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CU study: less hail may increase flooding on Front Range
Jan 9th
STUDY INDICATES HAIL MAY DISAPPEAR
FROM COLORADO’S FRONT RANGE BY 2070
FROM COLORADO’S FRONT RANGE BY 2070
Summertime hail could all but disappear from the eastern flank of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains by 2070, says a new study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the University of Colorado Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
Less hail damage could be good news for gardeners and farmers, said lead author Kelly Mahoney, a research scientist at CIRES, but a shift from hail to rain can also mean more runoff, which could raise the risk of flash floods. “In this region of elevated terrain, hail may lessen the risk of flooding because it takes awhile to melt,” Mahoney said. “Decision makers may not want to count on that in the future.”
For the new study, published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, Mahoney and her colleagues used “downscaling” techniques to try to understand how climate change might affect hail-producing weather patterns across Colorado.
The research focused on storms involving pea-sized and smaller hailstones on Colorado’s Front Range, a region that stretches from the foothill communities of Colorado Springs, Denver and Fort Collins up to the Continental Divide. Colorado’s most damaging hailstorms tend to occur further east and involve larger hailstones not examined in this study.
In the summer in Colorado’s Front Range above about 7,500 feet, precipitation commonly falls as hail. Decision makers concerned about the safety of mountain dams and flood risk have been interested in how climate change may affect the amount and nature of precipitation in the region.
Mahoney and her colleagues began exploring that question with results from two climate models, which assumed that levels of climate-warming greenhouse gases will continue to increase in the future, from about 390 parts per million in the atmosphere today to about 620 parts per million in 2070.
But the weather processes that form hail, like thunderstorms, occur on much smaller scales than can be reproduced by global climate models. So the team “downscaled” the global model results twice: first to regional-scale models that can take regional topography and other details into account, then again to weather-scale models that can resolve individual storms and even the cloud processes that create hail. The regional-scale topography step was completed as part of NCAR’s North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program.
Finally, the team compared the hailstorms of the future, from 2041 to 2070, to those of the past, from 1971 to 2000, as captured by the same sets of downscaled models. Results were similar in experiments with both climate models.
“We found a near elimination of hail at the surface,” Mahoney said.
In the future, increasingly intense storms may actually produce more hail inside clouds, the team found. However, because those relatively small hailstones fall through a warmer atmosphere, they melt quickly, falling as rain at the surface or evaporating back into the atmosphere. In some regions, simulated hail fell through an additional 1,500 feet of above-freezing air in the future as compared with the past.
The research team also found evidence that precipitation events over Colorado become more extreme in the future, while changes in hail may depend on the size of the hailstones — results that will be explored in more detail in ongoing work.
Mahoney’s postdoctoral research was supported by the Postdocs Applying Climate Expertise, or PACE, program administered by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and funded by CIRES Western Water Assessment, NOAA and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. PACE connects young climate scientists with real-world problems such as those faced by water resource managers.
Co-authors of the new paper include James Scott and Joseph Barsugli of CIRES and NOAA, Michael Alexander of the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory and Gregory Thompson of NCAR.
Occupy Boulder hour of doom rapidly approaching
Jan 6th
Boulder police chief visits Occupy Boulder encampment, discusses city park hours
Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner, along with Boulder Police Cmdr. Carey Weinheimer, visited participants at the Occupy Boulder encampment outside the Municipal Building this afternoon to discuss the new rule that goes into effect tonight, which closes city parks between the hours of 11 p.m and 5 a.m.
The rule prohibits anyone from remaining in city parks, parkways or recreation areas, with the exception of bicyclists and pedestrians who are passing through the areas. Individuals remaining between the hours of 11 p.m and 5 a.m. will be in violation of the city’s trespassing rule and subject to receiving a summons or being arrested. The chief and commander handed out copies of the new regulation as they spoke to individuals at the encampment this afternoon.
Boulder chief of police warms Occupy protestors of deadline
Because Occupy Boulder protestors have been camping overnight on the Sister Cities’ Plaza outside of the Municipal Building for several weeks, Chief Beckner wanted to make sure individuals were aware of the change, which goes into effect tonight.
