Tag Archives: colorado

Erstes weltweites Gletscherinventar erstellt

By Guest PostMay 11, 2014Environmentantarktis, aus dem eis, colorado, daenemark, david flannigan, deutschland, digital artist, erde, esa, gabriel pulecio, geschichte, glaziologe, hauptlaermquelle, klimawandel, light collider, polen, saturn submerged, tad pfeffer, through, traps infinity, verkehr

Was bisher nur für wenige Gebiete galt, ist jetzt für alle Gletscherregionen der Erde bekannt: „Endlich wissen wir, wie viele Gletscher es auf der Erde gibt, wo sie sich befinden, wie groß sie sind und wie viel Eis in ihnen gespeichert ist“, sagt der Glaziologe Georg Kaser über das von ihm mitinitiierte globale Gletscherinventar.

Eine große internationale Gruppe von Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftlern hat so gut wie alle Gletscher auf der Erde kartiert und in computerlesbare Form im Randolph Gletscher Inventar (RGI) zur Verfügung gestellt. Dank dieser Anstrengungen ist es für Glaziologen nun möglich, mit bisher nicht erreichter Genauigkeit die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels auf jeden einzelnen Gletscher weltweit zu berechnen. Insgesamt bedecken die rund 200.000 Gletscher der Erde (ohne die Eischilde Grönlands und der Antarktis) eine Fläche von etwa 730.000 km² und haben ein Volumen von rund 170.000 km³. „Damit wurde die genaue Modellierung der Gletscherreaktion auf Klimaänderungen stark verbessert“ sagt Georg Kaser vom Institut für Meteorologie und Geophysik der Universität Innsbruck. (more…)

App Offers Flurry of Exciting Features for Skiers

By Guest PostMarch 18, 2013Technologycanada, China, colorado, heavenly mountain resort, kevin ashley, lake tahoe, Microsoft, nokia collection, randy guthrie, ride app, silicon valley startup, snowboard instructors, windows phone, windows phone 8, winter ski, youtube videos, zoomable

Winter Ski & Ride app for Windows Phone helps you plan ultimate outings, keep track of your friends on the slopes, and beat your personal best.

REDMOND, Wash. – Winter Ski & Ride, a new Windows Phone app in the Nokia Collection, is taking skiing and snowboarding to a new altitude.

Say you’re riding a ski lift to the top of a snow-covered mountain, be it in Colorado, Canada or China. You touch the screen of your Nokia device, with frosty, gloved hands, and pass the lift time by looking at your stats. How many runs have you done? What was your top speed? You look at your contacts, and note what friends are still on the mountain. You decide to ski a mogul-heavy double black diamond run next, and watch a short video by a professional instructor to brush up on your bump skills. (more…)

Rise in Teen Marijuana Use Stalls, Use of Synthetic Marijuana and ‘Bath Salts’ is Very Low

By Guest PostDecember 22, 2012Culture, Generaladderall, amphetamines, barbiturates, bath salts, cannabinoids, cannabis, cocaine, colorado, crack, daily use, dea, designer drugs, ecstasy, hallucinations, hallucinogens, heart rate, herbs, heroin, illicit drug, index, indicator of use, k 2, lloyd johnston, lsd, marijuana use, narcotics, oxycontin, paranoia, psychotherapeutic drugs, rise, salvia, salvia divinorum, sedatives, side effect, spice, statistical significance, suicidal thoughts, synthetic cathinones, synthetic marijuana, teen marijuana, tobacco, tranquilizers, vicodin, violent behavior, Washington

ANN ARBOR — National samples of 45,000 to 50,000 students in three grades (8, 10, and 12) have been surveyed every year since 1991 as part of the nationwide Monitoring the Future study. Among the most important findings from this year’s survey of U.S. secondary school students are the following:

Marijuana. After four straight years of increasing use among teens, annual marijuana use showed no further increase in any of the three grades surveyed in 2012. The 2012 annual prevalence rates (i.e., percent using in the prior 12 months) were 11%, 28%, and 36% for 8th, 10th, and 12th graders, respectively. (Among the 8th graders there was a modest decline across the past two years—from 13.7% in 2010 to 11.4% in 2012—that reached statistical significance.) (more…)

Degraded Military Lands To Get Ecological Boost From CU-led Effort

By Guest PostNovember 16, 2012Environmentamerican west, arid ecosystem, arid land, atmospheric dust, bacteria, biocrusts, biological soil crust, boulder, central america, China, colorado, cyanobacteria, degraded, desert environment, dugway proving ground, erosion, extreme environment, ferran garcia pichel, fort bliss, fungi, general george patton, hawaii, inoculation, jayne belnap, lichens, metropolitan area, michael duniway, microbial communities, military activity, military exercises, military installation, military vehicles, modeling, mojave desert, mosses, new mexico, nichole barger, northwest utah, pollutant, polyacrylamide, probability, restore, sasha reed, soil erosion, soil fertility, soil surface, South Africa, south america, survival, texas, university, water retention, word war

