ENVIRONMENT
USU Study: population growth causing wild weather patterns
LOGAN, Utah — From extreme drought to heavy snow, some researchers at Utah State University are tying to get to the bottom of Utah’s rollercoaster weather patterns.
A new study shows that it may be all our fault and that it’s not going away anytime soon. The two professors on this study say population growth, and the things we all do are adding to the wild swings in weather. While we should work to fix it, they say we’re also going to need to learn how to live with it.
Most people don’t have these kind of resources to deal with winter.
But the data suggests we could be in for a lot more extreme weather.
“…that magnitude of the hydrological cycle is increasing,” Zhang said. “This trend is not going to end, and those types of extreme events – it’s not going to end.”
While we all need to do our part Zhang says it’s bigger than that because what’s happening overseas, impacts us here.
“We need international collaborations to cut the carbon emissions from the atmosphere and that’s very challenging,” Zhang said.
“What we could do is better ourselves by building better infrastructure,” Zhang said.
Zhang says the next piece of this study will be to look into why Utah is stuch a hotspot for these kind of extremes, and whether higher global temperatures may be pulling more water into the atmosphere for building storms.