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A Rapidly Changing Desert

How climate change is impacting the heart of the Colorado Plateau

Craig Axford
Age of Awareness
5 min readJul 27, 2024

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Source: Moab’s recent flash floods: The extent of the impact — The Times-Independent (moabtimes.com)

Once again, many of the sidewalks in Moab, Utah are covered in sand. City workers have been busy washing down the streets and clearing storm drains for several weeks after two fifty-year floods hit the town in early July.

Moab is a desert town. These days, it is best known for its two nearby national parks, Arches and Canyonlands. But during the 50s and early 60s as the Cold War heated up, the area was better known for the uranium deposited just beneath the rust-colored surface of its sandstone mesas and cliffs.

We average about nine inches of moisture annually in this part of the world. The daytime highs in the dead of winter can reach into the 40s. In the summer, however, temperatures regularly exceed 100° Fahrenheit. These days, 110° is a lot less rare than it once was.

Grand County, Utah, where Moab is located, is the fastest warming county in the United States. Between 1895 and 2023, the average summer temperature in Grand County has increased by 2.79 ° Celsius (5.0 ° Fahrenheit). To put that in perspective, the average increase in summer temperatures for the entire United States was 0.8 ° C (1.5 ° F) during the same period.

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Age of Awareness
Age of Awareness

Published in Age of Awareness

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Craig Axford
Craig Axford

Written by Craig Axford

M.A. in Environment and Management and undergraduate degrees in Anthropology & Environmental Studies. Living in Moab, Utah. A generalist, not a specialist.

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