A new analysis says Vermont is not on track to meet its 2025 target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with declines in thermal fossil fuel use driven mostly — though not entirely — by warming winters. 

The study, released last month by the Vermont nonprofit Energy Action Network, also shows signs of progress: Though rising temperatures are still the main driver of lower heating fuel sales, weatherization and electric heat pump adoption are starting to have a greater impact.

“Vermont’s efforts… are, ironically, being aided by the very global heating that we are working to do our part to help minimize,” the study says. “Relying on warmer winters to reduce emissions from fossil heating fuel use is not a sustainable strategy. … What [the warming trend] means for temperatures — and therefore fuel use — in any given year is still subject to variation and unpredictability.” 

Like most other New England states, Vermont relies heavily on heating oil and, to a lesser degree, propane and utility gas, to heat buildings. This makes the building sector a close second to transportation in terms of the biggest contributors to planet-warming emissions in Vermont and many of its neighbors. 

Vermont’s statutory climate targets, adopted in 2020, aim to cut these emissions by 26% below 2005 levels by next year, with higher targets in the coming decades.

“It’s technically possible” that Vermont will meet its thermal emissions goal for next year, but “at this point, primarily dependent on how warm or cold the fall and early winter heating season is at the end of 2024,” EAN executive director Jared Duval said. The transportation sector would need to see a nearly unprecedented one-year decline.

On the whole, EAN says it’s “exceedingly unlikely” that Vermont will meet its 2025 goal. 

Warmer winters ‘not the whole story’

EAN found that heat pump adoption and weatherization are not happening fast enough, and what’s more, the current trend sets Vermont up for a Pyrrhic victory at best: Rising temperatures in the upcoming heating season would have to be at least as pronounced as in last year’s record-warm winter in order to reduce fuel use enough to meet the 2025 target for the thermal sector. 

Either way, warming alone won’t get Vermont to its 2030 target of a 40% drop in emissions over 1990 levels, Duval said. The state wants to end up at an 80% reduction by 2050. 

“The only durable way to reduce emissions in line with our science-based commitments is to increase the scale and pace of non-fossil fuel heating solutions and transportation solutions,” he said.

The EAN study found that fuel sales tend to decline alongside heating degree days: a measurement of days when it’s cold enough to kick on the heat. Vermont is seeing fewer of these days overall as temperatures warm. 

“The reduction in fossil heating fuel sales as winters have been warming is not surprising,” Duval said. “Historically, fossil heating fuel use and therefore greenhouse gas emissions have largely tracked with heating demand, with warmer winters corresponding with less fossil fuel use and colder winters with more fossil fuel use. The good news is that’s not the whole story.”

In recent years, he said, fuel sales have begun to “decouple” from the warming trend to which they were once more closely linked. From 2018 to 2023, EAN found that Vermont fuel sales declined 12% while heating degree days only declined 8%. 

“Fossil heating fuel sales are declining even more than you would expect just from warmer winters alone,” Duval said. “And that’s because many non-fossil fuel heating solutions are being adopted.” 

Upgrades needed to accelerate progress

From 2018 to 2022, EAN found, Vermont saw a 34% increase in weatherization projects and more than 50,000 more cold-climate heat pumps installed in homes and businesses, with a 3.3% increase in the number of homes that said they use electricity as their primary heating fuel. 

The upshot: The number of cold days explains 50% of Vermont’s declining fuel use from 2018 to 2023, while heat pump growth explains as much as 28% and other efficient upgrades explain a further 15%. The remaining 7% of the decline couldn’t easily be broken down and could partly be from people shifting to wood heat during periods of high fuel prices, Duval said.

“In order to achieve thermal sector emissions reduction targets without relying primarily on an abnormal amount of winter warming, significantly more displacement and/or replacement of fossil heating fuel… will be necessary,” the study says. Upgrades like heat pumps will lead to more sustainable emissions cuts, it says, “no matter what the weather-dependent heating needs in Vermont will be going forward.” 

EAN is nonpartisan and doesn’t take policy positions, but research analyst Lena Stier said this data suggests that expanding Vermont’s energy workforce and tackling heat pumps and weatherization in tandem would spur faster progress on emissions cuts, while keeping costs low.

EAN based its estimates of fuel use and emissions impacts from heat pumps on the official assumptions of a state-approved technical manual, which Duval said may be overly optimistic. But Stier said the reality could differ.

“We’ve heard anecdotally that a lot of people who have installed heat pumps in their homes… are kind of primarily using them for cooling in the summer,” she said. “So our kind of assumption is that, in reality, it would be a smaller share of that (fossil fuel use) reduction coming from heat pumps.” 

While fuel use declined overall in the study period, he said this came mostly from people using less heating oil specifically — propane sales actually increased in the same period.

Duval noted that propane is cheaper than oil on paper, but actually costs more to use because it generates heat less efficiently than oil does. 

“Once you look at that, then heat pumps become that much more attractive,” he said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated for clarity.

