Some green grass, but at this rate, the aspens won’t bud out until June.

FRISCO —Chilly morning, warm afternoon, but spring is definitely in the air — finally! The creeks are running high and most of the local ponds are now ice-free, including Officers Gulch. All in all, a lovely day in the Colorado high country. If you like these snapshots, visit our online gallery at FineArt America for a great selection of Summit County landscape photography.

Still snow berms around the edge of Officers Gulch pond.

Never seen lichens looking so green and sassy this time of year.

Early wildflowers in Tenmile Canyon.

Meadow Creek wetlands.

Not Colorado, but still a pretty spring sky over central Kansas.

A new U.S. Forest Service research paper outlines how wildfires can affect climate. Photo courtesy NOAA.

Smoke particles can cool ground temperatures and suppress cloud formation

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Along with resulting in huge on-the-ground disturbance, wildfires also have an impact in the atmosphere. With wildfires expected to increase in a warming world, U.S. Forest Service researchers recently set out to document what some of those effects might be with a synthesis of recent research, focusing on the effect of emissions from wildfires on long-term atmospheric conditions.

“While research has historically focused on fire-weather interactions, there is increasing attention paid to fire-climate interactions,” said Yongqiang Liu, lead author and team leader with the SRS Center for Forest Disturbance Science. “Weather, the day-to-day state of the atmosphere in a region, influences individual fires within a fire season. In contrast, when we talk about fire climate, we’re looking at the statistics of weather over a certain period. Fire climate sets atmospheric conditions for fire activity in longer time frames and larger geographic scales,” Liu said.

Key findings included:

• The radiative forcing of smoke particles can generate significant regional climate effects, leading to lower temperatures at the ground surface.
• Smoke particles mostly suppress cloud formation and precipitation. Fire events could lead to more droughts.
• Black carbon, essentially the fine particles of carbon that color smoke, plays different roles in affecting climate. In the middle and lower atmosphere, its presence could lead to a more stable atmosphere. Black carbon plays a special role in the snow-climate feedback loop, accelerating snow melting.

Smoke particles can generate radiative forcing mainly through scattering and absorbing solar radiation (direct radiative forcing), and modifying the cloud droplet concentrations and lifetime, and hence the cloud radiative properties (indirect radiative forcing). The change in radiation can cause further changes in global temperatures and precipitation.

“Wildfire emissions can have remarkable impacts on radiative forcing,” said Liu.

“During fire events or burning seasons, smoke particles reduce overall solar radiation absorbed by the atmosphere at local and regional levels. At the global scale, fire emissions of carbon dioxide contribute substantially to the global greenhouse effect.”

Land surface changes may be triggered that also play into future effects.

“Wildfire is a disturbance of ecosystems,” Liu said. “Besides the atmospheric impacts, wildfires also modify terrestrial ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, soil fertility, grazing value, biodiversity, and tourism. The effects can in turn trigger land use changes that in turn affect the atmosphere.”

The full article is online at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037811271300114X.

North Atlantic right whales. Photo courtesy NOAA.

New study measures effects of entanglement

By Summit Voice

FRISCO — Stray fishing gear has long been a problem in the ocean, and a new collaborative study shows exactly how whales struggle when they get wrapped up in abandoned lines. By carefully tracking tangled whales, the scientists documented how the predicament hinders whales’ ability to eat and migrate, depletes their energy as they drag gear for months or years, and can result in a slow death.

The special tracking device, called a Dtag, was developed at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The researchers attached the tracker to a two-year-old female North Atlantic right whale called Eg 3911 to monitor the whale’s movements before, during, and after at-sea disentanglement operations. Immediately after Eg 3911 was disentangled from most of the fishing gear, she swam faster, dove twice as deep, and for longer periods.

The study, by scientists at WHOI, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and NOAA Fisheries, was published online May 21 in the journal Marine Mammal Science.

“The Dtag opened up a whole new world of Eg 3911’s life under water that otherwise we weren’t able to see,” said Julie van der Hoop, lead author of the study and a graduate student in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography.

