Highlighted Research

Global Change & Environmental Quality Program (Director, Herman Sievering)

http://www.cudenver.edu/public/GGES/hsievering/index.html

The Dinosaur Trackers Research Group (Director, Martin Lockley)

http://carbon.cudenver.edu/public/trackers/

Ghost Town Climatology (Fred Chambers)

This study investigates whether declining populations affect local temperature patterns, creating a reverse urban heat island effect. This reversal has been demonstrated to exist in former Colorado mining towns whose populations have dramatically decreased in the last century. The research is currently being expanded into the "Rust Belt" regions of U.S., focusing on how declining factory emissions (due to shutdowns) have altered the urban heat island effect.

Atmosphere, Weather, and Baseball: How much farther does the baseball fly at Denver's Coors Field? (Fred Chambers, Brian Page, and Clyde Zaidins--physics)

It is generally accepted that a baseball should fly approximately ten percent further at a mile-high altitude than sea-level.  An analysis of four years of flyball distance data for Coors Field refutes this notion.  Instead, it was found that the baseballs only fly an average of 6.5 percent farther than the average at other National League ballparks.  Why the discrepancy?  It appears as though a persistent summer  wind pattern within the Platte River Valley is responsible. Diurnal upslope and downslope winds appear to be channeled by the river valley resulting in a preponderance of days with the wind flowing in towards home plate, thereby diminishing the supposed mile-high advantage. However, when the winds do blow out of the park...awesome flyball distances can (and are) seen!