Study: Vermont’s warming winters ‘not the whole story’ for declining fossil fuel use is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Ohio’s adoption of gerrymandered voting district maps last week is the latest in a series of anti-democratic measures that thwart action to address climate change, critics say.

Data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication show a majority of Ohioans believe climate change is happening and worry about it. 

A majority also favor regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant, imposing strict carbon dioxide limits on coal-fired power plants, and research and tax rebates for renewable energy, according to the Yale data. And nearly two-thirds would also require utilities to produce 20% of their electricity from renewable sources.

Over the last decade, however, Ohio lawmakers have subsidized noncompetitive coal plants and erected additional barriers to siting renewable energy.

Ohio also remains embroiled in a corruption scandal relating to House Bill 6. The 2019 law provided bailouts for two former FirstEnergy nuclear plants and two 1950s-era coal plants and revenue guarantees for utilities while gutting Ohio’s previously weakened renewable energy and energy efficiency standards. 

Lawmakers repealed subsidies for two former FirstEnergy nuclear plants and a utility recession-proofing provision seven months after the arrests of former House Speaker Larry Householder and others. Yet the rest of HB 6 remains in place, despite multiple repeal bills. 

“Ohio is a microcosm of something much bigger,” said Basav Sen, climate justice policy director at the Institute for Policy Studies, referring to a growing trend of anti-democratic moves that hinder progress on climate change. Here are points he and others highlighted to the Energy News Network.

Gerrymandering rigs outcomes

“Gerrymandering is manipulating district lines to secure outcomes for some candidates and some political parties,” said Jen Miller, who heads the League of Women Voters of Ohio. The new redistricting maps give Republicans veto-proof majorities of nearly 62% in the House and 70% in the Senate. Fair maps would have roughly a 55% to 45% split between Republicans and Democrats.

Gerrymandering affects all policies, including healthcare, energy, clean water, transit and education, she said. Lawmakers in “safe” districts who owe their election to gerrymandering are more likely to support the party’s agenda, which may not necessarily align with what voters want. And when elected officials don’t have to worry about a tight reelection campaign, they have less incentive to be responsive to constituents. 

That lack of engagement makes people less likely to vote, which further suppresses democracy, Miller said. “Gerrymandering, low voter turnout and high voter frustration all go hand in hand.”

“If we’re looking at how to make progress and protect public health and our environment, that shouldn’t be a political issue,” said Miranda Leppla, who heads the environmental law clinic at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. 

Yet political parties have become polarized on the topic. So, “we still have parts of HB 6 on the books that have been shown by a court of law to not only have been moved forward illegally — but that remain in place because of the party in power — which are harming human health,” Leppla said.

Similarly, when Senate Bill 52 passed in 2021, it erected additional barriers to siting solar and wind projects, but not fossil fuel energy. All yes votes came from Republicans, with only a few siding with Democrats, who all voted no.

Gerrymandering also enables corruption

Corruption itself erodes government legitimacy and undermines democracy, according to Transparency International. And gerrymandering can set the stage for it.

“Gerrymandering is the manipulation of elections, leading to less accountability,” said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio. “As a consequence, gerrymandering fuels corruption because elected officials don’t worry about their constituents. They focus on their donors, their political party and themselves.”

Indeed, to prevent corruption, “you need strong tools and instruments of accountability,” said Neil Waggoner, federal deputy director for energy campaigns at the Sierra Club. Without it, “you see the corruption … that was the case with HB 6 and Larry Householder.” 

And, Waggoner added, “a lot of folks that were around are still in power.” Many lawmakers who voted for HB 6 were in “safe” districts, and none who were up for election in November 2020 lost their races.

“If we truly had competitive districts in Ohio, I don’t think you would have seen HB 6,” said Rep. Sean Brennan, D-Parma, who has taught American government at the high school level. He sees the 2019 law at the center of Ohio’s ongoing corruption scandal as the “quintessential example” of an anti-democratic result of gerrymandering.

Dark money and other corporate spending sway policy in industry’s favor

“What we see are literally corporations using their financial clout to steer public policy in their direction and for their benefit at the expense of the general public,” Sen said. “Dark money is behind a lot of it.”

Dark money refers to spending to influence public policy, where the funds can’t be traced to the original donors. Former U.S. Attorney David DeVillers has said dark money nonprofit groups are ripe for abuse as a money laundering tool. 

Evidence at Householder’s trial showed FirstEnergy, its affiliates and others spent roughly $60 million on HB 6. Prior to Householder’s arrest, public records revealed only a tiny portion of that money.

More recently, the Energy and Policy Institute linked The Empowerment Alliance, which has multiple gas industry links, to a political action committee that spent more than $1 million on last year’s elections. The group has also promoted state and local legislation labeling natural gas as “green energy.”

