The good news: In 2050, snow will still be falling in the central mountains, and Summit County will still be a premiere skiing destination.
The bad news: There will be less snow, shorter winters and not enough water to go around.
Those were some of the predictions offered by Klaus Wolter, a climate scientist with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences in Boulder, who has studied climate data in Colorado for almost three decades. Wolter spoke March 15 at CMC Breckenridge at an event titled “What will Summit County’s winters be like in 2050,” hosted by the High Country Conservation Center and the Friends of the Dillon Ranger District.
Wolter, who also works with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has most recently been working on predicting climate patterns across the country. His climate change predictions for Colorado are not as dire as one might expect.
Wolter set out the obvious: the world is getting warmer and temperatures “are virtually guaranteed” to continue to get warmer in the decades to come. Even if humans begin to rein in carbon emissions, the damage is already done. It may take at least 100 years and a few generations before temperatures start returning to normal.
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