Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Sierra Nevada snowpack -- observing the impact of climate change

Fresno Bee: Amid the pines near Shaver Lake, the Sierra Nevada's first snowline observatory soon will take shape -- a $4.6 million outdoor laboratory that could play a major role in preparing California for climate change. The project by the University of California at Merced will provide clues about how the mountain range will change as Earth's warming climate shrinks the Sierra snowpack.

"We want to understand the processes that take place from the top of the vegetation all the way down through the ground water," said Roger Bales, lead researcher and member of the UC Merced Sierra Nevada Research Institute and School of Engineering. More than half of California's water comes from the Sierra snowpack, so climate change holds great interest here, especially among San Joaquin Valley farmers….

Scientists believe the amount of the state's precipitation won't change a lot for the Sierra in the future, but they do expect more of it to come as rain and less as snow. The new observatory will help answer a number of the basic questions related to that change….

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

oh cmon who making up this stuff