Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research

06/05/2026

Shrubs are making a play for more space. Not just in the arctic, but in the alpine too.

INSTAAR research associate Sarah Elmendorf and Mariana García Criado highlight an important new paper in a review for Global Change Biology.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.70922?saml_referrer

06/04/2026

Nancy Emery kicked off the Mountain Research Station summer seminar series last night with a talk on the Niwot Ridge LTER and plant community ecology.

Join us at the station every Wednesday evening from now through August 26. Or sign up for a guided walk on mycology, natural history, orchids and more!

See upcoming seminars and guided walk signup on the Mountain Research Station website: https://www.colorado.edu/mrs/

06/03/2026

👍🏽 for this summary of the Colorado River situation & its potential impacts on the Front Range. Written by Allen Best and featuring Jeff Lukas, whose decades of climate change work include the Western Water Assessment (NOAA/CIRES) and being a dendrochronologist at INSTAAR back in the day.

Denver Water and Aurora Water have imposed stage-one drought watering restrictions, but others have not.

06/02/2026

What happens when the world loses its disaster memory?

INSTAAR affiliate Albert Kettner is co-author on an open letter calling for support of EM-DAT, a global database of disasters and their impacts.

Read more from Carbon Brief:

The world’s most comprehensive disaster database is at risk of closing as a result of cuts to US foreign aid by the Trump administration

05/27/2026

Most science is incremental. Occasionally, though, researchers uncover a relationship that reframes an entire system.

A new study by Bradley Markle and Eric Steig investigates a fundamental principle governing Antarctic temperature change. Read more in our latest story.

After a decade of work, INSTAAR fellow Bradley Markle and a collaborator published a study revealing how the greenhouse effect governs temperature changes

05/22/2026

Why are the rockies so, well... rocky?

That's the question behind a recent investigation from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and INSTAAR. Suzanne and Robert Anderson are coauthors.

CIRES-led study uses drones and airborne imagery to dig into the transition between soil- and rock-dominated surfaces

05/20/2026

Himalayan glaciers are melting rapidly, creating new risks to ecosystems and downstream communities.

Listen to the BBC's latest feature on the issue, including insight from INSTAAR fellow Alton Byers on how mountain communities are working to mitigate flood risk.

Melting Himalayan glaciers are increasing the risk to communities and the ecosystem

05/13/2026

Science writer Marissa Grunes brings CU Boulder engineering students to INSTAAR's Stable Isotope Lab each year. This time, she's bringing readers along too.

Take a behind-the-scenes look at the lab’s work — and how researchers use water, ice and air to unravel Earth’s mysteries.

Science writer Marissa Grunes takes readers on tour through the diverse research and operations of the Stable Isotope Lab. The lab processes samples from all

05/08/2026

And the winners are...

Check out the full report from INSTAAR’s end-of-year awards luncheon. This year, the Institute awarded seven graduate scholarships and fellowships, plus three staff and student honors (one of which came with jelly donuts). 🍩

And the winner is… INSTAAR presented awards and fellowships at the annual spring celebration luncheon last week. Recipients were selected for impactful work at

05/07/2026

"Gladice" is coming to Mountainfilm in Telluride later this month!

This film is a whole new approach to climate science comms from INSTAAR affiliate organization the Arctic Arts Project. Check out the trailer here:

In the Arctic, wildlife photographer Florian Ledoux arrives to document a landscape he believes he understands. But the ice has not returned as it should, and small disruptions begin to surface: fractured sea ice, starving reindeer, a polar bear waiting too long at a breathing hole. As observation t...