September 6, 2024

For more than sixty years, Utah’s “white gold” has been considered “the greatest snow on Earth”, with numerous ski areas and an Olympics to back up the claim(1). This snow, when it melts, supplies about 70% of the water to the Great Salt Lake(2). And the Great Salt Lake contributes ~$2.5 billion to Utah’s economy and supplies additional moisture to the mountains to make “the greatest snow on Earth”(3). In addition, the lake supports ~80% of Utah’s wetlands, provides for over 10 million migratory birds a year, and hosts 350 bird species(4).

What I’m describing here is a great example of a climate/environmental system that is self-sustaining and has supported Utahns and their environment for at least twelve millennia(5).

That is, until fossil fuel emissions and attendant climate change came knocking on Utah’s door. The state, via its policies to promote fossil gas, oil and coal,(6) invited them in, making the threat to Utah, its people and its environment (including its snow!) both external and internal. Indeed, Utah’s ski areas are already celebrating just having enough snow to cover rocks and stumps, no longer expecting Utah’s cold, dry, white gold(7).

The western U.S., centered on Utah, just suffered through the most severe 22-year drought in more than 1200 years and the most severe 21-year drought in more than 1400 years (Figure 1), with human greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (mainly from fossil fuels) making these droughts >40% worse(8). In fact, the western U.S. drought in 2021 was made 26 times more likely by human GHG emissions(9) and the 2021 unprecedented reduction in runoff to the Colorado River that flows through Utah was entirely attributable to cumulative human GHG emissions(10).

Figure 1. Annual drought record for the southwestern U.S. (called Palmer Modified Drought Index: PDMI; thin lines) from tree rings (gray) trained to match observations (red)(11). Thick lines are 21-year smoothing that reached unprecedented levels in the 21st century.

Unsurprisingly, Utah’s snowpack, its white gold mine, has dwindled as part of this unprecedented, human-caused drought. Snowpack in the Wasatch and Uinta Mountains of Utah has declined by ~29% from 1982 to 2020(12), with this decline caused by human GHG emissions mainly from the use of fossil fuels13. This reduction in water stored in the mountain snowpack then melts and flows to the valley floor in the spring and summer where it impacts the Great Salt Lake, the central hub of that self-sustaining system(14).

The Great Salt Lake has lost ~60% of its area since 1985 (Figure 2), attributed mainly to excessive human withdrawals of water, mostly for irrigation with long-term global warming acting as the secondary forcing of this decline through increased evaporation(15). However, warming also increases evaporation from irrigated fields, for instance,(16) that combined with droughts would increase withdrawals, thus increasing the true influence of human-caused climate change on the Great Salt Lake. During the 21st century unprecedented western U.S. drought, the number of days with snow cover decreased by more than two weeks with attendant reductions in lake inflow(17). Evaporation increased, both from the lake and the surrounding landscape, as the lake surface warmed by ~4.3°F(18). And the Great Salt Lake lost ~580 square miles of its area from 2001 to 2021(19).

Figure 2. Extent of the Great Salt Lake in 1985 (left) and 2022 (right)(20).

The retreat of the Great Salt Lake in the 21st century has exposed more than 280,000 football fields of lakebed to the atmosphere. If you think that can’t be good, you are right! The exposure of this sediment to the air has increased dust, which is being deposited on the snow during the winter and reached a record high in 2022(21). Dust darkens the snow surface, making it melt earlier and faster as the darker surface absorbs more radiation from the sun than brighter, fresh snow(22). The Great Salt Lake dust is consequently melting away the surrounding snow, the greatest snow on Earth, with this snow decline reducing the Great Salt Lake area, increasing the dust!(23) At this point you may be recalling Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, but there is more. In addition to the dust, the exposed lakebed is releasing CO2 and methane into the atmosphere, with 2020 emissions reaching 4.1 million metric tonnes of CO2, which added an additional 7% to Utah’s 60 million metric tonnes of CO2 released from burning fossil fuels that year(24). Utah is now caught in a self-perpetuating negative feedback loop that is the opposite of the sustaining one I described above.

This switch from a sustainable environment that supported Utahns to a downward spiral is entirely due to humanity’s use of fossil fuels.

Indeed, Utah’s official state policy is “Utah shall promote the development of… natural gas, coal, oil…”(25). On top of this downward spiral, fossil fuel emissions(26) have increased fire season length and extreme fire weather(27). Increased fire smoke in Utah has halted air quality improvements for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the last decade(28). Exposure to fine particulates from fires lowers student test scores, reducing future earnings,29 and increases child and adolescent depression(30). In addition, prenatal and postnatal PM2.5 exposure reduces child IQ and increases problematic behavior(31). On top of these air-quality impacts, drought, like the unprecedented one that the western U.S. just experienced, increases child suicide and mood disorder risk(32).

Oh, and the dust coming from the now-exposed lakebed contains toxic elements such as arsenic, cadmium, mercury, nickel, chromium, lead, copper, and selenium. Well, arsenic is a poison that we learned about thanks to the play Arsenic and Old Lace. We all know what lead does, particularly to children. Cadmium causes cancer. Nickel, chromium, copper and selenium make you very sick, and mercury makes you mad as a hatter.

A Utahn kid can’t catch a break due to the state’s love of fossil fuels!

Going forward, all future emission scenarios with fossil fuel CO2 emissions continuing past 2050 (think of these like choose your own adventure options) will result in more frequent droughts like the recent two-decade-plus drought(33). This means that unless we end fossil fuels and their GHG emissions, this unprecedented disruption of Utah’s environment and habitability will just grow worse, including further loss of its snow(34).

The answer is simple. If you want the greatest snow on Earth and all the innumerable benefits that come with it, then you have to end fossil fuels. Full stop.

Lucky for us, we no longer need fossil fuels to power our global economy!

The world, including Utah, can meet all its energy needs from clean, renewable sources,(35) sending fossil fuels to the history books next to other outdated technologies like the shake weight, horse-and-buggy, betamax, and the abacus. Folks, it doesn’t have to be this way. We have the means and know the path forward that will lead Utah back to its sustainable environment with the greatest snow on Earth.

[1] https://www.visitutah.com/articles/the-science-behind-the-greatest-snow-on-earth.

[2] https://greatsaltlake.utah.gov/current-conditions

[3] https://pws.byu.edu/GSL%20report%202023

[4] https://pws.byu.edu/GSL%20report%202023

[5] https://www.hill.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3104657/archaeologists-discover-more-pieces-of-the-ancient-past-on-uttr/

[6] https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title79/Chapter6/79-6-S301.html

[7] https://bioone.org/journals/mountain-research-and-development/volume-41/issue-3/MRD-JOURNAL-D-20-00065.1/Climate-Change-and-Utah-Ski-Resorts--Impacts-Perceptions-and/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-20-00065.1.full

[8] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01290-z; https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00532-4

[9] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/acc95d

[10] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022WR033454

[11] https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00532-4

[12] https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/28/781/2024/