasting" to ask God to end this historic drought, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration updated its 30-year "climate normals" to reflect what most of us had already figured out: It's getting hotter in Texas.
The climate normals — which weather forecasters use for their average highs and lows — are updated every 10 years. The latest figures are based on the years 1981 to 2010.
They now include the decade beginning with 2001, one of the hottest on record, and no longer include the 1970s, which had been unusually wet and cool.
According to the 1981-2010 normals released by the NOAA, temperatures across the United States are on average approximately 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the last normals — and 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 1970s — with every state in the country getting warmer.
Minor climate alterations of this magnitude can cause weather patterns to change and ecosystems to shift. Warmer Januaries in the Rocky Mountains lead to a loss in winter snowpack, which threatens water supplies throughout the West. Invasive pests favor climate change, and a greater quantity of bark beetles, combined with hot, dry conditions, has affected tree health and longevity in many areas of the country.
The agricultural sector and energy utilities often use climate normals as benchmarks to help make industry projections. If this summer is to become part of the new normal in Texas, these industries will have to seriously re-evaluate their long-term growth and sustainability plans.
"It means even more careful stewardship of our land and water resources, a need to reduce both water and energy consumption and a need to look at energy sources that don't use so much water," said Cyrus Reed, conservation director for the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. "It probably also means that water and energy prices will increase."
"Sadly, most of the modeling says we in the Southwest especially are going to move into more drier, hotter periods, and things like this summer could become part of our new normal," said Kris Wilson, a senior lecturer in the College of Communication at the University of Texas who worked as a weather anchor and researches media coverage of climate change.
"And that is a really scary prospect, especially for water use with a growing population."
John W. Nielsen-Gammon, state climatologist and Texas A&M professor of atmospheric sciences, said that the NOAA report didn't specifically say anything about Texas, at least in terms of climate change.
He, too, sees a new normal for the state.
"The new normals values themselves include a lot of things besides climate change, but the consistent measures we have of temperatures across Texas indicate rising temperatures over the past few decades," Nielsen-Gammon said.
"On the longer term, temperatures are projected to rise about a degree every 20 or 30 years in Texas, based on changes in greenhouse gas emissions mainly."
In the science community, there is a near-consensus that the climate is changing, and that it is human-caused.
"There are no atmospheric scientists in Texas that dispute the mainstream view of climate change," said Andrew Dessler, a Texas A&M professor of atmospheric sciences. "In fact, scientists at Texas A&M and the University of Texas have statements explicitly endorsing it."
Most debate over what's causing these changes misses the greater point.
"Let's stop arguing for the moment about what's causing it and just talk about how to adapt to it," said Forrest Wilder, a staff reporter for The Texas Observer who often writes about environmental issues."Even if this drought isn't caused by climate change, we still know that we've had worse droughts in the past. So we ought to prepare for that because there's likely to be worse droughts in the future, even if we didn't have this climate factor."
Climatologists have a term for this climate factor: loading the dice. Texas is much more likely to experience droughts because there's more heat in the system and temperatures are rising, said Wilson. He said that warming of the planet could be changing the way La Niña manifests itself, making its effect on Texas longer and stronger.
Texas has been through previous weather spells like this. "The drought still seems to be driven mainly by natural cycles," said Nielsen-Gammon. "We're in the middle of a period of pretty enhanced drought susceptibility. With La Niña likely to be in place this winter, we are probably in the middle of a multiyear drought at the moment."
La Niña refers to a cyclical weather pattern resulting in a cooling of ocean waters in the Eastern Pacific. In Texas, La Niña typically leads to drier and warmer conditions.
Neal Carmen, the Clean Air Program director at the Sierra Club, said the economic effects of this "new normal" would be serious: Urban areas will lack sufficient water, and both urban and rural development will be threatened.
Water and energy consumption are already at a premium as reservoirs deplete and air-conditioner use soars, with demand for both growing along with Texas's population.
"People who care about Texas, especially the natural environment — rivers, lakes, ecosystems, the coasts — ought to care because things are going to look very, very different," said Wilder. "On our coastlines, we're going to lose a lot of wetlands and portions of our barrier islands. If I was on the west end of Galveston, if nothing else I'd be worried about my property.
"The people running the state won't even acknowledge the problem," Wilder said. "I think it's a very dangerous game for them to play. There will be a price for them to pay for that."
Denying climate change may be costly in the long term, but hastily jumping to global warming conclusions can backfire politically.
"What happens is people use these events for their own benefit on either side," Wilson said.
"Last winter, we had a pretty harsh winter along the Atlantic coast. So politicians used the fact that there was a lot of snow to say, 'See, global warming isn't happening.' Well, actually, a lot of the models show that could exactly be one of the results."
Wilson said that short-term weather forecasting and long-term climate modeling are like "cousins." Weather forecasters — whom Wilson considers the most prominent, and only regular, science source for most Americans — can get caught up in the politics of climate change.
"A lot of weathercasters have found that even if they talk about the science as it's understood, there are people in the audience who are going to respond negatively and say that it's political," Wilson said. "This makes weathercasters hesitant to bring up the subject because TV is about ratings, and you don't want to alienate your audience."
Albert Ramon, a weather forecaster for KVUE-TV in Austin, said he'd leave the question of climate change to the climatology experts, which, as a meteorologist, he is not.
Regarding the abnormal — or possibly new normal — weather of this year, Ramon said that a tropical system is the only short-term way we are going to emerge from this drought. "Although tropical storms and hurricanes can produce a tremendous amount of damage, they also provide a great deal of rainfall," Ramon said.
