A14 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, AUGUST 10 , 2020
cords, which show thataround
the closeofthe 19th century,
Delta County’sclimate wasmore
than2degrees Celsius (3.6de-
greesFahrenheit) cooler thanit
is today.
Even as theyeyed the weather,
these settlers dug ditchesand
open canalstomaximize their
access to water.Thatearlyengi-
neering feathas morphedintoa
vast networkthatnow irrigates
919,017 acresofcropsonthe
Western Slope, according to the
state’swater plan.Thousandsof
miles of ditchescrisscross the
landscape,asmall portionof
which have been lined with con-
crete or transformed into buried
pipe.
But thatnetwork onlyfunc-
tions if there’s snowpack.
Last year, Paul Kehmeier
adaptedtothe newreality:He
installedeven more irrigation
equipment and tookajob in
town.
“You knowthe saying you see
aroundhere on billboards?” he
quipped. “‘Behind everysuc-
cessfulfarmerisawifewithajob
in town.’ ”
Forthe most part,the lanky
64-year-oldfarmer is soft-spo-
ken. He believes human activity
is helping warmthe planetand
seeks to reduce his carbon foot-
print byraising perennial crops
and often usinganelectric mo-
torcycle togetaround on the
farminstead ofapickuptruck.
But he takes umbrageatthe
idea that he’s avicti mofclimate
change: “I’mnot i ncrisis,and
global warmingisnot going to
be the deathofmeinthe next
fewyears.”
Scientists ar estill workingto
dec iphe rwhy someparts of the
world are warming so much
faster than others. It is clearwhy
highlatituderegionslikethe
Arctic are melting,but the rea-
sonsbehind some otherhot
spots aremoreelusive. Shifting
oceancurrents offthe coasts of
Angola,Tasmania andUruguay
have formedvisi blewarming hotsnowintofields acrossthe valley
and has transformed this sage-
brush terrain into athriving
agricultural hub.
With hisfamily’s century-old
water rights, Kehmeier stores
water inareservoiratop Grand
Mesa.Facing long odds on the
farmin2018, he sold it for $
an acrefoot —quadruple the
normal price—toanearby fruit
grower andOrchard City. (An
acrefoot is whatitt akes to cover
an acreofl and inafootofwater,
roughly325,000 gallons.)
“Itwouldhavetocomeabout
16 milesfromthe top of that
mountain down the creek,”he
said, pointingtowardGrand
Mesa,“and the chance ofgetting
it down the creekinahot dry
year when there’s not much wa-
ter in the creek and alot of
thieves beside the creek, it was
questionable.So, letsomebody
elsedeal with that.”
Kehmeier,who grows alfalfa
and grass hay, didn’t agonize
over his decision, but he didn’t
likedriving by hisdried-upfield
everyday.Callitablessing or a
curse, but farming is in hisblood.
“And if it’s in yourblood, you
wanttodoit,”hesaid. “I want to
go outkicking and scrapingifI
have to, butIdon’t want to give
up.”
He could always plant haythe
followingyear,hethought .Sure-
ly,the snow wouldreturn.Missing: 1.5billiontonsof
water
Colorado’s Grand Valley,
markedbytoweringmesas, red
sandstone spires andtwointer-
sectingrivers,didn’t usedtobe
farmcountry. Until 1881, it was
the home of theUte people—
hunters and gatherers. But after
Whitesettler sarrivedand
sought to imposeanagrarian
lifestyle on them, theUtes fought
backand killed the federal agent
assigned to thevalley.In retalia-
tion, Congress passedalaw ex-
pelling them toareservation in
neighboringUtah,giving the“Theywere following the
trendofpioneers constantly
movingtowards theWest,” said
NormanKehmeier, sittingonhis
porch as he pointed to the buff-
coloredhouse thathis grandfa-
therbuilt.
As the pioneers moved in, they
starte dcollecting data on the
temperature. Fivemiles north of
the familyfarm,acattle rancher
with achemistrybackground
began submittingdaily weather
observationstothe Department
of Agriculture’s WeatherBureau,
the predecessorofthe National
Weather Service.
Starting in 1898, Henry
Kohlerrecordedthe monthly
mean temperature, the totalpre-
cipit ation and otherdetails.He
and otherobservers senttheir
reportstobecompiledinDen-
ver.
These earlyrecords,written in
cursive, formthe foundation of
NOAA’s official temperature re-White settlersfreereintoclaim
the Utes’ land. Between1,
and 1,500 men,women and chil-
drenwere forced to leave,ac-
cording to tribal history.
By 1884, William E.Pabor had
establishedthe Fruita Town and
Land Co. to sell lots, touting the
area’sfarming potentialto
would-besettlers.
“Theysaw fieldsofgreen grain
waving,theysaw harvestdaysat
hand/And the blessingsofabun-
dance in the homestead on the
land,”hewrote.
An agriculturalparadise, com-
plete withthe kindof orchards
and vineyards Pabor rhapso-
dized about, tookroot.
In 1894 ,PaulKehmeier’s
great-grandfather William and
his wife,Leota, arrived on Sur-
face CreekMesa, southeastofthe
valley, with three youngchildren
inacovered wagon. They or-
dered appletrees toplant ayear
or twoafterward.JOHN MUYSKENS/THEWASHINGTON POST8 95-2.5 3.0ºC4.5 5.4ºFCasperColoradoSprings
rdCityDenverCOLORADONG100 MILESCheyenne8rNSource: NOAATemperaturechange,1 81.510.50 23.62.71.80.OrcharProvoSalt LakeCityLakeeeeeeee
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SSSSSSSSSSalllllllllllllllltttttttt
LaaaaaakkkkkkkkeeeeeeeeeeGrand
JunctionWestern
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Riverspots,upending marine life.
