Here’s an in-depth look at what we think we know about climate change and water resources, from Allen Best writing for The Aspen Times. Click through and read the whole thing. Here are a couple of excerpts:
The image of Colorado’s water resources in the future remains a blurry one. Laurna Kaatz, a climate scientist with the Denver Water Department, said decisions involving multimillion-dollar water infrastructure should not be made based on the results so far. “To say you’re going to plan for a single future based on one of the climate models with one emissions scenarios is, I don’t think, a responsible way of using the information,” she says.
But more than anything else, the study suggests that management of water resources will become more difficult. That’s the view of Mark Fuller, the executive director of the Ruedi Water and Power Authority. Needs of endangered species and population growth have already made management more complicated. “Our margins for error for who we manage water are getting thinner and thinner,” he says. He points out that existing infrastructure, institutions and policies were designed for water on a crude scale. The uncertainties of the future suggest a need for more subtlety, he says.
All water officials and scientists agree this and other studies estimating the possible effects of global climate change on the American West are hardly the last word. “We will have to recognize that 20 years from now we will know a lot more than we know now,” said Kuhn.