North Atlantic right whales were nearly eradicated by whaling and remain endangered today, with a population of 450 to 500. About 75 percent bear scars of fishing lines that cut into their flesh.

Born in 2009, Eg 3911 was first sighted entangled and emaciated by an aerial survey team on Christmas Day 2010, near Jacksonville, Florida. Fishing gear was entangled around her mouth, wrapped around both pectoral fins, and trailed about 100 feet behind her tail.

Teams aboard boats attempted to cut away the fishing gear on Dec. 29 and 30, 2010, but the whale evaded the would-be rescuers. A multiagency team tried again on Jan. 15, 2011. First, they applied a Dtag. Then they administered a carefully calculated sedative with a dart gun The becalmed whale allowed the team to approach and remove nearly all the fishing gear.

The Dtag measured 152 dives that Eg 3911 took over six hours. There were no significant differences in depth or duration of dives after sedation, but “the whale altered its behavior immediately following disentanglement,” the scientists reported. “The near-complete disentanglement of Eg 3911 resulted in significant increases in dive duration and depth.”

“Together, the effects of added buoyancy, added drag, and reduced swimming speed due to towing accessory gear pose many threats to entangled whales,” the scientists wrote. Buoyant gear may overwhelm animals’ ability to descend to depths to forage on preferred prey. Increased drag can reduce swimming speeds, delaying whales’ timely arrival to feeding or breeding grounds. “Most significant, however, is the energy drain associated with added drag,” they said.

The researchers also took detailed measurements of the drag forces by towing gear behind a skiff, calculating that the entangled whales have significantly higher energy demands, requiring 70 to 102 percent more power to swim at the same speed unentangled. Alternatively, they need to slow down their swimming speed by 16 to 20.5 percent.

On Feb. 1, 2011, an aerial survey observed Eg 3911 dead at sea. The whale was towed ashore for a necropsy.

“She didn’t make it,” van der Hoop said. “We showed up on the beach that night. I remember walking out there and seeing this huge whale, or what I thought was huge. She was only 10 meters long. She was only two years old. And all these people who had been involved in her life at some point, were there to learn from her what entanglement had caused.”

The necropsy showed that effects of the chronic entanglement were the cause of death.

“No fisherman wants to catch a whale, and I wish no fisherman a hungry day,” said Moore. “There needs to be a targeted assessment of how the fishery can still be profitable while deploying less gear so we can reduce the risk of marine mammals encountering fishing gear in the first place. At WHOI, we have hosted workshops talking with fisheries managers and fishermen about what might change so that they can continue to catch fish and stop catching whales.”

Wolves are recovered in Yellowstone, but a possible plan to take them off the Endangered Species List is highly controversial. Photo courtesy Yellowstone NP.

Leaked plan doesn’t live up to intent of Endangered Species Act

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — A group of prominent scientists with expertise in wolf biology is taking issue with a draft plan to take wolves off the Endangered Species List. The document was leaked a few weeks ago, eliciting widespread criticism from wildlife advocates.

Federal wildlife agencies are under intense pressure from states to turn over wolf management. Congress has already set the stage for political interference in the wolf recovery process, and that step has put the the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service at the edge of a very slippery slope. Any proposal to de-list wolves is likely to face significant opposition and legal challenges from conservation advocates.

In their May 21 letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director Dan Ashe, the scientists said the draft plan doesn’t reflect the best available wolf recovery  science and that it clashes with the fundamental purpose of the Endangered Species Act.

And they should know, since they are scientists responsible for much of the research referenced in the draft proposal.

Specifically, the letter says:

“The gray wolf has barely begun to recover or is absent from significant portions of its former range where substantial suitable habitat remains. The Service’s draft rule fails to consider science identifying extensive suitable habitat in the Pacific Northwest, California, the southern Rocky Mountains and the Northeast. It also fails to consider the importance of these areas to the long-term survival and recovery of wolves, or the importance of wolves to the ecosystems of these regions.”

The scientists also took issue with the fact that the draft rule doesn’t delineate a specific area of protection for Mexican wolves, which would remain listed under the proposal.

