[Paddlewise] Winter in a time of Climate Change

Say what you want about "global warming" but the change in climate (when it
finally filters down to weather) is sometimes more obvious than you'd think.
We have owned the Lake House for almost 10 years and in all that time the
lake in front of the house (an arm of Moses Lake in central Washington) has
frozen consistently from mid-November until mid-March. There have been a few
days of variation, of course, but that was our "rule of thumb". Usually bits
of it freeze over and thaw and then more freezes over and then thaws and
finally some huge storm with very low temperatures freezes the entire thing
and it stays that way until spring.

Today, for the first time since I've been here, the lake froze over -
finally - 30 days after it usually does. What it took was a blast of cold
air from Canada (it's always *your* fault) which brought temps down to 15F
here (predicted to be 6F so I feel lucky). The blast also brought snow to
the mountains around us (to the great relief of the ski areas) which had
been sunny and snow-free (even on the peaks!) right through Thanksgiving. In
fact, the weekend after Thanksgiving we drove across Snoqualmie Pass (which,
today, will be closed from time to time to clear snow, ice, and wrecked
vehicles) in temperatures of 55 degrees at the summit.

As an amateur meteorologist (I'm a glider pilot, after all) I know that
"climate" and "weather" are not just different words for the same thing.
Weather is always changeable but climate change is only measured over a long
period of time. But even in my lifetime (65 years and counting - but
counting a lot more slowly than before) I have seen the evidence of climate
- not just weather - changes.

For example... in my youth I would go downhill skiing at Crystal Mountain
(SE of Seattle) the weekend after Halloween. I did this year after year
until I took a job with the Feds and had to move. It was rock-hopping on old
skis but they had at least one lift running. Now, to get downhill skiing in
early November you'd have to drive to Mt. Baker or Mt. Rainier; both snow
covered year around; and no ski lifts. There was a ski area called "Mount
Pilchuck" due east of Everett, WA that flourished in the 70s but, by the
90s, was closed and the ski lifts removed due to poor snow years. Today
you'd have no chance of opening a ski area on Mt. Pilchuck.

Cross country ski passes in Washington are good from November 15th... which
in 2008 meant no good because only a couple of the trails had any snow at
all... let alone enough to groom for good skating or kick-skiing.

So, while one winter of late freeze-over hardly qualifies as global warming,
the accumulation of all these factors that even I with my ludicrously short
lifespan can document brings climate change front and center. It's not just
a scientific phenomenon any more. It's become real. Real in a way the
antarctic hole in the ionosphere (remember that?) could never have been. To
coin a phrase: Really real.

You might be asking yourself, "what's the point of all this?" Fair enough.
The point is that as paddlers we live outside more than most of our
neighbors. In fact we are often obsessed with being outside. "Recreating" is
what they call it in brochures and web ads. I've never thought I was doing
that. To me it's just been part of living. Many of us have migrated from
other sports. Sailing. Skiing. Mountain and rock climbing. White water
kayaking. Bicycling. Soccer. Baseball. Tennis. I followed this sports trail
with changes in direction as my body aged or became damaged. Most of us have
spent a lifetime outdoors; sometimes both for work as well as for play.

Because we live our lives outside so much we've all got stories about how
our climate - not just our weather - has changed over our lifetimes.
Paddlers have also always been aware of the environment. It's unavoidable
that we notice changes both positive and negative. I'm aware that there are
much fewer clear-cuts in the forests than there were when I was a ski
instructor at Snoqualmie Pass in the 1970s. But I'm know that there is
virtually no underwater life (mussels, barnacles, etc.) at Deception Pass
State Park (where more capable paddlers than I am braved high winds to race
throught the constricted waterway that gives the Park its name). My journeys
along the waterways are punctuated by encounters with seals, sea lions and
eagles now; there were virtually none of these in the Puget Sound of the
1970s when I began sea kayaking.

I know you're as aware of all that as I am. But our culture is only now
thinking seriously of the consequences of climate change and there are still
people who are in deep denial. To them it's all weather. We're all worried
about what they now call our "carbon footprint" and have been for years, if
not decades. But since we now have a President-elect who seems to share our
concerns, I'm thinking that it's time for us to be more out-front about how
we feel about the environment.

Every fall a local school has presentations based around the letters of the
alphabet. When the letter "K" rolls around they call me and I put two kayaks
on the grass, dress up in a drysuit, don my PFD (oh, they want us to call it
a "lifevest" again) and a helmet and stand there like an idiot as the kids
file out of the building and across the playground. Well the kids don't
think I look like an idiot. I have books with photographs of inuit paddlers
towing whale carcasses, charts of the San Juan Islands, paddle floats, pumps
(the kids always like the pumps) and me. Standing there on the grass of a
grade school in a desert dressed for the ocean I answer questions from the
kids about why I wear a helmet, they want to know about the drysuit when the
water temperature of the lakes they swim in is 75 or 80 F, and we talk about
having fun outside. And how a kayak has such a small effect on the
environment. It's like hiking but you don't leave a footprint. Once the
ripples of your wake have disappeared, no one will know you've been there.
We talk about how we can minimize our effects on the earth and water.

Sharing our experiences is more important now than ever.


Craig Jungers
Moses Lake, WA
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