Elevated snow water equivalents due to global warming; more flooding for Bighorn River

Paul Huttner is right.

Here is more evidence that humans are accelerating global climate change. From NPR's environment god, Richard Harris:

This year is a notable exception — unusually heavy snowfall throughout the Rockies this winter has caused a lot of flooding and water-management headaches downstream. But taking the long view, the trend is toward less and less snow. Water managers have noticed in recent decades that the snowpack is, on average, getting thinner in the Rockies. In fact, the situation could lead to drought. That's true not only in the southwestern U.S., where water managers have already started to brace for the worst, but also farther north. Drought isn't always caused by a lack of rainfall. "Here in the western U.S., where we rely really heavily on snowmelt for summer water supply, anything that impacts the snowpack can also cause a drought," says Phil Mote, a climate scientist at Oregon State University. "And what this paper shows is the warming of the 20th century and beyond is already affecting and will profoundly affect the frequency of droughts in the West, simply by whittling away at the snowpack."

Arizona Public Media's KUAZ brings this story of the role of permaculture in rebuilding Haiti:

Kate Tirion loves to talk about soil. In her forties, when her daughter was grown, Tirion turned back to her love of the land, studying at UC Santa Cruz’s Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. She traveled throughout the southwest and Mexico studying permaculture design and techniques including green building and regenerative land development. Permaculture is a term that combines Permanent Agriculture and Permanent Culture.

From Wyoming Public Radio and the Casper Trib:

Two inches of rain over the past two days in northern Wyoming are causing a rapid rise in the Big Horn River in the vicinity of Basin. The National Weather Service says the river at Basin will cause some flooding in low-lying areas today before beginning to quickly recede. The river will get close to flood stage at Greybull. Many rivers and streams in Wyoming already are running high because of the melting mountain snowpack. The amount of water expected to reach river basins in the state from snowmelt will be close to 200 percent of average statewide. The latest report from the U.S. Agriculture Department's Natural Resources Conservation Service says the runoff will be as high as 387 percent of average in some places.

Basin, Wyoming, not Basin, Montana.

From MPR's blod of weather:




The ACLU's Blog of Rights' war on the War on Drugs.