“How hot will Denver get by the turn of the next century? Recent analysis appears to suggest global climate change will have a huge impact on the city.
Denver will see 32 more 100+ degree days by 2100, according to SpareFoot.com. Currently, the mercury level reaches (or rises above) the 100-degree mark at Denver International Airport on average about two days a year.While triple digit temperatures are rare in the Mile High City, the additional days of extreme heat will mean Denver's summers will feel more like Phoenix, which topped the site's Hottest Hottest Cities list.
A blog entry on the self-storage site named Denver the 13th Hottest Hottest Cities in the U.S. SpareFoot looked at 15 cities with the largest population increase between 2015 and 2016 and then ranked the cities by their Sperling Heat Index.
The effects of global climate change are already occurring, according to NASA. A recent draft report on global climate change from 13 federal agencies shows “unambiguous” evidence that “a changing climate abounds.” The temp rises and rises each year, so the climate is changing by getting hotter. Garrison, Robert. “Global Climate Change: How Hot Will Denver Get?”
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The mountains of Colorado receive nearly half of their annual precipitation in the form of snow. The state relies on regular, consistent snowfall to power its ski season and fill cool mountain springs with water for farms and residents alike.Unfortunately, most projections for Colorado’s spring snowpack show declines for the mid-twenty first century due to the projected warming, leading to a ripple effect on the water supply.The timing of snowmelt and peak runoff has already shifted earlier in the spring by one to four weeks as compared to the long-term average across Colorado’s river basins over the past 30 years. And since 2000, snowpack has generally been below average in all of Colorado’s river
Case study: the flooding that occurred in Minden Hills in the spring of 2013, flooded the downtown core. The picturesque cottage town has the Gull River flowing through it. The river overflowed in April because of many reasons: a couple of days of rain, the third largest amount in over a century, but it also happened because the frost in the ground stopped the water from going into the Earth, the lakes and rivers being full from the spring thaw, and the rapid
Denver already had a functioning airport with Stapleton and increased only in space but no technology with the construction of the Denver International airport. Consequently, this brings questions as to why there was a need for a new airport in the first place. The runways have been laid out to resemble
Glaciers are an integral part of the world’s climate. In fact, as Richard Armstrong of the University of Colorado says, “Glaciers are key indicators in monitoring and detecting climate change” (Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, 2003, p. 1). Not only are they an important part of monitoring current climate, they can hold many keys to the past. Glaciers are in fact, “a source of paleoclimate data…” (Meier and Dyurgerov, 1980, p. 37). This paleoclimate data can give geologists information on the conditions that were present at the time of the glaciers birth, as well as the approximate age. This has an important role in the geologic time scale of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. These Glaciers played a role in the carving of the present day Rocky Mountains in Colorado, which will be the primary focus of this paper. In addition, glacial formations will be discussed to give the reader background information and the future of the Glaciers in Colorado will close this paper.
Droughts in Wyoming’s future are unpredictable and uncertain; however, Richard Guldin of the Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station in Fort Collins, Colorado, has made some predictions for the water situati...
Salt Lake City, Provo and Logan rank consistently in the top ten U.S. Cities for the air pollution. Vehicle emission account for more than hal...
Water has long been a controversy in countless places worldwide and Colorado is no exception. The water rights in Colorado involve different stages within the Prior Appropriation Law; the senior and junior water rights. Senior water rights are privileges that were the first to be issued on unappropriated streams in Colorado and are to be filled before the junior water right holders. Junior water rights are similar to senior water rights, but are filled after the senior water holders take their allotted amount (Wolfe Prior Appropriation Law). The water in Colorado is just that; Colorado’s water, owned by the people and restricted by the state. However, Colorado is required by law to send over 30 million acre – feet of water to seven western states (“Missouri River”). An acre – foot is “The quantity of water required to fill one acre with one foot of water and is equivalent to 43,560 cubic feet or 325,850 gallons” (“Missouri River”). The State enforces all water laws in Colorado even though they are not straightforward and are riddled with loopholes. These water laws came into effect “As early as 1879” (Hundley, Jr. 53). In the laws, there are even more constraints and idiosyncrasies including; owning ground water, owning surface water, senior rights and junior rights, and the use and reuse of rainwater or graywater. Water users in Colorado need to familiarize themselves with the laws and regulations involving water in order to receive the allotted water and the reasoning behind that number.
