Ice caps melt, worries mount about farming

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For almost a decade now Nebraskans have watched the yellow and brown spots on the drought maps creep back and forth across Nebraska, changing shapes like an amoeba.

In the early years it was easy to talk about natural weather cycles and to foresee an end to the drought.

As the years rolled by and Nebraskans spent some February days strolling around in shirt sleeves, a nagging voice echoed in the back of their minds: What if drier, warmer weather is the new normal?

Gov. Dave Heineman gave voice to those worries this week. “The biggest concern I have is, if the drought continues, does that mean that we’re just unlucky that the drought is going on much longer than we think it should? Or is it permanent climate change, and what would that mean for agriculture in our state?”

When scientists first warned of global warming there was vigorous debate about whether it even existed. Today the skeptics, though still vocal, are in retreat.

Every year seems to bring new evidence. Five years ago scientists warned that the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro, made famous by Ernest Hemingway, might disappear in 10 to 15 years. This year scientists said the snows are receding even faster than expected.

The amount of sea ice in the arctic is smaller than it has been since record keeping began a century ago. Companies are beginning to compete for the new shipping routes made possible by an open Arctic sea.

The most dramatic news of the past few months was the announcement that the Greenland glaciers have doubled their rate of flow to the ocean. The Greenland ice sheet contains one-tenth of the world’s fresh water. The melting of the Greenland ice cap will raise ocean levels, unlike the melting of the Arctic ice cap, which covers water.

The melting of the ice caps affects weather because it disrupts the flow of hot and cold ocean currents. That in turn affects the flow of the jet stream that brings weather to the continents. Sometimes the obvious seems turned on its head, producing funny headlines like, “Global warming blamed for cold wave.”

What was once strange has become commonplace. “The measurements from the natural world on all parts of the globe have been anomalous over the past decade,” an official with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told the BBC.

As the Midwest luxuriated in warmth this winter, precipitation reports were varied. This year eastern Nebraska is in worse shape than western Nebraska. So far snowpack levels in the Rocky Mountains are encouraging. Flows in the Platte River should be good, although much of that water will be captured by upstream reservoirs before it reaches Nebraska.

Meanwhile the water crisis deepens in the Republican River basin, as the state of Nebraska is unable to live up to its guarantee on how much water will flow across the border into Kansas.

Irrigators in the Republican River basin will vote later this month on a plan to sell the water in the Harlan County Reservoir to state government for $2.5 million in order to avoid or reduce a costly payment to Kansas.

While snowblowers gather dust in city garages, and farmers pull off their seed caps to look at the skies, those global reports of melting ice caps and receding glaciers are hard to forget. Few actually voice the worry, but it’s there nonetheless: Will the reservoir ever be full again?