It was.
A week or so after our little adventure, our newspaper ran a front-page story by the Associated Press about a different, but no less ominous, dust storm. This one struck Silverton, Colorado, on April 3rd, turning two-feet of snow on the ground a rusty red. This was news not only because Silverton, at 9300 feet in elevation, sits at the evergreen heart of the San Juan mountains and doesn't normally look like the surface of Mars, but because, according to reporter Juliet Eilperin, it portends all sorts of trouble.
For starters, dust speeds up snowmelt – because its dark color absorbs heat – which can create a myriad of downstream consequences, including too-early runoff for plants, wildlife, farms and people. Second, dust is a sign of drought, especially when it comes in big blasters, racing across large landscapes – the product of too little rain and too much human-caused disturbance.
The source of this dust is debatable, according to Eilperin, and thus, because this is the West, a cause for finger-pointing. Were there too many livestock eating too few grass plants and exposing too much soil to the erosive power of the wind? Were there too many off-road vehicles tearing up fragile landscapes? Was there too much oil and gas exploration blading scars across vast stretches of the dry lands? Were there too many unpaved lots and dirt roads in rural subdivisions, home to weak weeds and
What isn't debatable, according to a recent report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is this: human-induced land degradation can make droughts worse. For instance, scientists now know that while the Dust Bowl of the 1930s was hotter and drier than a 'normal' drought, the role of human-caused land disturbance helps to explain the scope and scale of the ensuing disaster. According to the report's authors, plowing up the prairie exacerbated the heat by reducing the vegetative cover over a vast area. The resulting dust storms also affected atmospheric moisture content enough to intensify drought conditions. Misery followed. Future Dust Bowls, they conclude, could easily be repeated.
That's one reason why a Mars-red Silverton sets off alarm bells, and why I emerged from my own private dust storm with a sinking feeling in my stomach. The question isn't simply is the Southwest getting drier under global warming? That's largely settled among climatologists and other researchers – in fact, the region's temperatures are expected to rise by 10 degrees by 2100. I think the question now before us is this one: are we making it worse? And perhaps this one: what are the consequences of our inaction?
These aren't academic questions. Later in the spring, the Los Angeles Times reported that twelve dust storms have barreled into the Rocky Mountains so far this year. In contrast, only four such storms hit in all of 2003. Eight occurred in each of the past three years. This is a bad sign because forecasters predict global warming will reduce the soil quality across the western United
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