As global temperatures and ocean levels rise, the water levels of the Great Lakes continues to fall. As the lakes hit their all time lowest level in global history in 2012, society remains ignorant to the imposing doom that lurks ahead. Since the Great Lakes make up the largest group of fresh water lakes on Earth and are responsible for approximately 21% of the Earth’s fresh water supply, this issue is becoming one of the largest environmental and economical issues our modern world faces. The effects of this issue include destroying animal habitats and a major economic market; shipping. Water levels in the Great Lakes have been dropping for the past fourteen years, but it wasn’t until boats were scraping the bottom of Lake Huron that people began to take notice. This terrible environmental issue has been dubbed a long term cycle of over evaporation and not enough precipitation to replenish the Lakes. Keith Kompoltowicz, chief of watershed hydrology for the United States Army Corps of Engineers in Detroit has been monitoring this issue for a decade and has made startling discoveries, such as in 2012, he discovered Lake Michigan and Lake Huron’s water levels only rose four inches after winter, whereas the Lakes have been regularly recorded as gaining a foot of water after the winter season had ended. This amount of water added is not enough to maintain a proper water level during the dry, hot summer seasons that evaporate much water from the Great Lakes. While some scientists say that this is just a cycle that will adjust itself naturally, most experts that have been studying this phenomenon, such as Kompoltwicz, would agree that the issue has gone to far
So, no matter where you live in Texas, the affects of climate change can be felt in one if not more ways. With changes already occurring to our cities, urban areas, and water resources, it is obvious that climate change has already started to affect Texas. Yet it is hard to predict with certainty what impact these changes will have on the life of the everyday Texan. One thing is for certain, and that is that in the coming years a solution to the decrease of greenhouse gases will need to be found and acted upon quickly.
Also, the definition of global warming emphasizes a gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth's atmosphere. Consequently, when it comes to the topic of the Colorado river drought a record of American citizens neglect to consider the effects of global warming related to the issue. Moreover, the Department of the Interior reports global warming, the Colorado snow melt factor, and natural population increase as the three leaders of the drought epidemic. Basically, the Department of the Interior relates global warming, and the snow melt factor as a hand in hand coordination of disaster. Naturally, as the earth’s internal temperature grows, it causes the snow from the Rocky Mountains to melt too rapidly causing the majority of snow to evaporate instead of melt gradually and stream into the Colorado river to aid in the flow of water. In fact, many are unaware of the utmost importance of the snow pack every year, also a desperate synchronization of snow melting slowly and turning into a surplus of water for all to appreciate. In addition, the natural population increase in an area causes normal resources to be taken away and creates the natural flow of water to decrease due to supply and demand. However, does the evidence I’ve cited prove conclusively who or what is at fault for the Colorado drought epidemic? Despite, the expanse of claims and statistics Americans can be
The prospect of Lake Mead’s water level returning to the fullness of the past would be a desirable outlook. As stated, “Snowpack in southern and eastern Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada is still far below normal” (Berwyn, B., 2014, para. 3). The very dry conditions in New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern Nevada muc...
Global temperatures have noticeably been rising since the mid 1800’s.The average temperature has increased by 0.6 ± 0.2°C since 1860 according to (John Sweeney, 2003)with accelerated warming apparent in the latter decades of the 20th century. The legitimacy of global warming had long been debated, however in a report by (IPCC, 2007) it states that warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level. Simulations on models such as EC-Earth provide us with predictions for future climate change. Depending on levels of emissions an increase of 1 to 5.5 degrees celsius is expected in average global temperatures by 2100.
Global warming and global climate change is the study of future increases of temperature across the globe. Studying climate change refers to how the over- all climate will change such as the dry places getting dryer and the wet places getting wetter. Global climate is dependent on “the greenhouse effect a natural process that helps regulate temperature” (Easterling and Karl). In the past few centuries humans have had a monumental effect on increasing of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Climate change is result of the increase amount of the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere such as methane, carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrous oxide, and ozone. “Global temperature has rose approximately 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over
For years to come there will always be a speculation on whether the climate change has really taken place or not. Many believe that large companies launched this topic in order to benefit from it in profit, as there are also those who are convinced that this are consequences that have emerged from human mistakes in understanding the environment. As humans are struggling to trust one another whether it is just a big conspiracy or not or environment changing itself, we are slowly starting to feel the effects of climate change. Because of the gasses (CO2) that are in the air, atmosphere is getting warmer, thereby triggering the Greenhouse effect. Almost 70% of emitted gasses in air are CO2, which leads us to believe that this is the main cause of Global Warming. Since it is billions and billions of metric tons per year that are being released in air, many scientists conclude that temperature will most likely be more higher in twenty years from now, than it was in near past.
Our world is always changing, so is our climate. Some changes are apparent, others not so much. Climate change is an important issue of concern in the twenty-first century. Environment, if it changes at all, evolves so slowly that the difference cannot be seen in a human lifetime (Wearth, 2014). Mostly all scientists predicted that it would take thousands of years for the planet to warm up due to emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels called greenhouse gases. But in the past 200 years, things began to change. The rate and the amount of warming that is happening on this planet are unprecedented. Wearth says, “People did not grasp the prodigious fact that both population and industrialization were exploding in a pattern of exponential
I had the pleasure of kayaking about fifteen miles of the Arkansas river, in Colorado, this summer. Flowing from its headwaters near Buena Vista, the Arkansas is a virgin river. Only a trickle during the winter, "The Ark," is reborn every spring with the life bearing waters of fresh mountain snow melt. The greening of river valleys throughout Colorado occurs during the month of June, and traveling from the east I realized how vital the snowmelt waters are to life in the western United States. Without water, something which we take for granted even in brutal summers, life in the west is a struggle.