Results of an updated climate study in the Western United States are alarming.
A 22-year “megadrought” in the region has been deemed the worst in 1,200 years, according to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The study calculates that 42 percent of the megadrought can be attributed to human-caused climate change.
“Climate change is changing the baseline conditions toward a drier … state in the West, and that means the worst-case scenario keeps getting worse,” said Park Williams, a climate hydrologist at UCLA and lead author of the report. “This is right in line with what people were thinking of in the 1900s as a worst-case scenario. But today I think we need to be even preparing for conditions in the future that are far worse than this.”
Williams studied soil-moisture levels and tree rings in California, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, most of Oregon and Idaho, much of New Mexico, western Colorado, northern Mexico, and the southwest corners of Montana and Texas. The study does not include Washington.
The research found a dramatic drying in 2021 as a result of continuing drought conditions. Last year was the second-driest in the past 12 centuries in the U.S. West, with only 2002 having less moisture in the soil.
Julie Cole, a climate scientist at the University of Michigan who was not involved with the research, points out that carbon emissions are causing temperatures to rise. “The air is basically more capable of pulling the water out of the soil, out of vegetation, out of crops, out of forests,” Cole told The New York Times. “And it makes for drought conditions to be much more extreme.”
The point is not to stoke fear or engender a debate about climate change. It is to drive action from political leaders and push for public recognition of the crisis.
Decades of evidence and the consensus of a vast majority of climate scientists point out the need for swift and decisive action. Arguments that climate is always changing or that scientists have a particular agenda or that we can’t afford vast climate initiatives should be rejected; they are inaccurate and merely distract from the issue at hand.
In Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee’s climate initiatives have achieved intermittent success in the Legislature throughout his decade in office. Last year, lawmakers passed the Climate Commitment Act, which will take effect next year and aims to reach carbon-emission limits codified in state law. The cap-and-trade law establishes gradually declining limits on emissions from the state’s largest polluters, requiring them to purchase credits for exceeding those limits. Lawmakers also passed a clean-fuels standard to reduce emissions from transportation fuels.
Those are regarded as among the most significant actions for reducing the impact of climate change, but work remains. Legislation under consideration this year includes items such as reducing emissions from landfills and updating efficiency standards for home appliances.
Action, however, is not limited to the Legislature. City and county governments, as well as public utilities and ports — which are governed by elected officials — also must quickly work to reduce carbon emissions.
As Inslee’s office explains, “The climate crisis presents an opportunity to create good-paying jobs while rapidly deploying clean energy and ensuring every American can breathe clean air and drink clean water.”
As yet another report has shown, we cannot afford to pass up that opportunity.
