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Water cutoff to rice farmers typifies contentious issues confronting Texas
The Lower Colorado River Authority’s decision to deprive downstream rice farmers of water – for the first time ever – was an especially dramatic example of the historic Texas drought’s continuing impact, even as unexpected winter rains have mitigated its severity somewhat... [continued]


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Texas Climate Initiative

The Texas Climate Initiative (TCI) is a unique public resource dedicated to the advance of climate change science and education in Texas. Our goal is to have this website become an important resource for your "virtual" research and information needs on past, present, and future climate variability and change. We will review current scientific findings, policy strategies, and educational materials in a timely, credible, and comprehensible form. Special attention will be given to the risks and opportunities for Texas in the changing climate of the 21st century.

web site: www.TexasClimate.org

web site: www.TexasClimateNews.org

TCN: After Endangered: Texas water and whooping cranes that winter on the Texas coast

After Endangered: Texas water and whooping cranes that winter on the Texas coast
January 19, 2012 by Michael Berryhill
In 1991 a blind, cave-dwelling salamander, two species of beetles, an eyeless crustacean and an inch-long fish helped change how Texas manages underground water. Using the federal Endangered Species Act, conservationists won a federal court order to protect these creatures by limiting the amount of water that can be pumped from the Edwards Aquifer. Now a group of conservationists called The Aransas Project (TAP) is using the Endangered Species Act to challenge the management of surface water. The animal in question is no obscure salamander, but the most famous and charismatic animal in North America: the whooping crane. If a federal judge rules in favor of TAP, the way Texas manages the Guadalupe River and its estuary, San Antonio Bay, will be fundamentally changed... [continued]

TCN: After exceptionally hot and dry 2011, more drought forecast for new year

After exceptionally hot and dry 2011, more drought forecast for new year
January 6, 2012 by Bill Dawson
After enduring the record-setting heat and dry conditions of 2011, drought-weary Texans are being greeted with forecasts of more of the same for the new year... [continued]

TCN: Near-term and long-term, projections include more dry conditions in Texas

Near-term and long-term, projections include more dry conditions in Texas
November 28, 2011 by Bill Dawson
Texans who don’t like the current, record-setting drought - and we’re going to venture one of TCN Journal’s extremely rare guesses that most Texans don’t like it - won’t be pleased by a pair of future-gazing reports that came out this month. One was the latest seasonal drought outlook from the National Weather Service. The second was the official summary of an upcoming report on climate change and extreme weather events and disasters from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The time scales of the two reports are very different. The drought outlook offers a forecast for the next three months. The IPCC report maps computer models’ projections of drought-related conditions in the second half of this century.In both cases, however, the message for Texas is the same: More very dry conditions lie ahead... [continued]

TCN: Three years after Ike, studies offer stark advice on storm protection

Three years after Ike, studies offer stark advice on storm protection
November 16, 2011 by Bill Dawson
For the second time in as many months, Rice University researchers have delivered stark advice on actions that should be taken in the Houston-Galveston region to guard against hurricanes. The second report was issued this week, when the school’s Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center recommended projects that include building a Houston Ship Channel floodgate and a new levee system, as well as creating a 130-mile wetlands recreation area to serve as a natural buffer zone against storm impacts farther inland. The report’s listing of both “structural” projects (the floodgate and levees) and “non-structural” steps (the wetlands recreation area) was no surprise... [continued]

TCN: Water symposium has more bad news about Texas drought: End not in sight

Water symposium has more bad news about Texas drought: End not in sight
October 20, 2011 by Bill Dawson
JUNCTION — More anthills than blades of grass are visible in some of the cracked earth around Junction. The year-long drought has plagued the town — as it has the rest of the state — and for a painful, six-week stretch, Junction banned all outdoor watering. Some 4.5 inches of rain earlier this month increased the flow of the Llano River, two forks of which meet at the town. But the water is still pretty low — and four panelists at the Texas Water Symposium last week brought some unwelcome news to the townspeople: It’s not going to get any better anytime soon... [continued]

TCN: A drought for the centuries: It hasn’t been this dry in Texas since 1789

A drought for the centuries: It hasn’t been this dry in Texas since 1789
October 16, 2011 by Bill Dawson
There was only one other year in almost five centuries when Texas’ summer drought was as severe as it was in 2011, federal climate experts have concluded. Instrumental weather records used to measure drought severity don’t go back much before the 20th century. (In Texas, they date to 1895.) To establish a longer-range record, scientists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have analyzed tree-ring data and calculated how drought conditions dating back hundreds of years (to 1550 in Texas) ranked on the standard Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI)... [continued]

TCN: The Park in Dallas: A useable green roof atop a downtown freeway

The Park in Dallas: A useable green roof atop a downtown freeway
October 16, 2011 by Barbara Kessler
Dallas, with its tangle of freeways and well-irrigated suburbs, is almost certainly not the metro center that leaps to mind when people think about “Smart Growth” and green building. It has sprawled too far, become too smoggy and been too much of a sustainability bystander for anyone to confuse it with Portland, San Francisco or even Austin, places where even prosaic issues like waste management get zealous attention. And yet, Dallas has a surprisingly good green story to tell. It ranks number two in the nation for cities using wind power (Houston’s No. 1). It’s on the front line of programs to develop electric car networks. Its transit system, Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), has spread 72 miles of light rail across the metro area, zooming past other Texas cities in offering significant mass transit options. And in the last decade Dallas has reinvigorated its city center, adding arts and entertainment venues, extending the urban hike and bike Katy Trail deeper into town and showing a new respect for the adjacent, wild and woody Trinity River bottoms with the installation of the Trinity River Audubon Center... [continued]

