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Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research

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INSTAAR conducts interdisciplinary research and education on the past, present, and future of Earth systems in service of a just and thriving world.

 

With deep roots in polar regions, alpine environments, and Quaternary history, today we embrace a global perspective on bellwethers of environmental change.

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Sarah Crump Graduate Fellowship 

Sarah Crump, in purple coat, stands in front of a dramatic Baffin Island landscape of colorful tundra suddenly broken by towering cliffs.

With the help of Sarah, her family, and friends, INSTAAR has established a fellowship in her name. Please help us raise an endowment sufficient to support a full-year Graduate Research Fellowship, providing salary and tuition for one INSTAAR grad student each year. The fellowship will give a boost to their study of Earth or environmental science in Arctic or alpine regions and also be a lever for equity and underserved communities.

Learn about Sarah & her fellowship  Contribute to Sarah's fellowship

News

11,000 summers & winters

A study of Antarctic ice cores led by Tyler Jones and published in Nature is the first seasonal temperature record of its kind, from anywhere in the world.

More at CU Boulder Today

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Alpine wildflowers bloom on the tundra of Niwot Ridge. Photo by William Bowman.

$7.65 million grant to extend study of how climate change shapes life at 10,000 feet (CU Boulder Today)

For more than 40 years, scientists from the Niwot Ridge Long-Term Ecological Research program have worked to better understand high-alpine ecosystems in a warming world. Thanks to a new $7.65 million, six-year grant from the National Science Foundation, that work will continue, making Niwot Ridge LTER the longest-running NSF-funded program at CU Boulder. Read more
  Study authors Arielle Koshkin and Ben Hatchett measure albedo in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Photo by Anne Heggli/DRI.

Wildfires are increasingly burning California’s snowy landscapes and colliding with winter droughts to shrink California’s snowpack (DRI)

A new study published in Geophysical Research Letters shows that midwinter dry spells lead to dramatic losses of winter snowpack in burned areas of California. INSTAAR Karl Rittger participated in the study, led by scientists from the Desert Research Institute. Read more
The giant bird Genyornis went extinct in Australia around 50,000 years ago. Illustration provided by Gifford Miller.

How we cracked the mystery of Australia’s prehistoric giant eggs (The Conversation)

Gifford Miller and collaborators Matthew James Collins and Beatrice Demarchi tell the story of the ancient eggshell fragments found in eroding Australian sand dunes, the controversy around their origins, and how new techniques and AI helped solve the mystery. A summary chapter in the evolving story of Genyornis and the probable causes of its extinction. Read more
More news

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Children’s book explores The Living Landscape

Eric Parrish and Suzanne Anderson are the authors of a new children’s book centered in the Critical Zone, the thin outer layer of Earth’s surface where life exists and interacts with rock, soil, water, and air.

More about the book
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Events

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Labs & Groups

  • Advanced Laser Technology for Atmospheric Research (Fried)
  • Amino Acid Geochronology (Miller)
  • AMS Radiocarbon Preparation & Research (Lehman)
  • Coastal Oceanography Modeling (Moriarty)
  • Core Processing & Sedimentology (Roth & Anderson)
  • Cryosphere and Surface Processes (Overeem et al.)
  • Diatoms (Spaulding)
  • Ecohydrology (Barnard)
  • Ecosystem Analysis (Turetsky) ↪︎
  • Hydroecology Science & Engineering (Gooseff) ↪︎
  • ICP-MS Trace Metals (Marchitto)
  • Micropaleontology (Jennings)
  • Mountain Hydrology (Molotch et al.)
  • Ocean Biogeochemistry (Lovenduski)
  • Organic Geochemistry (Sepúlveda)
  • Organic Matter Spectroscopy (McKnight)
  • Polar & Environmental Geochemistry (Diaz) ↪︎
  • Polar & Paleoclimate Modeling (Jahn)
  • Stable Isotopes (Vaughn)
  • Suding Lab - plant community ecology (Suding) ↪︎


Programs

  • Center for the Geochemical Analysis of the Global Environment (GAGE)
  • Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System (CSDMS)
  • Consortium for Capacity Building (CCB)
  • DFO - Flood Observatory
  • Dynamic Water critical zone project
  • McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-Term Ecological Research (MCM LTER)
  • Mountain Research Station (MRS)
  • Niwot Ridge Long-Term Ecological Research (NWT LTER)

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Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research

INSTAAR

         

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phone (303) 492-6387
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Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research
University of Colorado
Campus Box 450
Boulder, CO 80309-0450 USA

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Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research
University of Colorado
4001 Discovery Drive
Boulder, CO 80303 USA

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