Climate evolution in Utah and in Bryce Canyon in the last century

1. Introduction

For more information about the Earth’s climate and recent observed climate change, see document
“Everything you need to know about the Earth’s climate”. This present document will focus on observed
changes in Utah and in Bryce Canyon.

An important thing to keep in mind when looking at climate graphics is the difference between weather
and climate, which are often misconceived as being the same thing:
• Weather = the state of the atmosphere (e.g. temperature, precipitation) and its variations on the
short term ranging from a few seconds to a few days. This is what you read about in a weather
forecast, e.g. today it will be sunny and 70°F.
• Climate = what the weather is like on a longer time scale, usually it is an average over several
decades, e.g. 30 years  Seattle has a rainy climate (even though maybe today it rained more in
Bryce Canyon than in Seattle, over the long term Seattle gets more rain than Bryce).
One way to think about the difference between weather and climate is to compare them to clothes:
weather tells you what to wear each day (today it’s colder than yesterday so I might want to wear my
jacket), while climate tells you what type of clothes you have in your closet (if you live in Alaska or in
Florida you probably will have different clothes).
Hence, although weather can make temperature and precipitation values change a lot from year to year
and you can’t infer anything by looking at a single year, the trend of the temperature and precipitation
evolution over the years will give you information about the climate. The longer the observational time
series, the more representative of long-term trends your analysis will be.

2. Temperature

Over the last century, temperatures in Utah have

steadily increased like in many other places around
the world and in the US. Figure 1 shows the
temperature change in the US over the last century;
while most of the country exhibits a warming of 0.5-
3.5°F over that time period, certain parts in the south-
east have cooled by up to 1°F. Indeed, although the
climate is globally warming, changes in the
atmospheric and oceanic circulations can cause
certain places to cool down locally despite the global
warming trend. This is, however, not a sign that
climate change is not happening.
Figure 1: Temperature change over the last century.
Source: EPA, 2016.
In addition to local variations, temperatures can strongly vary year to year because of variability internal
to the climate system (for more information on this, check “Everything you need to know about the Earth’s
climate, in particular Chapter 2.3). Figure 2 shows the mean annual temperature evolution for Utah for
the period 1895-2019. Notice how the curve is very squiggly, showing a succession of warmer and cooler
years. For e.g. after rather warm years between 2014 and 2018, 2019 was much cooler.

However, despite these large year-to-year variations, there has been an overall warming trend in
temperatures in Utah of about 2.8°F since 1895.

Figure 2: Mean annual temperature in Utah (red curve) and trend (gray dashed line) for the period 1895-2019.

The same year-to-year variation can be seen when looking at the temperature evolution in Bryce Canyon
shown in Figure 3 (next page), which displays the mean annual temperature evolution for the period 1960
to 2019 for the maximum, average and minimum temperatures. Unfortunately, we cannot display a longer
time series although a weather station has been present in Bryce Canyon since 1933, because it was
moved in 1959 and hence the time series of weather measurements for the periods 1933-1959 and 1960-
2019 are not compatible.

You can see on Figure 3 that while maximum temperatures have not increased considerably (0.5°F over
the last 60 years), minimum temperatures have increased considerably, by 7°F! Since maximum
temperatures are observed during the day and minimum temperatures are observed during the night,
this means that night-time temperatures have warmed up faster than day-time temperatures.

If night-time temperatures warm up, the potential to have a freeze-thaw cycle decreases. A freeze-thaw
cycle happens when the minimum temperature drops below freezing (32°F) and the maximum
temperature rises above freezing within a 24-hour period. Freeze-thaw cycles are crucial to the formation
of hoodoos in Bryce Canyon. Figure 4 (next page) shows the evolution of annual freeze-thaw cycles in
Bryce Canyon between 1960 and 2019. You can see a clear decrease in the amount of freeze-thaw cycles,
with a loss of about 50 days, going from about 220 freeze-thaw cycles a year in the 1960s to 170 cycles a
year today. This decrease in freeze-thaw cycles could thus have an impact on hoodoo formation.
Figure 3: Mean annual temperature in Bryce Canyon for the period 1960-2019 and trend (gray dashed line) for the
maximum temperature (red curve), average temperature (black curve) and minimum temperature (blue curve).

Figure 4: Annual number of freeze-thaw cycles in Bryce Canyon (dots) and trend (dashed line) for the
period 1960-2019.
3. Precipitation

As a change in temperatures affects the water cycle, we would expect to observe a change in precipitation
in Utah over the last century as well. However, unlike for temperatures, precipitation in Utah does not
show any significant trend, with a slight increase of 0.27 inches between 1895 and 2019 (see Figure 5),
and displays a large year-to-year variability, ranging between values of 9 to 20 inches a year.

Figure 5: Total annual precipitation in Utah (blue curve) and trend (gray dashed line) for the period 1895-2019.

The precipitation evolution in Bryce Canyon between 1960 and 2019 (see Figure 6) also displays a large
year-to-year variability, with values ranging from 5 to 29 inches of precipitation a year, as well as a slight
increase over time of 1.3 inches. Snowfall (see Figure 7 next page) also displays a large year-to-year
variability, with unusually high values of 226 inches in 2019, influencing the trend significantly. When
taking 2019 into account, snowfall shows a slight increase of 4.4 inches over the whole time period, while
not taking that year into account shows a decrease of 10.5 inches for the same time frame. This highlights
the difference between weather and climate and shows the importance of having long time series in order
to do climate analyses, as an unusual year can significantly influence the trend.