TCN: In new stance, water board advises on planning for risks of climate change

In new stance, water board advises on planning for risks of climate change
September 29, 2011 by Bill Dawson

With the worst one-year drought in recorded Texas history continuing and the state climatologist warning that dry conditions may drag on for years, this new warning from the Texas Water Development Board could hardly be more timely: “In serious drought conditions, Texas does not and will not have enough water to meet the needs of its people, its businesses, and its agricultural enterprises.” That’s an excerpt from a letter by Edward G. Vaughan, the TWDB chairman, introducing its 2012 State Water Plan... [continued]

A tenth of extra summer heat due to emissions growth, state climatologist says

September 12, 2011 by Bill Dawson
Texas recently finished the hottest June-August summer in recorded U.S. history. The state’s drought, its worst one-year dry spell in recorded history, drags on and on. The Texas state climatologist, John Nielsen-Gammon of Texas A&M University, has been saying for some time now that a La Niña weather pattern is the main reason for the drought, but that man-made global warming has made it more severe – just as it will aggravate future droughts... [continued]

Texas’ wind industry is praised again for helping state avoid blackouts

August 16, 2011 by Bill Dawson
During February, the chief executive of the agency that operates Texas’ electric power grid gave “a special word of thanks” to the state’s wind industry for producing electricity that helped the state avoid even worse blackouts than did occur as dozens of coal and gas generating units failed in the frigid weather. Once again this month, ERCOT, the grid agency, is praising the wind industry – this time for helping avoid blackouts as 100-plus temperatures covered the state and power demand bumped against the maximum production capacity... [continued]

Research firm backs EPA contention on Texas coal plants’ ability to comply

August 2, 2011 by Bill Dawson - Texas officials and utility companies have warned of dire economic outcomes in the state from a new federal crackdown on coal power plants’ air pollution, including lost jobs and power disruptions. Texas uses more coal than any other state. Critics of the Environmental Protection Agency’s rules contend that the affected power plants in Texas can’t meet a cleanup deadline at the end of the year and that compliance would involve expensive actions such as installing new emission-control equipment, switching fuels, and, in some cases, shutting down plants before their scheduled retirement. The EPA, which announced the new national rules last month to reduce health-threatening sulfur dioxide (SO2) that drifts across state boundaries, disputed such claims. The regulations will affect coal-fired plants in 28 states... [continued]

War of words: Swift reaction to EPA crackdown on coal plants’ air pollution

July 8, 2011 by Bill Dawson - In an action that TCN Journal reported earlier this week was imminent, the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday announced tough new pollution-reduction requirements for coal-fired power plants in Texas and 27 other states. Such facilities in Texas, the state that uses the most coal, will particularly bear the impact of the new rules. They target emissions of pollutants that drift across state lines and add to air quality and other environmental problems at remote locations. Public health advocates, renewable energy proponents, some power companies, environmentalists and downwind officials have applauded the EPA move... [continued]

In Texas, as elsewhere, cities are taking the lead in climate-energy action

June 22, 2011 by Bill Dawson - National climate-energy policy is stalled in Washington’s partisan gridlock. Texas proponents of cleaner energy are consoling themselves that at least they “dodged a disaster” in the Legislature this year. In other states, environmentalists have been battling efforts to make “historically large cuts to environmental programs.” The picture is often different at the municipal level, however, as recent developments in Texas illustrated – particularly in San Antonio and Houston, the state’s second-largest and largest cities... [continued]

Universities in Texas are boosting sustainability, boasting about results

May 16, 2011 by Bill Dawson - Prominent Texas officials harshly condemn the federal effort to reduce climate-altering greenhouse gases, while challenging the mainstream scientific conclusions behind those rules. Some conservative think tanks and commentators in the state add fuel to that polemical fire with critiques of cleaner, renewable energy and the broader concept of sustainability. A number of Texas’ top universities don’t seem to be getting the message, however, much less getting with the business-as-usual program it might suggest... [continued]

National poll reveals far more support for renewables than for fossil fuels

May 9, 2011 - A major new opinion study by the Pew Research Center produced encouraging news for renewable energy advocates in Texas and elsewhere - a large majority of the American public favors developing renewables instead of expanding the use of fossil fuels. At the same time, the new Pew study documented a continuation of the partisan divide on views about climate change that various polls have recorded in recent years. Another recent national survey noted, however, that the rise in skepticism about global warming that marked this polarization appears to have ended for the time being, while a recent Houston-area poll recorded higher levels of climate skepticism than the national polls found in the country as a whole... [continued]

The Texas Climate News (TCN) is an online magazine about climate change and sustainability. We offer our own original journalism and a regularly-updated guide to reports by others. The editor of TCN is Bill Dawson, a Houston-based journalist and writer who also teaches at Rice University.

How hot is it?
From Turkey and Tulia to Houston and
Galveston, record heat
July 8, 2011 by Bill Dawson

Texas AgriLife Extension Service says wheat crops are
expected to be severely reduced or wiped out in most
parts of Texas by the 2011 drought...
read more at

Hurricane history provides preparedness lessons

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Air Research Information Infrastructure (ARII)::New Technology Research & Development Program::Sustainable Transportation Programs::Texas Climate Initiative::Third Ward Sustainability Project::Update on HARC Air Quality Model