Global Warming and You

[ChrisB]

Whether you are a climate change believer or denier, chances are your income hasn't (yet) been impacted by warming weather trends.

But, here's an interesting article by a North Conway guide that tells a very different story.

And it is about our own backyard.

cb

 

[srhigham]

Two thoughts:

Shorter ice climbing guiding season = longer rock climbing guiding season?

What would be the effect of shorter/warmer winters on the maple syrup industry?

 

[peakbagger]

Boy Chris having a rational discussion without tipping over the "global can of worms" is going to be tough. I will keep it local and short term

Personally on a strictly checkbook basis the recent warmer conditions have reduced my seasonal expenses. I pay to have my driveway plowed per storm and those costs have decreased. I switched over the years to wood augmented by net metered solar power to run a mini split heat pump for heat and my wood usage has dropped quite bit (3 cords to date) despite not buying heating oil for 4 years and I should be running a surplus on solar power again this year. I don't live in a floodplain (which has substantially expanded in Gorham to include much of the RT 2 strip and surrounding properties) so I am somewhat isolated from weather the typical local weather extreme which is flooding (I am not isolated from ice storms) From a local economic base observation, the shorter snowmobile season has been replaced by a longer ATV season, most providers do both so they seem be able to survive and actually thrive now that the ATV trade has exploded. Net winter usage of the hiking trails seem to have increased and the summer seasonal businesses now have a May to late October season where 10 to 20 years ago they didn't really pick up until mid june and would be gone by the end of September. There are many generic warnings about maple syrup production impact long term but the number of sugar houses and producers is increasing in the area as well a new commercial farm going into Randolph with 30,000 taps. Mud season is at different times of the year but given the collapse of the wood industry due to other factors its less of an issue.

My perception is that guiding is not a career for most guides as much as it is a way of getting paid to share their hobby with others, this is not a put down in any way and if they can work it out, more power to them. The ones I have talked to over the years do it as one of the many seasonal jobs they have to string together to be able to afford to live in the region. Many are tradesmen who had been employed steadily for second home construction but that market collapsed in the region several years ago with the mortgage crisis so those who worked in it may have become more dependent on their preferred guiding career. There definitely has been a shift to the selling of experiences to the millennials and they seem to prefer prepackaged experiences where someone else does all the front end work and they just show up for the duration of the event compared to the older boomer mentality of the VFFT core which was DIY, get in trouble, hope you learn from the experience and buy more gear. As the demographics shift I expect the demand for guide services have increased to supply these prepackaged experiences and that means a warm spell is going to impact far more folks.

 

[Brambor]

My career is unaffected by weather patterns. I have year round hobbies. When there is snow I ski,hike. When there is ice I skate, hike . When there is warmth I sea kayak and bike and hike. ... something like that ...

 

[Stan]

Here here for Brambor's spirited adaptability.

So far I've been favorably impacted by warmer winter weather, mainly in my heating bills. I also relax a bit on the matter of backups for heat pumps which function to -20. ... and, I get less use of some of my winter gear so I'm less tempted to go out and buy more.

Regionally, I don't think the maple syrup industry willl be greatly impacted. There are sugar bushes operating at high elevations in the South. Overall, I might expect an earlier and perhaps a bit shorter season. There'll probably be a net benefit up in Canada. I also enjoy the prospect of a longer growing season so agriculture may benefit unless patterns of drought intensify. No matter, I'm still not planting anything before Memorial Day!

 

[Trail Boss]

Thanks for the link! An interesting story of how increasing average global temperatures can directly affect a person's livelihood. I believe people living in the far north have witnessed the greatest changes.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/iqaluit-meeting-climate-change-adaptation-1.3960824
http://www.cbc.ca/news2/background/climatechange/weather.html

I partially agree with what others said that, in this particular case, the guide may see one market shrink (ice-climbing) but another expand (rock-climbing). I say 'partially agree' because there's usually a period when the ice is gone but the rock is still too cold for the average recreational climber. If that period simply eats into ice-climbing time, then the ice-climbing market shrinks but the rock-climbing market doesn't expand. Anyway, time will (surely) tell.