Figure 6: Total annual

precipitation in Bryce
Canyon (blue curve) and
trend (gray dashed line) for
the period 1960-2019.
 Figure 7: Total annual snowfall
in Bryce Canyon (blue curve)
and trends for the period 1960-
2019 (light gray line) and 1960-
2018 (dark gray line).

Since precipitation has slightly increased over time while snowfall has decreased (if we omit the unusual
snowy year 2019), this suggests that more of the precipitation falls in the form of rain than snow today,
or in other terms that it snows less often but rains more often than before, which can have significant
impacts on the water supply (see Chapter 5. Impact of future changes below).

4. What will the future be like?

Projections of future temperature show that global temperatures are expected to increase by 2-9°F
(1.5-5°C) by 2100 (see Figure 8 and see also document “Everything you need to know about the Earth’s
climate” Chapter 4.4 for more information on future climate projections).

Figure 8: Global average surface temperature change from 1950 to 2100 relative to 1986-2005 for historical
(black) data and two future projections, RCP2.6 (blue, where emissions are cut to zero by 2100) and RCP8.5
(red, “business as usual” where no emissions area cut). Uncertainties are shown with color shading.
Source: IPCC, 2013.
However, when looking at a more local scale at the south-western US (see Figure 9), we notice that
temperatures are predicted to rise more in that area, by 7-12.5°F (4-7°C) by 2100.

Figure 9: Change in average surface temperature for 2081-2100 compared to 1986-2005 for the “business
as usual” RCP8.5 model. Dots show regions for which 90% of the models agree on the sign of the change.
Source: IPCC, 2013.

Changes in precipitation in the south-west, on the other hand, are hard to predict, as future precipitation
does not exhibit clear behavior in the climate models (see Figure 10, the dashed lines show that the
projected change by the models is very small compared to the natural climate variability, thus it is not
possible to know if the changes predicted result from natural climate variability or from climate change).
Hence, we do not know how precipitation will change in the south-west in the future and can only
speculate upon future changes.

Figure 10: Change in average precipitation for 2081-2100 compared to 1986-2005 for the “business as usual”
scenarios RCP8.5. Dots show regions for which 90% of the models agree on the sign of the change; diagonal lines
show regions where projected change is small compared to natural internal variability. Source: IPCC, 2013.
5. Impact of future changes

These changes in temperature could have significant impacts in Utah and in Bryce Canyon. Warmer
temperatures increase the evapotranspiration from water surfaces and vegetation, making soils drier and
increasing the need for irrigation. With precipitations not necessarily increasing in the future, water might
be limited. Water shortages will also result from a loss of snowpack due to decreasing snowfall in the
winter. As explained above, rain is slowly replacing snow, and although precipitation has not decreasing
and might not decrease in the future, the loss of snow in favor of rain could have significant impacts, as
snow accumulated over the course of the winter and gradually melting in the spring is an important source
of water in Utah. Water shortages would in particular affect farms and cattle ranches throughout the
state.

High temperatures and drought conditions are also more likely to increase the severity, frequency and
extent of wildfires, which pose then a threat to human health and safety. In addition, warm and dry
conditions stress forests which become more susceptible to attacks from parasites such as bark beetles.
With the warming of minimum temperatures which are important to kill the beetles and limit their
expansion, bark beetles could persist year-round and damage significantly the forests.

With temperatures shifting, we would also observe a shift in the vegetation distribution, since
temperatures control largely where vegetation grows. In particular, we would see vegetation moving from
lower elevations to higher elevations, completely changing the life zones that are currently established
and affecting the wildlife they support. In Bryce Canyon, we currently have a pinion-juniper woodland at
low elevations in the canyons, a ponderosa pine forest at mid elevations on the Plateau, and a mixed
conifer forest at higher elevations near Rainbow Point. With warmer temperatures, we could observe all
these distributions moving up higher in elevation to follow the temperature shift, and we would
potentially lose the life zone located at the highest elevation, since it could not move higher up. This is
where we find for example the long-lived bristlecone pines, which have adapted to live in harsh conditions
at high elevation where no other tree wants to live in. With vegetation moving up in altitude as
temperature increases, the bristlecone pines could start being replaced by other trees. On the other hand,
new species might appear at lower elevations in the canyons, with possibly new animals associated to this
type of vegetation.

Higher temperatures could also influence human health, with a higher potential for heat strokes,
dehydration, etc., especially in a high altitude area like Bryce Canyon, visited by many people who are not
used to the dry desert climate, increasing the need for rescues and pressure on rescuers. In addition, high
temperatures favor the formation of ground-level ozone especially in cities, creating respiratory issues.

These changes, in particular the loss in snowpack, could also have an economic impact on Utah, as ski
resorts would not be able to operate as long in the winter as they used to. This loss might, however, be
counter-balanced by the extension of shoulder seasons, with high visitation starting earlier in the spring
and ending later in the fall as temperatures warm up.

Finally, let’s not forget what makes Bryce Canyon unique: its hoodoos. As mentioned previously, freeze-
thaw cycles are of particular importance for hoodoo formation. A decrease in the number of freeze-thaw
cycles would decrease hoodoo formation. In addition, an increase in rain (related to the loss of snowfall
with more precipitation falling as rain) would have the potential to increase hoodoo erosion, both
chemically (dissolution of the limestone by the rainwater) and physically (transport of sediments
downstream). These factors could all result in the hoodoos looking much different in the future, being less
well formed, shorter and flatter, thus not as scenic as they are today.

6. References

Environmental Protection Agency EPA (2016, August). What Climate Change Means for Utah [web document].
Retrieved from https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-09/documents/climate-
change-ut.pdf.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC (2013). Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis.
Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Retrieved from https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/.