Climate & Environment

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder ecologist explores the 'not land, not water' contradictions of bogs

Deborah Mendez-Wilson — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 14:51:27 +0000

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder ecologist explores the 'not land, not water' contradictions of bogs Deborah Mendez… Wed, 10/28/2026 - 08:51

In her new book "Bogland," �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder ecologist Merritt Turetsky explores the hidden worlds of one of Earth’s most extraordinary—and often misunderstood—ecosystems.

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The 'failed ice age': Arctic ice expanded for centuries before global warming stopped it

Deborah Mendez-Wilson — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 16:28:10 +0000

The 'failed ice age': Arctic ice expanded for centuries before global warming stopped it Deborah Mendez… Fri, 10/23/2026 - 10:28

In a new investigation for Science, INSTAAR fellow Giff Miller and collaborators documented the remnants of a "failed ice age." Researchers found that Arctic ice had been expanding for more than a thousand years before greenhouse warming abruptly reversed the trend.

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New study finds that trapped sediment is shrinking reservoirs across the US

Deborah Mendez-Wilson — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 15:56:11 +0000

New study finds that trapped sediment is shrinking reservoirs across the US Deborah Mendez… Thu, 10/22/2026 - 09:56

Doctoral student Abby Eckland and collaborators have published a new analysis of more than 57,000 U.S. reservoirs. The study found that trapped sediment decreases reservoir storage capacity and reduces resiliency of coastal deltas to sea-level rise.

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5 El Niño myths, busted. Here's what the 'Godzilla' El Niño could really mean for Colorado

Yvaine Ye — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 16:20:07 +0000

5 El Niño myths, busted. Here's what the 'Godzilla' El Niño could really mean for Colorado Yvaine Ye Tue, 10/20/2026 - 10:20

Snow on Star Dune and Crestone Peaks in Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. (Credit: Patrick Myers, National Park Service)

Yvaine Ye

As a record-breaking El Niño continues to strengthen in the Pacific Ocean, the world is entering uncharted territory.

The weather phenomenon, marked by warming of surface temperatures across the tropical Pacific, is very likely to become the strongest El Niño in recorded history. Typically, a half-degree Celsius (0.9°F) increase in ocean temperature is enough to qualify as an El Niño. But scientists predict that, as this one peaks around November, the ocean could warm by as much as 3.5°C (6.3°F) above the average of the past three decades. That would make this El Niño 40% stronger than the previous record set during the winter of 2023–24.

As El Niño changes atmospheric circulation, officials around the world, from Britain to Sri Lanka, are bracing for potential severe weather and encouraging people to stock up on supplies.

“El Niño has a ripple effect on weather all around the globe,” said climate scientist Kris Karnauskas, associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and a fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research and Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder. “That ripple effect is like a wave that travels through the atmosphere away from the eastern Pacific Ocean and impacts many places far and wide.”

As this El Niño peaks in the coming weeks, Karnauskas busts five common myths about the “Godzilla” climate phenomenon and explains what Coloradans can expect.

Myth No. 1: El Niño is a storm.

El Niño is not a storm. It’s a warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean, which can lead to more intense storms developing in some regions, but it by itself is not a storm.

Myth No. 2: El Niño will bring Colorado lots of snow this winter.

Colorado could have a great snow season this year—or another poor one like last year. Either way, El Niño is likely to play only a minor role in Colorado’s winter weather.

The impact of El Niño is like skipping a rock on a lake. The rock hits certain areas and skips over others, and Colorado is located in a region that typically gets skipped over.

Across the United States, El Niño typically brings warmer conditions to the Pacific Northwest and more precipitation to the South. Colorado sits between these two regions, where the influence of El Niño is much weaker.

A map of the U.S., Canada, and Central and part of South America showing the effects of El Niño during winter in the Northern Hemisphere. (Credit: NOAA)

Historical precipitation data from previous strong El Niño events also show no clear causal relationship between El Niño and Colorado’s winter precipitation.

During the 2023–24 strong El Niño, Colorado’s snowpack reached 31% above average. But during the previous strong El Niño, in the winter of 2015–16, snowpack was below average. Both winters saw precipitation fluctuations, and the differences show that Colorado’s snowpack is not consistently correlated with El Niño.

