A new report projects that by the middle of this century there will be an average 56 percent drop in the amount of water stored in peak snowpack in the McKenzie River watershed¹（流域，分水岭） of the Oregon Cascade² Range -- and that similar impacts may be found on low-elevation maritime³ snow packs around the world. The findings by scientists at Oregon State University, which are based on a projected 3.6 degree Fahrenheit⁴ temperature increase, highlight the special risks facing many low-elevation, mountainous regions where snow often falls near the freezing point. In such areas, changing from snow to rain only requires a very modest rise in temperature.

 

As in Oregon, which depends on Cascade Range winter snowpack for much of the water in the populous⁵ Willamette Valley, there may be significant impacts on ecosystems⁶, agriculture, hydropower, industry, municipalities and recreation, especially in summer when water demands peak.

 

The latest study was one of the most precise of its type done on an entire watershed, and was just published in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, with support from the National Science Foundation. It makes it clear that new choices are coming for western Oregon and other regions like it.

 

"In Oregon we have a water-rich environment, but even here we will have to manage our water resources differently in the future," said Eric Sproles, who led this study as a doctoral student at OSU.

 

"In the Willamette River, for instance, between 60-80 percent of summer stream flow comes from seasonal⁷ snow above 4,000 feet," he said. "As more precipitation falls as rain, there will more chance of winter flooding as well as summer drought in the same season. More than 70 percent of Oregon's population lives in the Willamette Valley, with the economy and ecosystems depending heavily on this river."

 

Annual precipitation in the future may be either higher or lower, the OSU researchers said. They did calculations for precipitation changes that could range 10 percent in either direction, although change of that magnitude is not anticipated by most climate models.

 

The study made clear, so far as snowpack goes, that temperature is the driving force, far more than precipitation. Even the highest levels of anticipated precipitation had almost no impact on snow-water storage, they said.

 

"This is not an issue that will just affect Oregon," said Anne Nolin, a professor in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric⁸ Sciences, and co-author of the study. "You may see similar impacts almost anywhere around the world that has low-elevation snow in mountains, such as in Japan, New Zealand, Northern California, the Andes Mountains, a lot of Eastern Europe and the lower-elevation Alps."

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