Some arid lands in the American West degraded by military exercises that date back to General George Patton’s Word War II maneuvers in the Mojave Desert should get a boost from an innovative research project led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

Headed up by CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Nichole Barger, the research team is focused on developing methods to restore biological soil crusts — microbial communities primarily concentrated on soil surfaces critical to decreasing erosion and increasing water retention and soil fertility. Such biological soil crusts, known as “biocrusts,” can cover up to 70 percent of the ground in some arid ecosystems and are dominated by cyanobacteria, lichens, mosses, fungi and bacteria, she said. (more…)

Roots of Deadly 2010 India Flood Identified; Findings Could Improve Warnings

By Guest PostNovember 14, 2012Environmentarabian sea, bay, bengal, big thompson canyon, black hills, clouds, colorado, desert, dramatic rain, flash flood, himalayas, indian town, kristen rasmussen, leh, moisture, mountain, natural disaster, plains, reanalysis data, remote region, robert houze, satellite images, south dakota, storms, tibetan plateau, torrential downpour, total rainfall, university, valley, warning, Washington, weather forecaster

On the night of Aug. 5, 2010, as residents slept, water began rushing through Leh, an Indian town in a high desert valley in the Himalayas.

Average total rainfall in the area for August is about a half-inch. During this 24-hour period more than 8 inches fell, causing severe damage and leaving 193 dead, hundreds missing and thousands homeless.

“Flash flooding events don’t happen often but when they do they are some of the scariest, most dangerous and quickest natural disasters that can happen,” said Kristen Rasmussen, a University of Washington graduate student in atmospheric sciences. “But now that we know what types of conditions to look out for, flash flood warnings in remote regions of India might be possible.” (more…)

Racial ‘Hierarchy of Bias’ Drives Decision to Shoot Armed, Unarmed Suspects, CU-Boulder Study Finds

By Guest PostOctober 25, 2012Politicsafrican american, asians, behavior, bernadette park, bias, black men, blacks, boulder, cell phone, charles judd, Chicago, colorado, cultural stereotype, dangerous, ethnic environment, ethnic group, florida, hierarchy, hispanics, joshua correll, jurisdiction, multi, new mexico, police officer, positive bias, russell sage foundation, san diego, shoot, state university, students, suspects, university, Washington, whites, young

Police officers and students exhibit an apparent “hierarchy of bias” in making a split-second decision whether to shoot suspects who appear to be wielding a gun or, alternatively, a benign object like a cell phone, research conducted by the University of Colorado Boulder and San Diego State University has found.

Both the police and student subjects were most likely to shoot at blacks, then Hispanics, then whites and finally, in a case of what might be called a positive bias, Asians, researchers found. (more…)

Climate Change to Cripple Southwestern Forests

By Guest PostOctober 1, 2012Environmentancient, arizona, atmospheric evaporative, chandana gangodagamage, climate change, climate data, climate record, climate scenario, climate trend, climatological variable, colorado, computer model, craig allen, cultural center, daniel griffin, distribution, drought tolerant, fire, forest, forest drought, future, geological survey, greenhouse gas, growth record, las conchas, marcia mcnutt, megadrought, mesa verde, michael cai, nate mcdowell, new mexico, park williams, pinon pines, prediction, projection, pueblo indians, puebloan, regional climate, regional ecosystem, scientist, southwestern, southwestern forest, species, stress index, thomas swetnam, tree killing, tree mortality, tree ring, trees, united states, university, US, usgs, wildfire, winter precipitation

Trees Face Rising Drought Stress and Mortality as Climate Warms

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. — Combine the tree-ring growth record with historical information, climate records, and computer-model projections of future climate trends, and you get a grim picture for the future of trees in the southwestern United States. That’s the word from a team of scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the U.S. Geological Survey, University of Arizona, and other partner organizations.

The research, published in Nature Climate Change this week, concluded that if the Southwest is warmer and drier in the near future, widespread tree mortality likely will cause substantial changes in forest and species distributions. (more…)

CU Mathematicians Show How Shallow Waves May Help Explain Tsunami Power

By Guest PostSeptember 19, 2012Scienceboulder, colorado, douglas baldwin, earthquake, interaction height, Japan, los angeles, low tide, mark ablowitz, mathematical equation, Mexico, nonlinear, nonlinearity, nuevo vallarta, ocean wave, pacific ocean, physics, tsunami, university, venice beach, wave height, wave watching

While wave watching is a favorite pastime of beachgoers, few notice what is happening in the shallowest water. A closer look by two University of Colorado Boulder applied mathematicians has led to the discovery of interacting X- and Y-shaped ocean waves that may help explain why some tsunamis are able to wreak so much havoc.

Professor Mark Ablowitz and doctoral student Douglas Baldwin repeatedly observed such wave interactions in ankle-deep water at both Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico, and Venice Beach, Calif., in the Pacific Ocean — interactions that were thought to be very rare but which actually happen every day near low tide. There they saw single, straight waves interacting with each other to form X- and Y-shaped waves as well as more complex wave structures, all predicted by mathematical equations, said Ablowitz. (more…)