Colorado

After a devastating year for crops and wildfires in Colorado, 2013 so far has seen weak snowpack and little reason to be optimistic for critical snow and rain during the crucial period of March, April and early May. Without some relief, Colorado risks more wildfires, another crop disaster and a stalled state economy.

Today's high school students can be the change they want to see in their world, and with their Rocky Mountain winters. That's the message promoted by the Alliance for Climate Education and Protect Our Winters, as they reach out to area high school students this week.

The Midwest could be among the regions hit hardest by climate change, according to a trio of University of Michigan researchers. The region is likely to face frequent and more intense heat waves, water quality degradation and public health threats, with increasing risks to Great Lakes ecosystems.

A recent federal draft report on climate change has spurred renewed calls for deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to avert the most serious impacts from rising global temperatures.

Piecemeal changes to energy policy, like switching from coal to natural gas, are not nearly enough to stop the buildup of greenhouse gases that’s driving global warming, according to a paper to be published tomorrow Environmental Research Letters.

Global warming will result in a significant shift of the North American monsoon, with less rain during the early part of the season, in June and July, and more rain later in the summer and early autumn, according to researchers with NASA and Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Even if  atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were to be stabilzed at today’s levels, sea levels would gradually increase by about 30 during the next few centuries, according to researchers.

The thermometers aren't going haywire. A new compilation of temperature records derived from geological samples such as ice cores, lake sediment layers and coral growth shows the same warming trends from 1880 to 1995 that are reflected by thermometer readings over that time.

Most climate models are probably underestimating the rate of sea level rise expected during the next few decades, according to some of the latest research that tries to quantify how much ice may melt off the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets.

An opinion piece by the head of Vail Resorts that challenges efforts to link this winter's slow start to global warming has Aspen Skiing Co.'s point man on environmental issues scratching his head. Auden Schendler, Aspen Skiing Co.'s vice president for sustainability, said Vail is playing with fire with the ad and sending a defeatist message with the opinion piece.