If you're in Boulder this Tues April 21st, come to a FREE night of comedy at the Boulder Theater... and stand up for climate.
Chuck Nice is headliner, joined by Brittany Bell Surratt & Katie Hannigan. Short performances by @colorado.edu students too. calendar.colorado.edu/event/earth-...

New satellite tools track river flows throughout the Lower Mekong Basin An investigation by INSTAAR scientist Robert Brakenridge and collaborators unveils a new method for monitoring water throughout the most important river basin

The Lower Mekong Basin supports the livelihoods of over 52 million people in Southeast Asia, but the water supply is dwindling.

An international group, including INSTAAR scientist Robert Brakenridge, recently unveiled new satellite-based monitoring tools to track the river's flows.

What does a record-breaking wildfire season mean for life in alpine lakes? A new study from INSTAAR postdoc MJ Farruggia investigates the impact of wildfire smoke on aquatic ecosystems in six alpine lakes and ponds in the Sierra

"It was one of those apocalyptic-looking days when ash is falling from the sky."

Read more about MJ Farruggia's harrowing field seasons in the Sierra Nevada and how wildfire smoke affects aquatic ecosystems in the mountains in INSTAAR's latest news story. www.colorado.edu/instaar/2026...

👏🏽 Kudos to all the INSTAARs who helped host two successful events for CU Boulder's Alumni Weekend @colorado.edu

Pictured below: A Sunday morning hike at the Spruce Gulch Wildlife & Research Reserve. We also led a Monday lab tour that included a visit to “the coldest room in Boulder”

❄️ Snow Today, a collaboration between NSIDC and INSTAAR, has expanded its coverage beyond the Western US and New Zealand. They are now covering Alaska and parts of Canada! Read about the update plus current conditions across the US West in the team's latest monthly post 👇🏽

Colorado snowpack tells a troubling story for water and wildfire in the West CU scientists and students just headed to the Mountain Research Station at 9,500 feet to measure snowpack. What they found has them worried about water and

CU scientists and students @colorado.edu headed to the Mountain Research Station at 9,500 feet to measure snowpack. What they found has them worried about water and fire.
www.colorado.edu/today/colora...

Paul Bierman

Cover for the book When the Ice is Gone by Paul Bierman

If you're in Boulder on Wed Apr 15, Paul Bierman (U Vermont) will share from his book When the Ice Is Gone (a New Yorker Best Book). The next day, he'll give a talk: Greenland - Landscapes Under Ice

Wed 12pm book reading SEEC C215
Thurs 12pm science talk SEEC N224

More on Paul www.paulbierman.net

Increasing river sediment concentration and flux across the pan-Arctic - Nature Geoscience The total sediment flux from land to the ocean across the pan-Arctic has risen by 15% since 1980, driven by greater river discharge, intensified thermokarst disturbances and wildfire activity, accordi...

Congrats to Shang Tian and Dongfeng Li, our paper on Arctic river sediment it out today! We highlight how small Arctic rivers have increased sediment and changed disproportionally faster (over the satellite record). New machine-learning approach on landsat data. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Evidence of emperor penguins’ sensitivity to sea ice fluctuations Using satellite-derived abundance indices over 20 years, we investigated population change among the seven Ross Sea emperor penguin...

Emperor Penguins may be more sensitive to changing sea ice than we thought.

INSTAAR Sharon Stammerjohn contributed to a study led by the University of Canterbury, which investigated recent population changes for Emperor Penguins living in the Ross Sea.

royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Gallery of Soft Matter 2026 - Unit - DSOFT The Gallery of Soft Matter Physics is an image and video competition at the APS Global Physics Summit that showcases the elegance and aesthetics of soft matter and highlights the work of the soft…

What does rolling drum filled with light-refracting beads tell us about avalanches and sand dunes?

A new video from PhD student Rylan Hodgson illuminates the answer! Congrats to Ryan for winning this year's ADS-DSOFT "Gallery of Soft Matter" award for his video.

Thanks to all who turned out for our screening of Life Unearthed last night!