Additionally, the Center for Media and Democracy has found links between dozens of Ohio lawmakers and ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-funded group that favors fossil fuel development and opposes renewable energy standards. At least seven lawmakers on a committee set up under a 2014 law that cut back and froze Ohio’s clean energy standards for two years were members of ALEC.

Corporations also spend lots of money in plain sight at both the state and federal levels, Sen said. As a group, for example, utilities, fossil fuel industries and nuclear interests have long ranked among Ohio’s top givers for reported political donations.

Voter suppression hurts people most impacted by pollution

“Voter suppression is in front of us right now and it’s becoming greater as the days go by,” said Ericka Copeland, director of the Sierra Club of Ohio. HB 458, signed by Gov. Mike DeWine in January, adopted strict voter ID requirements. The law also shortened the time frame for early voting, limited the use of ballot drop boxes, curtailed curbside voting, and imposed limits on provisional ballots.

“The very people who are most adversely affected by the corporate interests that dominate our government today are the very people whose votes are silenced,” Sen said. Under-resourced communities — disproportionately people of color — face higher risks from pollution and energy costs. 

Without financial resources to sway policies and elections, “all they’ve got is their vote,” said Ashley Brown, who formerly served on the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.

Other limits on public engagement

When SB 33 criminalized various activities under the guise of protecting “critical infrastructure,” the 2021 law limited people’s ability to organize and protest against pipelines and other fossil fuel industry activities, Sen said.

More recently, HB 507 labeled natural gas “green energy” and jumpstarted proposals to drill under state parks and wildlife areas. A pending lawsuit challenges the law for violating the state constitution’s single-subject rule and for lawmakers’ failure to hold any public hearings on it after the natural gas provisions were added.

“These are absolutely anti-democratic, because they’re not allowing people to participate in what our state government is passing,” said Leppla, who is one of the attorneys representing the Ohio Environmental Council in the case.

The single-subject rule matters, Leppla said, because “a really important component of democracy is that people can understand what’s moving through our statehouse.” HB 507 started as a simple two-page poultry bill but swelled to 88 pages as more subjects were lumped in. Likewise, the failure to hold hearings after the addition of the oil and gas provisions prevented people from testifying against those provisions before the bill became law, she noted.

“The comment period is an essential part of Ohioans having access to elected officials’ ears, to be very clear about what they worry about and the consequences,” said Turcer at Common Cause Ohio. This summer’s scandal about fabricated comments on drilling proposals compounds the problem, she said, because it becomes harder for public officials to trust the comments they do get.

People’s voices are also silenced by state laws limiting local governments’ authority to take action on a wide range of issues, including environmental matters, budgets and gun violence, Turcer said. For example, a 2021 law prohibits local governments from banning natural gas or propane hookups in new buildings.

“The next step in corporate control would be to ensure that the electorate is not informed,” Sen said. “And one way to do it is by interfering with public education.”

Pending legislation would gut diversity, equity and inclusion programs and require “both sides” teaching about climate change policy and other “controversial” topics at state colleges and universities. SB 83 is “definitely raising concerns about equity and opportunity and inclusion,” Copeland said, noting that the Sierra Club of Ohio opposes the bill.

What can be done?

“One of the things that’s clear is all of the different ways that hurdles are put before Ohioans who are just trying to make sure that we can breathe clean air and drink clean water,” Turcer said. “But what is clear to me is that people want to take power to improve their communities. They want to use the tools that are available to them to get more accountable government, and to ensure that citizens have their rights. And that is a huge upside.”

In August, voters rejected a Republican-backed amendment that would have made it nearly impossible to pass citizen-initiated constitutional amendments. A reproductive rights amendment is on the ballot this fall, and efforts are underway to get an amendment on next year’s ballot to put a nonpartisan commission in charge of redistricting. Future amendments might address a wide range of issues, including potentially climate change, Turcer said.

The history of social movements also offers hope for getting more action on climate change, Sen said. He cited the 20th century’s pushes for labor unions and civil rights as examples. Each movement “came from the bottom up. It came from popular pressure that got so strong that at some point in time, the people in power had to concede.”

How efforts to restrict democracy in Ohio also make it harder to fight climate change is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Major weather events accounted for more than a third of the time Ohio customers of regulated electric utilities went without power last year, according to an Energy News Network review of data filed with state regulators.

Utility reports filed at the end of March listed 16 calendar days in 2021 with major outage events linked to wind or thunderstorms. All told, more than 900,000 Ohio utility customers lost power during major weather-related outages last year.

Companies say they’re taking steps to prevent outages. Yet some critics question whether utilities are doing enough to prepare the state’s power grid for a warmer and wetter world. It’s unclear how climate change will affect the frequency or intensity of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms. However, climate experts predict Ohio will see more days with conditions that often set the stage for storms.

What utilities’ reports show

Utilities file outage reports each year so regulators can judge whether utilities are meeting reliability standards. State regulators can penalize utilities if outages exceed certain limits.

