Extreme Drought In Colorado Could Come Every 6 Years — Instead Of Every 1,000 — Due To Climate Change, Study Finds

mdash; Planet Earth is parting company with an asteroid that’s been tagging along as a “mini moon” for the past two months. The harmless space rock will peel away on Monday, overcome by the stronger tug of the sun’s gravity. But it will zip closer for a quick visit in January. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] NASA will use a radar antenna to observe the 33-foot (10-meter) asteroid then.

For a two-year period, an extreme drought across Colorado and much of the West dried farmers’ fields, lowered water levels in reservoirs, fueled extreme wildfires and left streams dangerously low. Historically, an exceptional drought like the one that plagued the Western U. S. from 2020 to 2022 happened less than once every 1,000 years. But warmer temperatures caused by climate change could make similar megadroughts occur once every six years by the end of the century if humans continue business as usual, according to research published earlier this month in the journal Science Advances. “The droughts of today and the droughts of the future are not going to look like the droughts of the past,” said Joel Lisonbee, a scientist with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder working at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Integrated Drought Information System. He and a team of other researchers with UCLA and NOAA wanted to know whether the megadrought that plagued the West from 2000 to 2022 was a natural variation in weather or fueled by climate change.

Editor’s note: This is part of The Know’s series, Staff Favorites. Each week, we offer our opinions on the best that Colorado has to offer for dining, shopping, entertainment, outdoor activities and more. (We’ll also let you in on some hidden gems). Who wouldn’t benefit from some pampering right about now? After a particularly divisive election season, the winter holidays loom, thick and amorphous as nimbostratus clouds, loaded with the possibility of all the stressful things we tend to dread: tense conversations, family drama, grief, loneliness, excess spending – (hello, inflation!) – travel delays, gray days, overwhelming schedules and, for parents, all of those school days off. Now is the time to show yourself a little love by prioritizing your well-being.

Editor’s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. So we asked them, and all Denver Post readers, to share their mini-reviews with you. Have any to offer?

Sacred Heart House of Denver helps single moms and their children put a roof over their heads. But it has a much broader mission—helping women stand on their feet again so they can pursue a new path in life. “Sacred Heart House is a self-sufficiency program for single moms with kids and single women experiencing homelessness,” director Janet Morris said. The Denver Post Season To Share is the annual holiday fundraising campaign for The Denver Post and The Denver Post Community Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Fatal drug overdoses in both Denver and across Colorado have declined through the first half of 2024, matching national trends and offering a ray of sunshine after the fentanyl crisis fueled years of mounting death tolls. Still, experts and health officials cautioned, the data is preliminary and only covers the first six months of this year — and Colorado’s number of overdose deaths still remain well above pre-pandemic levels. “Any improvement is good news,” said Rob Valuck, the executive director of the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention.