Evidence of Climate Change in the Gorge

      By Tanna L. A. Mangold          

According to NASA the levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has increased dramatically in the past 50 years.  From an average of 240 parts per million to nearly 430 parts per million.  “Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization.”

The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely (greater than 95% probability) to be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia.

So What - Evidence of Climate Change

What we are seeing in the plant community 

Brance Morefield has been working as a botanist for the US Forest Service for the past 18 years and has a unique perspective on climate change in the northwest due to his work.  In his work he conducts field studies throughout the Forest Service Region Six (Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho, and Montana).  His field work includes vegetation monitoring and data collection.  As a result, he has developed a keen eye for noticing small changes in plant behavior and habitat.    Mr. Morefield noted that his perspectives are his own opinion and not that of the United States Forest Service.

According to Mr. Morefield, “One of the major factors that I notice is lack of snow in the winter time. It seems as though we’re not getting as much snow pack as we used to get and that has profound effects, negative effects in my mind”  

Mr. Morefield went on to talk about how plants are moving higher in elevation. Specifically the Western Hemlocks.  “I also noticed that these Western Hemlocks which are a species that like lower elevations that aren’t as cold tolerant were starting to mix in with this forest and so that was kind of an eye opener for me.”

One of the changes that Mr. Morefield noticed was a decrease in precipitation in the northwest that is believed to be connected to climate change, “There are a lot of weedy grasses and any disturbances they’ll just jump in there, so any change that stresses the ecosystem they’ll just slide right in and a lack of precipitation is one of those disturbances”

Mr. Morefield also noticed the decreasing snowpack in the winter time and spoke to the impact of that on the plant community, “I would say the higher elevations are more vulnerable because (it) used to be that we would have snowpacks there longer and there's not a whole lot of vegetation and not a whole lot of species that can tolerate that cold. But, now that we’re having less snowpack up there, we’re having soils that are open longer and other species can just jump right in there and the reason I know this is because I’ve seen it”

Mr. Morefield also identified some species that could potentially be more resistant to climate change, “I think that species have adaptations that make them more resilient and those adaptations could be because of long term climate change. For example, something that has a lot of hairs on its leaves doesn’t dry out as fast as other plants, it creates a microclimate on its leaves, so it can withstand higher temperatures.  Mullein… you’ll see it popping up in any disturbed place that it can get a hold of, and it actually grows everywhere in the United States, but it appears to be moving farther North” 

Lastly, Mr. Morefield spoke to what we can expect to happen in the coming decades assuming climate change continues at its current pace, “You would see flowering seasons extending. When you have specific seasons you have a smaller window in order for them to flower and cross pollinate, but it seems like now they’re going to be opened up longer and some may start sooner, some may start later, and your not necessarily going to get as good of fertilization of the flowers in the future” 

Kristin Currin (along with Andrew Merritt) is the owner of Humble Roots Nursery, a native plant nursery that is in the Columbia River Gorge that supplies native plants to people of the Pacific Northwest.  According to  Currin “It feels warmer. I think temperature changes and more extreme winter storms and droughts(are affecting the environment). The plants are blooming earlier than some of the pollinators are adapted to be active. So basically the phenology is off.” 

Ms. Currin also noted a change in animal behavior  “ there are animals that we were seeing we are no longer seeing”

What we are seeing in fish 

Jeanette Burkhardt is a Watershed Planner and works at the fisheries program for the Yakama Confederated Tribes and Bands in Yakama Nation.  

According to Burkhardt, “In general, it feels like winters are getting to be shorter, they start later, the temperatures are milder, we seem to have a lot less snowpack as a result, less snow on the ground and for not as long. The Northwest, at least where we live, is supposed to be kind of rainy in the winter and even that has seemed to be changing. I also feel like summers have gotten hotter like we have more days of extreme temperatures, like temperatures above 100°.” 

Burkhardt went on to talk about the weather changes that could be partially due to climate change, specifically the thunderstorms that happen in the middle of summer. This caused flooding in the White Salmon River “Some businesses got flooded out in town because of a couple crazy rain storms that were sort of completely out of the blue, unexpected, and not ‘normal’ around here.”

Burkhardt talked about the lower Columbia River’s average water temperature during the summer as an additional indicator of change.  “In August it has temperatures between 70° and 72° and that’s actually several degrees warmer than it used to be historically. The reason that matters is because we have some very important cold water fish species in the Columbia River, and for somebody who works on fisheries that’s definitely a concern to us.” 

The cold water fish in the Columbia River include Salmon, Steelhead, and Trout, the rising temperatures have  affected their health. “We had, in 2015, a snowpack drought. We had very little snowpack compared to normal and then we had really warm temperatures in the spring and early summer, and that led to our streams being very low flow and also the Columbia River got really warm, lethally warm (for fish) in some cases.” 

Burkhardt talked about a run of sockeye salmon that moved farther up the Columbia River and Snake River systems around June. Due to these cold water fish being in warm water it caused them to have health problems, many of them were diseased, and exhausted by the warm water. The fish were starting to “dip into” tributaries and rivers that flow into the Columbia to cool off and try to breathe and recover. 

“Well, the Columbia was so warm, and the fish were so stressed, that some of them died in those tributaries and they never even made it to their spawning grounds in Idaho and farther up the Columbia River.  “The Idaho part of that run lost, I think it was close to 90% of its fish that year,” said Burkhardt.  

