A Warmer Washington

A Warmer Washington. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

We hear a lot about changing weather patterns. Global warming is a very hot topic. No pun intended and indeed we have been seeing some weird weather. A new report by the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group warns that agriculture, forestry and even ports could be impacted by accelerating climate warming in Washington in coming decades. Lacy Gray has more.

GRAY: Researchers are warning that Washington is becoming warmer and will continue to do so. A combination of factors, including rising temperatures, reduced snowpack, higher Western Washington rainfall, and rising ocean levels, will erode many sectors of Washington’s economy. The water supply for agriculture will drop because precipitation in Western Washington will increasingly arrive as rain, not snow, which will reduce the snowpack that stores water for summer irrigation. Winters will be wetter, summers drier. The amount of water trapped as snow in April is expected to decrease up to 29 percent by the 2020s, and up to 70 percent by the 2080s.This would mean intense forest fires and that crops grown in some areas will see lower yields. While this all seems like a George Orwell story, increased CO2 levels can be a benefit to agriculture.

A daylong conference on the report results, called the Washington Climate Change Impacts Assessment Conference, is scheduled for Thursday at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.