Greg Utzig

…In a recent project for the B.C. Ministry of Forests. a team of local scientists explored what climate disruption will mean for West Kootenay (WK) forest ecosystems. As with most things around ecology, the answer was not simple. Using the results of available climate projections and modeling by researchers at the University of Alberta, the team examined what WK forests might look like in the 2080s. …The results of the three scenarios differed in some factors but there was significant agreement in others. They all agreed that temperatures would increase in the future, particularly in the summer, but differed by how much. They also all agreed that annual precipitation would also increase, but that summer precipitation would either decrease or remain roughly unchanged. In short, they all agreed the summer growing season will become more arid.