Deforestation may lead to beneficial weather changes in the Southwest U.S. according to the Rocky Mountain News [December 9, 2005, "Model shows how Amazon land use may change Southwest U.S. climate"]. From the article, "U.S. - including southwest Colorado - and offset some of global warming's effects.
That's one of the surprising results of a computerized climate study by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. The study's authors say it is the first to incorporate land-cover changes - caused by agriculture, deforestation and other human activities - in climate simulations using advanced global computer models. 'Land cover has long been one of those issues that really hasn't been included, because it's much more difficult to incorporate,' said University of Kansas researcher Johannes Feddema, lead author of the study published in today's edition of the journal Science. Feddema worked on the project while on sabbatical at the Boulder center. Six NCAR researchers are co-authors. The enhanced Southwest monsoon is one example of what climate researchers call teleconnections: A change in one part of the world can have unanticipated effects on the climate thousands of miles away. Each year, about 50,000 square miles of forest - an area about half the size of Colorado - is cleared worldwide, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Between 2000 and 2005, South America suffered the greatest losses, largely because of conversion of forest to pasture and farmland. If significant Amazon deforestation continues in coming decades, tropical air-circulation patterns will shift, allowing summer moisture to drift farther north and be captured by the Southwest U.S. monsoon, according to the study. As a result, southwest Colorado could see an extra 2 inches or so of annual precipitation - mostly in the summer - and summer temperatures could cool by a couple of degrees Fahrenheit by 2100."
Pueblo Chieftain: "A plan to preserve land along the Fountain Creek corridor could dovetail with a Pueblo consultant's suggestion to combine flood control and water reuse. 'Flood control structures could be used to improve the channel and wildlife habitat. It would blend in perfectly,' Ray Petros, a Denver water lawyer consulting with Pueblo County on land use regulations, said Thursday. This week, Great Outdoors Colorado funded a $427,000 conservation easement on Fountain Creek as part of the Peak to Prairie program. The program is an effort by the Nature Conservancy, Colorado Open Lands, the Army and local government to link Cheyenne Mountain, Fort Carson and state public lands in Chico Basin with a buffer zone against development. The project eventually could encompass 100,000 acres. Petros has posed an alternative to the proposed Southern Delivery System that would tie flood control with water reuse, delaying the need and reducing the size of a water delivery pipeline proposed by Colorado Springs. In the process, a reservoir on Fountain Creek could provide recreation and wildlife habitat benefits, he said."
Category: Colorado Water
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