Myth No. 3: El Niño will cause more wildfires in Colorado.

Because El Niño will likely have minimal impact on temperature and precipitation in Colorado, it won’t affect our wildfire activity much. Across the country, El Niño can bring more rainfall to the Southwest, including Southern California, which could help reduce wildfire risk. In the Pacific Northwest, meanwhile, warmer and drier conditions could contribute to more wildfires.

Myth No. 4: El Niño will cause more hurricanes.

During an El Niño event, we typically have far fewer Atlantic hurricanes. There has been only one hurricane formed in the Atlantic so far this year, Hurricane Isaias, since the beginning of the hurricane season in June, which is pretty unusual. By mid-October of a normal year, we’d have about six hurricanes.

El Niño strengthens wind shear, the change in wind speed or direction with height in the atmosphere, in the Atlantic, making it harder for storms to organize into hurricanes.

On the flip side, the Pacific Ocean usually sees more hurricanes during an El Niño. In September, for example, Hurricane Polo strengthened from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in less than 24 hours and made landfall in Mexico’s Baja California. Such rapid intensification requires an abundance of warm ocean water beneath the surface, the kind of conditions that can develop in the Pacific during a strong El Niño.

Myth No. 5: El Niño is caused by climate change.

El Niño is part of a natural cycle in the tropical Pacific Ocean that has been going on for at least millions of years. The cycle switches between a warm phase, El Niño, and a cool phase known as La Niña, typically every two to seven years. But scientists are still studying whether climate change is altering El Niño, including whether a warming planet could make El Niño events more intense or frequent.

Beyond the myths: What you should know

Strong El Niño in 2016 contributed to Ethiopia's worst drought in 50 years. (Credit: EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid)

While Colorado may experience little direct influence from El Niño, people in other parts of the world could face significant impacts, Karnauskas said. Southern African countries, for example, could experience severe drought, potentially disrupting food supplies across the region. Indonesia is expected to become particularly warm and dry, conditions that could increase dengue infections.

Globally, El Niño is also pushing sea levels higher. Along the Pacific coast from Mexico to Peru, sea levels are currently about 8 inches higher than normal. El Niño is also adding heat to an already warming planet. During the last strong El Niño in 2023-24, global temperatures broke records for 12 months in a row. This El Niño could push global temperatures to record levels again in the months ahead.

“We’re here in 2026 already experiencing the effects of long-term warming, declining marine ecosystems and sea level rises, and now El Niño is adding another layer on top,” Karnauskas said. “Global warming certainly gives the impacts of El Niño a running start.”

As one of the strongest El Niño events in recorded history approaches its peak, climate scientist Kris Karnauskas explains what may be in store for Colorado and beyond.

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Snow on Star Dune and Crestone Peaks in Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. (Credit: Patrick Myers, National Park Service)

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Snow on Star Dune and Crestone Peaks in Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.

Richer people have an edge when it comes to getting national park permits

Yvaine Ye — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 16:22:52 +0000

Richer people have an edge when it comes to getting national park permits Yvaine Ye Tue, 10/06/2026 - 10:22

Hallet's Peak reflected in Lake Haiyaha at dawn in Rocky Mountain National Park. (Credit: National Park Service)

Yvaine Ye

Many outdoor enthusiasts have spent hours in front of a computer, racing to reserve a campsite, backpacking permit or national park entrance ticket. A recent study suggests that the way these reservation systems are designed can favor higher-income visitors.

In a paper published in Nature Communications, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder economist Jonathan Hughes found that people from higher-income neighborhoods in the United States are more likely to successfully secure the most competitive permits, including timed-entry reservations for Rocky Mountain National Park.

Jonathan Hughes at Canyonlands National Park. (Courtesy of Jonathan Hughes)

The park ends its timed-entry permit system for the season on Oct. 18.

“The parks are trying to come up with ways to manage finite resources,” said Hughes, professor in the Department of Economics and a fellow at the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI). “But if you look at the founding document of Yellowstone National Park, our first national park, it is to be ‘set apart as a public park…for the benefit and enjoyment of the people,’ not just rich people.”

