Colorado

The world’s biggest ice sheets haven’t really started a major meltdown yet. But the rest of the world’s glacial regions have been losing ice at a rate of about 260 billion metric tons annually, raising sea level by about 0.03 inches per year — about a third of the observed sea level rise.

A new study that included contributions by University of Colorado researchers shows that glacial melt from sources not including the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets contributes as much to sea level rise as does the ice loss from those two land masses.

After four years of studies and more than 150 peer-reviewed papers, the EU-funded ice2sea program has concluded that under a moderate scenario, melting ice may contribute only 3.5 and 36.8 centimeters (1.4 to 14.5 inches) to sea level rise by 2100.

Even at the frozen roof of the world in the mighty Himalaya, global warming is evident. The snow line in the Mt. Everest region has moved uphill by 180 meters. Glaciers in the region are shrinking, and precipitation has declined, according to a team of scientists.

Colorado’s cutthroat trout live life on the edges, at high elevations and in isolated pockets other trout haven’t been able to reach. It appears to have toughened them up, according to a recent study looking at climate change’s impact on the species.

Beneath winter’s deep snows there is a secret world of frozen insects and amphibians in quasi-hibernation. Now, the subnivium, as scientists have dubbed it, is at risk from global warming.

Climate-sensitive economic sectors like agriculture and energy are already feeling the pinch of more extreme fluctuations in the weather, driven by global climate change, according to the World Meteorological Organization, which released its annual climate statement for 2012 last week.

A poleward shift of the subtropical jet stream and warmer temperatures over the equatorial central Pacific will combine to make the powerful storms two to three times as likely by the last quarter of the century, according to scientists with the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa.

With Atlantic cod already moving into waters around Spitsbergen — into Arctic cod territory — fisheries biologists are keeping a close eye the commercially important species to determine the consequences of climate-related migrations.

Managers of the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary say they’ll use a new report to try and prepare the resources they steward for the coming impacts of climate change, including increases in sea level and extreme weather events such as winds, waves, and storms.