Outages that count toward companies’ performance result from things like equipment failure and damage to infrastructure due to animals, falling tree branches, traffic accidents and so on. Outages from less extensive weather interruptions are also included. Together, those outages generally make up the bulk of electric service interruptions.

When calculating utilities’ performance, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio lets companies exclude major outage events. By definition, major outage events are outliers that last longer and don’t reflect the utilities’ normal performance.

Major weather-related outages account for most long-duration events, sometimes requiring several days to restore power for all customers. On Dec. 11, for example, the state was blasted with wind gusts over 50 mph and at least one tornado, leaving more than a quarter-million customers without power.

Energy News Network added up the customer minutes of service interruptions for major weather-related events noted on 2021 filings by AEP Ohio, AES Ohio, Duke Energy Ohio and FirstEnergy and compared the result to the total customer minutes of service interruptions for all four companies, before any exclusions. Major weather-related outages accounted for roughly 37% of the total.

Storms caused more than 89,000 of FirstEnergy’s CEI customers to lose power over two days last August for an average of nearly 20 hours. The outage lasted roughly three times longer for Bay Village resident Susan Murnane and her husband.

Hot temperatures with no air conditioning or fans made life uncomfortable for the two retired Ohioans. Murnane scrambled to find dry ice to minimize food loss from spoilage. The outage also interrupted other daily activities and caused anxiety because the couple didn’t know when the power would come back.

“For us, it’s an inconvenience and an expense,” Murnane said. But people with less time to make arrangements, no car to travel elsewhere, or fewer resources to replace spoiled food are worse off when the power goes out, she added. “For some people, it’s life and death.”

A changing climate

The threat of more frequent and longer-lasting power outages to a system already affected by extreme weather was a key message from the Fourth National Climate Assessment released in 2018. The United States already had seen a jump in nationwide outage reports during the 2000s, compared to the 1980s and early 1990s, researchers for Climate Central reported in 2014.

The Ohio utility reports don’t provide enough data to show whether power outages due to extreme weather are becoming more common. That’s partly because of the limited number of years available online and also because companies’ maintenance practices and infrastructure investments vary.

The U.S. Department of Energy also collects data on major outages. The data provided the basis for the 2014 Climate Central report, which showed an increase in weather-related outages in Ohio between 2003 and 2012. However, 2012 was an outlier in recent decades, as Superstorm Sandy and a derecho knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of customers, in some cases for more than a week.

Ohio’s climate is generally warmer and wetter now compared to the three decades from 1981 to 2010. Warmer air holds more moisture — roughly 7% more for each degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), said Bryan Mark, a professor at Ohio State University and Ohio’s state climatologist.

It’s not clear whether a warmer and wetter climate will necessarily lead to more thunderstorms or high winds. Yet those phenomena often occur under conditions that lead to precipitation.

“In a warmer climate when you have more opportunity to heat the atmosphere, you may get in fact more summer thunderstorms,” said Peter Whiting, an environmental scientist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Thunderstorms form “when you have air that is forced to rise,” such as from a cold front, localized heating, or other conditions that make the air mass unstable.

Warming from climate change also varies by latitude, Mark said. A reduction in the temperature differential between northern latitudes and warmer, sub-tropical regions appears to have altered prevailing winds and may have shifted the storm tracks for mid-latitude regions.

Although research is ongoing, “it seems that we’re able to form deeper and wider convection cells that are more intense and therefore can have more destruction related to them,” Mark said.

What can be done?

Rebecca Mellino, a climate and energy policy expert with the Nature Conservancy in Ohio, is among those who think utilities should do more today to make sure the electric grid is ready for climate change. 

“I would want to see electric utilities plan for what we might have previously considered once-in-a-hundred–years events or considered out of the norm as being more regular,” Mellino said.

Updated rules for utilities’ reliability performance took effect last fall, but they don’t mention climate change. Nonetheless, utilities say they are working to improve reliability in the face of severe weather and other challenges.

FirstEnergy spokesperson Lauren Siburkis said the utility is adding power lines for added flexibility, plus installing automated reclosing equipment. Those devices work like a circuit breaker to shut off power when trouble happens, she said. Routine maintenance also includes tree trimming and vegetation management.

“Smart meters provide information not only to customers but to our crews, so outage areas can be defined and causes found more quickly,” AEP spokesperson Scott Blake said. The company also has been installing automated reclosers and pursuing tree trimming and vegetation management.

In addition, AEP is exploring the possibility of microgrids for places like fire stations and community shelters. “Outage restoration processes also prioritize restoring power to critical facilities and completing work that will restore power to the greatest number of customers,” Blake said.

Sturdier electric poles are part of AES Ohio’s strategy, its March 31 outage report said. The company also is adding automated reclosers and taking a more proactive approach to replacing cutouts and underground primary cables.

Funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act could potentially help Ohio update its grid and make its electricity system more reliable. But critics want resilience efforts to focus on generation, too.

