{"id":91732,"date":"2019-11-14T01:29:36","date_gmt":"2019-11-14T01:29:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/climate-change-taking-toll-on-mountain-towns\/"},"modified":"2019-11-14T01:29:36","modified_gmt":"2019-11-14T01:29:36","slug":"climate-change-taking-toll-on-mountain-towns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/climate-change-taking-toll-on-mountain-towns\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate change taking toll on mountain towns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Layers
Layers of dust stripe the sides of a pit dug into the snow in Colorado. Dust deposited or exposed on the surface of the snowpack contributes to faster warming and melting.<\/span>Courtesy of Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Snow patterns are changing across the world in mountain communities, and the time is now for places like Southwest Colorado to adapt, said Heidi Steltzer, a Fort Lewis College professor and local climate scientist.<\/p>\n

Steltzer spoke Wednesday afternoon at the San Juan Citizens Alliance\u2019s Green Business Roundtable about the future of mountain economics amid a warming climate.<\/p>\n

Recently, Steltzer was an author on the mountains chapter of the United Nation\u2019s International Panel on Climate Change report on how less snow is expected to alter the environment. The report was released in September<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Steltzer said mountains don\u2019t cover much of the Earth\u2019s surface, but they serve as the headwaters for vast numbers of people, cities and agricultural lands.<\/p>\n

But increasingly, with global temperatures on the rise, the presence and persistence of ice and snow on the landscape are changing across the world\u2019s mountains.<\/p>\n

\u201cSystems are changing in a way I never expected to see,\u201d Steltzer said.<\/p>\n

One of the key findings in the IPCC\u2019s report, for instance, was weighing the reality of disappearing glaciers and the potential impacts on the communities that rely on them in places like the Andes and the Himalayas.<\/p>\n

\"Heidi
Heidi Steltzer, a Fort Lewis College professor, recently spoke about the impacts declining snowpack is having on small, mountain communities.<\/span>Courtesy of Heidi Steltzer<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cNews of changing snow is concerning to me \u2026 and it means some mountain communities may not have the water they need, and they may need to relocate, just like the small island communities in the South Pacific,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

While the situation in the San Juan Mountains isn\u2019t as dire, researchers have noted changes in snow patterns here, signaling the need to adapt. The study found snow arrives later, melts sooner and covers less ground than in years past.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to talk about in a community that loves its snow, and where businesses depend on that snowpack,\u201d Steltzer said. \u201cBut while the news isn\u2019t great \u2026 there\u2019s so much we can do to improve the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steltzer said it\u2019s imperative to reduce the amount of fossil fuel emissions and shift to more renewable energy sources. For the carbon dioxide that is in the atmosphere, she said there needs to be a concerted effort to take those gases out of the air.<\/p>\n

And, she said it\u2019s important to make strides to curb climate change not just on a global scale, but also locally. One example, she said, would be to address the dust on snow issue, which accelerates melting of the high country snowpack.<\/p>\n

The dust, she said, comes from high deserts around the Colorado Plateau, and local officials should push for better management of these lands to reduce the spread of dust.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen those lands become available for further development, there should be active campaigns to minimize (the impacts),\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a shared watershed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The IPCC\u2019s report revealed warming global temperatures are affecting snowpack across the world and communities in those areas in vastly different ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are people who are already seeing disaster and catastrophe in their backyards,\u201d she said. \u201cTo a far greater extent than we\u2019ve seen here.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

College professor says certain steps can make a difference regionally<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":91733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1030,738,3163,28,29,1164],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-91732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-environment","tag-environmental-issue","tag-global-warming","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-snow"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91732","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=91732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91732"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=91732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}