National parks in the United States have seen steady increases in visitors since around 2013, with the COVID-19 pandemic pushing visitation even higher in recent years. In 2024, more than 331 million people visited national parks.

Crowds can put pressure on park infrastructure, impact the ecosystem and make emergency response more difficult. In response, many parks have introduced online reservation systems for parking, popular trails and entering the park at certain times.

For example, during peak hours from mid-May to mid-October, Rocky Mountain National Park requires visitors to obtain a permit for $2 in addition to the entrance pass to enter the park during a specific time window. The park releases some permits on the first day of each month for the rest of that month, while another batch becomes available the evening before each entry date.

Hughes has navigated many of these reservation systems himself over the years. He recalls coming to campus early to take advantage of the faster WiFi connection and using two computers to give himself the best chance of securing a permit.

“It made me think about who has the ability to participate in such a process. Not everyone can plan months ahead, is comfortable with technology or has access to a fast internet connection,” he said.

Hughes has previously studied the river permit system in the American West, which allows visitors to boat and fish through a combination of lotteries and an advance reservation system. He found that people who managed to secure a permit through advance reservation tend to have higher incomes than those who got the permit through the lottery.

He wondered if reservation systems at national parks show a similar bias.

Hughes examined 11 reservation systems covering more than 5 million reservations at seven national parks, including Rocky Mountain National Park, Glacier National Park and Yosemite National Park.

By tracking the ZIP codes associated with reservations, he found that among systems that offered advanced reservations, visitors who secured permits weeks or months ahead tended to come from higher-income areas than those who obtained permits the same day or a day in advance.

Particularly for highly competitive permits, where most tickets sell out within five minutes after they become available, successful reservation holders came from ZIP codes with median household incomes about 3% to 6% higher than those associated with less competitive reservations.

Hughes said this could be because higher-income visitors have more flexibility to plan trips months in advance, are more familiar with the reservation system and tend to be more tech-savvy.

As parks continue to adjust their reservation systems, Hughes said the findings could help managers consider different ways of distributing permits. For example, parks could experiment with how many permits are released months in advance versus closer to the visit date. In some cases, random lotteries may provide a more equitable alternative.

“For many years, the people responsible for stewarding our public lands have worked to give everyone equal access,” Hughes said. “Income is just one indicator. Education, age and race could also play a role. Any indication that some people have better access than others runs counter to that goal.”

As Rocky Mountain National Park prepares to end its timed entry system for the season, a new study shows that higher-income people are more likely to secure permits.

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Hallet's Peak reflected in Lake Haiyaha at dawn in Rocky Mountain National Park. (Credit: National Park Service)

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Hallet's Peak reflected in Lake Haiyaha at dawn in Rocky Mountain National Park. (Credit: National Park Service)

A landmark Boulder climate case is heading to SCOTUS. What's at stake?

Yvaine Ye — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 14:31:56 +0000

A landmark Boulder climate case is heading to SCOTUS. What's at stake? Yvaine Ye Thu, 09/24/2026 - 08:31

The Suncor refinery in Commerce City, Colorado. (Credit: Nico Goda/�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder)

Yvaine Ye

The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a landmark lawsuit next month in which oil and gas companies argue that state courts cannot decide who pays for damages caused by climate change.

The court’s decision, expected before next summer, could set a precedent for dozens of similar climate accountability lawsuits around the country.

“This is a historic moment where our home is going to be presenting these issues to the United States Supreme Court,” said Chris Winter, an environmental attorney and executive director of the Getches-Wilkinson Center at Colorado Law. “Here in Colorado, we are experiencing the effects of climate change firsthand. This is a case that’s happening in our backyard.”

On Oct. 5, the court will hear arguments on a petition filed by Exxon Mobil and Suncor, a Canadian oil giant. The city and county of Boulder are suing the companies, alleging that they knowingly concealed the environmental dangers of their activities, and that their actions contributed to a shifted climate that made wildfires, droughts and floods worse.

After the Colorado Supreme Court allowed Boulder to advance the case in the state legal system last year, Suncor and Exxon Mobil brought the case to federal court. The companies argue that climate change is a national and international issue, and federal law preempts, or overrides, state law on the issue.

