Green Desert: Climate changes to disrupt Southwest

The National Climate Assessment Advisory Committee — a consortium of 13 federal agencies — released its third draft report on the impact of climate change on the U.S. As seems to be the rule with federal documents, it’s monstrously long, but fairly readable and the online table of contents is easy to navigate.

I went directly to the section on the Southwest to see what’s in store for the desert. It’s unsettling reading.

Snowpack and streamflow amounts are projected to decline, decreasing water supply for cities, agriculture and ecosystems.

The Southwest produces more than half the nation’s high-value specialty crops, which are irrigation-dependent and particularly vulnerable to extremes of moisture, cold and heat. Reduced yields from increased temperatures and increasing competition for scarce water supplies will displace jobs in some rural communities.

Increased warming, due to climate change, and drought have increased wildfires and impacts to people and ecosystems in the Southwest. Fire models project more wildfire and increased risks to communities across extensive areas.

Projected regional temperature increases, combined with the way cities amplify heat, will pose increased threats and costs to public health in Southwestern cities that are home to more than 90 percent of the region’s population. Disruptions to urban electricity and water supplies will exacerbate these health problems.

The not-so-subtle subtext here are the integral and finely balanced connections between food, water and energy — and the potentially dangerous disruptions that could occur as climate change drives more erratic and warmer weather.

Those connections are made more explicit in the report’s section on Water, Energy and Land Use:

“Energy, water and land systems interact in many ways. Energy projects — coal-fired power, biofuel, solar farms — require varying amounts of water and land; water projects — water supply, irrigation — require energy and land; and land activities — agriculture, forestry — depend upon energy and water. Increasing population and a growing economy intensify these interactions. Climate change impacts each of these sectors directly, and because of the many connections between them, sectoral responses are often intensified or offset.”

Original Article Here