Re: Â July 14 news story.
Your article reports that Greeley and Fort Collins are subject to “dangerous” heating due to climate change.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s official temperature station in Greeley is situated near the University of Northern Colorado campus, and not mentioned in the article is that the expanding urban heat island effect is artificially elevating temperatures measured in downtown locations.
The centers of cities are much hotter than the surrounding rural or suburban areas. The population of Fort Collins has grown 147.6 percent since 1980, and Greeley has grown 90.3 percent in that same time. This urban development and the associated artificial heating are contaminating temperature measurements in all inner-city weather stations.
The rural temperature station near Longmont shows a small decline in temperature from 1980 to the present, and the same slight decline in temperature is observed in the weather station in Denver’s Stapleton neighborhood. These are just a few examples of the disconnect between inner-city temperature trends and the surrounding (and much more accurate) rural and suburban temperature reporting.
Monte Naylor,Ìı¶Ù±ğ²Ô±¹±ğ°ù
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