Winters in theNortheas tare
less cold, butexpertscannotsay
yetwhetherawarmer Atlantic
Ocean is drivingit. Western
Colorado isexperiencingafeed-
backloop,according to Colorado
StateUniversityseniorscientist
BradUdall, because there is less
soilmoisture to absorb the solar
energyand transferittothe air
throughevapor ation.
“Heating begetsdrying,and
thendrying further begetsheat-
ing,” he said.
Dryareas warm faster forlack
ofmoisture to cool thingsdown,
saidChris Milly,asenior re-
source scientistatthe U.S. Geo-
logicalSurve y. Land use,irriga-
tion and natural variability
could also helpexplainpartof
the disparity.
Milly and another colleague
recently found thatmuchofthe
Colorado River’s climate-in-
duced decline—amountingto
1.5 billiontons of missingwater
—comes from the fact thatthe
region’s snowpackisshrinking
and meltingearlier.That’sas
muchwater as14 millionAmeri-
cans use inayear.
Thereservoirs inLake Mead
and Lake Powell are roughly half
full. They supplywater for mil-
lions of people in the river’s
Lower Basin:Arizona, California
and Nevada.
Thearea around GrandJunc-
tion,acitynamed for theinte r-
section of tworivers, helped
nurture the growth of theWest.
Now, loca lresidentsare trying to
copewith apresent thatlooks
verydifferent fromthisregion’s
past.
“Whatwe’reseeing is changes
in real time,”said Mark Harris,
who dire ctsthe Grand Valley
WaterUsers Association.“As wa-
ter managers, regardlessofour
personalbeliefs, we can’t tota lly
disregard these worst-case sce-
narios.The trends are leading in
one direction.”
In anormal year,the Keh-
meiersgrowbetween 350 and
400 tonsofhay;in2018, they
raised30or40.
To squeeze more snow from
the heavens, Grand Junction’s
wate rmanagers have turned to
an increasinglypopularstrategy
out West:cloudseeding.Whena
storm approaches, silver iodide
particlesareshotinto the skyso
theycan sticktofreezing water
vapor and formsnowflakes.
Notonlyare Coloradotaxpay-
ers funding thiseffort: Arizona,
California, Nevada and New
Mexico residents are spending
$450,000ayeartoboostthe flow
of theever-shrinkingColorado
River.‘You smell that?’
With so manypeople eager to
SEE2CONAtiesjustacrossthe border in
eastern Utah —has warmed
more than2degrees Celsius (3.
degreesFahrenheit),double the
globalaverage.Spanning more
than30,000 square miles, it is
the largest2Chot spot in the
Lower 48, aWashingtonPost
analysis found.
Theaverageflowofthe Colo-
rado River has declined nearly
20 percent over the pastcentury,
half of which is because of warm-
ing temperatures,scientists say.
With the region’s snowpack
shrinking and melting earlier,
the groundabsorbs more heat—
and more of the precious water
evaporates.
On theKehmeiers’ farm, like
the restofthe area, just under
twoinche sofrain fellbetween
Jan. 1and July 19.Less than half
an inch has fallen sincethe
farmingseason beganonApril 1,
just25percent of thelong-term
average.
“The seasonswhereyou don’t
wanttosee the warming are
warming faster,” said Jeff Lukas,
aresearcherat theUniversityof
Coloradoat Boulder’s Western
Water Assessment.
In the2015Paris accord,inter-
national leaders agreed tocut
greenhouse gas emissions to pre-
ventthe Earth’soverall warming
to “well below”2degrees Celsius
(3.6degreesFahrenheit) by 2100.
Theworld hasalready
warmed by1degreeCelsius (1.
degrees Fahrenheit) sincethe
industrial revolution, on aver-
age. But globalwarmingdoesn’t
affec tthe planetuniformly,and
10 percent of it is alreadyat2C,
ThePostfound.These hot spots
offerawindo wintowhatwill
happen as moreofthe planet
warms:In NewJerseyand Rhode
Island,a2Cworld hasweakened
winter’s bite; in Siberia, 10,000-
year-old mammothsare being
exposed by thawing permafrost;
and from Japan to Angola to
Uruguayand Tasmania, chang-
ing oceancurrents and warming
water have decimatedfisheries
and underwater kelp forests.
In Colorado, the rising tem-
perature is forcingareckoning in
thisconservative community.
TheColorado Riversupplies wa-
ter to 40 million people across
the West and inMexico.It nur-
tureseverything fromvineyards
to cattle to peachtreesonthe
Western Slope, and flows toLos
Angeles’swater faucetsand Ari-
zona’scottonfields.
Farmingin America’sdry inte-
riorhas always amounted to an
actofdefiance.Waterhas rein-
vented thelandscape thatKeh-
meier’s ancestors beganworki ng
on more thanacentury ago. A
vast irrigationnetworkofpipes,
tunnels and damssteers melted
2CFROMA
Region’s snowpack shrinks, and so does asource of water
PHOTOS BY CAROLYN VAN HOUTEN/THE WASHINGTON POST
TheColorado River supplies water to40million peopleacross theWestand inMexico.Theaverageflow of theColorado River has
declinednearly 20 percent overthe past century,halfofwhich is because of rising temperatures,scientistssay.3-6-1-6-6-7-5-1-