Researchers from University of California Merced are collecting data on Yosemite waters to try to build a better picture of how climate change is affecting the rivers and aquifers of the Sierra.
Ventura County Star: “One of the keys to understanding the future is locked in the traces of minerals and salts contained in water flowing through Yosemite Valley today.
Researchers from UC Merced are collecting data to build an information base with which to compare future research on climate change.
‘You can tell the history of the environment from what’s in the water,’ said Dannique Aalbu, a 23-year-old student at UC Merced and one of the researchers.
As she made her rounds of Yosemite Valley recently, Aalbu opened her equipment bag near a stream close to the Merced River’s Happy Isles Bridge and tossed a probe into the water.
The probe sent data measuring the water’s ability to conduct electricity to her gray hand-held meter. The reading would help researchers know how much of the river water came from snowmelt and how much came from groundwater that had been stored in the soil and fractured bedrock before draining into the river system. Groundwater has more dissolved minerals and salts and is better able to conduct electricity.
Researchers expect that global warming will increase the proportion of the river originating from groundwater.
Yosemite is a good place to conduct research because its watershed hasn’t been altered by logging or mining, scientists say.
Overall precipitation in the central Sierra that encompasses Yosemite hasn’t changed significantly over the past 50 years. But its form is expected to change between 4,900 feet and 8,200 feet, which is 70 percent of the park, said Yosemite hydrologist Jim Roche.”