“We’re already behind the eight ball in planning what the electricity sector is going to look like in a new world,” said Sam Gomberg, an energy analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists. In his view, “every ton of carbon matters at this point.”

Ohio’s proposed Energy Jobs and Justice Act, HB 429, calls for a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from electricity by 2030, with a 100% target by 2050. So, utilities would have to take some action on climate change. And the Public Utilities Commission would review utilities’ carbon reduction plans every two years.

The bill was referred to the House Public Utilities Committee in October, and Rep. Juanita Brent, D-Cleveland Heights, became a primary sponsor with Casey Weinstein, D-Hudson, in March. Hearings on the bill have not yet been scheduled.

“The cost to adapt to climate change is actually going to be more expensive than stopping the use of fossil fuels and transitioning to cleaner sources now,” said Miranda Leppla, who heads Case Western Reserve University’s Environmental Law Clinic.

Storms strain Ohio’s electric grid, and climate change could make it worse is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

This story is part of a WyoFile series examining climate change and what it means for the quality of life in Wyoming. It is supported by the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative’s journalism fellowship program. Read about Wyoming climate trends here, and read about a Wyoming coal community in transition here.

Extreme temperatures broke records in June, setting the stage for an unusually hot, dry and smoky summer. Conditions were severe enough to inspire many Wyoming residents to take stock of what appear to be changing climate patterns in the state. 

Anglers report that lower streamflows and warmer stream temperatures — a threat to trout fisheries — seem to be arriving earlier in the summer. Cyanobacterial blooms appear to be more common too, and ranchers lament the continuing drought and what feels like increasingly unpredictable seasonal conditions.

These anecdotal observations align with more than 100 years of Wyoming-specific data, according to J.J. Shinker, professor at the University of Wyoming Department of Geology and Geophysics.

“While increases in temperature don’t appear to be reflected in significant changes in precipitation, the temperature increases are impacting water resources through early snow melt, faster runoff and greater evaporation at the surface, all of which enhance drought,” Shinker said.

To better understand how climate is changing in the state, Shinker said, it’s important to consider Wyoming’s place in the world and its wide-ranging topography — from lowlands at 3,101 feet elevation to high peaks of 13,809 feet. 

Perhaps the most significant climate trend in Wyoming is that its highest elevations are warming fastest.

That’s important, Shrinker said, because less than 8% of Wyoming’s surface — 10,000 feet in elevation and higher — serves as a snow and glacial “waterbank,” and a primary driver of annual spring runoff. And spring runoff helps drive large portions of Wyoming’s biological health and economy.

Intense springtime warming and increasing variability in both temperature and precipitation are also critical trends. 

The annual mean springtime temperature in the Upper North Platte Valley, for example, has increased by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit since 1920, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data. That’s more than triple the global average increase of 1 degree Fahrenheit. That rate of warming has major implications for a watershed that millions of people depend on.

In other words, when and where temperatures are increasing most, and when and where precipitation falls and melts, shapes the pulse of life and commerce in Wyoming. And that pulse is changing in ways that indicate significant disruptions.

With the help of MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative and the University of Wyoming’s Department of Geology & Geophysics, WyoFile examined Wyoming climate data to learn how climate change is playing out in the state.

Wyoming trends

The statewide annual mean temperature increased 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit  from 1920 to 2020, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data.

What’s more consequential to Wyoming residents, though, are the geographic- and seasonal-specific trends. That’s because temperature significantly drives water availability in arid Wyoming — both generally throughout the year and more specifically during spring runoff. And water availability defines much of Wyoming’s natural and human-built systems.

Underlying the annual mean temperature change of +2.2 degrees Fahrenheit are more granular changes. Temperatures are increasing every month and every season of the year — and at different rates.

Wyoming’s winters, for example, are warming at an alarming pace.

The annual mean temperature trend for Wyoming’s winter season since 1920 is +2.8 degrees Fahrenheit — higher than the annual mean temperature rise. This increases the likelihood of rain-on-snow events at high elevations, which erodes the longevity of high-elevation snowpack.

In the context of water availability, that plays directly into Wyoming’s critical spring season.

Among Wyoming’s seasons, the annual springtime mean temperature trend is steepest: +2.9 degrees Fahrenheit. This results in earlier and accelerated melt, which presents myriad changes and challenges.

Not only does it increase the likelihood of springtime flooding and surface-to-atmosphere evaporation, it also means that irrigated crop and ranching operations have a shrinking time window to benefit from spring runoff. 

Reservoirs and irrigation systems have only so much capacity and work most efficiently with an ample and steady supply of melt runoff. A more intense and shorter-lived spring runoff may overwhelm irrigation and storage capacities, meaning the state can’t make beneficial use of its water.

These dynamics are already at play in south-central Wyoming. The rate of annual mean springtime temperature change for the Upper North Platte River region around Saratoga is +3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The result is, on average, the snowmelt starting approximately 13 days earlier than it did a century ago, according to research by the University of Wyoming.