“What the Supreme Court will decide is not whether the oil industry is ultimately responsible for climate change, or if they were deceptive in their marketing practices. Instead, they will decide whether state courts are properly equipped to play a role in deciding how we allocate the costs of responding to climate change,” Winter said.

The Boulder case is one of about three dozen lawsuits filed by state, local and tribal governments across the U.S. seeking to hold the oil and gas industry liable for climate change. None of them has progressed to trial yet.

The Supreme Court has previously declined to hear similar petitions. It took up the Boulder case as the administration doubled down on efforts to shut down other climate accountability lawsuits nationwide.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice preemptively sued the states of Michigan and Hawaii to prevent them from suing oil companies. Federal judges have dismissed both cases.

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Today sat down with Winter to talk about the Boulder case and the ruling’s potential implications.

What does the petition by Exxon Mobil and Suncor argue?

The oil and gas companies argue that whether they’re responsible for climate change damage is an issue that should be decided by federal law or Congress, and that federal law pre-empts state authorities. The companies believe the federal Supreme Court can step in and basically kill the case before it's able to go back to the state trial court.

Why does Exxon Mobil and Suncor want the case before the Supreme Court?

The core of their argument is that state law has been pre-empted by federal law, and they are therefore asking the Supreme Court of the United States to kill the case.

But the industry’s broader strategy is to avoid liability for causing climate change and to protect its financial interest in continuing to produce fossil fuels. Congress, our law-making body, hasn’t enacted a comprehensive climate change law. Thus, if federal law pre-empts state law, but Congress hasn’t implemented effective climate laws at the federal level, we could end up in a situation of not having any meaningful climate policy.

Could the Supreme Court establish a precedent for similar cases in the country?

Possibly. But there is another possibility. The oil industry is asking the Supreme Court to step into the case very early, before there’s been any trial or rulings on the merits by the state court. This is an unusual ask.

So, it’s possible that the Supreme Court may send the case back to the state courts and ask them to do more work before the federal courts can review it. In that case, we will be left without a clear answer on the question of preemption.

Have other climate lawsuits moved forward in other jurisdictions?

There has been extensive climate litigation in the United States and around the world, and some of those cases have moved forward.

For example, in the case of Held v. Montana, a group of young people successfully sued the State of Montana under the Montana Constitution for failing to protect their right to a clean and healthful environment. After an extensive trial on the merits, the trial court ruled in favor of the youth, which was upheld on appeal by the Montana Supreme Court in 2024.

There are also examples from other countries around the world. In, KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz, or the Senior Women for Climate Protection, an advocacy group in Switzerland, sued the Swiss government for insufficient action to curb climate change, leading to extreme weather that threatened their health. In 2024, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Switzerland’s inaction violated human rights.

In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court won’t be looking to those other examples as precedent. The Boulder case involves allegations of fraud and deceptive business practices under state tort law, which is a unique legal theory.

What does Boulder hope to accomplish by progressing this case?

Local municipalities are spending a lot of public money to take care of their citizens, to protect infrastructure, and to protect local economies in the face of increased drought, fires, floods, and heatwaves. Boulder wants the oil industry, which profited from the marketing and sale of fossil fuels, to share in those costs.

Congress has failed to pass meaningful climate legislation at the federal level. Boulder’s case is critically important, because without action by the courts, the costs of climate change will be imposed on all of us, and the oil industry will not have a sufficient financial incentive to protect the climate.

To hold the oil companies accountable, Boulder hopes to get to a trial where the science of climate change and the evidence of the oil industry's deceptive practices, can all be put before a jury. Then we can have a determination in a court of law on whether those activities are causing climate change and causing harms.

Beyond the preemption question, what is at stake in this case?

Climate change is hurting people in Colorado and across the country, and those effects are accelerating. Fundamentally, we’re trying to get an answer to this bigger question of who is going to pay for the enormous costs of adapting to climate change?

What Boulder is asking is that we need some monetary help from the oil industry to adapt to the effects of climate change, because the oil industry caused the problem, knew it was causing the problem, intentionally deceived consumers about it and then profited to the tune of trillions of dollars.

What are the broader implications of this case?

