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Dust is depleting snow runoff into the Colorado River, study shows

Dust is depleting snow runoff into the Colorado River, study shows

Yahoo22-04-2025

SALT LAKE CITY () — A study led by University of Utah researchers found that mountain dust is accelerating snowmelt, leading to depleted snowpacks in the Colorado Basin.
'A lot of people assume air temperature is what controls the rate of snowmelt in the Spring, but it's actually the amount of sunlight that's absorbed,' said Professor McKenzie Skiles from the University of Utah.
The on water levels originating from snowmelt in the Upper Colorado River Basin, a region with large amounts of dust that regularly blows onto mountain snowpacks. Researchers say dusty snow absorbs more sunlight, leading to a faster snowmelt.
'That additional energy that's being absorbed accelerates the melt rate,' Skiles told ABC4.com.
According to Skiles, the amount of dust found in Utah snow is largely due to human activity, adding that settlements and widespread grazing have a particularly large impact on dust levels in mountain snow.
South Jordan officials identify firefighter who died after he was found unresponsive on duty
Researchers say current snowmelt models do not account for dust, leading to problems for water managers who rely on forecasts in yearly water allotments. According to Skiles, the time and rate at which snow melts determine our water availability.
Data from the shows 27% of Utahns use Colorado River water, while 60% directly benefit from the river.
Skiles says dust on snow primarily impacts Southern Utah, however, the Wasatch Front's water supply is also affected.
'If we're better able to understand the drivers of dust emission, we could predict how that would impact the snow for the rest of the season,' Skiles said.
Skiles was accompanied by other researchers from the University of Colorado, Boulder, Montana State University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Utah.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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New paper sheds light on experience of Black prisoners in infamous Stateville prison malaria experiments
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'They haven't been properly acknowledged in the past, and their participation in these studies was really foundational in launching the field of pharmacogenetics and, later on, precision medicine,' said Allen, who recently completed her doctorate at the University of Utah. Starting in the 1940s, researchers infected inmates at the Joliet-area prison with malaria to test the effectiveness of drugs to treat the illness as part of a U.S. military-funded effort to protect American troops overseas, according to the paper. A University of Chicago doctor was the principal investigator. The inmates consented to being part of the studies and were paid for their participation. At first, the research was greeted with enthusiasm. In 1945, Life magazine ran a spread about it, featuring a photo of a Stateville inmate with cups containing malaria-carrying mosquitoes pressed against his bare chest. 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News outlets also began publishing more stories about prison research, according to the JAMA article. The Chicago Tribune published an article in 1973, in which an inmate participating in the Stateville malaria research said: 'I've been coerced into the project — for the money. Being here has nothing to do with 'doing good for mankind' … I didn't want to keep taking money from my family.' The experiments at Stateville came to a halt in the 1970s. A number of protections and regulations are now in place when it comes to research involving prisoners. Since the 1970s, the Stateville research has often been discussed and analyzed but little attention has been paid to its Black participants, said James Tabery, a medical ethicist and philosophy professor at the University of Utah who led the new research, which was funded by the federal National Institutes of Health. 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