CIRES News

Climate intervention techniques are not ready for wide-scale deployment

There is no substitute for dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate the negative consequences of climate change, a National Research Council committee including CIRES director Waleed Abdalati concluded in a two-volume evaluation of proposed climate-intervention ("geoengineering") techniques. Read More ...

Charting Colorado’s Vulnerability to Climate Change

Sea-level rise may not be not eating away at Colorado’s borders, but climate change exposes other critical vulnerabilities in the state, according to a new report. Rising temperatures will likely take a toll on cattle and crops, for example, and could more often leave junior water rights holders with little water and few options. Read More ...

WINTER 2015: Investigating eastern US air pollution in wintertime

We tend to think of summer as prime time for pollution—picture the haze that hangs over big cities on hot, steamy days. That's when increased sunlight and temperatures speed up chemical reactions that transform pollutants in the air into other "secondary" pollutants, including ozone, particulate matter, and others. Read More ...

Erratic as normal - Arctic sea ice loss expected to be bumpy in the short term

Arctic sea ice extent plunged precipitously from 2001 to 2007, then barely budged between 2007 and 2013. Even in a warming world, researchers should expect such unusual periods of no change—and rapid change—at the world's northern reaches, according to a new paper. Read More ...

Forecasting and explaining bad air days in Utah’s oil and gas fields

To accurately forecast wintertime bad air days in Utah’s Uintah Basin, researchers must use real atmospheric measurements to estimate chemical emissions from nearby oil and natural gas fields, a new study in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics has found. Read More ...

Arctic sea ice loss not a major factor in weather extremes in the lower latitudes

There's no doubt that Arctic sea ice is melting. However, new research finds little evidence supporting the idea that Arctic sea ice loss is a major factor behind weather extremes at lower latitudes. Read More ...

Crowdsourcing Earth's magnetic field

In a major citizen science effort, geophysicists are asking smart phone users around the world for help mapping Earth's magnetic field. Read More ...

Surprising findings in Greenland’s melt dynamics

San Francisco, California —A combination of new tools and old photographs are giving scientists a better view of Greenland’s ice, and recent discoveries promise to improve forecasts of the region’s future in a warmer world. Overall, the findings show Greenland's ice is vulnerable to periods of rapid change including vicious cycles of warming promoting further warming. Read More ...

Powdered measles vaccine safe

A measles vaccine made of fine dry powder and delivered with a puff of air triggered no adverse side effects in early human testing and it is likely effective, according to a paper to be published November 28 in the journal Vaccine. Read More ...

Worldwide retreat of glaciers confirmed in unprecedented detail

Learn about global glacier changes in a new book, Global Land Ice Measurements from Space, produced by an international consortium including the National Snow and Ice Data Center (part of CIRES). Read More ...

CIRES Visiting Fellowship Program

Join the research community in Boulder, Colorado, for the opportunity to conduct challenging research in collaboration with recognized leaders in Earth system science. Read More ...

U.S. News & World Report ranks CU-Boulder second in world in the geosciences

The University of Colorado Boulder was ranked second in the world in geosciences by U.S. News & World Report last week. Read More ...

New Book: The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters and Climate Change by Roger Pielke Jr.

Politicians and others often overstate the role of climate change in the growing toll of natural disasters, according to a new book by Roger Pielke Jr.: The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters and Climate Change. Read More ...

Errors in climate science may hide real risks

Understating the effects of climate change could be as costly and dangerous to human well-being and economics as overstating the impacts, according to the authors of a new analysis published today in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Read More ...

Remapping the New Jersey coast after Hurricane Sandy

Two years ago, Hurricane Sandy made landfall along the U.S. East Coast, and the storm’s strong winds and waves altered the shoreline and the seafloor. The New York metropolitan region got hit especially hard. Suddenly, our coastal elevation models were no longer accurate. Emergency planners need up-to-date models, though. Small features on the seafloor and shoreline can dictate where sea water may surge in and where flood water may flow during storms. Read More ...

New study pinpoints major sources of air pollutants from oil and gas operations in Utah

Oil and natural gas production fields can emit large amounts of air pollutants that affect climate and air quality—but tackling the issue has been difficult  because little is known about what aspects of complex production operations leak what kinds of pollutants, and how much. Now a CIRES-led study in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics sheds light on just that, pinpointing sources of airborne pollutants. Read More ...

CO-LABS Honors groundbreaking scientists and their research

A team of CIRES and NOAA scientists have won one of the 2014 Governor's Awards for High-Impact research, for their work investigating the atmospheric impacts of rapidly expanding oil and gas development across The West. Read More ...

New study explains wintertime ozone pollution in Utah oil and gas fields

Chemicals released into the air by oil and gas exploration, extraction and related activities can spark reactions that lead to high levels of ozone in wintertime, high enough to exceed federal health standards, according to new NOAA-led research, published today in Nature. Read More ...

Stunning variety of microbes in Central Park soils mirrors global microbial diversity

Soil microbes that thrive in the deserts, rainforests, prairies and forests of the world can also be found living beneath New York City’s Central Park, according to a surprising new study led by Colorado State University and the University of Colorado Boulder. Read More ...