This case will potentially say something about the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court takes an aggressive stance in support of the oil industry, it will indicate something troubling about how the Supreme Court is thinking about its role in our constitutional system. The Supreme Court has long upheld the role of states to protect their citizens from wrongful corporate behavior. If the Supreme Court sacrifices this bedrock constitutional principle to serve the ends of the oil industry in this case, we should be very concerned about corporate influence over the rule of law.

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Today regularly publishes Q&As on news topics through the lens of scholarly expertise and research/creative work. The responses here reflect the knowledge and interpretations of the expert and should not be considered the university position on the issue. All publication content is subject to edits for clarity, brevity and university style guidelines.

Can state courts decide who pays for damage from climate change? As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to consider the question, an environmental law expert explains the case's far-reaching implications.

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The Suncor refinery in Commerce City, Colorado. (Credit: Nico Goda/�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder)

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The Suncor refinery in Commerce City, Colorado. (Credit: Nico Goda/�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder)

Satellites are missing extreme phytoplankton activity. A new model fills in the gaps

Chloe Fischer — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 19:33:50 +0000

Satellites are missing extreme phytoplankton activity. A new model fills in the gaps Chloe Fischer Wed, 09/23/2026 - 13:33

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researchers have developed a tool that can model phytoplankton biomass extremes in the ocean in ways that conventional satellites often can't.

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Firefighter deaths afflict surviving colleagues, research finds

Chloe Fischer — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 19:25:09 +0000

Firefighter deaths afflict surviving colleagues, research finds Chloe Fischer Fri, 09/11/2026 - 13:25

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder sociologist Robert Scott highlights an understudied area of wildfire research: How wildland firefighting fatalities affect the people on the front lines.

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How warming might have caused Nepal's deadly floods

Yvaine Ye — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 15:11:15 +0000

How warming might have caused Nepal's deadly floods Yvaine Ye Thu, 09/03/2026 - 09:11

The Langtang range in Nepal. (Credit: Sudan Shrestha/Wikimedia)

Yvaine Ye

One week after catastrophic floods swept through towns along the Nepal-China border, more than 1,000 people are dead and 4,500 remain missing.

Satellite and drone images suggest that softening permafrost, or perennially frozen rock, ice and soil, on Langtang Lirung peak likely caused a massive bedrock failure and glacier collapse. An estimated 50 million metric tons of ice, rock and water—roughly 13 billion gallons, or about three times the capacity of Boulder Reservoir—fell 6,500 feet into the valley below, unleashing a slurry of mud and water that inundated bridges, hydropower facilities and villages along the way. According to the United States Geological Survey, the force of the initial debris flow hitting the ground was equivalent to a magnitude 5.2 earthquake.

“This is by far the most horrific flood I have ever seen,” said Alton Byers, a faculty research scientist and an associate of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder. For the past 50 years, Byers has been studying changes in glaciers around the world, including the Himalayas, and the hazards associated with those shifts. He has lived in rural regions of Nepal for a total of eight years in addition to dozens of shorter visits since the 1970s, trekking in the mountains to study glacial lakes and help local people become more prepared for mountain hazards.

Alton Byers and Elizabeth Byers, a retired scientist with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, in Nepal's Kanchenjunga region. (Courtesy of Alton Byers)

“The size of this slide totally dwarfed anything I’ve seen before. Mountains have clearly become more dangerous places to live, work and play in as Earth becomes warmer.”

As rescue teams continue searching for those still missing, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Today spoke with Byers about what may have triggered the disaster, how climate change is reshaping glaciers and mountain hazards around the world, and whether similar events could occur in the United States.

Has melting permafrost led to similar disasters before?

Since the 1850s, changes in high-altitude permafrost have contributed to dozens of these cascading disasters in Nepal and parts of India, in which bedrock and glaciers break off, and trigger massive flash floods and debris flows. For example, in 2012 a slurry flood in central Nepal, similar to what happened in Nepal last week, killed 79 people along the Seti River. In 1970, an earthquake triggered the collapse of a glacier in Peru, creating a massive debris flow that buried more than 20,000 people in minutes in the village of Yungay.

Did climate change play a role in what happened in Nepal last week?

