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TGR goes to Washington: Jeremy Jones shreds Capitol Hill.

Two weeks ago, NASA announced that the past decade was the warmest on record for planet Earth, based on measurements of land and sea temperatures.

While not immune to political pressure, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration isn’t exactly a partisan apparatus, making its findings all the more pointed. From the N.Y. Times:

The agency also found that 2009 was the second warmest year since 1880, when modern temperature measurement began. The warmest year was 2005. The other hottest recorded years have all occurred since 1998, NASA said.

We need only to look at the forests of Wyoming, ravaged by drought in the early part of the decade, for a record of climate change. The vast stands of red, dead pines stand as a testament to warm and dry patterns that weakened the trees and left them more vulnerable to beetle infestation.

Reading the Times story, I was reminded of a conversation I had with Jackson meteorologist Jim Woodmencey last summer, in the midst of all the rain in June and snow in August. Woody and I talked primarily about how cold the summer was (not nearly as cold as 1993, he said), but we touched on a few noteworthy historical trends — and these could be troubling for skiers.

First, in the 50-year period between 1951 and 2000, there was a 7 percent decrease in snowfall in the town of Jackson, from an average of 79 inches to 73 inches per year, Woody said.

However, annual precipitation increased 10 percent, from 15 inches to 16.75.

The average temperature was 1 degree F warmer, and the months responsible for the change were March and April, he said. Those spring months make sense from my own observations, as that’s a time when snow is likely to change to rain with just a slight shift in temperature.

Woody is the keeper of data recorded since the 1950s by the U.S. Forest Service.

I don’t intend to fight the whole global warming battle here. It should be a scientific, not political, issue. Woody and I don’t agree on everything; he has said warming could be a cyclical trend and not necessarily due to the actions of humans. But we do agree on the need to reduce pollution.

Beetle kill in Canada. Similar swaths of dead trees can be seen north of Jackson on Togwotee Pass and above Goodwin Lake.

The potentially catastrophic consequences of a warming climate and melting ice caps go far beyond a shortened or less powdery ski season; still, it’s heartening to see snow sports enthusiasts becoming activists in the climate debate and taking the fight to Washington, D.C.

Last week Jeremy Jones, snowboarder star of Teton Gravity Research films and founder of the nonprofit Protect Our Winters, went to Congress to show the TGR climate change movie Generations. Jones and his delegation came at the behest of Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., whose district is home to at least eight ski resorts, including Vail, Breckenridge, A-Basin and Loveland.

TGR reports that the audience included Reps. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Jay Inslee, D-Wash., and senior energy and environment staff for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. “The members and staff that the group met with are all key players in the climate and energy debate, most holding senior positions and even chairmanships on the central committees of influence,” TGR said in a release.

Too bad no Republicans attended the showing.

Jeremy and cousin Steve Jones, co-founder of TGR, at right, pose with Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash. TGR partnered with The North Face on "Generations."

Rep. Polis was impressed: “The perspective provided by “Generations,” and the teams in the meetings this week, provided valuable and often overlooked component of the climate change debate in Washington,” he said. “The ski industry is the lifeblood of my district and climate change is already taking a toll.

“These athletes are on the front lines of this crisis, watching snow, ice and communities disappear all over the world. In sharing their story with Congress, they are sharing the stories of many communities who are all desperately watching their way of life disappear with the warming planet.

“While the loss of skiing isn’t the worst consequence of climate change, these individuals show us how we all stand to be personally affected by this global problem,” Polis said.

Keep in mind that the trends Woody noted don’t take into account the decade NASA has determined to be the warmest on record. Project a decrease in snowfall of 7 percent or more for the next 50 years, and we will all be personally affected — on the slopes, in our forests, and in ever-shallower streams.

Scene outside Akasha Yoga during the startling meltoff of March 2007.

Posted under Democratic Party, Environment, Politics, Ski Resorts