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Study finds Colorado River Basin’s worst known megadrought was 1,800 years ago

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The ongoing severe drought in the Colorado River Basin has led to the river flowing at 84% of its historic average flow. The new study used tree-ring data and other climate records to identify a drought period unmatched in severity by the current drought or other ancient droughts. It’s quite remarkable. Gangopadhyay, S., Woodhouse, C.

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Study Finds Stratospheric Water Vapor Is An Important Driver of Decadal Global Surface Climate Change

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Earlier observations from satellites and balloons suggest that stratospheric water vapor probably increased between 1980 and 2000, which would have enhanced the decadal rate of surface warming during the 1990s by about 30% compared to estimates ignoring this change, according to the authors. —Solomon et al.

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Flaring practices allow more methane into the atmosphere than thought; simple fixes can have big impact

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New research led by the University of Michigan shows that in the real world, this practice is far less effective than estimated, releasing five times more methane in the US than previously thought. Image credit: Alan Gorchov Negron, University of Michigan and Yulia Chen of Stanford University.

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Improved measurements of sun to advance understanding of climate change

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Scientists have taken a major step toward accurately determining the amount of energy that the sun provides to Earth, and how variations in that energy may contribute to climate change. —Greg Kopp of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) of the University of Colorado Boulder.

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Study Concludes Colorado River Reservoirs Could Bottom Out from Warming, Water Management Business-as-Usual

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Colorado River Basin including major dams. All reservoirs along the Colorado River might dry up by mid-century as the West warms, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Roughly 30 million people now depend on the Colorado River for drinking and irrigation water.

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ARPA-E awarding $39M to 16 projects to grow the domestic critical minerals supply chain

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The selected projects, led by universities, national laboratories, and the private sector aim to develop commercially scalable technologies that will enable greater domestic supplies of copper, nickel, lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements, and other critical elements. Columbia University. Harvard University.

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Study Finds Indian Ocean Sea-Level Rise Threatens Coastal Areas; Climate Change Partly Responsible

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The study, led by scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., finds that the sea-level rise is at least partly a result of climate change.