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A new study found Greenland's "firn" - the spongy layer between ice and snow - is more sensitive to warming than cooling. More specifically, warming temperatures are rapidly changing how efficiently firn can store meltwater, and cooling temperatures may not help it fully recover. Megan Thompson-Munson, a CIRES and ATOC PhD student, led the study alongside her advisors: CIRES Fellow Jen Kay and INSTAAR Fellow Brad Markle.

The melting of the Juneau Icefield in Alaska—one of North America’s largest icefields—has accelerated and could soon reach an irreversible tipping point, according to a paper by Davies et al. published in Nature Communications. Coauthors include Brad Markle of INSTAAR and Geological Sciences. He is also Director of Academics for the Juneau Icefield Research Program.

Tyler Jones, Brad Markle, and Valerie Morris are leading a group of students in resampling the Greenland Ice Sheet Project Two (GISP2) core to investigate mechanisms of abrupt climate change and extreme events of the past. The original measurements (e.g., water isotopes) numbered a few thousand while the new measurements will create millions of data points.

For the second summer in a row, the CU Boulder Division of Public Safety's Flight Operations department is supporting important campus research in Alaska, as part of the Navigating the New Arctic project (principal investigator: Tyler Jones), which is being managed by researchers in the Stable Isotope Lab of INSTAAR.

Confronted with ever alarming impacts of climate change, longtime INSTAARite Bruce Vaughn has found hope and inspiration in the many bright minds who are working on solutions. Read his essay for the non-profit Arctic Arts Project, which seeks to educate and inspire through impactful imagery, backed by the most current science.

Listen to a 6-minute tour of the National Science Foundation’s Ice Core Facility (NSF-ICF) in Lakewood, Colorado. Facility staff will guide you through the world's largest frozen archive of ice, sharing some stories of ice drilling from the Arctic to Antarctica. Bruce Vaughn, co-founder of INSTAAR's Stable Isotope Lab, will show you how ice cores can record a long history of past climate and put the rapid postindustrial rise of CO2 in perspective.

INSTAAR is pleased to announce that Sylvia Michel is the first recipient of its Outstanding PRA Award. This new award recognizes a professional research assistant (PRA) who has demonstrated excellence in their role and within the larger communities of INSTAAR and the University.

INSTAAR and the Dairy Arts Center collaborated on our second Art and Science Connections Collider on April 10th 2023 during Boulder Arts Week. The event began with a tour of INSTAAR’s Stable Isotope Lab (SIL) that included a look at actual ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland and a demonstration of how we analyze greenhouse gases in atmospheric samples. After the tour, the group had a general discussion in the Bartlett Science Communication Center.

The Far North is thawing, unleashing clouds of planet-heating gas. Tyler Jones, Bruce Vaughn, and Kevin Rozmiarek use detectors on drones or carried by hand to measure methane release from permafrost in Alaska.

Researchers from Imperial College London have performed new measurements using data from INSTAAR's Stable Isotope Lab (Sylvia Englund Michel). They found London produces 30-35% more methane than previously thought. Previous estimates suggested 25% of London's methane is from natural gas leaks, but the new study says it's up to 85%.