Be sure to check out our website for a full slate of #INSTAAR75 events in 2026. And, don't miss Life Unearthed with Ariel Waldman on PBS. The third episode comes out a week from today!

buff.ly/Tf35Wrh

A new map of ecological hotspots makes waves in Antarctica Cassandra Brooks, Zephyr Sylvester and Alice DuVivier have published a new tool for evaluating ecological value in the Antarctic ocean.

Life in Antarctica is all about perseverance — organisms thriving in some of the most extreme conditions on Earth.

Yesterday, a group of INSTAARs and collaborators published a new tool that maps the relative importance of Antarctic ecosystems to life on the southernmost continent.

Eighth graders create data-driven art inspired by climate records on Niwot Ridge. — Niwot Ridge LTER During a recent field trip to the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at CU Boulder, eighth graders transformed long-term data from Niwot Ridge into art.

nwt.lternet.edu/news/eigth-g...

Holly Barnard

👏🏽 Congrats to Holly Barnard! She will receive the AGU Hydrology Days Award 🏆 at Colorado State this week.

She will also give the meeting's keynote address:
"From foliage to fractures: Exploring the critical zone from multiple perspectives"
Wed April 8 at 1pm
www.engr.colostate.edu/ce/events/hy...

Nine people, many holding butterfly nets, stand shoulder to shoulder in a grassy summer meadow surrounded by conifer trees. Accompanying text says CU Boulder Mountain Research Station summer field courses

Flyer for the Summer 2026 field courses at the CU Mountain Research Station. Images and illustrations of mountains, students in the field, birds, tundra, forests, and moose. Field courses span a range of topics and emphasize learning through experiential work in a natural setting. Students from ANY institution can register. Natural history of the southern rockies, Field ornithology, Flora of the mountains, Feeding ecology of animals, Lake and stream ecology, Forest and fire ecology

2026 UNDERGRAD SUMMER FIELD COURSES at CU Boulder's Mountain Research Station @colorado.edu
📓 Natural history
🦅 Birds
🌱 Flora
🦌 Animals
🚣‍♀️ Lakes+streams
🌲 Forests+fire
Each ecology focused, ~2 wks, 3 transferable credits, 15 students, lodging&food included w tuition
www.colorado.edu/mrs/2026/01/...

🚨 Update: Tickets for 'LIFE UNEARTHED' are SOLD OUT. Check on future INSTAAR75 events at www.colorado.edu/instaar/abou...

Winter’s alarmingly low snowpack offers a glimpse of the changing rhythm of water in the western US Streamflows the West relies on for drinking water and farms used to follow a fairly predictable arc as winter snow melted. Rising temperatures are changing that.

"In recent years, rising temperatures have led to a redistribution of streamflows throughout the winter & early spring in ways that are fundamentally reshaping the hydrographs of snowmelt-dominated rivers."

CIRES' Imtiaz Rangwala in @us.theconversation.com ⬇️
theconversation.com/winters-alar...

Get a Little Out There with Alex Honnold Elite trail runner Peyton Thomas and Alex Honnold explore Nevada's backcountry and small-town secrets.

What do two elite athletes do when fresh powder spoils their planned trail run?

Find out on the latest episode of "Get a Little Out There," where INSTAAR fellow Peyton Thomas joins Alex Honnold for a snowy excursion and some cowboy poetry.

No fooling: April 1 is a cruel joke for the West's snowpack At the water year's midpoint, meager snow cover raises alarms for the months ahead

April 1 is a key milestone for the West’s snowpack.

This year’s data paint a disturbing portrait of the historic snow drought.

My latest at snow.news:

www.snow.news/p/snowpack-a...

Modeling Upper Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics in Response to Interannual Sea‐Ice Variability in the Western Antarctic Peninsula Sea-ice retreat influences the timing and magnitude of phytoplankton production on the Western Antarctic Peninsula Years with late sea-ice retreat had higher seasonal production and a greater rel...

New PAL LTER paper @jgrbiogeo.bsky.social
Modeling Upper Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics in Response to Interannual Sea‐Ice Variability in the Western Antarctic Peninsula
doi.org/10.1029/2025...
@uvaenvisci.bsky.social @instaar.bsky.social @whoi.edu i.edu @marine.rutgers.edu @uslter.bsky.social ky.social

Liu’s #newarticle explores the changing hydrologic and hydrochemical processes in the Green Lake 4 catchment of Colorado, especially in the face of earlier snowmelt. This article is for our “Mountain Hydrology in a Changing World” special collection: doi.org/10.1080/1523....

