Talk:Climate change impacts Wyoming

This is an under development article on the impact global climate change is having in Wyoming. I hope to get some more photos tomorrow (Sunday) and some interviews on Monday.

Leila Monaghan - (talk) 21:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It's looking to be something quite interesting. Best of luck getting the interview segments you're looking for. --Brian McNeil / talk 15:46, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Brian! One of the interviews has come in and hope to get a hold of the second interview today. Also turns out it is quite a hot topic, was in the NYTimes today, and there was a recent National Geographic article on the drying out of the west, though none are focused on Wyoming in particular.

Interview with Lee Hackleman, USDA
Leila Monaghan's Questions to Lee Hackleman, Water Supply Specialist, United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service, Casper Wyoming:

1. The average against which the monthly SWE averages are compared is based on data from 1971 to 2000?

2. How typical was this 1971-2000 baseline for the weather for the last 500/100 years? (Feel free to pick a time span, informal guess is fine).

3. I put together a chart (see the attached Excel file) of temperatures from March 2000 to the present from your monthly figures. I noticed that while we are often getting normal or near normal SWE recorded in your January to May reports (October to April snow fall?), there has been a precipitous drop in results for SWE reported in your June reports. Does this indicate that higher temperatures in May are melting the snowpack earlier? What impact does this have on Wyoming’s environment?

4. I had a question about one of the SWE averages. The report for June 2002 gives no general summary of SWE and when I went to calculate the SWE averages myself from the SWE for different parts of the state, I realized those were identical to the May figures. The author writes that many of the SNOWTEL sites had melted so it seems strange that it would continue to be at 63%. Do you have an alternate figure or estimate for that June 2002 snowpack?

5. Do you see climate change impacting Wyoming? If yes, how?

Lee Hackleman's replies, 3/17/08

1. They are now compared with the 1971-2000 averages. Before 2000 we used the 1961-1990 averages. We use the latest 30 yr period, changed every decade.

2. How typical is this period? We do not have any snow records that go back before the 20th century. But, if I had to guess, from tree ring info I would say this is typical for our area.

3. Yes the snowpack is melting out several weeks earlier than average. The higher temperatures in the spring are responsible for this. There seems to be a significant drop in the amount of runoff that we are able to retain in our reservoirs, a lot of runoff seems to be soaking into the ground. We do not have the June flood events any more. We use to be cool then hot, not cool warm then hot.

4. The June SWE report looks like a copy of the May SWE report, which it probably should not be. The monthly reports are copied forward and then modified and someone apparently did not recalculate the June average, but just used the May average.

5. There does not seem to be enough water storage in the state. Therefore there is a much greater concern for water rights than there used to be. There is not enough late season water to satisfy everyone all the time. Everyone is going to have to learn to get by with less.

Graph Note
The one data point in the whole set I analyzed that seems suspicious is the June 2002 average. The report states that most of the sites had melted but it still records 63%, same as the previous month. Lee Hackleman in answer 4 just confirmed that this point was suspicious. I will leave the graph as is as there doesn't seem to be another figure but the only non-dip for June in the chart is in fact an error.

Leila Monaghan - (talk) 16:43, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Interview with Myra Wilensky, National Wildlife Federation
National Wildlife Federation 2260 Baseline Road, Suite 100 Boulder, CO

Notes from Phone conversation with Myra Wilensky, National Wildlife Federation, Boulder, Colorado, March 18, 2008

Leila: What do see happening in Colorado/Wyoming region?

Myra Wilensky: Interesting, how much snow is coming to the Southwestern Colorado. Preciptation patterns are interesting, you get a lot of snow at one time in one season,

In the west, nothing is ever clockwork, the patterns shift, a good amount of snowfall in the season and then a quick warm up. We don’t get the prolonged snowpack that we used to have.

May have a really wet snow year, then really dry with rain. Can’t count on getting estimated amount of snow anymore. March and November have historically been our snowiest months, but this year it’s been a fairly dry in March and November. Winter is shorter now.

Pine bark beetles have devasted the western slopes of Colorado. Pine bark beetles are native but it has never been this bad. Hasn’t been freezing, so they aren’t dying off.

National Wildlife Organization looks at what is the toll on the wildlife. This year winter came late. When the heavy snows hit, the mule deer and the elk were spread out, had to be fed. Feeding isn’t newsworthy, happened before like in 1982 but it wasn’t as successful this year because they were so spread out.

Targetglobalwarming.org shows the impact of global warming in different places.

Leila Monaghan - (talk) 18:16, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Focus
Content guide states that "News stories focus on a single current event or phenomenon." What single current event or phenomenon does this news story focus on? - Borofkin - (talk) 04:44, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

The focus is the current event of the recently published March 2008 Water Outlook on the Snow Water Equivalent and the extremely important general phenomenon of climate change. Just like yesterday's New York Times story on the moving of the Canadian thistle into Yellowstone, it documents one small part of the larger issue of climate change. What I would love to see it other people writing about climate change in their areas and combining it into a series, perhaps the Wikinews equivalent of NPR's on going series on climate change. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leila Monaghan (talk • contribs) 13:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Writing
"Even in 2006, the wettest year of the millenia, June snow pack was only 37% of the average." First of all, millenia? Plural. Second of all, it's a bit much to say "the millennium" when it's only 5 years old. Just say 'the last five years' and you'll be a bit less sensational, eh? --Golbez - (talk) 18:11, 19 March 2008 (UTC)


 * But sensational is good! No huh? I'll change it to something milder. :D  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leila Monaghan (talk • contribs) 19:13, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * 'Sensational' conflicts with WN:NPOV. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:36, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Problems with this article
I came across some problems with this article when archiving 19 March 2008 is the article's state before archiving fixes.
 * 1) Major overusage of Cquote - so much so that it overwhelms the entire article itself. Cirt - (talk) 10:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * 2) External linking within article text. This should be avoided.  It certainly should not be done as much as it was. Cirt - (talk) 10:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * 3) Lack of proper sourcing -- This goes along with too much external linking. Sources which should have been cited below in the sources section, were instead linked within article text.  There was even one book, which was just linked to its location at Google Books - instead of citing it as a source in the References section.  Additionally, no page number was given so we don't know what part of the book was cited. Cirt - (talk) 10:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * 4) Cheek numbing, eye watering winds whip across the plains of the Laramie Basin, Wyoming. The ground is yellow brown with patches of recalcitrant snow. Sheep Mountain is losing its winter coat. All normal affairs for March. A bit dramatic language, IMHO. The first paragraph of the article should typically tell the reader a bit about what the entire article will be talking about, this instead seems to press a particular POV.  Cirt - (talk) 10:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * 5) Interviews -- These aren't really incorporated into the rest of the article very well. In an e-mail interview with Wikinews, Lee Hackleman, Water Supply Specialist, said, the other one is similar - this is sort of like, this person said this, this person said that, and just listing what they said.  This type of thing could either be in a separate Interview subsection altogether, incorporated into the article text, without the obtrusive use of Cquote, or done away with altogether, IMO.  Cirt - (talk) 10:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion
I suggest upload the photo to Wikimedia Commons, so also can be used in Wikipedia. On the other hand, you can add a link to Climate change in Wyoming. --193.145.201.53 07:41, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * all the photos are on commons. and the article is already linked on that wikipedia page --SVTCobra 10:04, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Typo
editprotected

'use to' => 'used to' Van der Hoorn (talk) 13:17, 26 February 2009 (UTC)


 * [[Image:Yes_check.svg|16px]] Done &mdash; Gopher65talk 21:12, 12 March 2009 (UTC)