Climatization—Negligent Attribution of Great Salt Lake Desiccation: A Comment on Meng (2019)

Abstract

A recent article reviewed data on Great Salt Lake (Utah) and concluded falsely that climate changes, especially local warming and extreme precipitation events, are primarily responsible for lake elevation changes. Indeed climatically influenced variation of net inflows contribute to huge swings in the elevation of Great Salt Lake (GSL) and other endorheic lakes. Although droughts and wet cycles have caused lake elevation changes of over 4.5 m, they have not caused a significant long-term change in the GSL stage. This recent article also suggests that a 1.4 °C rise in air temperature and concomitant increase in the lake’s evaporative loss is an important reason for the lake’s decline. However, we calculate that a 1.4 °C rise may have caused only a 0.1 m decrease in lake level. However, since 1847, the lake has declined 3.6 m and the lake area has decreased by ≈50%, despite no significant change in precipitation (p = 0.52) and a slight increase, albeit insignificant, in river flows above irrigation diversions (p = 0.085). In contrast, persistent water extraction for agriculture and other uses beginning in 1847 now decrease water flows below diversions by 39%. Estimates of consumptive water use primarily for irrigated agriculture in the GSL watershed suggest that approximately 85% (2500 km2) of the reduced lake area can be attributed to human water consumption. The recent article’s failure to calculate a water budget for the lake that included extensive water withdrawals misled the author to focus instead on climate change as a causal factor for the decline. Stable stream flows in GSL’s headwaters, inadequate temperature increase to explain the extent of its observed desiccation, stable long-term precipitation, and the magnitude of increased water consumption from GSL together demonstrate conclusively that climatic factors are secondary to human alterations to GSL and its watershed. Climatization, in which primarily non-climatic processes are falsely attributed to climatic factors, is a threat to the credibility of hydrological science. Despite a recent suggestion to the contrary, pressure to support Earth’s rising human population—in the form of increasing consumption of water in water-limited regions, primarily to support irrigated agriculture—remains the leading driver of desiccation of inland waters within Earth’s water-limited regions.

Water Development, Consumptive Water Uses, and Great Salt Lake

“…Gillies et al (2012) documented an overall slight increase in precipitation in Utah over the 1950-2003 period. Consequently, papers that attribute Great Salt Lake decline to climate change have been debunked (Wine et al, 2019).…”

In Water‐Limited Landscapes, an Anthropocene Exchange: Trading Lakes for Irrigated Agriculture

“…4 at a multi‐decadal to centurial time scale, seasonal and interannual climate variability are likely to exert a minimal influence on ∆S WS . In the context of shrinking lakes, there is a large body of evidence demonstrating that anthropogenic climate change remains a background condition to and not a primary driver of global lake shrinkage (AghaKouchak et al, 2015; Alborzi et al, 2018; Ashraf et al, 2017; Ashraf et al, 2018; Chaudhari et al, 2018; Fazel et al, 2017; Hassani et al, 2020; Khazaei et al, 2019; Madani et al, 2016; Micklin, 1988; Micklin, 2007; Moore, 2016; Morin et al, 2018; Rodell et al, 2018; Wine, Null, et al, 2019; Wine, Rimmer, & Laronne, 2019; Wine & Davison, 2019; Wurtsbaugh et al, 2017). Though not featured prominently here, those lakes influenced by enhanced glacial melt may present an exception to this generalization.…”

“…The Anthropocene Epoch (Lewis & Maslin, 2015) has witnessed exceptional rates of shrinkage in lakes that rely on inflow from water‐limited watersheds (Zhan et al, 2019). Still, a consequential debate—with crucial water management implications—has transpired between advocates of climatic versus anthropogenic explanations for lake shrinkage (Jaramillo & Destouni, 2015; Khazaei et al, 2019; Madani, 2014; Madani et al, 2016; Wine, Null, et al, 2019; Wine, 2019e; Wurtsbaugh et al, 2017), with important implications for aquatic ecosystems (Grimm et al, 1997) and human water security (Almada et al, 2017).…”

“…Furthermore, global models understate decadal‐scale trends in terrestrial water storage (Scanlon et al, 2018). Consequently, such projects substantially underestimate total change in inland water bodies (Table 1), such as the Aral Sea, which was already shrinking rapidly in the 1960's (Micklin, 1988; Micklin, 2007) or the Great Salt Lake basin, where most water resource development occurred prior to 1904 (Wine, Null, et al, 2019; Wurtsbaugh et al, 2017).…”

Toward strong science to support equitable water sharing in securitized transboundary watersheds

“…;Micklin 2007;Aghakouchak et al 2015;Moore 2016;Fazel et al 2017;Wurtsbaugh et al 2017;Alborzi et al 2018;Chaudhari et al 2018;Rodell et al 2018;Wang et al 2018a;Khazaei et al 2019;Shentsis et al 2019;Wine et al 2019a). …”