I’m Dreaming of a … Wet Winter? (Thanks, Climate Change)

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Most people in the United States can expect wetter winters with more extreme weather and precipitation due to global heating, a new study has found.

The research team — led by Akintomide Akinsanola, an assistant earth and environmental sciences professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) — used climate models to look at how winter precipitation in America will change this century.

“We found that, unlike summer and other seasons where projected changes in precipitation is highly uncertain, there will be a robust future intensification of winter precipitation,” Akinsanola said in a press release from UIC. “It will accelerate well past what we have seen in historic data.”

The study, “Robust future intensification of winter precipitation over the United States,” was published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science.

The researchers found that, in some areas of the country, “very wet” winters — those ranking in the top five percent for total winter precipitation — would happen as frequently as once every four years.

Akinsanola pointed out that the changes — combined with snow shifting to rain in many areas — would dramatically impact floodingwater resourcesagriculture and other climate-sensitive areas.

Nearly 20 Earth system models were used in the study to conduct an analysis across the seven subregions of the U.S., as defined in the National Climate Assessment Report.

The study compared predicted precipitation for 2070 to 2099 with 1985 to 2014. It found that there would be a mean winter precipitation increase across the country of approximately two to five percent for each degree of warming.

The Northwest and Northeast were projected to have the largest increases in terms of “absolute change,” the press release said. Very wet winters were expected more often in six out of the seven regions, with the most marked increases found in the Midwest and Northeast.

The only region where predicted changes were highly uncertain and very small was in Southern Great Plains states like Oklahoma and Texas.

Akinsanola explained that an increase in the frequency of extreme dry events in the region would outweigh or offset the increase of extreme wet events.

“The findings highlight that changes in winter precipitation will have a significant impact nationwide and, in some regions, more impact than expected changes in spring and summer precipitation,” the press release said.

It is also likely that the mix of precipitation will change in many areas. Earlier studies predicted that, as temperatures rise, precipitation will increasingly fall as rain instead of snow, leading to lower snow depth. The reduction in snowpack along with higher rainfall levels will put stress on existing systems, UIC said.

“There will be a need for updating or upgrading infrastructure, because we’re not just talking about the mean precipitation, we’re also talking about an increase in extreme events,” Akinsanola said in the press release. “Drainage systems and buildings will have to be improved to cope with potential floods and storm damage.”

This article originally appeared on Ecowatch.com and was syndicated by MediaFeed.org

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National Park Service: Cheetos & Other Garbage Food Are Affecting The Ecosystems

National Park Service: Cheetos & Other Garbage Food Are Affecting The Ecosystems

Following the littering of a bag of Cheetos at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico, officials are highlighting how even seemingly small amounts of litter can have huge, detrimental impacts on fragile ecosystems.

National Park Service

In a post on Facebook shared on September 6, Carlsbad Caverns National Park officials explained how a single bag of Cheetos, dropped off the main trail in a section known as the Big Room, led to multiple major changes inside the cave.

“The processed corn, softened by the humidity of the cave, formed the perfect environment to host microbial life and fungi,” NPS explained. “Cave crickets, mites, spiders and flies soon organize into a temporary food web, dispersing the nutrients to the surrounding cave and formations. Molds spread higher up the nearby surfaces, fruit, die and stink. And the cycle continues.”

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According to officials, it took park rangers 20 minutes to remove the debris and the mold that formed on it and the surrounding cave. This mold and fungi growth can impact the hundreds of thousands of bats that live in the cave.

As The Guardian reported, these native bats have been able to avoid white-nose syndrome, a deadly fungal disease that has affected bats across North America. 

But litter can promote growth of non-native mold and fungi as well as attract other pests, like raccoons, to the cave, Forbes reported.

Edgar G. Biehle / iStock

The Carlsbad Caverns National Park prohibits any food and drink other than water inside the cavern to avoid these impacts. But still, litter made its way into the caverns and quickly led to ecosystem changes.

“We do not know an exact length of time that the bag of chips was sitting there. We as rangers go through and sweep the entire trail every evening to make sure that everyone is out of the cave and to clean up trash along the trail,” park guide Joseph Ward told Forbes. “It could have been missed by one of the rangers but even still I do not think that the bag was there for more than a couple days.”

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According to the National Park Service, around 300 million people visit park sites every year and generate around 70 million tons of trash. But not all that waste makes it to recycling or landfill. A 2022 citizen science project recorded 14,237 pieces of trash found at 44 cleanup sites in national parks over a two-month period.

“At the scale of human perspective, a spilled snack bag may seem trivial, but to the life of the cave it can be world changing,” officials at Carlsbad Caverns National Park said. “Great or small we all leave an impact wherever we go. Let us all leave the world a better place than we found it.”

This article originally appeared on Ecowatch.com and was syndicated by MediaFeed.org

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Featured Image Credit: johnandersonphoto/istockphoto.

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