“Boulder police officers have been engaging in dialogues with Occupy Boulder participants all along. I thought it was important to continue those dialogues so that they understood the new rule, when it goes into effect and what the potential consequences are if they decide to stay,” Beckner said. “The police department intends to enforce the trespassing regulation, but what we are really hoping for is voluntary compliance. We support all people’s First Amendment rights to express their opinions, and hope they will do so during the daytime hours.”
Discussions between the chief and the participants at the encampment were low-key and positive, as most of the interactions have been to date. Many of the protestors are planning to comply with the new rule and some shared with Chief Beckner their plans for packing up their tents and making arrangements to protest during hours that the city parks are open.
Police intend to enforce the park closure rule, although the department has not set a timeline to do so.
Keeping families together earns Boulder County and award
Jan 6th
Boulder County Housing & Human Services director to receive prestigious child welfare award
Frank Alexander honored for his relentless work to improve the child welfare system
Boulder County, Colo. – Frank Alexander, Director of Boulder County’s Department of Housing and Human Services, is being honored with an Excellence for Children Award by Casey Family Programs, one of the nation’s leading advocates for improving the child welfare system.
Alexander will receive a Jurisdiction Award on Jan. 19 in Seattle, recognizing his record of significantly improving outcomes for Boulder County’s children and families, his leadership with the Colorado Human Services Directors Association, and his successful collaboration with other county, state and judicial partners.
“As much as anything else, this is a recognition of how our community and our state have come together to make sure those who need help are getting it,” Alexander said. “I am honored to work with so many incredible partners as we focus on building an innovative foundation of support for our neighbors.”
Under Alexander’s leadership, the Department of Housing and Human Services (BCDHHS) is moving toward a model of “permanency” for children that includes family preservation and kin support by helping young people locate loved ones or family friends who will care for them. As a result, Boulder County has seen a 40 percent reduction in out-of-home child placements since 2009, and now has the lowest foster care rate in Colorado.
He has worked with Casey Family Programs on a number of successful initiatives. These include No Time to Lose, the statewide expansion of permanency roundtables, strengthening the partnership with the Annie E. Casey assessment, and focusing on child welfare financing reform.
Susan Kelly, senior director of strategic consulting for Casey Family Programs, nominated Alexander for the Excellence for Children Award. “Frank has shown himself to be an outstanding leader in Boulder County and amongst his peers in the state and across the country,” Kelly said. “He is creative and innovative, and he excels in promoting the well-being of families.”
Background: Alexander’s vision has led to positive, rapid change
In three years as director, Frank Alexander has led a comprehensive redesign of the housing and human services system. Among other things, this has helped expand the numbers of people served by benefits by up to 140 percent, with much of this growth focused on front-end prevention that has reduced the need for more intensive and expensive down-the-line services and helped stabilize families. This prevention focus has led to reductions in evictions, foreclosures, homelessness, hospitalizations, detentions, and out-of-home placements of children.
Alexander has also helped drive partnerships across county and state divisions, including with community services, mental health, and public health agencies. Through these collaborations, he has developed an array of award-winning creative programs for Boulder County, including:
• the Housing Stabilization Program,
• the Foreclosure Prevention Program,
• the Boulder County Healthy Kids initiative,
• the Medical Home Initiative,
• An Early Intervention Program focused on connecting people earlier with needed services,
• the Colorado PEAK Statewide Training and Toolkit Initiative,
• comprehensive work internships and green-collar jobs development programs, and
• housing development programs and partnerships in the county’s Human Services/Housing Master Planning processes.
In 2010, Alexander was a key advocate for the passage of Boulder County Initiative 1A, also known as the Temporary Human Services Safety Net (TSN). This 0.9 mill levy increase on property taxes is designed to backfill state budget cuts and address increased caseloads. In 2011, the TSN provided over $5 million in funding for emergency services for Boulder County, which along with boosting access to food assistance and medical care, also helped address a child care assistance waiting list that had grown to 650 children. Details on the TSN and its impacts are available at www.bouldercountyTSN.org.
Alexander was elected president of the Colorado Human Services Directors Association (CHSDA) in 2010, and has been instrumental in both its reorganization and in the redesign of the state’s human services system.