 

[Nessmuk]

Ticks.
In the area where i grew up, I never had a tick on me as a kid after constantly playing in the grass and woods. Now after being away for a long time, I live not far from my old home area, and they are everywhere. These days you can't walk through grassland or woods without getting several. Is there any other reason for their march north where they never existed before?

 

[egilbe]

My brother blames the growth of the turkey population. No turkeys when we were kids, but now we can't walk in the woods without tripping over a flock of 30 or more and in warm weather, ticks galore! Cooincidence?

 

[Nessmuk]

Same question, ticks or turkeys. What brought them to where they did not previously thrive?

 

[Chip]

Ticks.
In the area where i grew up, I never had a tick on me as a kid after constantly playing in the grass and woods. Now after being away for a long time, I live not far from my old home area, and they are everywhere. These days you can't walk through grassland or woods without getting several. Is there any other reason for their march north where they never existed before?

Deer. Never were any deer after they were all killed 150 years ago. Extirpated vector host.

And hunters reintroduced turkey, habitat improved and hunting decreased. But you know all this. Perhaps I missed the somewhere.

I grew up in CT (Lyme ? Not quite, but close.) There was no such thing as a tick 50 years ago in CT and a deer was like a UFO.

 

[peakbagger]

Turkeys were pretty well spread through the region in precolonial times, unfortunately they were a good source of food and got hunted out of the region until reintroduced. Deer ticks seem to be pretty well linked to overly large deer populations which are driven by lack of predation and ideal habitat.

 

[iAmKrzys]

Deer ticks seem to be pretty well linked to overly large deer populations which are driven by lack of predation and ideal habitat.

Here is a summary of a paper apparently published in Journal of Medical Entomology: http://www.entsoc.org/press-releases/fewer-deer-may-mean-less-lyme-disease.

 

[jniehof]

Gin and Tacos had a nice post about "unusual winters". It's hard to be really accurate with "oh I've never seen a February like this" because personal recall is just not that good. There will be cold winters and warm ones, wet ones and dry ones, going well into the past and well into the future under just about any likely scenario--just the details and the distribution will change. Absolutely climate change will erode livelihoods but being at the mercy of the weather is always a bit of a career on the edge. Tip your professional service providers well and don't grumble about their rates: they're assuming a lot of financial risk in their line.

I did find the Alaska comments particularly interesting since the Arctic seems to be taking the brunt right now.

 

[Stan]

Gin and Tacos had a nice post about "unusual winters". It's hard to be really accurate with "oh I've never seen a February like this" because personal recall is just not that good. There will be cold winters and warm ones, wet ones and dry ones, going well into the past and well into the future under just about any likely scenario--just the details and the distribution will change. Absolutely climate change will erode livelihoods but being at the mercy of the weather is always a bit of a career on the edge. Tip your professional service providers well and don't grumble about their rates: they're assuming a lot of financial risk in their line.

I did find the Alaska comments particularly interesting since the Arctic seems to be taking the brunt right now.

Indeed, recall may be misleading. I can remember when snow was up to my neck. Now its only up to my knees. Hmmmm. I wonder if that also means we are in an extended period of low tide?

As for Chicago, western artist Charles Russell, who frequented the art shows in Chicago, said that "If I had a winter place in hell and a summer place in Chicago, I think I'd spend my summers at my winter home."

Aboard a Coast Guard icebreaker in the summer of 1966 we were turned back at 82N by over 10 feet of ice in the channel between Ellsmere Island and Greenland. I understand that is now mostly open water. I also understand the world is round, which I agree with as I recall on one of my paddle trips going off the edge of the world when it was flat and this is where I wound up.

 

[peakbagger]

I do remember one year in the nineties where my friends kids were able to walk up on the roof the ridge pole of their garage and then slide down the other side, the garage was on a "bench" with a lower yard below it so the kids really got some speed up. I think I also snowshoed up to the peak of my garage roof that same winter. Long term residents refer to a winter in the sixties where Wildcat was hiring folks to shovel out under the gondolas as they were below the snow pack. Unfortunately Berlin has several buildings collapse including their hockey arena that same winter.

