Tracking high-elevation snowfall at NSF’s Niwot Ridge LTER site in Colorado. (John Marr collection, University of Colorado)
Re: “Rocky Mountain meltdown: CU scientists find glaciers shrinking,” Jan. 13 news story.
John Wesley Powell is best known for his hair-raising descent of the Grand Canyon. But his profound and influential insight was that the West could not be settled without water management — reservoirs and aqueducts on a scale that we take for granted today, but which were unprecedented in his time. Glaciers and snowpack also provide seasonal storage that plays a key role in our water management. As The Post notes, warming temperatures are shrinking those glaciers before our eyes. At the same time, climatologists forecast that as temperatures increase, we will experience worsening droughts, more severe than any in recorded history. Colorado’s costs of adapting to this increased water stress will be high. That risk should by itself be enough to motivate Colorado citizens to push for U.S. leadership in global efforts to head off climate change.
David M. Kline, Boulder
This letter was published in the Jan. 20 edition.
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