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A group of Utah scientists on Tuesday backed up what more and more climate studies have been suggesting: Global warming already has started heating up our state and will produce droughts that are more severe and prolonged.
The eight scientists presented their draft of "Climate Change and Utah: The Scientific Consensus," a kind of Cliff's Notes on climate change in Utah, to Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s Blue Ribbon Advisory Council on Climate Change.
The advisory panel, which is in the final stages of drawing up a priority list for reducing Utah's contribution to climate change, is expected to rely on the Utah scientists' report to shore up the climate to-do list that goes to Huntsman later this month.
Jim Steenburgh, a University of Utah climate scientist who helped develop the report, emphasized there were no recommendations, just a review of scientific research already done that sheds light on how global warming is affecting Utah and might affect the state's climate landscape in the future.
"There are no statements anywhere in this report whether anything is good or bad," he told the advisory committee.
Steenburgh was part of a panel that included climate scientists from the University of Utah, Brigham Young University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Another panel member was Rob Gillies, the state climatologist, who is based at Utah State University.
He noted that the report is the first of its kind for Utah, although many other states have done them or are developing similar assessments now. He also noted that the studies were conclusive enough that the eight scientists who made up Utah's panel had no trouble agreeing unanimously on the report's conclusions.
Steenburgh added, though, that there was no effort to sway the policymakers who had requested their work.
"We're here simply to talk about climate science and what it may bring," he said.
While Huntsman created the climate change task force nearly a year ago, and the Republican governor has vaulted forward with state and regional initiatives to address global warming, Utah's GOP-led Legislature has been less receptive.
But Sen. Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights, said he was impressed by the panel's balance and its unanimous conclusions. The science panel's findings - on snow, agriculture land use, for example - have "huge implications" for all Utahns, he added.
"It ought to be considered objectively as part of our policy-making," he said of the report. "It should go into the debate."
Tim Wagner, an energy specialist with the Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club, said the report backs up the governor's efforts and the advisory committee's work.
"The science report clearly justifies what the BRAC has been doing," he said.
The 24-member advisory panel is made up of people from environmental groups, government, industry and energy companies. In two weeks, members will finalize their priority list and send it to Huntsman as an action plan by the end of August.
Dianne Nielson, Huntsman's energy policy adviser, called the science report "objective and informative." She pointed out that it will help Utah see the impacts of a global trend in its own backyard and help Utahns see they have a role in dealing with a worldwide problem.
"It's important we understand what the impacts and benefits are for Utah," she said. "It provides some context."
Randy Parker, chief executive officer for the Utah Farm Bureau Federation, praised the science panel for its "impeccable credentials" and its "well-done" product, but he also warned fellow advisory committee members to proceed cautiously.
A self-described global warming "skeptic," he distributed a new paper Tuesday from the Wharton Business School that attacks the forecasting underlying climate research. While he sees the current warming trend as part of natural cycles, he also has played an active role in shaping the advisory committee's recommendations to the governor.
Parker said the panel's work has some positive effects - such as improving the nation's energy security - and the interests of ranchers need to be addressed when the panel makes suggestions on such issues as a carbon tax, which would boost irrigation costs.
"We need to be at the table," he said.
Key findings contained in the draft report
The eight-scientist panel that looked at climate trends in Utah summarized its findings:
* Warming is real and there is "very high confidence" human activities are to blame.
* Utah can expect to warm faster than other parts of the world, resulting in fewer frost days, longer growing seasons and more heat waves.
* If the trend continues, there will be a decline in the state's snowpack and a threat of severe and prolonged droughts.
* Utah's high elevation may be the reason why an 80-year analysis of snowpack showed no evidence of a clear, long-term trend; snowpacks have declined in lower-elevation areas, such as the Pacific Northwest and California.
* Any reductions in greenhouse gas emissions probably won't show up for decades.
* Based on trends, global surface warming will increase by nearly 7 degrees in the next century.
* If greenhouse gases are cut to levels seen in 2000, the temperature will increase about 1.1 degrees worldwide.
* If there is no change in greenhouse gas, Utah can expect its temperature to increase by the end of the century by about 8 degrees, making the average annual temperature in Park City (44 degrees) roughly the same as the average in Salt Lake City (52 degrees).
* Utah should expect less Colorado River water and, unless precipitation increases, lower lake levels and increased saltiness.
* As long as there is enough water and temperatures do not become too high for the plants, Utah's irrigated agricultural lands can be expected to produce more per acre, although forage will probably decline in nonirrigated fields.
* The state needs to know more about climate trends to prepare for future impacts of climate change.
Source: Science advisory panel's draft report of the Governor's Blue Ribbon Advisory Commission on Climate Change