We hear about it daily: Global warming. Greenhouse effect. Climate change. These terms sound immense, distant, and daunting, as do the headlines of shrinking sea ice at the North Pole, burning forests in the Amazon, and the spread of infectious tropical diseases.

When we consider the complicated global dilemma of climate change, it’s tempting to detach, and retreat into the local landscapes and daily rhythms with which we are more familiar.

But for those of us living in the Clark Fork watershed, even those rhythms are shifting—touched by climate change in starkly visible ways. Drought, intense wildfires, declining snowpack, early runoff, streams closed to fishing: for many of us, these changes are putting a lifetime of patterns out of sync and creating conditions tangibly different from what we cherish about living in western Montana.

They’re also delivering the message that climate change is happening here. It’s happening now. And it may drastically reshape how we experience our hometown rivers—our ribbons of life.

Recognizing that climate change is an international issue, with backyard implications for us all, the Clark Fork Coalition and the National Wildlife Federation teamed up to bring you “Low Flows, Hot Trout.” This plain-language report summarizes decades of data and observations, all of which point to a clear conclusion: the Clark Fork River basin is experiencing a very real shift in climate.

Scrolling through the months and the metrics from the 1950s, we see that March in western Montana is hotter, more precipitation comes as rain, spring snowmelt arrives earlier, extreme wildfires are more frequent, and glaciers are making hastier retreats. And the projections years out show much of the same.

While not all of the associated impacts are bad, for example, we can expect a longer growing season and improved survival of deer and elk over the winter—we will also experience more forest disease, more wildfires, and warmer waters in our trout streams. Some studies have estimated that we could lose between 5 and 30 percent of trout habitat in western Montana over the next century. And with less water stored as snow in the mountains, we can also expect impacts to many sectors of our “snowpack economy,” such as agriculture, recreation and tourism, hydroelectric power generation, and forest and range industries.

What do these key scientific findings mean for our way of life in the Clark Fork watershed?

Low Flows, Hot Trout also takes a look at actions and policies that will protect our celebrated landscape in the face of a warming watershed. This includes mitigating the causes of climate change, such as reducing Montana’s greenhouse gas emissions, and adapting to the changing patterns by using our resources more wisely.

The bottom line is this: plenty can be done and everyone can make a difference, from simple at-home fixes that improve our daily energy and water use to policy changes that encourage resource-friendly development or statewide renewable energy production.

As Low Flows, Hot Trout shows, climate change in the Clark Fork River basin presents a different picture of our tomorrow.

It presents a challenge, as well as an exciting opportunity for Montanans to lead the way in innovative water and wildlife management, generating homegrown fuels like wind and solar power, and creating a restoration economy that benefits our communities and our rivers.

Please join us in taking a look at where we are along the spectrum of a warming West, so we can work together to best illuminate the path toward solutions.

You can download Low Flows, Hot Trout at www.clarkfork.org, or schedule a presentation on the report’s findings by calling the Clark Fork Coalition at 542-0539.

To further spark discussion on what the future holds for the waters that define our landscape, culture, and economy, the Clark Fork Coalition, Western Progress, and the National Wildlife Federation will also convene a Headwaters Summit September 15-17th in Missoula, with a free keynote speech by David James Duncan.

This Summit will bring together advocates and policy makers to re-vision how we use water in the changing climate of the northern Rockies. Visit www.northernheadwaters.org for more information on this upcoming event.

Brianna Randall is the Water Policy Director at the Clark Fork Coalition, a non-profit group working to protect and restore the Clark Fork Watershed.