Ten-Year CIRMOUNT/MtnClim
Anniversary
An Introspective History
Henry F. Diaz
CU/CIRES and NOAA/ESRL
1995:Climatic Change at High Elevation Sites
(September 11-16, 1995)
Bruno Messerli, University of Bern
Mountains of the World: Vulnerable Water Towers for the 21st Century. Bruno
Messerli, Daniel Viviroli and Rolf Weingartner, Ambio, Special Report
Number 13. The Royal Colloquium: Mountain Areas: A Global Resource
(Nov., 2004) (pp. 29-34).
Background organizing ideas connected to Bruno’s work
“The complexities of the high mountain environments, in terms of the
physical processes that are occurring today and have occurred in the past,
require…international collaborative efforts, including standardization of
objectives and methods, shared data banks, and identification of
minimum needs.”
“climate change can seriously affect water regimes in highlands as well as
lowlands, which can pose problems with the quality and quantity of
available freshwater resources for human consumption and agriculture,
leading to an increase in the potential vulnerability of mountain people”
The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the
year 2002 as the International Year of Mountains to
“increase international awareness of the global
importance of mountain ecosystems”
“… the great variety of climates and particular combinations of
ecosystems…have served as vast reserves of valuable
resources – such as water, energy and biological diversity – as
well as key centers of culture and recreation.”
“Today, however, the rapid pace of globalization, urbanization
and mass tourism are threatening mountain communities and
the resources they depend on. Worldwide, mountain areas face
increasing marginalization, economic decline and
environmental degradation.”
Wallace Stegner described the American West
as “Living Space”
Poet Thomas H. Ferrill evoked it as follows:
“Here is a land where life is written in water
The West is where the water was and is”
Special Places Deserve Special Attention
(There are 35 National Parks and National
Monuments in the West)
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian
Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade
Springs
A Land Where Life is Written in Water
Literature that defines the essence and ethos
of the western landscape
Natural & Aesthetic Resources
National Forest Lands
Special Places Deserve Special Attention
The American West is a region of high topographic
complexity
Contains Iconic Landscapes
Patrimonial Status
Bob Bailey defines 11 ecoregions in the American West
1. Temperate Steppe Division & a Mountain Subdivision
2. Tropical/Subtropical Desert Division & a Mountain
Subdivision
3. Tropical/Subtropical Steppe Division & a Mountain
Subdivision
4. Mediterranean Division & a Mountain Subdivision
5. Marine Division & a Mountain Subdivision
6. Temperate Desert Division
CIRMOUNT & MTNCLIM: A Network formed by a
collection of informed citizens who also happened
to be scientists—the early years (2003-2005)
PACLIM Session 2003 The main theme and special session of the 20th anniversary
Pacific Climate Workshop, organized by a group interested in forming CIRMOUNT,
was titled Integrated Climate Research in Mountains. April 6-9, 2003.
MCSS 2004 The Mountain Climate Science Symposium was held to bring diverse
disciplines together for a review of the latest mountain climate science and to vet the
interest for a west-wide mountain climate consortium. Kings Beach, Lake Tahoe,
CA, May 25-27, 2004.
MTNCLIM 2005 The first in the series of CIRMOUNT-sponsored Mountain
Climate Conferences, MTNCLIM 2005, was held at Chico Hot Springs, Pray, MT,
March 1-4, 2005. Major themes included Drought, Water Resources, and
Ecosystems; and Climate Variability: Adaptation, Mitigation, and Restoration.
The Science Issues in 2004
Long-term observation from instrumental records and from
paleoclimate records showed the West was warming rapidly,
ecosystems were showing multiple signs of stresses, and water
resources for all uses were being impacted by increasing scarcity
The Science Issues in 2004
•
25+ years of climate research consistently points to
unprecedented global warming from increasing
atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration—due to
human activities, mainly the burning of fossil fuels. Latest
IPCC (2001) projections point to amplification of the
surface warming with elevations.
Bradley, R.S., F.T. Keimig, and
H.F. Diaz, 2004: Projected
temperature changes along the
American Cordillera and the
planned GCOS Network. Geophys.
Res. Lett. 31(16),
doi:10.1029/2004GL020229.
Bradley, R.S., M. Vuille, H.F. Diaz, and W. Vergara, 2006: Threats to
water supply in the Tropical Andes. Science, 312, 1755–1756.