The letter also criticizes the draft rule’s conclusion that wolves in the Pacific Northwest don’t qualify as a distinct population segment. The scientists pointed out that  genetic testing of gray wolves that have migrated naturally into the Pacific Northwest has established that some derive from British Columbia coastal wolf populations which are genetically distinct from the inland stock of wolves used as a source for reintroduction to the northern Rocky Mountains.

“Given the importance of wolves and the fact that they have only just begun to recover in some regions and not at all in others, we hope you will reconsider the Service’s proposal to remove protections across most of the United States,” the letter concludes.

Mule deer in winter sagebrush habitat. Photo courtesy Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials say they want feedback from public

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — With several extensive research projects on northwest Colorado mule deer populations under way, biologists say they want to update the public on those efforts. A long-term trend of declining populations has spurred several studies, as scientists look at predation, food supplies and energy development as possible factors.

To discuss their findings so far, wildlife managers are inviting the public to a presentation with biologists, researchers and wildlife officials, Wednesday, May 29 at 7 p.m. at the Mountain Valley Bank, 400 Main Street in Meeker.

Wildlife officials stress that the public’s understanding of the decline is critical and opportunities to have an open discussion with researchers and biologists can provide valuable insight.

“Some of our stakeholders have offered their views and opinions about what needs to happen to reverse the decline,” said Bill de Vergie, area manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. “However, there is a large section of the public we have yet to hear from and we are happy to provide another opportunity for them to listen and also provide their input.”

Mule deer provide substantial economic benefits to communities across Colorado and are an important, indicator species for the overall health of the environment. Numerous factors may have led to the overall decline and wildlife researchers will continue their years-long research with goals of finding solutions and restoring herds to their management objectives.

“This is not just a concern for hunters and outfitters,” said de Vergie. “If you live in western Colorado, a continuing decline may affect you eventually, whether you hunt mule deer, earn an income from hunting, collect antlers or just enjoy viewing wildlife.”

Among other topics to be discussed, local landowners will learn about plans for neonatal studies on their lands.

For more information about mule deer research, go to www.bit.ly/muledeerresearch.

Federal agencies rebuked for violating Endangered Species Act. Photo courtesy USFWS.

Decision will trigger new reviews of forest plans and projects in northern Rockies

By Summit Voice

FRISCO — The U.S. Forest Service has once again been called out for failing to live up to its legal obligations to protect endangered species, this time by a federal judge in Montana, who ruled last week that the agency violated the Endangered Species Act when it failed to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on a regional forest plan amendment.

Dana L. Christensen, chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the State of Montana, ordered the Forest Service to re-initiate consultation, but did not block any specific projects on the affected forests, saying that plaintiffs couldn’t show any “irreparable harm.”

The Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did formally address the lynx amendment with a consultation starting in 2005, ending with a finding that the lynx amendment wouldn’t jeopardize lynx across the northern Rockies — but that was before the fish and wildlife service designated critical habitat for the wild cats.

The USFWS finalized a critical habitat designation in 2009, covering lands on 11 national forests in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, including lynx habitats. Conservation groups raised concerns that that lynx amendment and the critical habitat designation didn’t mesh and later sued the Forest Service for failing to start a new consultation process with the USFWS.

The Forest Service’s argument that its forest plans are not subject to legal challenge ring particularly hollow considering that lynx were listed primarily because of the lack of adequate regulatory mechanisms.

Judge Christensen also noted that, on some forests in the region, the Forest Service has voluntarily re-initiated consultation since critical habitat was designation, showing that the agency retains discretionary control over the lynx amendment.

The ruling upholds the idea that “big-picture” management is needed to ensure lynx conservation and recovery, and the Forest Service’s habitual tendency to try and piecemeal approval of projects without considering the cumulative impacts doesn’t meet the high standards of the Endangered Species Act.

There’s more evidence that living next to busy roads has health risks.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — In yet another strong sign that living close to major roads is significant health risk, researchers in Massachusetts found that prenatal exposure to ambient air pollution increases the risk of subsequent respiratory infection in children.