Get an in-depth look at an important project of INSTAAR's Mountain Hydrology Lab on Niwot Ridge. Kudos to Arielle Koshkin, Emma Tyrrell, Millie Spencer, and NYT journalists Sachi Kitajima Mulkey and Nina Riggio!

Photo of sea ice. Text overload on photos says "Beyond Doom and Gloom: Teaching & Learning about Climate Change as Polar Scientists. Join PSECCO for a discussion on strategies for empowering polar early career scientists to take positive action in the face of climate change on April 22, 2026, 8 am AKT | 10 am MT | 12 pm ET" The logo for PSECCO is on top of the image.

Join PSECCO and CIRES CEEE on April 22 for a webinar on climate mental health. Participants will walk away with ways to educate and empower others in the face of climate change. Register on the events page of the PSECCO website here: psecco.org/index.php/ou...

🎉 Buffs All In giving day is today! If you’re able, please support our grad students with a donation of any size to the SARAH CRUMP GRADUATE FELLOWSHIP... ideally *before midnight* 🙏🏽 #BuffsAllIn

Your gift will advance their studies in cold regions + be a lever for equity & underserved communities.

Matching funds available for the Sarah Crump Graduate Fellowship for Buffs All In Sarah Crump left an indelible mark on the field of paleoclimate science through her pioneering work, compassionate mentorship, and dedication to lifting up underrepresented voices in science...

According to Amelia Muscott, seeking Sarah Crump's mentorship was one of the best decisions she ever made.

Now Amelia's family is matching donations to the fellowship created in Sarah's name. Maximize your gift on #buffsallin this year. @colorado.edu

Registration deadline extended! CSDMS 2026 Annual Meeting: Modeling Landscapes in Motion at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, May 19-21, 2026. New registration deadline April 10th, 2026. Details: csdms.colorado.edu/wiki/Form:An...

Advertisement for an Antarctic documentary screening and Q&A event showing an early screening of Life Unearthed with Ariel Waldman at the Boulder Dairy Arts Center on Tuesday April 7th at 6-8:30pm. Tickets are required, but free. This is an INSTAAR 75th anniversary event. Background image is Waldman in Antarctica kneeling on gravel with a camera and very long lens pointed an inch above a gravel bed.

Join us for a screening of Ariel Waldman's upcoming PBS docuseries "Life Unearthed". After the film, she will chat w/ INSTAARs M. Gooseff & D. McKnight for a Q&A. Pre-screening snacks & activities too.

Tue April 7th 6pm. Dairy Arts Center, Boulder
FREE tickets! calendar.colorado.edu/event/life-u...

Garrett Boudinot and the Many Paths to Entrepreneurship Garrett Boudinot never initially set out to start a company. But years of climate research eventually led him to found Vycarb, a startup accelerating natural

"Science finds, industry applies" was the motto of the 1933 Chicago World's Fair (minus the awkward "man conforms" bit 😉 )

Former INSTAAR Garrett Boudinot is putting that adage into action. He now leads a thriving climate tech startup built on lessons from his research career.

What Colorado’s mountain lakes can tell scientists about climate change For over 40 years, the U.S. Forest Service has been monitoring high-altitude mountain lakes in Colorado to track the environmental impacts of human-caused pollutants and climate changes in delicate…

Mountain lakes are the "canary in the coal mine" for how ecosystems respond to climate change.

That's according to the Mountain Liminology Lab's Mary Jade Farruggia, who was featured in an article from the Aspen Times earlier this month.

Relic of long-vanished ice sheet holds clues to ancient climate Glacial ice melting out of Alaska’s eroding coastline offers a glimpse into a lost climate history

Ancient ice is emerging along Alaska’s eroding coastline — relics of a long‑vanished ice sheet.

Paleoclimatologists race against time to study these artifacts before they dissappear. INSTAAR fellow Giff Miller shares insights in this fascinating feature from Science.