“When spring runoff comes fast and short like that, it’s there and then it’s gone,” Wyoming Water Association President Jodee Pring said. “[Irrigators] are not prepared for anything like that. So I think we need to think about changing irrigation methods. Some of that is the timing of when they might plant and when they may harvest, because I think a lot of [irrigation and ag practices] are built on tradition.”

Although Wyoming’s summer and fall seasons are warming at slower rates, those changes still threaten to compound the effects of warming winter and spring seasons. The annual mean temperature increase is +1.6 degrees Fahrenheit for the summer season and +1.5 degrees Fahrenheit for the fall.

Absent ample summertime rainfall, reservoirs might not be replenished for mid- and late-summer irrigation. The combination of warmer springtime and summertime temperatures also contributes to more evaporative loss and increases the likelihood of lower and warmer streamflows earlier in the summer — a threat to aquatic life, including Wyoming’s trout fisheries.

The trend has major implications for the Upper North Platte River Valley where its impact to water resources pose a threat to an economy rooted in agriculture and tourism. It also poses a threat to municipalities, businesses and agricultural operations throughout the 350-mile-long Platte River drainage in Wyoming, as well as for downstream users in Nebraska.

Where temperature trends are most consequential

Wyoming’s latitude and relatively high- and wide-ranging elevation are major factors when it comes to where warming temperature trends and variability are most consequential. 

Even slight temperature trends at high elevations can play an outsized role for natural and human systems for much of the state.

Even during an exceptionally cold year, 2019, the temperatures at Wyoming’s highest elevations stood out as anomalous against a 30-year average, showing warmer temperatures than lower elevations that year. The same applies to 2012, Wyoming’s warmest year in recent history, revealing a persistently steeper trend in warming at high elevations.  

Wyoming precipitation

Variability and unpredictability have always been the hallmarks of precipitation in Wyoming and the interior Rocky Mountain Region, UW’s Shinker said. There’s very little seasonality for precipitation here, with the general exception for winter snow accumulations at high elevation.

Broken out by season, the annual mean precipitation trends over the past century are a mix of slight increases and decreases: winter, -0.04 inches; spring, +0.3; summer, -0.57; fall, +0.2. 

The data, which appears inconsequential, makes it difficult to project future trends.

However, there’s a clear increase in springtime precipitation variability, even compared to the increasing variability throughout the rest of the year. Combined with rising springtime temperatures, it increases the likelihood of severe springtime conditions, including dangerous late blizzards and flooding.

It’s also important to understand that an increase in variability and extreme conditions can have major implications for a state where life is generally dialed into seasonal patterns and relatively dry conditions.

For example, 2019 was exceptionally wet — the 17th wettest on record in the state — but came during a long period of drought. Although it was some measure of relief, it also wreaked havoc for some ag operations.

“When an extremely wet year came along it [overwhelmed a lot of] infrastructure,” said Rhonda Brandt, Wyoming state statistician for the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. “The animals couldn’t go to their normal grazing places because they were flooded out. The ranchers, they couldn’t do their normal rotation through their pastures because things were coming ripe at different times. There was more disruption by that one wet year than by the last 50 years of dryness.” 

Climate trends are also moving toward more intense and longer-lasting droughts in Wyoming.

The Palmer Drought Severity Index uses temperature and precipitation data to estimate relative dryness. The trend over the past century indicates that Wyoming’s climate is moving toward more persistent “moderate drought” conditions than in the past.

With continued warming, and if there is little to no increase in precipitation, the trend could escalate further, to more persistent “severe drought” in the future, according to the PDSI.

Beginning the conversation

Climate trends and their potential impacts could touch many aspects of life in Wyoming. 

Wildfires have already become more intense and more frequent. Warming trends also increase threats of invasive insect, plant and aquatic species. Changes already being measured, and felt, indicate transformation for all manner of habitat that supports wildlife, human health and economic activity. 

With those implications in mind, the time has come to start a statewide conversation, many say. 

“Let’s have a conversation about what we can do and how we can start preparing ourselves,” Pring of the Wyoming Water Association said. “What are we missing? What do we need to do, and what do state agencies need to do to educate people? Are we not publishing the right data? Is it too hard to understand?”

Existing data and ongoing analysis must be compiled and made readily accessible in ways that Wyoming stakeholders can understand it, UW’s Shinker said.

“A climate assessment, led by a state climatologist, would be an important step in planning for Wyoming’s climate future,” Shinker said. “Assessing changing climate on Wyoming’s environment and economy is imperative for people in the state to prepare for future impacts.” 

So far, there’s no effort to conduct a comprehensive Wyoming-specific climate assessment, and Wyoming has been without a State Climatologist for a decade.

A state climatologist “is charged with making sure we’ve got that reliable data and then being able to serve that up to people to help them come to the table and have those collaborative conversations,” Pring said. “If people don’t even have a base of where everybody starts and has the same information, the conversation isn’t going to go very far.”

