Climate Change Gets Up Close and Personal

Small-scale models are now being used around the world to predict in great detail how climate change will affect the basics of life.  It’s a process called “downscaling” — a rapidly emerging area of research.  Scientists begin with one or more of the dozens of global climate models and real-world data on weather and topography. They use complex computer simulations, statistical calculations or both to pinpoint their predictions to the realm of the particular.  The results help answer practical questions — such as how drought might spread across Africa, how bad Lyme disease could become in Maine as warmer winters let deer ticks march north, or how often the Columbia River will flood by the middle or end of this century.

Downscaled models can also bring into focus, in sometimes shockingly vivid detail, the consequences of releasing too much carbon dioxide.  In September NASA unveiled climate projections for the U.S. at an even closer range — a half-mile resolution — based on the newest global models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading international body of climate scientists.  Andrew Hansen at Montana State University is using NASA’s data to estimate what might happen to public lands, such as Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Glacier national parks in the northern Rockies.  In the scenarios in which greenhouse gas emissions remain high, insects and drought ravage large areas of forest, turning them into shrubs and grassland by about 2100, says Hansen.  Without the cover of trees, mountain snowpack dwindles, which starves the West’s water sources.  “It’s pretty dramatic. The northern Rockies are the water tower of the West,” he says.

A local environmental group called Climate Resolve, founded by former city water and power commissioner Jonathan Parfrey, has drawn on UCLA’s findings to help spur public discussions about greening Los Angeles and preparing for the impacts of climate change. Last year, Parfrey’s group helped push L.A. to become the first major city to adopt building codes that require “cool roofs,” which reflect sunlight and make houses less prone to overheating, on new and renovated homes.  Parfrey believes the downscaled models also offer tangible enough details to wake people up to what’s at stake.

“By getting down to the neighborhood level, we’re going to help people understand what climate change means for them, their home, their family,” he says.

Climate Change Gets Up Close and Personal