Science Features
What's shaking under the sea? Join Teacher-at-Sea Dan Tomlin and Geophysicist Anne Sheehan on the QuakeCruise as they travel to the Southern Ocean near New Zealand to install thirty earthquake-monitoring instruments on the ocean floor.
 Winter 2009
South Pole Traverse
Ted Scambos is traversing Antarctica to investigate variations in climate and snow accumulation. He and his fellow scientists will look for connections between air and ocean temperatures, atmospheric circulation patterns, and snow chemistry. Read more in the online expedition diary.
  Fall 2008
Seismometers Spy Under the Rockies
Over the last year, nearly 60 earthquake recording instruments have been installed throughout Colorado as part of a national experiment to learn more about the structure of the Earth beneath North America. How do they do it? Check it out!
 Fall 2008
Tracking Earth's Most Abundant Greenhouse Gas
Fifty years ago scientists began measuring carbon dioxide continuously on top of Hawaii's Mauna Loa. Last year they set up the first real-time experiments there to track Earth's most abundant, and arguably most important, heat-trapping gas: water vapor.
 Summer 2008
Thawing Alaska
Alaska's northern coastline is eroding at rates as high as 30 meters per year. That's a whole football field in length! CIRES researcher Cam Wobus and his colleagues at CU and the USGS photographed the rapid erosion this summer.
 Summer 2008
Moulin Bleu: An Arctic Adventure
CU graduate student Dan McGrath traveled to Greenland in August to learn about how giant drainage tubes, called moulins, transport meltwater from the surface of the ice sheet to the ocean. McGrath and CIRES Director Konrad Steffen lowered two camera systems down one moulin for a closer look.
 Srping 2008
Cruising for Carbon
Why go to one of the windiest latitudes on Earth to learn about future global warming? CIRES researcher Ludovic Bariteau embarked on a 6-week research cruise to measure how much greenhouse gas the Southern Ocean swallows up during high winds and choppy seas.
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Research Conversations
January 30, 2009
David Noone, Climate Scientist
Water Plays Surprising Role In Climate Change. From the sprawling dome of Mauna Loa, climate scientists David Noone and Joe Galewsky can track water vapor that's traveled as far as the equator and the pole. They're the first to try to measure vapor's chemical signature in real-time in order to understand the processes controlling the global water cycle.
September 28, 2007
Anne Sheehan, Geophysicist
Doing Risky Science at the Top of the World. In this interview, Anne recounts the obstacles she faced in September 2001. Just weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, she traveled to Nepal—a state that was in political turmoil—to map geologic structures deep below the "roof of the world."
November 23, 2007
Yannick Meillier, Atmospheric Scientist
Keeping Ben Franklin's Legacy Alive. Tell CIRES scientist Yannick Meillier to go fly a kite and he just might take you seriously. Meillier is part of a team—including Ben Balsley, Rod Frehlich, and Mike Jensen—that uses kites and aerodynamic blimps, called Tethered Lifting Systems, for research.
Behind-the-Scenes Photo
Summer 2008—Click on image for a larger version.
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