CU Connections

Last July, something unprecedented in the 34-year satellite record happened: 98 percent of the Greenland Ice Sheet’s surface melted, compared to roughly 50 percent during an average summer. Snow that usually stays frozen and dry turned wet with melt water. Research led by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences now shows last summer’s [...]

As an assistant professor in the Center for Science and Technology Policy in CIRES, his research interests include the cultural politics of climate change and carbon-based economies and societies.

Clouds over the central Greenland Ice Sheet last July were “just right” for driving surface temperatures there above the melting point, according to a new study by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the universities of Wisconsin, Idaho and Colorado. The study, published recently in Nature, found that thin, low-lying clouds [...]

Two University of Colorado Boulder environmental researchers have been named Leopold Leadership Fellows for 2013 in recognition of their outstanding leadership abilities and desire to communicate scientific issues beyond academic audiences. Environmental design professor Kevin J. Krizek and environmental studies assistant professor Maxwell Boykoff are among 20 Leopold fellows selected this year from around the [...]

New study shows that smaller trees and other vegetation that survive pine beetle invasions along waterways increase their uptake of nitrate, a common disturbance-related pollutant.

Two University of Colorado faculty members recently were inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Veronica Vaida, University of Colorado Boulder, and Mark Johnston, University of Colorado School of Medicine, were among 180  influential artists, scientists, scholars, authors and institutional leaders who were inducted during a ceremony in early October. Vaida, a professor [...]

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has selected the University of Colorado Boulder to continue a federal/academic partnership that extends NOAA’s ability to study climate change, improve weather models and better predict how solar storms can disrupt communication and navigation technologies. The selection means that NOAA will continue funding the Cooperative Institute for Research in [...]

When the Fourmile Canyon Fire erupted west of Boulder in 2010, smoke from the wildfire poured into parts of the city including a site housing scientists from CU-Boulder’s CIRES and NOAA.

Four University of Colorado Boulder faculty members are among 96 U.S. researchers named by the White House as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, or PECASE. The winners announced last week are assistant professor Erin Furtak of the School of Education, assistant professor Cindy Regal of the physics department, associate [...]

Roger Pielke Jr. – professor in the environmental studies program at CU-Boulder, Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and member of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research – is this year’s recipient of the Geological Society of America (GSA) Public Service Award. The award was established in 1998 [...]

Two University of Colorado professors have been elected members to the National Academy of Sciences.   John Wahr, professor of physics at CU-Boulder, and Kurt Beam in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics in the School of Medicine, received the honor that recognizes scientists and engineers for their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. [...]

Roger A. Pielke Jr., a professor in the environmental studies program at the University of Colorado Boulder and a Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), has been awarded an honorary doctorate from Linköping University in Sweden, one of the nation’s top educational institutions focused on interdisciplinary research and teaching. Pielke [...]

The black smoke that rose from the water’s surface during controlled burns of surface oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill last year pumped more than 1 million pounds of soot pollution into the atmosphere, according to a new study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Colorado Boulder. The study, [...]