[ad_1]
GOTHIC, Colo. — About four miles from the nearest snowplow road in the highlands of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, a 73-year-old man with a billowing gray beard and two swapped hips was spotted mid-day. I was trudging through my front yard to measure the fresh snow that had fallen. March day.
Billy Barr first began recording snow and weather data more than 50 years ago as a Rutgers University environmental science graduate in Gothic, Colo., near the headwaters of the Colorado River.
Bored and trying to keep busy, he equipped himself with rudimentary equipment and collected a few inches each day, just as he had recorded gas station brands on family road trips as a child. I was writing down the fresh snowfall.
Though unpaid, Baal stayed here, measuring snowfall day in and day out, driven by his obsessive curiosity and preference for spending more than half the year skiing rather than walking.
His faithful measurements revealed things he hadn’t expected a long time ago. That means as the world warms, snow is falling slower and disappearing faster. This is concerning for millions of people in the drought-stricken Southwest who rely on slowly melting mountain snowpack from spring to summer to provide reliable water for cities, agriculture and ecosystems. That’s a good sign.
“Snow is a physical form of reservoir, and if you don’t have enough of it, it disappears,” Barr said.
So-called “citizen scientists” have long been responsible for observing plants and counting wildlife to help researchers better understand the environment.
Although Barr is modest about his contributions, the previously handwritten snow data published on his website has informed numerous scientific papers and helped calibrate aerial snow detection tools. And with each passing year, his data continues to grow.
“Anyone can do it,” the self-deprecating bachelor said in a soft Jersey accent. “I was able to keep this job for 50 years because I was socially maladjusted, but anyone can sit there and watch something like that.”
Two winters ago, while skiing gentle loops through spruce trees in search of animal tracks, Barr started experiencing numbness in his legs with frustrating frequency. That’s another data point he’s collecting. He feared this year would be his last in Gothic, a former mining town turned research facility owned by the Rocky Mountain Biological Institute. He worked there full-time for decades and is now a part-time accountant.
“I was running out of time to live here,” he said. “That’s why I had a hip replacement to prolong my symptoms.”
Two hip replacement surgeries have allowed him to continue living at high altitude for extended periods of time. Barr did more cross-country skiing this December than he did all of the previous winter.
“Unless something else goes wrong, which I think it will, unless it’s serious, I think I can last a little longer here,” he said.
Many things can go wrong. On an unseasonably warm March day, Barr was sitting on a bench next to his lab when a heavy layer of snow slid off the roof, sending him flying forward on the bench, nearly causing him to fall.
Although not all risks can be avoided, some risks can be avoided. If the ski trail is too icy, walk parallel to it in the snow without a trail to get better footing. He grows his produce in a greenhouse attached to his home, and most of his preserved foods purchased the previous fall are organic. He wears a mask when indoors with others.
“You don’t get respiratory illnesses at this altitude,” he says.
For Barr, longevity means spending more time living the tranquil mountain lifestyle he enjoys in a rustic two-room home heated by passive solar and a wood-burning stove. He uses a composting toilet and utilizes solar panels to heat water, do laundry, and allow for nightly movie nights.
When Barr eventually retires from the mountains, he hopes to continue much of his years of weather collection remotely.
He has been testing remote tools for five years and is trying to adjust them to outdated but reliable technology. He believes the new tools will require several more years of testing before he can trust them, and he still fears equipment failure.
For now, he’s measuring snow using a tried-and-true method.
Around 4 p.m., I walked up the hill from my house to a flat square board painted white, and measured the depth by sticking a metal ruler into the piled up snow. Next, push the clear container upside down into the snow, use a metal sheet to scrape off any remaining snow, and slide the sheet under the container to help tip it over. He weighs the snow and subtracts the weight of the canister to calculate the moisture content.
Scientists say manual measurements remain the best method for now. Ben Pritchett, a senior forecaster with the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, said automated snow measurements introduce some uncertainty, such as wind spreading snow unevenly across the landscape.
“There’s no substitute for directly observing snow to understand how it changes,” Pritchett said.
But Barr’s data collection has always been unpaid volunteer work, which will complicate succession planning should he eventually leave the Gothic home.
“If environmental science was funded in the same way that we fund cancer research and other initiatives, we would will definitely continue its research and data collection.” “That would be extremely valuable.”
The lab has a winter caretaker who can ski the half-mile (0.8 km) to Barr’s home to manually measure fresh snow in the same spot and in the same way, but someone still has to pay for that time. There is a need to.
Barr often points out that his simple weather station is just a snapshot of the Colorado River basin, and that satellites, lasers and computer models can calculate the amount of snow that will fall across the basin and predict the resulting runoff. I know. But local scientists say without his work, some of these models wouldn’t be as accurate.
Ian Breckheimer, an ecologist at the Rocky Mountain Biological Institute, uses satellites to measure snow from space. Given the distance, Breckheimer needed ground data to calibrate the model.
“Billy’s data provides that hard truth,” Breckheimer said. “We know his data is correct, which means we can compare everything we think we see to what we know to be correct.”
In between measuring snow and recording animal sightings, Barr created a series of pieces that no one asked him to build and that didn’t bring in a penny.
Barr said he started measuring snowfall out of a simple desire to engage with the world around him, although it helps inspire scientists working in nearby mountainside labs. . He felt out of place in the city and suffocated by society’s expectations.
“I didn’t fit into anything and that doesn’t make me a criminal,” he said. “You have to find what works for you, and sometimes that means trying something different or going somewhere different.”
Just as he designed lifestyles that defy societal norms, Barr hopes the high-tech water forecasting tools scientists are using today will lead to unconventional solutions for rationing dwindling resources. doing.
“That could lead to a situation where we can no longer plant green grass in the middle of Arizona, because that’s not a good use of our finite water resources,” Barr said. “And water is more precious than gold.”
——
The Associated Press receives support for coverage of water and environmental policy from the Walton Family Foundation. AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environment coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.
[ad_2]
Source link