“The connection between in utero and early life cigarette smoke exposure and adverse infant respiratory outcomes is well-established, but the relation of prenatal ambient air pollution to risk of infant respiratory infection is less well-studied,” said lead author Mary Rice, MD, a pulmonary and critical care fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “Our study extends previous findings by showing that proximity to a major roadway during the prenatal period is associated with increased risk of subsequent respiratory infection in children.”

Of the 1,271 mother-child pairs studied, 6.4 percent lived less than 100 meters, 6.5 percent lived 100 to 200 meters, 33.7 percent lived 200 to less than 1000 meters and 53.4 percent lived 1,000 meters or more from a major roadway.

By the age of 3, 678 (53.3 percent) of the children had had at least one doctor-diagnosed respiratory infection. After adjustment for possible confounders and risk factors for respiratory infection, children whose mothers lived less than 100 meters from a major roadway during pregnancy were 1.74 times as likely as those living 100 meters or more from a major roadway to have had a respiratory infection. Those living 100 to 200 meters from a major roadway were1.49 times as likely to have had a respiratory infection.

The study results will be presented at the ATS 2013 International Conference in Philadelphia.

The study included 1,271 mother-child pairs enrolled during the first trimester of pregnancy between 1999 and 2002 in Project Viva in eastern Massachusetts. The distance from home addresses to the nearest major  roadway was calculated using geographic information system software. Respiratory infections were defined as maternal report of any doctor-diagnosed pneumonia, bronchiolitis, croup or other respiratory infection from birth until age 3.

Statistical analyses of the relationship between exposure to a major roadway and respiratory infection were adjusted for gender, birth weight, maternal education, household income, neighborhood income and education, maternal smoking during pregnancy, postnatal household smoking, breastfeeding, daycare attendance, presence of other young children in the household and season of birth.

“Future research will need to clarify whether the apparent harmful postnatal effects of living close to a major road during pregnancy is due to air pollution from traffic or other exposures related to roads,” said Dr. Rice.

“We plan to further explore this connection using a measure of black carbon, a component of traffic-related air pollution. Using black carbon measures, we also plan to disentangle the associations of pre- vs postnatal air pollution exposures with respiratory infection in early life,” she said.

USGS and EPA scientists take earth and water samples below the abandoned Pennsylvania Mine in Summit County, Colorado. Bob Berwyn photo.

Tainted water at the abandoned Pennsylvania Mine.

By Bob Berwyn

*Extensive Summit Voice coverage of the Pennsylvania Mine is online here.

SUMMIT COUNTY — Nearly a century after miners finished digging millions of dollars worth of silver, lead and zinc out of the Pennsylvania Mine, heavy machinery will once again rumble through the high alpine Peru Creek Valley.

But instead of burrowing deep into the ground to find precious metals, the workers this time will be trying to clean up the big mess left behind when the mine was abandoned. For decades, water coursing through the mine shafts has been dissolving minerals, resulting in acid mine drainage that pollutes Peru Creek and the Snake River. Concentrations of some metals, especially zinc, are high enough to kill trout.

After years of studying the mine, experts with federal and state agencies now say they are ready to try and tackle the pollution. They will provide details on the cleanup plan at the May 29 meeting of the Snake River Watershed Task Force. The public meeting is scheduled from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Keystone Center, 1628 St. John Road, Keystone.

Part of the work could involve trying to block or redirect some of the water flowing out of the mine. Cleanup efforts taken under the project plan will be phased over several years and will also address tailings and other mine waste found on the surface.

“This project is a big step forward to clean up a longstanding threat to the Snake River watershed,” said Paul Peronard, an EP on-scene coordinator who will oversee the cleanup work. “From mid-May to mid-August, heavy equipment will be operating at the mine portal. We are asking the public to avoid visiting the area due to safety concerns,” Peronard said.

During construction, the Peru Creek Road will remain open; however there may be some brief periods of road closures. There will also be increased truck traffic during the summer. Four-wheel drive access to Cinnamon Creek will be open, but access to the mine will be closed. The Dillon Ranger District will have specific information on scheduled road closures.