Another fish Burkhardt talked about was the sturgeon. Sturgeon live in the main streams of the Columbia and, historically, can grow to 12-15 feet long. “There are these fish that are like 80 years old and there was a big die off of sturgeons as well, and it’s not clear whether that was related to the warm temperatures that year or because the sturgeons were eating the sockeye.”

Burkhardt proceeded to talk about plants showing up in places that never used to be in elevation, east to west, or vice versa. “ I’ve noticed a kind of progression or distribution shift for poison oak, and that has been sort of confined to a certain elevation banned and east west distribution limit. It used to be that I never saw it in the Wind River Basin. It was too cold there I guess, but I started noticing that it seems to be moving westward. I also feel like I’ve been seeing it moving up in elevation.” 

  Burkhardt identified early indicators of climate change as:  “Temperature is a big one, that’s something that a lot of people notice right away. If you have to start taking your summer clothes out a month earlier you’re like ‘wow it’s really warm for April’ or if you are used to swimming in a swim hole and suddenly you don’t shiver when you’re swimming because that water has gotten noticeably warmer, or if the weathers gotten more unstable like we start having a bunch of thunderstorms in the winter or thunderstorms at all.”

Burkhardt then talked about the tribal members(Burkhardt  is not a tribal member herself) and their first food ceremonies. The first food ceremony marks  the return of a lot of root food plants that are really critical and important first foods for the culture. “So there will be a ceremony celebrating their return and it sort of kicks off the start of the season, and people are noticing that a lot of those root foods are emerging earlier or they are no longer as prevalent in the habitats where folks have dug for them for millennia in some cases. There are families who go to the same root grounds year after year to dig for roots and they’re finding that the roots are smaller or they disappeared altogether. They are having to move their ceremonies back in the calendar because things are emerging sooner or the fish runs aren’t materializing when they should be or they’re coming in early.”

Burkhardt then talked about the relationship between trees and their environment, and how climate change affects forests in different ways. An example she talks about is the lessening amount of snowpack, and without as much snowpack the trees aren’t getting as much moisture in their soil. Causing them to drought stress which "makes them more susceptible to disease, insects, fungal pathogens that can attack them, and when trees are weakened they can be less resistant to fire. We’re having fires that are more frequent and more severe, and when you have trees that are already stressed they are less resistant to fires.”

Kate Conley is a Natural Area Manager for the Columbia Land Trust, she joined the Land Trust in 2013 after five years of leading the Wasco County Watershed Council. Kate manages Oregon-side Gorge land, from Rolling Hill near The Dalles to Hood River’s Powerdale. 

According to Conley “I definitely think climate change had a role to play in (2015) fires and then the fires themselves, they’ve reduced the amount of forest in our area and that meant that a lot more carbon got released into the atmosphere, and there is less carbon storage here in our region”

Conley then talked about changes that affected climate change, “I have noticed some changes in behavior that might affect climate change and the pace of climate change...people are traveling less some people may be consuming less, buying less which are negative things for humans, but by doing less and traveling less I think that the pandemic has a chance to have slowed down climate change a little bit”

Where do we go from here?

An option Mr. Morefield suggested for helping to slow down climate change is “One thing that I really like is gardening. I feel like it's really important for everybody to have a garden because, if you have more plants in your yard it’s gonna make things a little cooler, they’re going to absorb more CO2  and release more oxygen and those are things that I think anyone can do and it’s super simple and very enjoyable.”

When asked what behaviour changes he’d hope to see in people with climate change Mr. Morefield's response was “I just want to see people think that it’s real and I feel that once we can do that then it will be easy to show people what we can do to change it. For example not driving as much because we are releasing carbon into the atmosphere which exacerbates climate change.”

Conley also talked about  the effects humans have on climate change and the effects it has on the species that live here “It’s always changing but I think that there are ways and things that humans can do to not make it worse or make it happen faster because the faster it happens it’s going to be harder for things to adapt plant, animals and humans, so I think that's really important to think about.” 

Another option that Currin suggested is “We try to get people to plant native plants.” 

When talking about the behavior changes she hopes to see in people Burkhardt said “We are all part of the problem and we all need to be part of the solution” 

“People are starting to realize that this is coming down the pike,” Conley said. “The next step is realizing that you yourself have responsibility towards the whole world to do what you can, and I think we need to realize that we are all in this together and we need to work together if we are going to make any difference whatsoever.” 

“I try to save water as much as possible,” Conley continued, “I have low water usage water faucets and appliances, I try to respect water for the precious resource that it is. I try not to travel more than I need to with a fossil fuel burning vehicle, I try to recycle as much as possible because all new stuff requires energy and oftentimes requires fossil fuels for prediction. I try to eat local foods as much as possible, I garden, and I try to do restoration work and I try to do outrage to people about how they can protect the environment and have a small footprint as much as possible.” 

The behavior changes Conley is hoping to see are “more people are appreciating nature… and that appreciation hopefully will encourage people to pay more attention to environmental issues and do whatever they can do personally” 

Currin also talked about what behavior changes she hopes she will see “I would hope that we would all have a lot more sympathy for each other and to realize that we all do need to work together.”