While there are no plans to fill the vacant State Climatologist position, a group of University of Wyoming faculty has applied to the National Science Foundation for financial support to build upon the Greater Yellowstone Climate Assessment.

“Our aim is to develop the resources at UW to help communities across the state adapt and address the various challenges tied to the climate and related economic transition that is underway,” said Bryan Shuman, director of the University of Wyoming-National Park Service Research Center in Grand Teton National Park, a lead author of the Greater Yellowstone Climate Assessment.

WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.

Wyoming climate data holds ominous clues about life, economy is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

This story is part of a WyoFile series examining climate change and what it means for the quality of life in Wyoming. It is supported by the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative’s journalism fellowship program. Read about Wyoming climate trends here, and read about a Wyoming coal community in transition here.

We talk a lot about the weather in Wyoming because, like it does in any place occupied by humans, it unites us. Talking about a changing climate in Wyoming, however, can be more difficult. 

But when the conversation moves past politics and policy, residents from all walks of life report changes that concern them. 

This summer, for example, anglers across the state saw lower streamflows and increasing water temperatures diminish fishing opportunities beginning in July rather than late August. This fall, ranchers faced the difficult decision to reduce herd sizes or pay top-dollar for supplemental hay as they prepared for the winter.

Even some skeptics of human-caused climate change said this summer’s extreme conditions felt like the continuation of dramatic shifts in climate patterns they’ve observed over their lifetimes.

“I can’t say cause and effect,” Campbell County rancher Eric Barlow, who also serves in the state legislature, said. “But I can say that, certainly, [there are] trends that I just don’t quite understand or [they] don’t seem to follow the tradition, you know, from generation to generation.”

WyoFile traveled the state and talked to Wyoming residents about the changes they’re observing on a landscape that they love and depend on, and what those changes might mean to their Wyoming lifestyle.

Changes in agriculture

Few residents are as attuned to the seasonal and cyclical pulse of Wyoming’s climate than those who raise livestock and grow crops. Their livelihoods and identities — going back generations — are intrinsically tied to how the climate’s rhythms play out on a landscape.

And even with Wyoming’s traditional agricultural challenges  — harsh weather, limited water, poor soils and volatile weather — there are noticeable changes, many say.

Thayne Gray has been reading through records kept by his father and grandfather on the Warbonnet Ranch outside Moorcroft, he said. Since 1985, the family has instituted an intensive rotational grazing program on its collection of moderately high-and-dry pastures with great success. 

Crafted to accommodate the region’s once-typical weather patterns, those practices are, with increasing frequency, not enough to keep up with changing conditions.

In his reading, he said, Gray discovered that the cycles his ancestors recorded don’t reflect those he’s experienced over the past decade or more. Much has changed in his lifetime on the ranch.

“We used to have three to four years of common weather before the cycle would change from a wet cycle to a dry cycle,” Gray said. “Now, you’ll have one of the wettest years — a great wet year — next to the driest the very next year. So, I don’t know what’s causing that, but it’s just something I noticed.”

By September, cattle on the Warbonnet Ranch had already grazed out every summer and winter pasture due to continuing drought conditions made worse by unusually high temperatures. Gray had to pay top-dollar, competing with ranchers across much of the West, for several truckloads of hay to prepare for the winter.

Gray has also noticed what seems to be an emerging snow phenomenon: a warm spell follows a heavy snow. That initiates a thaw, then it freezes tight to the soil, making it almost impossible for cattle to break through the crust for forage.

“I thought it was an anomaly, but it seems to be becoming more consistent with how our winters are coming along,” Gray said.

The Barlow Ranch is bisected by Dead Horse Creek, a tributary to the Powder River, famously described as “a mile wide and an inch deep.” There’s a bit of truth to the aphorism. The river commonly runs dry enough by late August that cattle easily plod across the mucky riverbed without getting stuck.

That opportunity came even earlier this year. 

Record breaking triple-digit temperatures baked the landscape in June when, traditionally, moderate rainfall and cool nights curb the heat. Rancher Eric Barlow, a veterinarian and Republican Speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives, lost seven yak calves that were born in June when temperatures reached 109 degrees Fahrenheit, he said.

“The bum yak calf we have is also a product of that day and the confusion and heat stress the entire herd experienced,” Barlow said.

The cattle, sheep and yak operation relies entirely on artesian springs and drilled wells to water the livestock. On good years, ephemeral creeks are a bonus, Barlow said, providing springtime flows from snowmelt. There are no irrigated pastures, so the operation is entirely dependent on “optimal” precipitation events.

Those optimal events are becoming less common, he said.

“I really do think we’ve seen a change in precipitation patterns,” Barlow said. “Part of the result of that is less reliable forage production year to year, and the timing of the forage.”

Barlow reduced both sheep and cattle numbers this year, he said, and still invested in several truckloads of supplemental feed hay for the upcoming winter.

