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I am starting this thread to discuss the impact that climate change is having and could have on Colorado. Seems to me that Americans would be better served if we stopped turning the fate of our planet and our own fates, as well over to the care of a national government that has sold out to special interests. Exxon oil doesn’t care if a small business owner loses his livelihood thanks to the fire in Black Forest. Halliburton doesn’t care if farmers and ranchers in SW Colorado go under thanks to drought. The on-going warming trend and climate change in Colorado and on the rest of the planet is not about politics. It is about the quality of our lives and the lives of our children for many generations to come.
The question of what the climate change will look like in Colorado came up in the rural economy thread. The subject is as intriguing as it is troubling. The Colorado landscape has been changing for a while. Now the difference is apparent to anyone who spends much time in the Colorado outdoors from farmers and outdoors enthusiasts to back country ramblers and environmentalists.
There are swaths of dead standing trees all through the mountains from the San Juans to the Uncomphaghre Plateau to RMNP and the forests in between. Colorado’s forests never used to look like this. Back in the early 70’s when I was a biology student at the University of Colorado out on a class field trip I didn’t see the same forest that students on that same field trip see today. I got to see live standing trees as a matter of course, and my prof would point out a single stand of beetle kill, not an entire mountain side like you see sadly too often today.
The trees in our forest have become weakened by drought and unusually warm temperatures. A little pika at timberline can at least scamper higher, but a tree doesn’t have that option despite what you may have seen in Lord of the Rings. Opportunistic insects like spruce budworm and pine beetles take advantage of the trees’ weakened state, and those slopes filled with dead trees are the result.
Colorado’s population is concentrated on the urban Front Range and a significant number of Coloradans have lived in the state for ten years or less. Urban dwellers in Denver and Colorado Springs may not yet recognize the changes in the forests due to global warming, but I bet folks in the Springs sure noticed the Waldo Canyon and Black Forest fires.
I was stunned when I heard about Colorado Springs having fires. I grew up in Colorado Springs and the Springs NEVER has forest fires. Nothing like that has ever happened before. The fire in Waldo Canyon may have been in part due to the construction of new homes in the infamous wild land/urban interface, but the second fire the next year in Black Forest shows something else was going on in addition to the careless construction of homes in wooded areas.
By 2100 the temperatures in Colorado will have risen by around 5 degrees centigrade. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? That increase in temperature over such a short amount of time will place Colorado and the rest of the planet into the same type of climate that characterized the Jurassic – the age of the dinosaurs.
Perhaps it is time for us all to begin to engage in a discussion.
- As physical body is intertwined with spiritual body, we cannot disconnect ourselves from environment and nature either. There is a special inter-relatedness between human being and the universe.
- Henry Nawl Thang Bik
PS on Friday I'm going to a semniar in Silverton to find out about what the future may hold for our small pika pals. I'll report back to you all if I discover anything.
Last edited by Mike from back east; 08-22-2013 at 08:37 PM..
Reason: typo
The problem is models are only as good as the data used and the data does not take into account the fact that information technology (both technologies that will replace fossil fuels and technologies that will be used to help clean the planet) advance exponentially. Thus all the models that look at global warming 25 or more years out are wrong and that is why I am not worried about the future of weather in Colorado.
They can't even predict the weather right 5 days out so to say they can predict it in 2100 is laughable. I first remember hearing back in 1986 when I was in elementary school about Global Warming. Our local TV meteorologist was a big believer and I can still remember the charts and graphs he showed us that by 2000 and 2010 we would all be burning alive, coastal cities would be flooded and under the ocean and chaos would reign. He did a number of "special reports" on the TV channel too.
Being a book worm and frequent visitor to the library I hit the books and started reading and even then figured that we were merely in a cycle of hot and drier weather based on a study of meteorology books and history. As big as the earth was I had enough common sense to know the earth balanced itself, plants ate CO2 and if anything plant growth would be stimulated if there was more CO2 in the atmosphere. And none of what that guy predicted came to pass. 2000 and 2010 came and went without New York City being underwater and we still got snow.
Sadly Climategate 1 and 2 busted these scientists as frauds with a political agenda and by continuing the conspiracy and drama they could keep the funding going.
The pine beetle issue is well documented. For 70-80 years they have not let forest fires burn so they could regenerate the forests, so nature found another way. Man's desire for "conservation" has killed these forests. However when these forests do burn, there will be new growth and new trees.
Colorado Rambler wrote:By 2100 the temperatures in Colorado will have risen by around 5 degrees centigrade. Doesn’t sound like much, does it?
A 5 degree fluctuation from the norm, up or down is actually quite noticeable. Over the past 8 years, I've been recording the official high and low temperatures for Grand Junction in a database table. I have another table holding the normal high and low temperatures for every day of the year, along with the record high and lows for each date. With some really basic query writing I can produce a simple report showing the day to day fluctuations, monthly fluctuations, and yearly fluctuations from the norms. Even a 3 degree fluctuation above the norm over the course of a summer month, is a month where people are talking about how unusually hot it is. Same thing with a 3 degree fluctuation on the cold side during the winter months. A 5 degree fluctuation is a HUMONGUS fluctuation. IF a 5 degree rise in temperature should become the new norm, it will surely be very noticeable, and a hot topic of conversation.
