For scientist, possible effects of climate change undeniable

Phil Mote doesn't have to be convinced of the power of a changing climate.

As the Washington state climatologist, he's closely tracking changes - in stream flow, rising temperatures and declining snowpack - consistent with a warming globe. There's also the matter of the Nobel Peace Prize, which he shared as a lead author of the latest assessment by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Then, he spent last week on the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast.

Mote traveled to Mississippi as a volunteer with his Seattle-area church. The group was there to help the coastal community of Bay St. Louis pick up the pieces scattered by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Two years later, Mote said, scarcely half the city's businesses have reopened. Every house on the coastline was destroyed by the storm surge.

As a scientist, Mote knows it's impossible to attribute any single weather event to a changing climate. And yet ?

"What if 5 percent," he asked, "of the destruction from Katrina was (related to climate change)?"

Mote visited Vancouver on Tuesday to address state water-quality regulators convening a two-day conference at the Vancouver Convention Center. He told the gathering that the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels since the dawn of the industrial age, is consistent with the climate changes to be expected in the Pacific Northwest.

Among those changes:

- A reduction in mountain snowpack, resulting in low summer stream flows and increased flows in the winter.

- Although computer models show roughly the same amount of precipitation falling over the next few decades, a warmer atmosphere could generate more extreme rainstorms from the Pacific Ocean. "That's why those Pineapple Express events are so soggy," Mote said.

The Department of Ecology asked Mote to speak to water-quality staffers from across the state.

Afterward, Mote said he was gratified to be one of hundreds of scientists to share in the Nobel prize jointly awarded earlier this month to the IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore. He said Gore's film helped raise awareness, but added that many media outlets have recognized widespread scientific consensus about climate change.

"It's clear that we're heading toward a vastly different climate," he said.

Mote is a research scientist at the University of Washington in the Climate Impacts Group, and an affiliate professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences.