Today one hears about global warming, or climate change, from the entire media on a regular basis. But we often wonder how climate change will impact us where we live. In A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest, William deBuys (Enchantment and Exploitation: The Life and Hard Times of a New Mexico Mountain Range) offers a scary forecast of what the American Southwest might look like under climate change as temperatures rise and water dries up. According to deBuys, the Southwest is likely to bear the brunt of future global environmental change in the United States. In 2012 I met deBuys at a book-signing event for A Great Aridness in Flagstaff, Arizona. He was as sincere in person as the arguments he put forward in his book. What makes A Great Aridness intriguing is how deBuys shows that climate change is already changing the Southwest. Rising temperatures bring insects and fire. Three of the worst wildfires in the region occurred in the early 21st century. In 2000, after an exceptionally dry spring, the Cerro Grande Fire partly engulfed Los Alamos, New Mexico, leaving 43,000 acres charred. Two years later, in the Mogollon Plateau of central Arizona, the Rodeo-Chediski blaze burned 468,638 acres. And in 2011, the Wallow Fire, the largest fire in Arizona history, threatened Show Low and several communities before it was extinguished, burning 538,409 acres (841 square miles). These fires are more explosive due to the growth of fuel from underbrush accumulated by years of the U.S. Forest Service suppressing fire. Drought and bark beetles have taken their toll in the forests of Arizona and New Mexico; in 2003 die-offs in the two states totaled over twice the size of Delaware. Under warm conditions, beetles start their reproductive cycle earlier in the spring. As winters remain mild, beetles and other invasive insects continue to grow in number, destroy trees, and threaten species like the red squirrel and the Mexican spotted owl that depend on spruce trees for habitat. Temperatures are already rising across the Southwest. For example, in Phoenix, Arizona prior to 1945, overnight low temperatures at 90° Fahrenheit were unheard of. However, with the dramatic population rise in the Sunbelt after World War II, overnight lows have regularly reached 90°F as concrete (from rapid urban growth) absorbs heat. The drought in the early 2000s was hotter by 1-1.5° Celsius than the previous 1950s drought that struck the region. Climate computer models indicate at least a 4°C increase in temperatures over the course of the 21st century. Critics would argue that climate change predictions are hypothetical, that the Southwest has a long history of droughts before the Industrial Revolution began, and that current changes are regional in scale. True, a major drought in the late thirteenth century is believed to have driven the Anasazi (Ancestral Pueblan) civilization out. However, when global changes are added into the equation, the picture in the Southwest becomes frightening. Sea levels continue to rise at about 3.3 millimeters per year (nearly double the rate for the majority of the 20th century). In 2011, the same year A Great Aridness was published, California entered one of its worst droughts in history, bringing fires and water shortages. Indeed, climate change will put more strain on the already-stressed Colorado River, which 30 million people currently depend on for their needs. A Great Aridness is a wake-up call for action on climate change based on a study of the Southwest. William deBuys deftly puts the Southwest under a microscope using evidence that is hard to ignore. Every corner of the earth will be affected in some way by climate change. The American Southwest is no exception. DeBuys, Wiliam Eno, A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
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CategoriesAuthorTom Schmidt lives in Prescott Valley, AZ. Archives
October 2018
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October 2018
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