 

[Spiny Norman]

Pulled a tick off my dog today.

Walked part of the SRK greenway yesterday.

Cheers

 

[Nessmuk]

I have a cabin in the NY town of Montague, on a seasonal road in what is regionally known as Tug Hill, smack dab in the middle of lake Ontario Lake Effect snow country. Occasionally I will ski in from the last driveable access (about 2 miles) to shovel snow off the roof. Normally receives upwards of 300 inches of snow per year in that area, although one time in the 70's more than 400 inches fell. Helicopters from nearby Army Fort Drum dropped food into the few residents who lived there at the time, but the ones I knew said they didn't need anything.

One year my canoe team partners wanted to head in there for New Years. So 6 of us arrived at a snowmobile hangout to park at about 10:00PM New Year's Eve. We had skis, snowshoes, and pulk sleds for our gear. Lake Effect started in full force just about the time we started to hike on the closed road in. Deeper and deeper, now snowing at a 5 inch per hour rate. At 5 in/hr, when you take a deep breath you will almost choke from inhaling that much snow and air. Pretty soon it was waist deep, then higher. Snowshoes or skis do not help with the soft fluff of LE snow. Bare boot are just as effective. The only way to move forward was to have someone without a sled go ahead a few dozen yards to make a path for those behind. Hours later we were literally swimming with arms and feet to fight our way through. Then I noticed the sky getting bright. Moonrise, I thought. No, it was sunrise, now 7:30 Am, just as we reached the cabin, only to have to use snowshoes to shovel out the door enough to open it to enter and then light a fire for us to crash and sleep. One partner could only exclaim "Epic", when later talking about the adventure.

I judge the severity of the winter by how many times I need to go there to shovel the roof. This year so far has been a 3 timer with all the feet of LE we have received. Last year, only once.

 

[Raven]

Related: Earliest ice out in Winnipesaukee's history. The variability in weather patterns is causing effects already. With increasing chances of random warm weather periods and 60 degree days in February, it's likely going to cause all sorts of problems on the ice. Ice derbies, boat races on ice, landing planes on ice in Alton Bay, to simple pond hockey... those things go away with the possibility of thin ice.

If economics are your concern, then this affects any outdoor ice related events and activities which depend on ice stability.

 

[TJsName]

I have a cabin in the NY town of Montague, on a seasonal road in what is regionally known as Tug Hill, smack dab in the middle of lake Ontario Lake Effect snow country. Occasionally I will ski in from the last driveable access (about 2 miles) to shovel snow off the roof. Normally receives upwards of 300 inches of snow per year in that ares, although one time in the 70's more than 400 inches fell. Helicopters from nearby Army Fort Drum dropped food into the few residents who lived there at the time, but the ones I knew said they didn't need anything.

One year my canoe team partners wanted to head in there for New Years. So 6 of us arrived at a snowmobile hangout to park at about 10:00PM New Year's Eve. We had skis, snowshoes, and pulk sleds for our gear. Lake Effect started in full force just about the time we started to hike on the closed road in. Deeper and deeper, now snowing at a 5 inch per hour rate. At 5 in/hr, when you take a deep breath you will almost choke from inhaling that much snow and air. Pretty soon it was waist deep, then higher. Snowshoes or skis do not help with the soft fluff of LE snow. Bare boot are just as effective. The only way to move forward was to have someone without a sled go ahead a few dozen yards to make a path for those behind. Hours later we were literally swimming with arms and feet to fight our way through. Then I noticed the sky getting bright. Moonrise, I thought. No, it was sunrise, now 7:30 Am, just as we reached the cabin, only to have to use snowshoes to shovel out the door enough to open it to enter and then light a fire for us to crash and sleep. One partner could only exclaim "Epic", when later talking about the adventure.

I judge the severity of the winter by how many times I need to go there to shovel the roof. This year so far has been a 3 timer with all the feet of LE we have received. Last year, only once.

What factors limit LE snow from hitting your camp?

 

[Nessmuk]

What factors limit LE snow from hitting your camp?

Not sure I understand the question. Better question is what conditions cause LE. It is a well studied phenomenon.