Climate changes in Oregon (Grants Pass: heating bill, best time, coastal)

[grapeguy]

Just read an interesting blurb on CNN about new predictions for climate change due to global warming:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WEATHER/10/20/warming.extremes.ap/index.html (broken link)

For the pacific northwest, they specifically mention "a strange double whammy of longer dry spells punctuated by heavier rainfall."

They also briefly touch on changes in airflow patterns. I think i read somewhere else that some people predict an alteration in the jet stream that might effectively shift west coast on-shore airflow patterns further to the north. Perhaps this would tend to reduce the winter overcast a bit (northern California has decidedly more winter sun than Oregon)

There's a nice animation of winter sun patterns over the western US at this site
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sjul/sad/

(scroll down to "Related Links" at the bottom, first link):

[Waterlily]

That seems like a change for the better here. They are predicting warmer nights too which would cut down on heating bills. I'd like to see less gloom and a bit more sun here.
Today is a nice sunny day here on the coast but fall is usually our best time of year. Early summer we still have some gloom that's left over from winter/spring.
I'm going to hope for some better weather soon.

[Steve97415]

No one really knows how the climate will change because warming ocean temperatures near the poles have the potential to alter the major ocean currents. Much of the West Coast of the U.S. has a climate much influenced by the proximity of the Japanese Current as it moves down the coast.
Unfortunately for coastal dwellers, summers may be getting even cooler and staying foggy longer (it certainly seems that way to me). Warm temperatures in the RRV bring the marine layer up over the coast and keeps the coast socked in for 5-20 miles inland. As Grants Pass gets warmer (and it seems to be getting so), the south coast will be cooler (and it seems to be happening also). Thus, we can see that the same general climate change dynamics in any one region can yield two very different local climate responses depending on whether the marine air mass or the continental air mass is the dominating feature.