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SUMMARY

The impacts of anthropogenic warming will have profound impacts on the water resources of the Western United States and beyond by the year 2050.Indeed, some of these predicted changes are already present in observations of stream flow and snow pack, especially in California.

The impacts will manifest themselves in a number of ways.The snow pack will melt earlier.As a result, maximum Spring-time streamflows will happen about one month earlier in the calendar year.This causes numerous water resource problems.It also impacts the life cycle of salmon in the PNW, as well as the entire ecosystem of the Sacramento Delta.Additional impacts will be found in reduced ability to generate hydro electric power in the winter and large increases in wildfire activity in the summer.

The above results are particularly disturbing since the computer model from which they originally spring is known to have a relatively low sensitivity to GHGs.This means the above statements should be considered as conservative; if anything, they are under estimates of what will happen.