{"id":74470,"date":"2019-09-23T21:22:22","date_gmt":"2019-09-24T03:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-colorado-is-getting-hotter-experts-say\/"},"modified":"2019-09-24T03:22:22","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T03:22:22","slug":"southwest-colorado-is-getting-hotter-experts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-colorado-is-getting-hotter-experts-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Southwest Colorado is getting hotter, experts say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Many
Many people in Southwest Colorado fled to the San Juan Mountains to cool off this summer. While snow stayed at higher elevations into the summer, high county plants are experiencing drought conditions because of high temperatures and low summer precipitation.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Southwest Colorado is hotter than it once was, and experts say they have data and anecdotal evidence to prove it.<\/p>\n

Global average temperatures peaked worldwide in July, making it the hottest July and the hottest month in recorded history, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. On Colorado\u2019s Western Slope, the average temperature has increased at least 2.7 degrees since 1895, based on 123 years of weather records,<\/a> NOAA scientists estimate.<\/p>\n

Darrin Parmenter, director for the Colorado State University Extension Office in La Plata County, said the region\u2019s average low temperature during the winter \u2013 a measure the United States Department of Agriculture calls \u201chardiness\u201d<\/a> \u2013 has increased significantly.<\/p>\n

The hardiness statistic is measured on a scale of 1 to 13; the higher the number, the warmer the average low temperature. In the 1990s, Parmenter said Durango was classified in Zone 4. The city is now in Zone 6<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s crazy, horticulturally (speaking),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A Washington Post investigation and analysis of nationwide climate<\/a> found Southwest Colorado is just south of one of the fastest-warming regions in the country. Grand Junction; Moab, Utah; and Montrose form the corners of a triangle of average annual temperature increase of more than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, since 1895.<\/p>\n

Global climate data may be difficult for people outside the science community to appreciate, said Heidi Steltzer, professor of biology and environmental science at Fort Lewis College. Humans don\u2019t experience time on the scales climate is measured.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe experience local conditions, we don\u2019t experience global means,\u201d she said. \u201cSo when we read and hear about global temperature means, we say, \u2018That\u2019s not my world.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The Front Range received the brunt of the heat this summer, but all of Colorado was hotter on average than what the NOAA Regional Climate Center considers normal temperatures.<\/span>Courtesy of Russ Schumacher<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

But in the 25 years she has studied Colorado, 10 of which were spent in the Southwest, Steltzer said \u201cthe summer is not the same anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado has historically had shorter growing seasons because of extended snowpack, and high-snow winters in the 1930s through the 1960s typically led to a lot of rain in the summer, Steltzer said. The 2018-19 winter snowpack filled the San Juan Mountains and nourished the San Juan Basin much like it did in the mid-1900s.<\/p>\n

Steltzer said she was excited for the opportunity to study the effects of late snow in the Alpine environment \u2013 she hadn\u2019t seen snow like there was this spring in more than 20 years living in Colorado and studying the Rocky Mountains\u2019 climate.<\/p>\n

But what she saw took her by surprise. The snow melted in the high country sooner than expected, she said. Her field work in the San Juan Mountains this summer showed that plants at high elevations are \u201cexperiencing drought conditions\u201d despite snow burying the region late into the spring.<\/p>\n

Steltzer suspects that below-average rainfall and higher average temperatures this summer may have robbed the high country of valuable water storage and replenishment. Both can be attributed to a changing climate, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it\u2019s warmer, more water will move from the Earth to the sky,\u201d she said. \u201cWarmer temperatures mean more water moves to the sky and is not available in the ground to fuel plant growth or move into aquatic systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discrepancy between winter and summer precipitation totals may also be attributed to a changing climate, Steltzer said. A rising global temperature creates \u201chigher inter-annual variations,\u201d meaning weather changes are more drastic in a shorter amount of time.<\/p>\n

Durango City Council committed earlier this year to reduce greenhouse gas emissions citywide by 80% and encourage the use of 100% renewable electricity in Durango by 2050<\/a>. That includes transforming public energy usage for government buildings and activities while also crafting policies to encourage renewable electricity for residents and businesses.<\/p>\n

FLC cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 58% from 2011 to 2018 and aims to be 100% carbon neutral by 2050<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dozens of #FridaysForFuture activists in Durango joined millions of people in thousands of towns in hundreds of countries for last week\u2019s Global Climate Strike<\/a>, demanding political action to address a changing climate.<\/p>\n

Steltzer said \u201cevery degree matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cClimate is the long-term pattern of temperature, precipitation; we have to have data,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we have to have information over 50, 60, 100, 200, 1,000 years. We have to have more than what it was like today, what it was like yesterday, or even 10 years ago. Ten years ago isn\u2019t what we look at when we try to understand change in climate.\u201d<\/p>\n

bhauff@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

temperatures mean less ground water, changing plants<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[3163,28,1163],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-74470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-global-warming","tag-headlines","tag-weather-science"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74470"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=74470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}