The changes he’s noticed in his lifetime on the ranch can be summed up as more extremes and less predictability, he said, which makes it difficult to adapt from year to year.

“We do have a hope that, next year, we’ll have whatever normal is,” Barlow said. 

Changes to fisheries

When Jeff Streeter began working as a fishing guide on the North Platte River near Saratoga in the 1970s, the river ran full and cold throughout the summer, supporting one of the world’s most sought-after trout fisheries and attracting high-paying anglers.

That hasn’t been the case during the past decade or so, he said.

By mid-July this year, higher-than-average temperatures in the Upper North Platte Valley, combined with years of persistently lower runoff, had already gummed the river with thick moss. The streamflow was so low that fishing guides couldn’t float clients on long stretches of the river, and late-day water temperatures were too warm for trout to survive being caught and released.

“These river systems are stressed when they don’t receive [ample] flows,” Streeter said in July while gearing up for a morning of fishing on the Encampment River, which flows into the North Platte.

Warmer stream temperatures coming earlier in the summer have prompted more frequent “hoot owl restrictions” — regulations designed to improve fish survival by stopping catch-and-release trout fishing in the heat of the afternoon. Anglers must hit the water earlier in the day, if at all, during these conditions.

The result is a diminished trout fishery and a hit to the local economy, which relies heavily on summer tourists drawn to fisheries in the valley, Streeter said.

Irrigators, who still pull what they can from the river, also must cope with the higher temperatures and lower precipitation. Resource conservation works best when fishermen and local ag producers collaborate, and there’s a proven track-record for those types of efforts throughout the state, said Streeter, who worked many years as a Trout Unlimited conservation advocate. But the continuing human and climate pressures in the Upper North Platte Valley threaten to erode that type of cooperation, he said.

While sitting on the Encampment River’s bank, Streeter also lamented changes overhead. More intense wildfire seasons have resulted in smoke-clogged summer skies.

“We should be very cautious not to attribute every change and every weather event to climate change,” Streeter said. “But on the other hand, we should not be able to — in one lifetime — we shouldn’t be able to feel a difference in the climate. And we do. And that’s worrisome to me.”

Changes on the sagebrush landscape

Master falconer Vahé Alaverdian moved from Los Angeles to live amongst the sagebrush and vast expanses of public lands south of Pinedale in the Upper Green River Basin.

He loves to hunt greater sage grouse with the aid of a bird dog and falcon — the ultimate sporting challenge, he said. Sage grouse and the wide-open sagebrush basinlands teeming with wildlife also provide the perfect opportunity to train his falcons. His company, Falcon Force, uses trained raptors to control nuisance birds for mostly West-Coast clients that include vineyards, blueberry and cherry growers, theme parks, golf courses and airports.

In addition to its utility, Alaverdian considers the sagebrush landscape a paradise of sorts.

“This is my shrine,” he said early one morning in September while sitting on the tailgate of his pickup in the middle of a sagebrush sea. A falcon perched on one gloved hand.

And the landscape that he loves and depends on is in duress, he said. Alaverdian attributes the changes he sees on the sage-steppe landscape to drought. A persistent lack of moisture results in stunted growth of vegetation and a diminishing bounty of small and large insects, he said. That threatens a cascading effect on wildlife that depend on the sagebrush habitat. Eagles, for example, seem more aggressive for lack of their normal diet of small prey like rabbits.

“My falcons that I’m flying here often fall prey to immature eagles,” Alaverdian said. “And [the eagles are] trying to survive. I can’t blame them. They become a major danger factor for what we do.”

Wyoming’s sagebrush habitat is vital to sage grouse and song birds, as well as pronghorn, mule deer and other game. Persistent warming and drier conditions here can have profound effects on all manner of Wyoming wildlife.

“The drought is just tearing the desert up,” Mike Burd of Green River said. “[Wildlife doesn’t] have the [quality] habitat out there that they used to have. I’ve seen it, and it’s hard to watch.” 

Burd, a retired trona miner, grew up hunting and fishing in Western Wyoming — along the banks of the Green River, high in the Wind River Range and down in the vast basins of the Red Desert. Rivers and streams seem to have less flow earlier in the season, he said, and a lot of animals — birds and ungulates — seem to be struggling.

“It’s been so gradual, [young people] don’t notice it,” Burd said. “But I’m in my 60s, and I have noticed it.” 

A changing climate threatens Wyoming’s outdoor culture, which is rich with traditions that help bond generations, Burd said. In addition to diminishing fishing and hunting opportunities, it’s small things, too, like campfire bans coming earlier in the summer. Campfires are where friends and family gather to tell stories — one of Burd’s most cherished traditions.

“My kids aren’t going to get to experience the Wyoming that I grew up in, and my grandchildren, surely not,” Burd said. “I hope I’m wrong. I really do hope I’m wrong. But I doubt it.”

WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.

Wyoming residents observe a changing climate and quality of life is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.