News

City of Aspen (US) moved into warmer climate zone

02.03.2012

New national climate designations released this month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirm that winter is getting warmer around the city of Aspen. The mountain city of Aspen, member of the Mountain Partnership since 2010 is, for the first time, in the same climate zone of warmer and lower-elevation towns. Auden Schendler, vice president of sustainability at the Aspen Skiing Co. noted that the USDA zoning is only the latest piece of mounting evidence that the American West is warming faster than the rest of the world. Milder winters in the mountains pose increasing threats to the territory, including the decline of the ski industry and spread of invasive plants and insects nationwide such as the mountain pine beetle, which has killed millions of acres of lodgepole pine trees in the Mountain West.

Photo (c) Philip / Flickr