Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

Scientists from CIRES and the University of Colorado Boulder have developed a new monitoring system to analyze and compare emissions from man-made fossil fuels and trace gases in the atmosphere, a technique that likely could be used to monitor the effectiveness of measures regulating greenhouse gases. Read More ...

Like snow sliding off a roof on a sunny day, the Greenland Ice Sheet may be sliding faster into the ocean due to massive releases of meltwater from surface lakes, according to a new study from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and the University of Colorado Boulder (CU). Such lake drainages may affect sea-level rise, with implications for coastal communities. Read More ...

The exhaust fumes from gasoline vehicles contribute more to the production of a specific type of air pollution-secondary organic aerosols (SOA)-than those from diesel vehicles, according to a new study by scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) and other colleagues. Read More ...

When scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and NOAA began routinely monitoring the atmosphere's composition at a tower north of Denver a few years ago, their instruments immediately sniffed something strange: plumes of air rich with chemical pollutants, including the potent greenhouse gas methane. Read More ...

In the hunt to track down climate-altering gases it isn't enough just to stick to dry land. With oceans covering 70% of Earth getting wet feet is a necessity, says Rainer Volkamer, a CU assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry and fellow at the Cooperative Institute of Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). Read More ...

The NCEP/EMC operational HWRF model is an important component of the numerical guidance used at the National Hurricane Center, making it critical that the HWRF model be continuously improved. The Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) has partnered with NOAA NCEP to work with the transfer of new technologies onto HWRF. Read More ...

The Rio Grande Rift-the north-trending continental rift zone that extends from Colorado's central Rocky Mountains to Mexico—is not dead but geologically alive and active, according to a new study by scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences (CIRES) in collaboration with the University of New Mexico, New Mexico Tech, Utah State University, and UNAVCO.  Read More ...

By combining detailed chemical measurements in the deep ocean, in the oil slick, and in the air, scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), NOAA and other academic institutes have independently estimated how fast gases and oil were leaking during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Read More ...

Summertime hail could all but disappear from the eastern flank of Colorado's Rocky Mountains by 2070, according to a new modeling study by scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), NOAA and several other institutions. Read More ...

The amount of air pollutants in the atmospheric plume generated by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was similar to those generated by a large city according to a new study led by scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and NOAA. Read More ...

CIRES Director Konrad Steffen has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Read More ...

The Green Data Center Team at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder, has received the Colorado 2011 Governor's Award for High-Impact Research. The team was recognized for its innovative data center redesign that slashed energy consumption for data center cooling by more than 90%, demonstrating how other data centers and the technology industry can save energy and reduce carbon emissions. Read more ...

The sky glow that radiates from cities at night does more than obscure the stars—it also impacts daytime air pollution levels, according to new research from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). Read more ...

Wintertime droughts are increasingly common in the Mediterranean region, and human-caused climate change is partly the cause, according to a new analysis by scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and colleagues at NOAA. In the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, 10 of the driest 12 winters since 1902 have struck in just the last 20 years. Read more ...

While climate change will not modify the extent or frequency of El Niño variability in the next 100 years, the environmental consequences of such events may become more extreme, according to a new collaborative study between scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Read more ...

The annual hole in the Antarctic ozone layer could show initial signs of recovery within 10 years, according to a new analysis of 25 years of data collected by scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and NOAA at the South Pole. Read more ...

The black smoke that rose from the water’s surface during controlled burns of surface oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill last year pumped more than one million pounds of black carbon (soot) pollution into the atmosphere, according to a new study published online this week by researchers at Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and NOAA. Read more ...

The area covered by crevasses northeast of Ilulissat, West Greenland, has expanded by 13 percent over the last 24 years, according to scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES)—a change that may impact the sliding of the Greenland Ice Sheet and subsequent sea level rise. Read more ...

CIRES main campus building was one of the 24 locations across the globe to host Al Gore’s “24 Hours of Reality” event yesterday evening.

A multimedia presentation — created by Gore, Nobel Laureate and former Vice President of the United States, and delivered by a presenter trained by Gore — was broadcast live online as part of the “24 Hours of Reality” project. The presentation told the stories of local people living with the impacts of a changing climate. Similar presentations screened each hour over 24 hours from twenty-four locations across the globe—such as New York, London, Mexico City, Jakarta and Tonga. Read more ...

CIRES researchers from several divisions are attending the 242nd American Chemical Society National Meeting in Denver, Aug. 28–Sept. 1.

