Scientists Say Kenai Area Getting Drier, Warmer

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Climate change is taking place on the Kenai Peninsula, slowly but surely.

Over the last 100 years, climate change has been affecting the Peninsula, according to a presentation in November from Dr. John Morton, supervisory biologist at the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

Morton said climate change has its own impacts, and can’t be looked at in a vacuum.

“It’s the addition of climate change on top of all the other stressors that we have on the system,” Morton said. “Urbanization, pollution and land use changes — all those things.”

Climate change on the Peninsula, Morton said, has meant drier lands, warming temperatures, melting glaciers and the changing land cover.

Morton presented data compiled from a variety of sources and studies, most of which was collected by now-retired refuge ecologist Ed Berg.

Berg’s data showed the area has been warmer and drier in the last four decades.

“We’ve lost over two inches a year for the last 40 years,” Morton said. “The summertime temperature has been an average of 1 to 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer.”

Summer is the not the only season of change.

“In the winter, it’s been phenomenal, it’s almost 7 degrees,” Morton said. “Kenai in January is about 7 degrees warmer.”

One of the effects of a warmer winter, Morton said, is that there will be more avalanches.

“We had three avalanches in 2002 or 2003 in which we lost 200 animals,” Morton said. “In one avalanche alone we lost 130.

Morton said the loss of wetlands is also an effect of the changes.

“Our wetlands have dried considerably since 1950,” he said. “… We’re averaging about a 6- to 11-percent decline in the area wetlands since 1950.”

In the same time period, the glaciers, specifically Harding Ice Field, have lost 5 percent surface area, and have dropped about 21 meters in elevation, Morton said.

Morton presented forecasted data for 100 years in the future. The forecast was done by taking the vegetation maps for the Peninsula and then overlaying the climate change information.

Morton said the numbers themselves were not important, but it was the message it was sending.

“Roughly a third of the Peninsula is expected to change land cover,” Morton said.

Despite these changes, Morton said there are three choices: The first choice is called retrospective adaptation, meaning managing toward historical conditions.

The second choice is prospective adaptation, managing toward future conditions.

The third option, Morton said, is doing nothing.

“To me, doing nothing means you’re doing active listening,” he said. “Active listening to biologists, or being well informed. Even if you’re doing nothing, you’re still paying attention.”