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GPS measurements monitor the growth of the Himalaya and
the approach of great Himalayan earthquakes.
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Changing global climate can affect all ecosystems, including the Sahara in North Africa
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Summer fieldwork season underway in Greenland
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CIRES Researchers Around the World
Since 1967, CIRES scientists have performed field work on a variety of research topics at sites throughout the world. Major expeditions have been sent to the Himalayas to study continental drift, Australia and Canada to study winds at atmospheric and climate dynamics, Greenland to study the behavior and characteristics of ice and glaciers, and Antarctica to study the expanding ozone hole. Many other sites around the world offer unique opportunities to study conditions and phenomena of interest to environmental chemists and biologists, climatologists, seismologists, and geophysicists. CIRES researchers have traveled to all seven continents in search of the pieces of the puzzle that continues to shape and change our planet.
Tools of the Trade
An extensive array of field equipment, including kites (see here and here), is used in geophysical, atmospheric, and cryospheric research. Global Positioning Receivers, initially used to study tectonic changes, have become common tools for other projects as well. Meteorological and climate studies require portable weather stations and associated computers. Atmospheric remote sensing equipment includes lidar, radar (at various frequencies), and the sound equivalent, sodar. And an effort is in progress to develop and utilize instrumented kites for probing the tropospheric structure and chemical composition of the atmosphere.
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CIRES in the Field—Features
March 2008
CIRES Researcher goes Cruising for Carbon Science
Why go to one of the windiest latitudes on Earth to learn about future global warming? Scientists from around the U.S., including CU’s Ludovic Bariteau, are embarking on a 6-week research cruise to measure how much greenhouse gas the Southern Ocean swallows up during high winds and choppy seas. Ludovic writes about his research and his experience on the cruise in weekly posts.
November 2007
Go Fly a Kite: Scientist Keeps Ben Franklin's Legacy Alive
Yannick Meillier is part of a CIRES research team that takes flying kites seriously; they use kites and aerodynamic blimps, called Tethered Lifting Systems, to fly meteorological instruments several hundred meters up into the air. With support from The National Science Foundation and NOAA, the team studies the nocturnal stable boundary layer, the lowest layer of the nighttime atmosphere. In this interview, Meillier describes what it's like to do fieldwork with a blimp the size of a semi-truck trailor in the middle of the night.
September 2007
Risky Science at the Top of the World
CIRES Fellow Anne Sheehan set out in the fall of 2001 to map the subsurface structures of the crust and mantle deep below the "roof of the world." Her field campaign to one of the most deadly earthquake zones on Earth took place just months after the murder of the Nepalese royal family and the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. In this interview, Sheehan recounts her field experience in Nepal.
CIRES Researchers in Cold Regions  
CIRES Director Konrad Steffen has nearly three decades of polar research, much of it in Greenland, under his belt. For more information, see the Greenland Photo Journal, a photographic essay describing one of his annual month-long expeditions. CIRES scientist Ted Scambos, working with CIRES' National Snow and Ice Data Center
[ About NSIDC ]
has been to Antarctica on six separate research field trips.
For more information on Scambo's recent Antarctic research, see Ice Trek ( "Exploring the Lifecycle of a Drifting Antarctic Iceberg") and Antarctic Megadunes ("Research at the Edge of the Earth"). CIRES Fellow Susan Solomon won the National Medal of Science for her work leading the effort to identify causes of the Antarctic ozone hole. She has led scientific expeditions to Antarctica and is the author of The Coldest March, which tells the tragic tale of Captain Robert Falcon Scott's trek across Antarctica.
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