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 from now through August 26. Or sign up for a guided walk on mycology, natural history, orchids and more!
For decades, cheatgrass has remained one of the most notorious invasive plants in the American West.
But here in the foothills of Colorado's Front Range, the story may be more complicated. New research suggests native species can slowly reclaim territory without intervention.
Not to sound like a broken record, but this snow drought really has been record-breaking.
Two recent updates from scientists drive home just how abysmal the West’s 2025-2026 snow season has been, with the snowpack hitting new lows in some datasets.
www.snow.news/p/2026-snow-...
What can and can't remote sensing do, when it comes to tracking harmful algae blooms?
A new paper from the University of Vermont, INSTAAR and City of Boulder OSMP has the answers. Read more from UVM's Water Resources Institute.
👍🏽 for this summary of the Colorado River situation & its potential impacts on the Front Range. Written by Allen Best and featuring Jeff Lukas @lukasclimate.bsky.social, whose decades of climate change work include being a dendrochronologist at INSTAAR back in the day.
Check out the latest from Snow Today, a collaboration between NSIDC and INSTAAR
See upcoming seminars and guided walk signup on the Mountain Research Station website: www.colorado.edu/mrs/
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.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
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:
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.
A new study from INSTAAR suggests that native species may be able to outcompete cheatgrass in Colorado's Front Range. The findings could inform future efforts
After a decade of work, INSTAAR fellow Bradley Markle and a collaborator published a study revealing how the greenhouse effect governs temperature changes
Snow-covered area across the West was 49 percent of average for May, ranking last in the 26-year satellite record. Snow water equivalent remained well below average in most states, confirming a worrisome outlook for the summer. Read NSIDC's Snow Today: https://bit.ly/3Q20sRs
“I think Front Range cities will be asked, whether nicely or not, to reduce their Colorado River diversions,” said Jeff Lukas, a water consultant and former @wwanews.bsky.social and CIRES scientist.
sentinelcolorado.com/metro/colora...
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