Warming trends certainly played a major role, destabilizing and softening permafrost, often referred to as the “cryospheric glue,” since the 1860s. Permafrost has been holding the mountains together for millennia. But as it melts, masses of rock and glacier are no longer as resistant to gravity as they once were. So the likelihood of breakage is greater.

Are unstable glaciers and permafrost a risk in the United States?

In Colorado, we’ve been losing glaciers for a long time due to warming, so they are generally small and not as dangerous in terms of permafrost-related slope failures. But mountains are just in general less stable now compared to how they used to be.

In places like Alaska, people have expressed concerns about the increase in landslides related to changes in permafrost. Last year, a landslide in Alaska’s Tracy Arm Fjord triggered a massive tsunami with a wave rising some 1,580 feet above sea level.

What other glacier-related hazards are scientists watching?

Scientists have been studying glacial lake outburst floods for decades.

Glacial lakes form when glaciers recede and water fills the area left behind. An avalanche, landslide or flood from an upstream lake can trigger a surge wave that breaches the unstable lake barrier, unleashing a huge amount of water and causing catastrophic downstream flooding.

Could last week’s disaster have been predicted?

Not really. You can’t predict things of that nature. It’s also hard to predict a glacial lake outburst flood. But what we can do is identify areas of high risk ahead of time, such as overhanging ice on a mountain slope with an urban area downstream. We need to monitor them regularly for any obvious changes.

What can we do to reduce the damage from future, similar events?

Besides monitoring, I think we need to discourage this trend of the last 20 years of building in floodplains, because hazards are bound to happen. There are dozens of similar urban areas along other rivers throughout the Himalayas that have glacial landscapes upstream. All of them need an effective and accessible early warning system and evacuation plans.

We live in a changing world and a changing mountain world. So we’ll need to continue to find ways to adapt.

A �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder mountain geographer explains how rising temperatures are destabilizing mountains and increasing the risk of landslides, glacial floods and other potentially catastrophic hazards around the world.

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The Langtang range in Nepal. (Credit: Sudan Shrestha/Wikimedia)

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For people behind bars, extreme heat can be deadly and inescapable

Yvaine Ye — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 22:35:40 +0000

For people behind bars, extreme heat can be deadly and inescapable Yvaine Ye Wed, 09/02/2026 - 16:35

Yvaine Ye

Extreme and prolonged heat waves have engulfed much of the United States this summer, with last month ranking as the warmest July on record for the Lower 48, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

As climate change drives up temperatures and makes heat waves more extreme, conditions are becoming increasingly dangerous for the nearly 2 million people in carceral facilities across the country, said David Ciplet, associate professor in the Department of Environmental Studies. At least 44 states lack universal air conditioning in their prisons.

“There's just a huge amount of need for better living conditions in prisons, and the harms are just so extreme,” said Ciplet, who leads the Climate and Incarceration Research Collaborative, an interdisciplinary team that includes scholars from universities around the country, some of whom are formerly incarcerated.

David Ciplet

The project aims to understand incarcerated people’s experiences inside prisons in relation to climate risks, including extreme temperatures and wildfire smoke, and identify policies that could improve conditions inside these facilities and reduce the number of harmful prisons nationally.

It is unclear how many of the more than 3,500 deaths each year in U.S. state and private prisons are a result of extreme weather, because most facilities don’t properly track or report them, according to The Appeal, a non-profit news organization focusing on criminal justice. But a previous study has found that about 13% of deaths in Texas prisons during warmer months could be a result of heat.

Climate change disproportionately affects marginalized communities, who often have the least resources to cope with the impacts, Ciplet said.

“Incarcerated people have the least agency and ability to control their environment, but their experiences tend to be invisible to the general public,” he added.

Heat behind bars

The past July was the second-hottest on record in Colorado, with many parts of the state, including the Denver metro area and northwest Colorado, experiencing their hottest July ever.

While there is no national standard for temperatures inside prisons, the state of Colorado requires indoor temperatures in correctional facilities to remain below 86°F during the warmest months.

That threshold is considerably higher than recommendations from health authorities, including the World Health Organization, which suggests limiting indoor temperatures to below 75°F.

Because prison temperature data are often not publicly available, it remains unclear if facilities enforce the standard, Ciplet said.

