Climate & Environment
Abrupt thawing of permafrost will double previous estimates of potential carbon emissions from permafrost thaw in the Arctic and is already rapidly changing the landscape and ecology of the circumpolar north, a new CU Boulder-led study finds.
From classics such as “Gone with the Wind” to modern films such as “Avatar,” the movie industry packs a serious, and often hidden, environmental cost, says film scholar Hunter Vaughan.
Oil and gas production has doubled in some parts of the U.S. in the last two years, and scientists can use satellites to see impacts of that trend: a significant increase in the release of the lung-irritating air pollutant nitrogen dioxide, for example, and a more-than-doubling of the amount of gas flared into the atmosphere.
A new paper quantifying small levels of iodine in Earth’s stratosphere could help explain why some of the planet’s protective ozone layer isn’t healing as fast as expected.
CU Boulder graduate student Devon Dunmire is searching for the lakes hidden beneath Antarctica's surface—features that, she said, could have huge influences on the future of polar ice sheets.
Cassandra Brooks is sharing her love and knowledge of the southernmost continent with a group of 100 intrepid women seeking to become global leaders in environmental sustainability.
The poles may be warming faster than anywhere else on Earth. A new study explores the consequences for these icy regions—and for the rest of the world.
A powerful winter storm swept over the German RV Polarstern icebreaker recently, tearing new cracks in the ice floe next to the ship, sending ice-based instruments adrift and forcing a rescue-and-reconstruction process that could take weeks of work by CU Boulder and other scientists.
Nearly 100 scientists and staff from around the world, including CIRES scientist Ted Scambos, departed recently to conduct fieldwork in one of the most remote and inhospitable areas on Earth: Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica.
Mongolia's Tsaatan reindeer herders depend on munkh mus, or eternal ice, for their livelihoods. Now, soaring global temperatures may be threatening that existence.