MISSOULA - Dr. Steve Running is one of the world’s leading climate change experts.
Among many accomplishments, he’s worked with NASA and won a Nobel Prize for his work — and coincidentally, he’s had a cabin on Flathead Lake for 30 years.
For Dr. Running, low Flathead Lake water levels are connected with an increasingly dry Western U.S., and management issues are not unique to Montana.
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“Water management is going to define the West for better or for worse because we are in an arid and semi-arid climate this whole side of the continent,” he says. “The hardest thing about Flathead Lake is there's about six different agencies that all have partial authority, but nobody has total authority. “
Dr. Running remembers last year, when the water levels on Flathead Lake were, in contrast, higher than usual, “The water was up right at my dock, and normally it’s a couple inches below the dock.”
The variability from year to year is to be expected as climate change takes its toll, according to Running.
“So they're going to have to be making these decisions on the fly based on midterm weather forecasting, two-week to two-month weather forecasting, and the snowpack, which is very well measured by snowpack sites.”
Currently, Flathead Lake management runs on the same schedule every year, according to Running. The levels are typically kept at about 10 feet below full pool during the winter to absorb snow melt. Then, between April 1 and June 15, they begin to fill it back up.
They choose April 1 because it is the expected day for snow to begin melting.
“Everything we know about climate change is little by little it is going to keep getting warmer, the snowpack is going to start melting earlier,” Dr. Running says. “Well in today's world, it starts to melt in early March, and we have lots of statistics showing that snowpack is initiated a couple of weeks earlier than it was 50 years ago. And so that means that by April 1, you're already we're well into your snow melt”
With hot temperatures coming earlier every year, this set date of April 1 is sometimes way too late.
“All these different agency entities are going to have to, in effect, rebuild an agreement and a legal structure of how to make these kinds of decisions every single year because every year will be different,” Dr. Running says.
Compared to snow melt, rainfall has little effect on raising water levels, as Montana has generally a dry climate. This means, as Dr. Running explains, an El Nino year isn’t the factor people should use as a base prediction.
“El Nino is only a very partial prediction of the following months of weather,” Dr. Running says.
Dr. Running recognizes that the managers of Flathead Lake have a tough job making this decision, especially considering conserving hydroelectric power from the dam and preventing flooding down the river. Still, he says the fast snowmelt wasn't unexpected.
“Our managers know that all these datasets exist, they're probably going to work harder at integrating them into more advanced decision-making based on this, but this is not a surprise.”
For Dr. Running, water conservation is something that is long overdue in the Western United States, but he is hopeful that incidents like Flathead Lake will open the eyes of legislatures to start making moves towards better water management.
“I started giving public climate talks about 25 years ago, and from the very beginning I emphasized water deficits and aridity and early snowmelt. And These are literally the same topics that 25 years ago I was saying are on their way. And sure enough, they're here. Scientifically, they're not surprises.”
Watch the full KPAX special report below.