The cleanup is a partnership between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Colorado Division of Reclamation Mining and Safety, the U.S. Forest Service, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, and Summit County. For more information about the project please visit: www.snakerivertaskforce.org.

Despite some pockets of chilly weather, April 2013 global temps ranked as the 13th-warmest on record. Graphic courtesy NOAA/NCDC.

By Summit Voice

FRISCO — Despite a wide swath of cooler-than-average temperatures stretching from Alaska across parts of Canada and into Central North America, the average global temperature for April was well above average, ranking as the 13th-warmest April on record.

For the year to-date, global temperature across land and ocean surfaces are tied with 2009 as the eighth warmest on record, at 1.01 degrees above the 20th century average.

It also marked the 37th consecutive April and 338th consecutive month (more than 28 years) with a global temperature above the 20th century average. The last below-average April temperature was April 1976 and the last below-average temperature for any month was February 1985.

Given the absence of El Niño, global sea surface temperatures were especially notable, ranking as the seventh-warmest on record, according to the National Climatic Data Center, which this week released its monthly global climate analysis.

According to the report, last month also marked the 37th consecutive April and 338th consecutive month (more than 28 years) with a global temperature above the 20th century average. The last below-average April temperature was April 1976 and the last below-average temperature for any month was February 1985.

The combined average global land and ocean surface temperature was 0.94 degrees above the 20th century average, while the global sea surface temperature 0.79 degrees above the 20th century average, tied with 2001 and 2007.

Ocean temps were especiall warm across the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, the northern and southeastern Indian Ocean, and much of the southwestern Pacific Ocean. Record-warm ocean temps were reported from the Pacific around the Philippine Islands and to the south and southeast of Australia. The only much-cooler-than-average region was in part of the northwestern Pacific Ocean near Russia.

On land, warmer than average readings were reported from Mexico, coastal regions of South America and parts of southern and eastern Europe, with below-average temps across parts of central and southern Africa, central South America and parts of China, Korea and Japan.

Australia cooled off from record heat earlier in the year, but still reported its fifth-warmest April on record, with above-average readings extending to the New Zealand region.

Snow Cover/Polar ice highlights: April

• Snow Cover: According to data from the Rutgers Global Snow Lab, the Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent for April was the 9th largest in the 47-year period of record and the largest since 1996. The April snow cover extent was 12.4 million square miles, 0.8 million square miles above the 1981-2010 average of 11.6 million square miles. Above-average snow cover was present for both Eurasia and North America, which had their 19th and 3rd largest April snow cover extents on record, respectively.
• Arctic Sea Ice: According to data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the average April Arctic sea ice extent was 5.55 million square miles, approximately 150,000 square miles (2.6 percent) below the 1981-2010 average of 5.70 million square miles, resulting in the seventh smallest monthly April extent on record.
• Antarctic Sea Ice: Antarctic sea ice extent was 3.12 million square miles, 260,000 square miles (9.1 percent) above the 1981-2010 average of 2.86 million square miles. This marked the fifth largest April Antarctic sea ice extent on record.

Nesting eagles at Dillon Reservoir, Summit County, Colorado.

FRISCO —A bit of a grab-bag of images in this week’s compendium, starting with the startling sight of a nesting bald eagle right in the heart of Summit County to some road scenes from a quick crosscountry drive. The best selection of Summit County landscape images is online at our FineArt America gallery, where you can order fine art prints, as well as greeting cards. It’s a great way to support independent online journalism in Colorado.

The meadow.

Spring is slowly creeping across the Colorado high country.

During a weekend road trip, en route from Florida to Colorado, we just missed getting tangled up in the year’s biggest tornado outbreak, but skies looked threatening as we crossed Missouri.

It’s pretty hard to resist taking a picture of a fat squirrel, even if it is being hand-fed!

Still waters in Summit County, Colorado.

A telephoto view of the eagles nest near Dillon Reservoir gives a good sense of how large these magnificent raptors are.