Sound Warning: Scientists say the region is already feeling climate change

Vanishing beaches. Warmer waters becoming increasingly inhospitable to salmon and shellfish. More rain and less snow, causing a chain reaction of flooding and landslides.


		MERYL SCHENKER / P-I
	Scuba diver Mitch Hedman of Seattle makes his way into the water from Seacrest Park in West Seattle. Hedman says he sees fewer fish these days. A report on the Puget Sound region today predicts warming water, which could make the environment less hospitable for salmon and shellfish.

No one knows exactly how the Puget Sound region will look in 50 or 100 years, but these are some of the grim predictions made in a report by University of Washington researchers being released today.

The regional study, the first of its kind, is a call to action.

"We've kind of been in denial about this problem," said Brad Ack, director of the Puget Sound Action Team, a state agency responsible for protecting the Sound. "Denial is no longer an option."

The region is already experiencing changes associated with a warmer planet.

Among the report's findings: The average annual air temperature around the Sound rose 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit during the last century, more than double the average increase globally of 1.1 degrees. Water temperatures measured near Victoria, B.C., have risen nearly 2 degrees since 1950. Glaciers across the Cascades and the Olympics have been shrinking over the past 50 to 150 years.

Sea levels already have swelled globally between 4 and 8 inches over the past century, thanks to melting glaciers and polar ice, and the fact that water expands as it warms.

In the future, the southern reaches of the Sound are expected to suffer the most from rising tides, owing to geological changes causing the land there to sink. In Friday Harbor, waters could rise less than half a foot by the middle of this century, but Tacoma could see levels increase by more than twice that.

"We try not to think about that," said Larry Challain, president and co-owner of Batdorf and Bronson Coffee Roasters in Olympia. The company is located on low-lying land north of the city's downtown. "We're about 6 inches above sea level. It's fill, so we're not much above the bay."

Global warming "is very real, but in some ways abstract, like the avian flu," Challain said. "We're talking statistical chances and what do you do about that? It's very difficult."

If Challain doesn't know yet how to respond to the effects of climate change, his company is doing its small part to reduce its contribution to global warming. It is paying a premium for its electricity in order to support the production of cleaner power.

While researchers internationally agree that the planet is warming, they are unsure how fast and how much of a role the release of heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases such as carbon dioxide and methane play.

The report released today compiles data that measure observed and predicted changes to the conditions of Puget Sound. It draws on research from the UW, international research groups, the state Ecology Department and others. The Puget Sound Action Team paid the UW's Climate Impacts Group $20,000 for the study.

"We haven't really paid attention to what goes on below the surface in Puget Sound or any water body," said Philip Mote, a research scientist with the Climate Impacts Group.

More research and careful monitoring of conditions in the Sound are needed to clarify the predictions, but this is a start, scientists said.

"It's mainly just to wave the flag and say this issue is potentially very important," Mote said.

That's true for cities such as Seattle that are dependent on snow melt to replenish water reservoirs in the spring before the heat of summer. But if more water falls as rain instead of snow, natural water stores would be reduced, Mote said.

Warmer temperatures could compound the problem by increasing summertime demand for water.

Water managers in the region need to take the changes seriously, Mote warned. "There will be a day of reckoning."

People working to boost oxygen levels in Hood Canal, restore and protect shorelines and devise plans for saving struggling salmon populations also need to take notice, said Mote and Ack.

In recent years, sewage from septic systems, agricultural runoff and dumped salmon carcasses in Hood Canal have lead to algal blooms and decreased oxygen levels, which can kill marine life.

An effort to save the salmon that return to the tributaries of Lake Washington to spawn hasn't incorporated the effects of climate change -- at least not yet.

"We identified (global warming) as a big source of uncertainty," said Brian Murray, technical coordinator for the effort, which is part of a regional salmon-saving program known as Shared Strategy for Puget Sound. "There's a lack of data and a lot of uncertainty."

In the future, the group will run computer models to try to predict what warming might mean to their efforts.

"It's too soon for that," Murray said. "But that's something we have in our agenda for the first half of next year."

illo