Campus News

WASHINGTON —Scientists have taken a major step toward accurately determining the amount of energy that the sun provides to Earth, and how variations in that energy may contribute to climate change.

Rising concentrations of zinc in a waterway on Colorado's Western Slope may be the result of climate change that is affecting the timing of annual snowmelt, says a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder.

A novel project using cameras mounted on unmanned aircraft flying over the Arctic is serving double duty by assessing the characteristics of declining sea ice and using the same aerial photos to pinpoint seals that have hauled up on ice floes.

Melt water flowing through ice sheets via crevasses, fractures and large drains called moulins can carry warmth into ice sheet interiors, greatly accelerating the thermal response of an ice sheet to climate change, according to a new study involving the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Three University of Colorado at Boulder programs receive special recognition in the recently released 2011 Fiske Guide to Colleges, including a Top 10 ranking as "environmental studies schools that should be on your radar."

Dark-colored dust that settles on snow in the Upper Colorado River Basin makes the snow melt early and robs the Colorado River of about 5 percent of its water each year, says a new study co-authored by researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder-based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, or CIRES.

The Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the third-lowest recorded since satellites began measuring sea ice extent in 1979, according to the University of Colorado at Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The University of Colorado at Boulder's Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, or RASEI -- a joint venture with the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory -- will partner with Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. in a field study of household experiences and the technical impacts of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, or PHVs, in a "smart grid" environment.

Faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Montana State University, the University of Idaho and collaborators at the U.S. Forest Service received a $3.85 million grant to study fire and climate change in sensitive forests in the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

Large changes in the sun's energy output may drive unexpectedly dramatic fluctuations in Earth's outer atmosphere, new research indicates. A study published today links a recent, temporary shrinking of a high atmospheric layer with a sharp drop in the sun's ultraviolet radiation levels.