But no matter what it does, it’s pretty much inevitable that the current, known as the Loop Current, will end up carrying the oil that’s now hemorrhaging into the Gulf of Mexico to the tip of Florida, according to a Boulder scientist. And then — in what appears to be the blink of an eye — that oil will be off and running up the Atlantic coast and into the open ocean. (The Gulf Stream, which flows along the coast of Florida up to North Carolina, is practically flying compared to waters in the Gulf.)

Check out a computer-model simulation created by the National Center for Atmospheric Research… and prepare to feel ill.

Click here to view the embedded video.

To learn more about the modeling of how the oil might move, go to www.dailycamera.com.

Apr. 15, Apr. 17, Apr. 18, Apr. 21, Apr. 22, Apr. 23, Apr. 24, Apr. 25 and ongoing Earth Day activities

Thursday, April 15:

The Visual Arts Complex Auditorium at CU will be hosting the “Earth Days” movie premiere. In the movie, acclaimed director Robert Stone traces the development of the modern environmental movement from its post-war rumblings in the 1950s to the first wildly successful 1970 Earth Day celebration to the subsequent firestorm of political action to reveal an engaging history of the revolutionary achievements – and missed opportunities – of groundbreaking eco-activism.

Visit http://ecenter.colorado.edu/event/555. Here’s the trailer:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Saturday, April 17:

NCAR’s Mesa Lab, 1850 Table Mesa Drive, will be hosting Wild Earth 2010 in honor of Earth Day from 10 a.m.- 4p.m. Explore the prestigious Mesa Lab where critical climate science research is happening every day. Hike the surrounding trails then enjoy a delicious meal in the NCAR cafeteria (a cash-only café). In the spirit of Earth Day, carpooling is encouraged. All ages are invited. Admission is free, but donations are suggested. For more information and to register for Wild Earth 2010, click here.

Sunday, April 18:

The 2010 Lyons Community Montessori Earth Day, Sandstone Park, 350 Broadway, will be be from 10 a.m.- 2 p.m. There will be many earth-day related activities for children to participate in as well as vending and informational booths hosted by eco-friendly merchants. There will be diverse live music and dancing including a yoga demonstration, Irish dancing, and a performance by the LCM students.  Refreshments are also available. Click here for more information.

Wednesday, April 21:

SALT the Bistro, 1047 Pearl St., will be hosting an Earth Day Dinner with Paul Dolan Vineyards that will benefit the Boulder Valley School Food Project. The dinner will feature seven courses complemented by the organically grown wines of Paul Dolan Vineyards from Mendocino County, CA. Cost is $75. Go here for more info or call  303-444-SALT.

Thursday, April 22:

Celebrate Earth Day at Chautauqua Dining Hall | from flickr user agahran

Chautauqua Dining Hall, 900 Baseline Road, will be celebrating Earth Day  by hosting a dinner featuring the certified organic beers of  Asher Brewing Co. Cost is $48. Visit www.dininghall.net or  call 303-440-3776.

Boulder Valley School District with be holding Bike to School Day 2010 in honor of Earth Day. Students and staff can register online at saferoutes.bvsd.org and the school with the highest participation will be rewarded. Click here for more information and safe routes.

BVSD will have a bike-to-school day on Earth Day this year.

Nederland Community Center, 750 Highway 72 in Golden, will be holding an adults-only  “First Earth Day, 1970″ themed dance concert  from 7 p.m.- 11 p.m. The event will be starring Seismic Shift with Bruce Lish and friends “The Earth Day-ja Vu” and a special concert featuring the Crosby Stills Nash and Young “Déjà vu” album and other great music from 1970. There will be a $15 cover benefiting the Carousel of Happiness and a cash wine and beer bar. If you’re interested, check it out here. From the organizers: “‘Seismic Shift and Friends’ and Dan Rose will open at 7 p.m. at the Nederland Community Center. The plan is to do two sets, the first being the Deja Vu album by CSN&Y, the second set all material released in 1970 including Bell Bottom Blues (Derek and The Dominoes), Don’t Keep Me Wondering (Allman Brothers), Them Changes (Jimi Hendrix and the Band of Gypsies), Empty Pages (Traffic), Friend Of The Devil (Grateful Dead), And It Stoned Me (Van Morrison), I’ve got A Feeling (Beatles), and maybe one or two others, but it’s not set in stone.”

Sunflower Preschool, 3340 Dartmouth Avenue in Boulder, will be celebrating Earth Day by planting gardens from 12 to 1 p.m. With a history of being green throughout the entirety of its 30 year history, Sunflower will be inviting kids to come plant their own edible gardens and enjoy art projects and refreshments. Click here for more info.

Empowering Arts will be hosting an Earth Day Eco-Art Show at Bear Creek Elementary School, 4700 Table Mesa Drive, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Guests can view the outdoor sculptures and art work of over 200 students and learn about flying insects and birds in our ecosystem by viewing  sculptures designed and implemented by Paula Kehoe, founder of empoweringarts.org. Check out Empowering Arts to find out more  about this event.