The scientists, including four CIRES Fellows—Lisa Dilling, Jose-Luis Jimenez, Ted Scambos and Margaret Tolbert —will present their novel research results at the conference themed ‘Chemistry of Air, Space and Water.’ Read more ...

CIRES Fellow Anne Sheehan who has studied earthquake activity in southern Colorado said she was not too surprised when a 5.3 magnitude quake struck about nine miles west of Trinidad last night about 11:46 p.m. “This particular area has had quite a few small earthquakes, especially in the past 10 years,” said CU-Boulder Professor Anne Sheehan of the geological sciences department and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. “For Colorado, this is usually where the action is.” Read more ...

Bacteria from fecal material—in particular, dog fecal material—may constitute the dominant source of airborne bacteria in Cleveland’s and Detroit’s wintertime air, says a new study led by researchers from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). Read more ...

What do a herd of gazelles and a fluffy mass of clouds have in common? A mathematical formula developed by scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and Israel’s Weizmann Institute links these seemingly disparate entities. Read more ...

Experts, including scientists from universities and federal agencies, from throughout the vast Southwest region convened this week at CIRES to begin writing the Southwest Region Technical Report for the National Climate Assessment (NCA). Read more ...

Carbon dioxide remains the undisputed king of climate change, but other greenhouse gases measurably contribute to the problem, says a new study conducted by scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The study, published August 3 in Nature, shows that cutting emissions of those other gases could slow changes in climate that are expected in the future. Read more ...

A recent increase in the abundance of particles high in the atmosphere has offset about a third of the current climate warming influence of carbon dioxide (CO2) change during the past decade, according to a new study led by Susan Solomon, a Fellow with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Read more ...

The work by researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), the Laboratoire d'Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNES) at the University of Toulouse, France, and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado at Boulder, details recent ice losses while promising to sharpen future predictions of further ice loss and sea level rise likely to result from ongoing changes along the Antarctic Peninsula. Read more ...

Chihiko Yamashita, a CIRES graduate student, won the student poster competition at the 26th CEDAR (Coupling, Energetics and Dynamics and Atmospheric Regions) workshop held June 26-July 1. Read more ...

The Earth is getting thicker around the middle due to ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, says a new study by researchers from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Read more ...

Cigarette smoking, burning forests and even cooking fires all release a chemical — not previously known to exist in smoke in significant quantities — that may have potential health impacts, according to a new study by scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory. Read more ...

Wind turbines not only convert the energy from the wind into wind power, but the rotating blades produce wakes – invisible ripples, waves and other disturbances downstream. Scientists from CIRES and NOAA launched a study of those wakes early this month, with an eye toward improving the productivity of wind farms. Read more ...

CIRES Fellow Veronica Vaida is one of only four Colorado University faculty members to receive a Boulder Faculty Assembly Spring 2011 Excellence Award for distinction in "Research, Scholarly and Creative Work." Read more ...

Less than three days after a 9-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Japan on March 11, geologist Roger Bilham, a fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), was on a plane to Japan with the NOVA team to investigate the science behind the disaster and its scientific impacts. Read more ...

CIRES scientists found a way to use air chemistry measurements taken hundreds of feet above last year’s BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill to estimate how fast gases and oil were leaking from the reservoir thousands of feet underwater. Read more ...

Compounds discovered are not measured in most air-quality monitoring programs designed to capture the conventional contributors to poor air quality. “What we learned from this study will help us to improve air quality understanding and prediction.” said CIRES Fellow Joost de Gouw. Read more ...

The deadly Russian heat wave of 2010 was due to a natural atmospheric phenomenon often associated with weather extremes, according to a new study by scientists at NOAA and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). Read more ...

The formation of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado has always puzzled scientists. But now scientists have further insight into this mystery. CIRES' Craig Jones and his team have proposed a new model of the mountains' creation and published their results in the journal Geosphere. Read more ...

One- to two-thirds of Earth’s permafrost will disappear by 2200, unleashing vast quantities of carbon into the atmosphere, says a study by researchers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), one of CIRES five research centers. Read more ...

Large dams could significantly alter local rainfall in some regions, according to a team of researchers including CIRES' Roger Pielke Sr. The study marks the first time researchers have documented a clear, strong climate influence; an influence markedly different from the climate around natural lakes and wetlands. Read more ...

Assessment co-authored by CIRES' Roger Bilham ties higher fatality rate to crooked building practices. Read more on this University of Colorado top story...