UC Davis Lecture: How Tahoe's Future Climate Is Going to Change Its Many Watersheds

Climate change is already impacting the Lake Tahoe Basin and even more change will arrive in coming decades. In response, agencies and communities throughout the Basin are beginning to develop plans and actions to enhance their capacities to adapt to climate change. Our recently completed study has yielded detailed simulations of weather, snow, and streamflow responses in the 60 sub-basins that comprise the Basin to a collection of 16 different global climate-change projections. The study provides an opportunity to think about future trends and transformations in the Basin, including identification of key climate-change hotspots and refuges (sub-basins that will be most or least impacted) in ways not possible with previous projections. We’ll talk about all this and what it probably means for the future of the Basin.