While supplies last, come out to nab  some of The Big Red F’s Earth Day Complementary Seed Packets from Isabelle Farms at any of The Big Red F restaurants. Jax Fish House Denver, The West End Tavern, Happy Noodle House, and Zolo Southwestern Grill will be offering several Earth Day food and drink specials as well as providing the free seed packets. Check out The Big Red F for more info.

Friday, April 23:

The St Julien Hotel & Spa will be hosting the CRC’s Annual ReWards Dinner & Auction from 6-9 p.m.  Gather among the Front Range environmental community and recognize ReWard Winners in water, waste, and energy conservation. This sit-down affair is CRC’s largest fundraiser of the year – a most memorable affair with a silent auction, locally-sourced vegetarian meal crafted by St Julien’s Executive Chef Laurent Mechin, and live auction with Don Martin.

Center for ReSource Conservation (CRC) is a non-profit organization that implements programs for the Boulder County community through their Waste (Deconstruction/Re-Use), Energy, and Water Divisions. Learn more about CRC’s programs and the events listed above by visiting www.conservationcenter.org.

Saturday, April 24:

The Macy’s Plaza at 29th Street will be the venue for  the Recycle the Runway Fashion Show from 1-2 p.m. Think Project Runway meets Earth Day! CRC and 29th Street is putting on an Eco Fashion Show, where the models walk on a runway made from ReSource’d materials. Three designers will create dresses from recycled and sustainable materials in only one hour during the contest portion.

Earth Day at Red Rocks runs  from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturday, featuring John Denver music all day long. Organized by the Windstar Foundation, founded in 1976 by Denver, the free event includes a park clean-up, free face painting for the kids, and information and education from many environment-related groups in the Denver and Boulder areas. Groups participating include “The Windstar Foundation Denver Botanic Gardens, Sierra Club, Friends of Red Rocks, REC Solar, University of Colorado Science Discovery, Defenders of Wildlife, Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, Earthseeds Project, Pueblo Collie/Sheltie Rescue, The Cloud Foundation, W.O.L.F. Sanctuary, Music By Aspen Meadow, John Adams and Amanda Reyes-Rist among others!”

Sunday, April 25:

Boulder’s Central Park will be holding Earthfest from 11 a.m.- 4 p.m. Experience musicians, entertainers, exhibitors and the CRC’s Speaker’s Tent. Seven speakers will cover a variety of topics in 14 minutes – from solar PV to indoor climate comforts and the community’s importance in sustainability.

Potts Field at CU Research Park will be the venue for the CRC’s Earth Day 5k Run/Walk at 10 a.m. The run is a fast, easy race for all ages and abilities, where your participation benefits the CRC and local green building programs.

Ongoing events:

From April 16-April 30, The Pedestrian Shops, with a location at 1425 Pearl St. and another facing Folsom between Arapahoe & Canyon, are celebrating their 42nd shoe drive and Earth Day by collecting gently worn shoes that will be distributed to people in need by local assistance organizations. Customers who donate shoes will receive a 10 percent discount on any shoe purchase.

Click here to view the embedded video.

From April 12-April 16, CU’s Fiske Planetarium will be holding free showings of “Planet Earth.” Monday at 7pm, Tuesday and Wednesday at 6pm, Thursday and Friday at 4pm. For more information go here.

From April 8-May 2 , Whole Foods’ Bouquet for the Earth. Whole Foods Market stores in the Boulder area will be donating $2 to the CRC’s Water Division to help xeriscaping initiatives. Bouquets are $12.99 each.

From April 12-17, attend WaterWise Landscape Seminars. Attend these free Boulder County seminars put on by CRC’s Water Division, featuring local experts in permaculture and xeriscaping. There will be several seminars throughout Boulder County so click here to find out more about times and locations.

Ellie’s Eco Home Store is holding a nine-day sale April 17-25 in advance of its grand re-opening. Everything in the store is on sale, starting at 10 percent 4/17 and increasing by 10 percent each day. The final day will be 90 percent off on 4/25. 2525 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder. 303-952-1004.

Naropa University’s Environmental Leadership program has just released it’s Spring 2010 semester’s “Turning Leaf” Newsletter. Full of tasty recipes from Sustainability Day, some commentary about life as an Environmental Studies Graduate Assistant, articles about Earth Day’s past and future, as well as, the usual updates from our Environmental Studies students, faculty and alumni, and much, much more. Check out the newsletter here.

–Lindsay Gulisano

NCAR's Mesa Lab in south Boulder.

A 1972 article in the Daily Camera “NCAR, Others Will Study Man’s Effects on Shaky Equilibrium of Earth Climate” appears to be one of the first in the Boulder newspaper to tackle the idea that humans might be able to drive the world to some sort of climatic tipping point.

NCAR scientist William Kellogg said this in the article:

There are obviously stabilizing factors that are strong enough to keep our global climate within reasonably narrow bounds, permitting ice ages to come and go, but damping out any large fluctuations.

But, now, man has entered the scene, and we must ask whether he can reach any of the lever  points on this gigantic environmental mechanism and influence it. If there are any lever points that he can reach, history has shown that he will probably be tempted to tamper with them.

The article didn’t talk much about greenhouse gases, other than to mention a growing “carbon dioxide blanket” that had the potential to warm the Earth.

