“Northern areas of the Great Plains are projected to experience a wetter climate by the end of this century (due to climate change)”— U.S. Global Change Research Program
“Warmer temperatures for Alberta will likely just mean more prolonged droughts.” — Evan Bedford, Energy & Ecology
So who are you going to believe? A research program conducted by the prestigious National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration? Or a cranky columnist?
Well, if you’re a duck (or if you had a leaky basement in July), you’d probably want to put your money on the experts at NOAA. After all, they have access to some of the biggest computers and most advanced climate modeling software around.
One of the more advanced models described by the American Meteorological Society routinely plays around with 30 terabytes of data. The RAM memory on my computer struggles with a mere 750 megabytes of data.
But this isn’t just an academic exercise for me. My day job involves trying to help farmers and acreage owners deal with flooding.
So in a wet year (like this year and 2007), my phone has a tendency to ring a bit more than usual.
Which got me to thinking: are we now getting into that period of “wetter climate” mentioned above?
Luckily, our federal government keeps a huge online database that has weather statistics going back to 1840.
So, if you’re a numbers geek, and you have nothing better to do, you can go to http://climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca and have a ton-o-fun.
OK, so it wasn’t much fun punching a bunch of numbers into a spreadsheet, but when I finished inputting the monthly rainfall totals from 2001 to today for the Red Deer area, I at least had something to compare with the ready made averages that the weather office site had for the years 1971-00.
So has there been a huge difference in precipitation in recent years?
The most notable changes have been decreased precipitation in the November, December, January period, followed by increased precipitation in the February, March, April period.
The other months are a bit of a dog’s breakfast, with August being wetter than normal and July being drier (even with 2010 factored in).
Email me if you want a copy of the spreadsheet and graphs I came up with.
What does this all mean?
Well, to me, it means that maybe we should start looking at crazy variations in weather, as well as averages.
For example, last fall and winter, we came through the driest period since the 1880s, only to build up since April into one of the wettest summers (for example, this July was 68 per cent wetter than the average July from 1971 to 2000).
And then on Friday, July 23rd, I got called out just north of the city where various people told me about a single storm that supposedly dumped about six inches (15 cm) of rain in just a matter of hours the previous evening.
I wasn’t able to verify that number, but I was able to verify that I stood on the main road in my hip waders with water up to my knees.
The weather does seem to be getting crazier.
Just last month, a record hailstone fell in South Dakota that weighed 1.9 pounds (0.9 kg) and was eight inches (20 cm) in diameter.
What does this mean for our farmers?
According to the heavy-duty computer programs mentioned above, farmers in the south-east corner of the province can expect drier summers, but farmers in our neck of the woods can expect wetter seasons, period.
However, due to the expected warmer temperatures, that extra moisture will just get evaporated away more quickly.
As for the wilder variations in the weather, the advice for a farmer would be the same as the advice for a stock market investor:
“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” (you never know when a big hailstone might land in it).
Evan Bedford is a local environmentalist. Direct comments, questions and suggestions to wyddfa23@telus.net. Visit the Energy and Ecology website at www.evanbedford.com.