“What we’re seeing in Colorado and elsewhere is that we are having more frequent extreme heat that lingers. It’s one thing if you have one really hot day, but if you are exposed to seven or 10 days that are extremely, extremely hot, that’s going to have compounding impacts on health and your body’s ability to process those temperatures,” Ciplet said.

The team is working with 15 participants who were formerly incarcerated at four state prisons throughout Colorado to understand the conditions inside the facilities. Their accounts paint a grim picture behind bars.

While Colorado state prisons have swamp coolers that can keep common areas cooler, the cold air does not always reach the cells, according to the participants. Some south-facing cells at the Fremont Correctional Facility in central Colorado can reportedly reach temperatures above 90°F in the summer.

Trevor Jones had spent two and a half years at Fremont. While he stayed in a north-facing cell, he said the 60-year-old facility wasn’t built to deal with extreme heat or cold.

In addition to the lack of air conditioning, incarcerated people also have very limited options to stay cool. Jones said that people can order a fan if they can afford it, but the item isn’t always in stock, and it usually takes a month for the order to arrive.

“But when it’s really hot, all a fan can do is push the hot air around,” he added.

Participants also mentioned that their showers would only run at very hot temperatures, even during the peak of summer. In women’s prisons, they said, people are required to sleep fully clothed, regardless of how hot it is.

During extreme heat days, incarcerated people may still have to stay in the recreation yard, which often has no shade, or work in areas such as kitchens, where temperatures can be 20 or 30°F hotter than elsewhere in the facility.

Medication can add another layer of danger, Ciplet said. Many incarcerated people take medicine to treat conditions such as depression and anxiety, and those drugs can prevent the body from coping with high temperatures effectively.

The research team met with participants to better understand incarcerated people’s experiences with extreme temperatures inside prisons and identify policies that could improve the conditions. (Courtesy of David Ciplet)

Those risks can become even more severe in solitary confinement, where people have even less access to showers, water and fewer opportunities to leave their cells.

“There are all these ways that the rules that they’re subjected to on a daily basis can take something like 85 degrees, which is still quite hot, and make it much more unsafe,” Ciplet said.

Seeking solutions

The team is working with participants to identify the biggest challenges they faced and develop policy suggestions to push for changes.

For example, they suggest that reducing prison populations could avoid overcrowding, which can make hot environments even hotter. They also hope to advocate for better infrastructure, including regular maintenance of ventilation systems and greater access to cooling devices.

The research, led by formerly incarcerated people, also aims to provide participants with skills that could help them pursue future employment opportunities, Ciplet said. “Some of them are really interested in becoming researchers or advocates to help others,” he added.

The collaborative is also working with advocates in Texas, where policymakers considered a bill last year that would have required prisons to have air conditioning by the end of 2032. The bill died in the state Senate. Colorado has yet to introduce a similar bill.

“A society is only as healthy as its most marginalized people,” Ciplet said. “If we can design climate policy with those people at the core of it, we have the best chance of moving toward a better society.”

Through the project, the team hopes to draw more attention to the worsening conditions incarcerated people face, an issue that is usually out of public sight.

“Reducing the quality of life for someone who's incarcerated doesn't add to the interest of justice,” Jones said. “What are we as a society if we think the humane way to treat people who need societal help is to throw them into a hot or cold cage?”

As climate change drives more frequent and prolonged heat waves, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder and �鶹��Ѱ��Anschutz researchers are working with formerly incarcerated people to understand conditions inside prisons and develop ways to reduce health risks.

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Climate & Environment

�鶹��Ѱ�����Boulder ecologist explores the 'not land, not water' contradictions of bogs

Related Articles

The 'failed ice age': Arctic ice expanded for centuries before global warming stopped it

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New study finds that trapped sediment is shrinking reservoirs across the US

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5 El Niño myths, busted. Here's what the 'Godzilla' El Niño could really mean for Colorado

Myth No. 1: El Niño is a storm.

Myth No. 2: El Niño will bring Colorado lots of snow this winter.

Myth No. 3: El Niño will cause more wildfires in Colorado.

Myth No. 4: El Niño will cause more hurricanes.

Myth No. 5: El Niño is caused by climate change.

Beyond the myths: What you should know

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Richer people have an edge when it comes to getting national park permits

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