In 1979, Kellogg and a colleague, Warren Washington, received a grant to study how CO2 interacts with the climate. They used the money to run a rudimentary climate model — one that didn’t include any interaction between the atmosphere and the oceans, land or ice caps — to see what would happen if the carbon dioxide was increased by a factor of two.

In the story, Washington points out that no one is yet sure exactly what effect CO2 will have on the climate:

We anticipate a warming effect in both the atmosphere and the oceans. It will probably be changes of a few degrees or less. But a few degrees have a  big effect on glaciers and the amount of water stored in them. …

I don’t think society ought to start making changes until we have a better understanding. It’s not an immediate crisis although it could be in the next 20, 30 or 50 years.

Well, 30 years later, scientists are calling it a crisis, and NCAR has grown from an organization where a couple of its scientists study CO2 on a short-term grant to a group to hundreds of PhD scientists studying climate change.

In the decades since Washington and Kellogg’s study, NCAR scientists have researched all aspects of the climate — including how such seemingly small variables like soil moisture and changing vegetation cover affect global climate patterns — and they still have a long way to go to create a more accurate climate model.

Here’s a look at one of the more light-hearted studies undertaken by NCAR scientists to understand climate change. This is from a 1991 Daily Camera article (and you’ll notice that by then, the greenhouse effect isn’t in quotes anymore).

The burp — the self-satisfied sign of a meal’s end — has global implications when it comes to cows.

Research that originated at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder is aimed at discovering what contribution bovine burping is making to the greenhouse effect.

Backpacks containing gas-measuring gear will be strapped onto hundreds of cows at Washington State University in Pullman. Each pack holds a gas monitor connected to a tube placed near the cow’s mouth.

Read more about NCAR’s history at DailyCamera.com.

Kevin Trenberth gives a talk on climate change at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.

Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, has been particularly hard hit for this e-mail:

Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming ? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low….

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

While the climategate controversy seems to be winding down — or at least quieting down — on the national stage, Trenberth’s comments are still being bandied about in the editorial section of the Daily Camera.

Today, Trenberth responds to columns by both Bob Greenlee and Charlie Danaher with his own guest opinion in the Camera, where among other things, he explains what he meant in the above e-mail.

Two Sundays in a row ill-informed columns about carbon dioxide and climate have appeared in the Camera. The first by Bob Greenlee (Jan. 3) and the second by Charlie Danaher (Jan. 10). Both misrepresent me and my work, and in particular, quote from one of my e-mails that was illegally stolen: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”

The quote has been taken out of context. It relates to our ability to track energy flow through the climate system. We can do this very well from 1992 to 2003, when large warming occurred, but not from 2004 to 2008. The quote refers to our observation system which is inadequate to observe Earth’s energy flows at the accuracy needed to understand small fluctuations in climate; it does not mean there is no global warming, as is often interpreted by the likes of Danaher. What is does mean is that our observing system is not adequate to fully track the energy in ways that allow us to understand and make best statements about the effects of natural climate variability: the La Niña of 2007-2008, and the current El Niño, for instance.

Read Trenberth’s full editorial at DailyCamera.com.

Ice covers citrus in a grove in Lake Wales, Fla. on Wednesday.

It’s cold — tooth achingly, face numbingly frigid.

In Boulder, the average high temperature in December was about six degrees cooler than normal, and so far this season the city’s been pounded with 70 inches of snow, roughly twice the average.

But this doesn’t mean climate change isn’t affecting Colorado, threatening our snowpack, agricultural lands and water supply, according to local climate gurus.

From the Associated Press:

Beijing had its coldest morning in almost 40 years and its biggest snowfall since 1951. Britain is suffering through its longest cold snap since 1981. And freezing weather is gripping the Deep South, including Florida’s orange groves and beaches.

Whatever happened to global warming? Such weather doesn’t seem to fit with warnings from scientists that the Earth is warming because of greenhouse gases. But experts say the cold snap doesn’t disprove global warming at all — it’s just a blip in the long-term heating trend.

“It’s part of natural variability,” said Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. With global warming, he said, “we’ll still have record cold temperatures. We’ll just have fewer of them.”

The National Ecological Observatory Network, or NEON, has chosen Boulder as home, making it neighbors with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology — and then there are all those reserachers at the University of Colorado who get reseach funding from the feds.

From today’s Daily Camera:

Now, the National Ecological Observatory Network, or NEON, is a relatively modest operation headquartered on Airport Road and employing about 60 scientists, engineers and project managers.

But if the network’s request for nearly a half-billion dollars in funding from the National Science Foundation comes through this winter, the organization will be able to quadruple its size and start deploying a continent-wide web of observatory towers that can collect data about climate and atmosphere, soils and streams, and a variety of plants and animals.

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, visited the NEON offices Wednesday morning and took a tour of the network’s first test tower, located at Table Mountain just north of town.

“This is going to be exciting,” Polis said as he looked up at the test tower, laden with machines that can record wind speed, temperature and dust levels, among other things. “Let us know how we can help. We’re here to be a resource.”

Read the full story at DailyCamera.com.