NOAA’s weather forecasts go hyper local with next-generation weather model

Today, meteorologists at NOAA’s National Weather Service are using a new model that will help improve forecasts and warnings for severe weather events. Thanks to the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model, forecasters will be able to pinpoint neighborhoods under threat of tornadoes and hail, heavy precipitation that could lead to flash flooding or heavy snowfall and warn residents hours before a storm hits. It will also help forecasters provide more information to air traffic managers and pilots about hazards such as air turbulence and thunderstorms. Read More ...

Climate change not to blame for 2013 Colorado floods

Last September’s widespread flooding in northeast Colorado, which saw just over 17 inches of rain in one week in the city of Boulder, was not made more likely or more intense by the effects of human-induced climate change, according to a new NOAA-led study published today in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Read More ...

Ozone layer on road to recovery?

Nearly 30 years after the protections of the Montreal Protocol were put into place, there's more evidence that the international agreement to protect Earth's ozone layer is working, according to a new scientific report released today at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Read More ...

Nimbus data rescue

In 1964, the Beatles took the world by storm, Lyndon Johnson won his second term as President—and NASA launched the first of seven Nimbus spacecraft to study Earth from space. Read More ...

Air from stratosphere makes it tough for Las Vegas to meet surface ozone pollution standards

In Las Vegas, air from the naturally ozone-rich stratosphere is sometimes an unwelcome intruder, making it difficult for the region to meet the national ground-level ozone standards in the springtime, according to a new NOAA-led study published online this month in the journal Atmospheric Environment. Read More ...

New report highlights how climate change may affect water in Colorado

As Colorado’s climate continues to warm, those who manage or use water in the state will likely face significant changes in water supply and demand, according to a new report on state climate change released today by the Western Water Assessment and the Colorado Water Conservation Board. Read More ...

Science of Smog

Every summer along Colorado’s Front Range, ozone pollution periodically spikes to unhealthy levels, despite federal and state efforts to control the lung-damaging chemical. Cars are running cleaner, and power plants are emitting fewer pollutants, so why does ozone still regularly soar above health-based limits? Read More ...

Reporters using more 'hedging' words in climate change articles, CIRES study finds

The amount of “hedging” language—words that suggest room for doubt—used by prominent newspapers in articles about climate change has increased over time, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder. Read More ...

Airborne measurements confirm leaks from oil and gas operations

During two days of intensive airborne measurements, oil and gas operations in Colorado’s Front Range leaked nearly three times as much methane, a greenhouse gas, as predicted based on inventory estimates, and seven times as much benzene, a regulated air toxic. Read More ...

Greenhouse gases continued rising in 2013; 34 percent increase since 1990

NOAA’s latest Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI), released today, Friday, May 2, 2014, shows that the warming influence from human-emitted gases continues to increase. This trend that began with the Industrial Revolution of the 1880s has accelerated in recent decades. Read More ...

Common factors behind Greenland melt episodes in 2012, 1889

In 2012, temperatures at the summit of Greenland rose above freezing for the first time since 1889, raising questions about what led to the unusual melt episode. Now, a new CIRES-led analysis shows that some of the same weather and climate factors were at play in both 1889 and 2012: heat waves thousands of miles upwind in North America, higher-than-average ocean surface temperatures south of Greenland and atmospheric rivers of warm, moist air that streamed toward Greenland’s west coast. Read More ...

Climate considerations on Navajo lands

A new report led by the University of Colorado Boulder, Considerations for Climate Change and Variability Adaptation on the Navajo Nation, synthesizes state-of-the-science information on the region’s climate, water cycle and ecology. It goes much further... Read More ...

Serving up climate data in usable formats

When a city’s transportation infrastructure needs work, city planners can’t just look at yesterday’s traffic figures, they need to take into account long-term trends: How are driving patterns changing? Roads and mass transit projects last for decades, after all. Read More ...

Measuring wind with microphones

To a small group of physicists, the noisy nuisance of the Diagonal Highway, between Boulder and Longmont proved inspirational. The group used the roar of traffic to accurately measure wind speed, a scientific first. Read More ...

Amazonian drought conditions add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere

As climates change, the lush tropical ecosystems of the Amazon Basin may release more of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than they absorb, according to a new study published Feb. 6 in Nature. Read More ...

Sequencing butterfly bacteria, scientists find surprises

A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder has sequenced the internal bacterial makeup of the three major life stages of a butterfly species, a project that showed some surprising events occur during metamorphosis. Read More ...

CIRES Fellow awarded science prize from Royal Swedish Academy

CIRES geophysicist Peter Molnar has has been awarded the prestigious 2014 Crafoord Prize in Geosciences by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for his groundbreaking research in geophysics and geological sciences. Read More ...

New study: U.S. power plant emissions down

Scientists recently recorded the lowest temperatures on Earth at a desolate and remote ice plateau in East Antarctica, trumping a record set in 1983 and uncovering a new puzzle about the ice-covered continent. Read More ...

 

2013 News Archives »