Potential impacts from climate change in Colorado

A recent new report reveals just how dramatic and impactful climate change could be in the decades to come. It’s released from the IPCC: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN body for analyzing the science and status of climate change. What could this mean for southern Colorado?

Intensifying wildfires, devastating droughts, stronger hurricanes and more frequent severe weather – all of these extreme weather phenomena can be tied to climate change. With the exception of tropical weather, southern Colorado will be increasingly susceptible to these conditions in the decades to come.

This new report from the IPCC has 133 contributing authors. The report essentially says in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in the coming years, countries around the world would need to make drastic and far-reaching changes. So, we’d need to be on our best behavior with cutting down on carbon dioxide emissions. If we don’t, there could be not just big climatological impacts…but humanitarian and political consequences, too.

The majority of Americans believe climate change is happening, but there’s still plenty of diversity of thought regarding this topic. We talked to people in Colorado Springs about their opinions on global warming.

“The President doesn’t take it seriously enough because he doesn’t think it’s a thing, that’s just my personal opinion,” said Glorianne Hiller.

“It’s real, it’s a serious issue. Need to get a hold of it. I think green energy both represents an opportunity for us to deal with the climate issue as well as it presents an opportunity for us to create lots of new jobs,” said Russell Zucconi.

“For me, you kind of look around, season to season, year to year, and it really just strikes you that it’s something that needs to be addressed and it’s something that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later,” said Thomas Kielich.

“There is climate change. It’s just that it’s cyclical. It’s not, we’re not going to burn up or freeze out in probably, I don’t know how many, thousands of years probably,” said Stu Thompson.

Watch for special reports this November on how global warming could impact southern Colorado and practical steps to fight the rate of climate change.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about climate change in Colorado, please reach out to meteorologist Abby Acone: abby.acone@krdo.com