The North Olympic Peninsula needs to prepare for changes coming with climate change, says a group that has produced a new study showing where the area is vulnerable.
Moderating effects of the ocean waters surrounding Clallam and Jefferson counties are likely to prevent the extreme changes climate change scientists expect to see in many parts of the world, but there will be changes that will affect the region’s water supply, shorelines, population and agriculture, said Kate Dean, regional coordinator for North Olympic Peninsula Resource Conservation and Development.
Dean and Cindy Jayne, project manager for the North Olympic Development Council, presented the findings of the council’s $152,000 study to about 40 people at the Port Angeles Library on Wednesday night.
According to the study, climate change is expected to bring dry summers with a few more days per year of temperatures in the 80s or 90s; rainy, snowless winters; and lowland flooding, increasing in severity through the next 85 years.
The full study can be viewed online at http://tinyurl.com/PDN-change via “Climate Change Report.”
The winter of 2014-15 and the summer of 2015 were record-breakers — the winter was the warmest and the summer the driest on record — but that may look a lot like the future normal in the area, Dean said.
However, it will be more extreme elsewhere, she said.
Refugees from parts of the nation that experience more severe effects are likely to seek moderate areas like the Peninsula, Dean said.
“Are we prepared for an influx of migration to our region?” she asked.
Dean said the effects of climate change won’t be here tomorrow, but it is cheaper to prepare for them now than to wait to respond after the damage is done.
Sea Grant Washington and Adaptation International produced new sea level inundation maps for low-lying areas on the Peninsula based on the movement of the land and forecasts for sea level rise, caused by warming waters and melting glacial and polar ice, Dean and Jayne said.
Because the Peninsula is in a tectonically active area, the effects of sea level rise will vary across it, Dean said.
On the West End, in Neah Bay and LaPush, the land is rising due to pressure from the Cascadia Subduction Zone, while the land is falling in the Port Townsend area, with a fulcrum near Sequim, she said.
Inundations are expected to be most severe in the Port Townsend area, with several low-lying areas expected to experience floods by 2050 and be part of tidelands by 2100.
Port Angeles’ waterfront is at less risk, though the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station/Sector Field Office Port Angeles, located at the tip of Ediz Hook, could be flooded by major storms by 2050 and underwater at high tide by 2100, the maps showed.
Other low-lying areas on the coast, including in the Clallam Bay area, the Dungeness River delta and Discovery Bay, are also likely to be inundated, the maps showed.
Roads and other infrastructure located in these areas need to be moved or rebuilt to prepare for the changes, Jayne said.
The state Department of Transportation has already begun making some plans for roads, said Jayne, who also is chairwoman of the Port Townsend/Jefferson County Climate Action Committee.
While models predict little change in rainfall, significant winter snowpacks could virtually disappear in the Olympic Mountains.
However, “intense and frequent” rainfall events will increase river and other flooding, and the high water season could shift from June to earlier in the spring or winter months, Jayne said.
Much of the rain will run off into the ocean too fast to seep into groundwater supplies, she said.
Drier summers will result in reduced freshwater supplies, both for human use and for wildlife, including salmon.
“There will be some pretty major impacts,” she said.
With warming river temperatures and reduced summer and autumn stream flows, salmon could be at risk in virtually all rivers on the North Olympic Peninsula.
Seawater intrusion into wells near the coast may be an increasing problem, Jayne said.
It is not yet known what effect the lack of snowpack will have on the water production of individual wells, she said.
The study indicated the growing season will gradually lengthen by nearly a month and the hotter, drier summers will reduce mildew growth and encourage growth of most crops in the area.
However, a reduced snowpack runoff and longer, drier summers may make watering those crops difficult, Dean said.
She said it is unknown how native timber species will react, but there is some expectation that there could be new problems with a lack of year-round soil moisture to maintain for viable forest, invasive species and tree diseases due to warmer temperatures.
“Timber is a huge economic driver in our two counties,” she said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.