If you look up into the Olympic Mountains 40 years from now, you might see less snow.
And in the heat of summer, rivers that now bubble with the runoff from that snow will dawdle instead.
Using computer modeling and studies of 30 years of climate trends, a team of scientists from Oregon State University has concluded that global warming could reduce the winter snowpack in the Olympics and other Pacific Northwest mountains between now and about 2050 by 50 percent or more.
It’s a finding that not only affects popular winter snow areas such as Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park, but it could stymie summer water supplies fed by melting snows.
But one of the authors of the study, to be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Hydrometerology, cautions not to jump to conclusions.
“We need to be careful,” said Anne Nolin, an assistant professor in Oregon State University’s Department of Geosciences.
“This is not a prediction; it’s a sensitivity study that considers a range of projected future conditions.
“Climate is all about probabilities. This is not a wholesale warming. We’re looking at a half-century of change.”
The researchers’ computer models of global temperatures over the next 40 years show that the Olympics could go from seeing a so-called “warm” winter — with rain instead of snow — once every three years to experiencing two every three years.