“The big message for me is the interconnectedness between all these systems”—including water, food, energy, ecosystems and human health— said Gregg Garfin during an interview with NM Political Report. “And if we try to look at those in isolation, we’re probably setting ourselves up for more problems,” he said.
Garfin is lead author of the chapter on the Southwest, and a professor in climate, natural resources and policy in the University of Arizona’s School of Natural Resources and the Environment.
Some of the key points from the chapter on the southwestern United States, which covers New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Colorado and Utah, include:
Temperatures have increased from 1901 to 2016. Higher temperatures “amplify” recent droughts, and contribute to “snow drought” when precipitation either doesn’t fall or falls as rain instead of snow. Continued warming will contribute to “aridification”—a potentially permanent change to an even drier environment than exists today. Depending upon the amount of greenhouse gases humans continue to emit, models forecast a number of different scenarios. Under the higher emissions scenario, for example, the mountains in California currently dominated by snow could receive only rain by 2050.
Human-caused climate change is contributing to water scarcity in the Southwest. Along with drought, demands from a growing population, deteriorating infrastructure and dropping groundwater levels, climate change is putting more stress on the Southwest’s already strapped water supplies.
The Southwest’s forests and other ecosystems are having a harder time providing wildlife habitat, clean water and jobs due to drought, wildfire and climate change. The cumulative area burned by wildfire increased between 1984 and 2015; that burned footprint is twice what it would have been without rising temperatures, which have contributed to other factors including past forest management practices. With continued greenhouse gas emissions, the Southwest will experience even more wildfires, which contribute to flooding and erosion. In addition, warming is shifting where certain plant and animal species can live.
The sea has already risen, and warmed. Between 1895 and 2016, the sea level rose nine inches at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Depending on emissions, by 2100 that change could range from 19 to 41 inches, and currently 200,000 Californians live within areas expected to be inundated. Warming in the Pacific Ocean also disrupts ecosystems that sickens or kills wildlife and harms commercial fisheries.
Southwestern tribes are at increased risk from drought, wildfire and changing ocean conditions. Because the U.S. government restricted some tribal nations in the region to the “driest portions of their traditional homelands,” the well-being of southwestern tribes is at increased risk from water scarcity, the loss of traditional foods, wildfire and changes in the ranges of plants and animals. Adaptation and mitigation measures are underway in many communities, but the authors note that “historical intergenerational trauma, extractive infrastructure, and socioeconomic and political pressures reduce their adaptive capacity to current and future climate change.”
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