Bass said he was surprised to see how sensitive the Colorado River Basin is to warming compared to other watersheds in the western U.S. He called it “a wake-up call to the climate change impacts we are living today.”
The authors focused on how warming has affected the river’s flow, saying the exceptional warmth since 2000 has compounded a decrease in precipitation “primarily driven by natural variability.” They didn’t evaluate how much of the decrease in precipitation might be driven by climate change, and suggested that’s an important area for additional research.
If the declines in precipitation are being driven partly by climate change, which appears likely, the effects on the river could be more extreme in the coming decades, Overpeck said.