~7 km
Global warming, especially in the inter-tropical zone
projected to be amplified in the vertical due to an
enhanced hydrologic cycle. [ IPCC Reports 3, 4 & 5 ]
CIRMOUNT & MTNCLIM—the middle years (2006-2010)
The second CIRMOUNT-sponsored MTNCLIM
Conference, MTNCLIM 2006, was held at Timberline
Lodge, Mt Hood OR, 19-22 September, 2006. Major
theme: Implications of climate variability and climate
change in forest conservation and management.
The third CIRMOUNT-sponsored MTNCLIM
Conference, MTNCLIM 2008, was held in Silverton,
Colorado, 9-12 June 2008. Major themes: Climate
change, adapation, impact on western water resources
The fourth CIRMOUNT-sponsored MTNCLIM
Conference, MTNCLIM 2010, was held in Blue River,
Oregon, June 7-10, 2010. Major themes: High
-resolution climate monitoring and modeling; science
outreach and communication; elevation dependent
warming.
Annual Special Sessions at the Fall Meeting of the
American Geophysical Union in San Francisco
AGU Session 2004 CIRMOUNT sponsored a special session entitled "Climate
Challenges to Mountain Water Resources and Ecosystems" at the annual meeting of
the American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, CA, December 13-17, 2004.
AGU Session 2005 CIRMOUNT sponsored a special session entitled "Extreme Events
in Western Mountain Climate, Resources, and Ecosystems" at the annual meeting of
the American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, CA, December 5-9, 2005.
AGU Session 2006 CIRMOUNT sponsored a special session entitled "Elevational
Gradients and Mountain Climates, Resources, and Ecosystems" at the annual meeting
of the American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, CA, December 11-15, 2006.
AGU Session 2007 CIRMOUNT sponsored a special session entitled "Climate
Change in High-Elevation Mountain Environments" at the annual meeting of the
American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, CA, December 10-14, 2007.
“Out of the growing recognition that the climate of the
West is changing, and that impacts are rapidly
emerging in the form of changes in streamflow patterns,
plant phenology, ecosystem structure, wildfire regimes,
and the like, a group of scientists representing a wide
range of disciplines has developed an informal
consortium to address these issues.”
CIRMOUNT & MTNCLIM—the recent years (2011-2014)
The fifth CIRMOUNT-sponsored MTNCLIM
Conference, MTNCLIM 2012, was held in
Estes Park, Colorado, October 1-4, 2012. Major
themes: Mountain hydrology, climate change
and ecosystem health.
AGU Session 2012 CIRMOUNT sponsored an oral and poster session at the
annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, CA,
December 3-7, 2012. Oral session entitled: Geomorphology, Ecology, and
Climate Coupling in Mountain Environments. Poster session entitled: Climate
change and drought
AGU Session 2013 CIRMOUNT sponsored an oral and poster session at the
annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, CA,
December 9-13, 2013. Session title: Climate Change and Wildfire: Drivers,
Interactions and Consequences
☐

What 50 years have wrought
2014 Pop. Stats. (millions)
1960
AZ
6.63
1.32
CA
CO
NV
NM
UT
Total
21.08
38.33
5.29
2.79
2.09
2.90
15.85
1.76
0.29
0.96
0.90
57.93
Situation in 2014—what was bad then is worse now
Jan-July
mean temp
A drought
index
Quo vadimus?
Optimistic about the future like Wallace Stegner?
Or a future that repeats the failures of the past?
From Ian Frazier’s Great Plains (1989)
“This finally is the punch line of our two hundred years on the Great
Plains: we trap out the beaver, subtract the Mandan, infect the Blackfeet
and the Hidatsa and the Assiniboine, overdose the Arikara; call the land a
desert and hurry across it to get to California and Oregon; suck up the
buffalo, bones and all; kill off nations of elk and wolves and cranes and
prairie chickens and prairie dogs; dig up the gold and rebury in vaults
some place else; ruin the Sioux and Cheyenne and Arapaho and Crow
and Kiowa and Comanche; kill Crazy Horse; kill Sitting Bull; harvest
wave after wave of immigrants’ dreams and send the wised-up dreamers
on their way; plow the topsoil until it blows to the ocean; ship out the
wheat; ship out the cattle; dig up the earth itself and burn it in power
plants and send the power down the line; dismiss the small farmers,
empty the little towns; drill the oil and natural gas and pipe it away; dry
up the rivers and springs, deep drill for irrigation water as the aquifer
retreats.”
Thank you!