From unseasonably warm winters to intense wildfires, Washington has been experiencing patterns of unusual weather events for several years. As of April 2024, Washington State Department of Ecology declared a statewide drought and are still looking for signs of drought recovery. These events aren’t just anomalies — they are indicative of a broader trend of changing weather across the nation.

Karin Bumbaco (she/her), Deputy State Climatologist at the University of Washington, said that Washington temperatures have been warming by around 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit for the past 30 years in this area, which can have a negative impact on the normally temperate state.

“Our temperatures are warmer, which means that more of our precipitation causes rain rather than snow,” Bumbaco said. “That can be really impactful for our sea level snowpack, which is critical for our state, because it stores water for our drier months in the spring and summer when we need it. That’s a big issue. It has an impact on water supply.” 

Temperature increases pose a risk to Washington’s coastal environments and agriculture. While 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit may seem minute, most marine invertebrates are significantly impacted by this slight change in temperature and can undergo thermal shock. Bumbaco said rising temperatures can induce droughts, and in eastern Washington, certain crops like apples and cherries are often scorched in higher heat. Christmas tree farmers are still struggling to recover after the extreme heat Washington faced in 2021 scorched vegetation. 

“When we’re talking about almost two degrees Fahrenheit on an annual scale, that’s a big change in terms of our climate because it affects rain, snow and overall averages in the seasons,” Bumbaco said. “So, we are experiencing climate change in Washington state.” 

These drastic changes in climate have also caught the attention of sophomore and Earth Corps secretary Jadie Hwang (she/her). Hwang said the recent snow is actually a sign of an increasingly unstable climate for Washington ecosystems. 

“The pattern of snow in Washington state has definitely changed in the past couple years as a result of climate change, and we’re seeing a lot of reductions in biodiversity, especially since we’re so close to the Pacific Ocean,” Hwang said.

Bumbaco said that she is confident that greenhouse gasses are the culprit for climate change. When produced, chemicals like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide end up creating an insulating layer in the atmosphere. This is called the greenhouse effect, preventing heat from escaping the Earth’s atmosphere which further heats the planet. Greenhouse gases are produced through various human activities, such as burning fossil fuels for energy, transportation and even manufacturing plants. 

“We can run these big computer models that can estimate all the systems in our oceans, so we can see the relationship between, for example, ice and solar radiation. When we run these models, we can compare what the climate is now to how it would be if we didn’t have any greenhouse gases,” Bumbaco said. 

Washington has various waterways that feed into the Puget Sound, which creates a suitable location for hydro dams that convert flowing water into kinetic energy into electrical energy. However, Hwang said that the dams are actually extremely harmful to salmon, which require open waterways to complete their migration from freshwater to saltwater bodies of water. Although this is a downside, she said that the benefit of dams is the renewable energy that they produce. 

“Washington is actually pretty good about having renewable energy, since we have a lot of hydro dams here and windmills in eastern Washington,” Hwang said. “But that’s always something we can improve.” 

Hwang tries to combat climate change by maximising her sustainable practices to reduce her carbon footprint. One action she takes is to avoid eating meat when possible. Turning to vegetable-based alternatives can help reduce carbon emissions due to the large amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by the meat industry. Another way that Hwang recommends calling or writing letters to state legislators.

“That’s one of the more important things you can do, since people in power have the most choice when it comes to choosing to mitigate climate change or not,” Hwang said. 

However, Hwang noted that over 70 different companies are responsible for 90% of climate change contributions. She finds this interesting because all the weight of climate change’s impact is felt by individuals, even though they aren’t the sole contributors. 

“It’s kind of weird that there’s all this pressure on individuals to change the climate, when a lot of blame for climate change is on corporations that are causing greenhouse gasses,” she said. 

Hwang wonders what Washington weather will look like several years from now, which begs the question of what can be done at this point in time to prevent the climate from becoming more and more extreme. 

“I think that it’s going to look a lot different than the climate that we’re in right now, since we’re on the tipping point between where we can start making quantifiable actions towards fixing the climate problems worldwide, and then letting it spiral out of control,” Hwang said. “So, we need to be making that decision now.”