They can't even predict the weather right 5 days out so to say they can predict it in 2100 is laughable. I first remember hearing back in 1986 when I was in elementary school about Global Warming. Our local TV meteorologist was a big believer and I can still remember the charts and graphs he showed us that by 2000 and 2010 we would all be burning alive, coastal cities would be flooded and under the ocean and chaos would reign. He did a number of "special reports" on the TV channel too.
Being a book worm and frequent visitor to the library I hit the books and started reading and even then figured that we were merely in a cycle of hot and drier weather based on a study of meteorology books and history. As big as the earth was I had enough common sense to know the earth balanced itself, plants ate CO2 and if anything plant growth would be stimulated if there was more CO2 in the atmosphere. And none of what that guy predicted came to pass. 2000 and 2010 came and went without New York City being underwater and we still got snow.
Sadly Climategate 1 and 2 busted these scientists as frauds with a political agenda and by continuing the conspiracy and drama they could keep the funding going.
The pine beetle issue is well documented. For 70-80 years they have not let forest fires burn so they could regenerate the forests, so nature found another way. Man's desire for "conservation" has killed these forests. However when these forests do burn, there will be new growth and new trees.
I won't even argue with you over climate change because you've made it very clear on these forums that you don't believe it, even when the scientific community has proven that the climate of the planet is shifting.
In regards to the pine beetle, you are partially correct. The forests are prime for the bark beetle epidemic that they are facing. However, that's only part of the equation. Another big reason the beetles are out of control is because we have not had sustained cold temperatures that are needed to kill off the beetle population. According to the Colorado State Forest Service, temperatures of -30°F over several days are needed to kill off bark beetle populations. Today @ Colorado State University - Recent cold weather unlikely to kill bark beetles says Colorado State Forest Service
In addition, the continued drought is causing excessive stress on trees, which is making them more susceptible to mountain pine beetle infestation. http://www.fs.fed.us/rmrs/docs/bark-beetle/faq.pdfI, for one, believe this drought is at least partially caused by climate change.
I won't even argue with you over climate change because you've made it very clear on these forums that you don't believe it, even when the scientific community has proven that the climate of the planet is shifting.
In regards to the pine beetle, you are partially correct. The forests are prime for the bark beetle epidemic that they are facing. However, that's only part of the equation. Another big reason the beetles are out of control is because we have not had sustained cold temperatures that are needed to kill off the beetle population. According to the Colorado State Forest Service, temperatures of -30°F over several days are needed to kill off bark beetle populations. Today @ Colorado State University - Recent cold weather unlikely to kill bark beetles says Colorado State Forest Service
In addition, the continued drought is causing excessive stress on trees, which is making them more susceptible to mountain pine beetle infestation. http://www.fs.fed.us/rmrs/docs/bark-beetle/faq.pdfI, for one, believe this drought is at least partially caused by climate change.
No you will not argue over it because if we examine what these people said in the 1980's and 1990's and what they predicted for now, they turned out to be dead wrong. And not only that those involved got caught with their hand in the cookie jar falsifying data and putting misleading information out there. Of course they had to do that because if they told the truth they would be out of a job.
These people peddling this apocalyptic stuff are hucksters in it for money and their political control. It's got zero to do with the climate or even having the ability to control the climate. As of yet man has yet to figure out how to regulate the earth with a thermostat.
I really don't care about the dead trees and the pine beetle because if they had let fires burn years ago and even in the past decade, it would be a mute point. We wouldn't let the forest die and regenerate so nature found another way. Boo hoo hoo. Yes it looks ugly, but this is the cycle of life.
OP, great job extrapolating Earth's 6 billion year climate history from the 1970s to present. You're a helluva mathematical modeler.
Regarding dead trees, as Waneroo pointed out, did you forget about the pine beetles?
As Rush Limbaugh has said many times(so glad I could bring him up for the Rambler) is that people's appreciation for history typically only goes back to their birth.
Hence people say "hey it's gotten hotter since the late 1970's, so the earth will be on fire by 2100!" and they completely neglect any meteorological history from the past. 1930's in Colorado was both hotter and drier than anything experienced recently. Even looking at the whole 20th century you can see 30-40 year cycles of hot/dry, cold/wet cycles. In fact Colorado has some trees that are nearly 2400 years old and tree core samples from those trees show Colorado swinging through 30-40 year climate cycles.
It's also been found that we go through much larger 300-400 year cycles. The medieval warming period for instance allowed the Vikings to colonize Newfoundland, Greenland and Iceland. When the weather suddenly turned cold around 1400, the Greenland Vikings quickly died off.
The ego of some humans believes that the earth began with their birth and will die when they pass on. The earth was here before them, will be here after them and some cycles are just larger than their lifespan.
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