California's Sierra Nevada Snowpack Just Hit a 500-Year Low
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Source: Weather.com
California's Sierra Nevada Snowpack Just Hit a 500-Year Low
By Annie Hauser
Published Sep 15 2015 12:38 PM EDT
weather.com
Thanks to higher temperatures and lower precipitation levels, the Sierra Nevada snowpack in Northern California has dipped to its lowest level in the past 500 years, a new study has found.
This is just the latest in a series of studies of the declining Western snowpack, which can fuel wildfires, limit drinking water and cause agricultural irrigation systems to run dry, all symptoms of a changing climate.
In the latest paper, researchers from the University of Arizona used previously published tree-ring data, which reflects annual winter precipitation from 1405 to 2005, as well as snowpack measures since the '30s. The findings indicate a loss “unprecedented” not just for the modern era, but for the past five centuries.
"Our study really points to the extreme character of the 2014-15 winter,” Valerie Trouet, an associate professor of dendrochronology at the UA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, said in a press release. “… We should be prepared for this type of snow drought to occur much more frequently because of rising temperatures.”
Read more: http://www.weather.com/science/environment/news/californias-sierra-nevada-snowpack-500-year-low
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