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instaar.bsky.social
INSTAAR 🏳️‍🌈
@instaar.bsky.social
970 followers 570 following 340 posts
Institute of Arctic & Alpine Research - Earth & environmental science at CU Boulder. Research & education on the past, present, & future of Earth systems in service of a just & thriving world https://www.colorado.edu/instaar/
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instaar.bsky.social
🏆 Congrats to postdoc Etienne Rouby for winning a Best Young Researcher Award from the International Society for Ecological Modelling. He was chosen for a novel 2024 modelling study that he led. See more at www.isemworld.org/2025/06/13/t...
Etienne Rouby
November 10, 2025 at 10:15 PM
instaar.bsky.social
See an update on the West’s snowpack and an explanation of how Milankovitch cycles shape the Earth’s climate from journalist @mitchtobin.bsky.social (co-director of WaterDesk.org at CU Boulder) at www.snow.news/p/early-seas...
Color-coded map of snowpack in the American West on November 5, 2025. Source: Natural Resources Conservation Service.
November 7, 2025 at 9:32 PM
instaar.bsky.social
🚨 New pika paper!
Chris Ray (INSTAAR & EBIO) & Jasmine Vidrio (EBIO) describe a decline in juvenile captures at Niwot Ridge, Colorado. It's the first observational evidence backing up projected pika population losses due to climate change in the region.
doi.org/10.1080/1523...
Figure 1 from the Ray & Vidrio 2025 AAAR paper. American pika juvenile (a) and adult (b) in Rocky Mountain National Park. Photos by Dick Orleans (a) and Neal Zaun (b). For more info, see the paper at https://doi.org/10.1080/15230430.2025.2570526
November 6, 2025 at 8:00 PM
instaar.bsky.social
🧊 ICYMI permafrost paper
A new study by Kevin Rozmiarek et al. found that volatile organic compounds can signal early methane production deep below Arctic soils, offering a new way to spot emerging climate hotspots before they peak. Read their paper at doi.org/10.3389/fmic...
Big Trail Lake near Fairbanks, Alaska is pictured in this photo from September of 2019 by USGS. The lake is one of Alaska’s newest lakes and one of the largest methane emission hotspots in the Arctic.
November 4, 2025 at 9:40 PM
instaar.bsky.social
🌎 Earth science poster symposium 2025
Open to all CU Boulder students & postdocs doing geoscience
• Hosted by Geological Sciences
• Sat Nov 15th 9:00-1:30, Benson Bldg
• Register & submit abstract by Nov 10th
• GSA & AGU posters are OK
www.colorado.edu/geologicalsc...
Benson Earth Sciences Building, CU Boulder
November 4, 2025 at 9:04 PM
instaar.bsky.social
📢 3 INSTAAR talks start soon
3 Nov, 12-1 pm
SEEC S228 & Zoom

🌊 Freshening in Davis Strait (Canada/Greenland)
Jed Lenetsky

🦠 Freshwater diatoms & tardigrades in Antarctica
Natalie Aranda

🧊 Under-ice oxygen in mountain lakes
Katie Gannon

calendar.colorado.edu/event/instaar-seminar-nov-3rd-2025
November 3, 2025 at 6:05 PM
instaar.bsky.social
Cassandra Brooks and Zephyr Sylvester are in Australia, where they just presented to the CCAMLR, the international body that governs conservation in Antarctica.

The duo shared early results identifying ecological hotspots in the Antarctic Ocean. 🌊 🦭 🧊
October 30, 2025 at 3:03 PM
instaar.bsky.social
🧪Science + 🎨Art Collider
Wed Nov 5th 3-5pm
Dairy Arts Center, Boulder

Join us for an informal gathering of scientists & artists to share ideas and make connections calendar.colorado.edu/event/scienc...
The Dairy Arts Center in Boulder Colorado
October 28, 2025 at 8:41 PM
instaar.bsky.social
🌱 "Adaptation and specialization in changing environments"

Join us for Nancy Emery's Monday noon talk at INSTAAR:
• Free event
• Oct 20th 12pm
• SEEC rm S228 & on Zoom
More info: calendar.colorado.edu/event/instaa...
Nancy Emery
October 17, 2025 at 9:11 PM
instaar.bsky.social
🏔️ Why do mountain visitors often see one side of a valley forested and the other side nearly bare?
👍🏽 Check out the nice illustrations by Eric Parrish of the Dynamic Water Critical Zone Group, in collaboration with Ojas Sarup, UCSB grad student: criticalzone.org/dynamic_water
Five-panel cartoon explaining why mountain visitors often see one side of a valley forested and the other side nearly bare. It's the critical zone in action and it's a cycle: plants help the soil hold water, and that water helps grow more plants. Illustration by Eric Parrish of the Dynamic Water Critical Zone Group, Boulder CO. The story features Ojas Sarup, a grad student at UC Santa Barbara.
October 15, 2025 at 4:38 PM
instaar.bsky.social
"Sediment in flux"
Talk by Irina Overeem (INSTAAR & GEOL)
• Wed Oct 15, 12:20 - 1:20 pm
• Benson 380 & Zoom (contact Geol. Sciences for passcode)

Understanding sediment fluxes in Greenland & Alaska via modeling, field & remote sampling, + machine learning calendar.colorado.edu/event/copy-o...
Irina Overeem
October 15, 2025 at 12:18 AM
instaar.bsky.social
❄️ "Recent developments in remote sensing of snow water equivalent using synthetic aperture radar" 🛰️

Join us for Ross Palomaki's Monday noon talk at INSTAAR:
• Free event
• Oct 6th 12pm
• SEEC rm S228 & on Zoom
More info: calendar.colorado.edu/event/instaa...
Ross Palomaki
October 3, 2025 at 8:55 PM
instaar.bsky.social
79th Rocky Mountain Hydrologic Research Center Meeting
🗓️ Friday Nov. 7th 2025
📍 CU Boulder
🌊 Submit any hydro-related research
🧑🏽‍🎓 Students encouraged
💲 Cost is $15 to $40
🔜 Abstracts due 31 Oct
rmhrc.org/annual-meeti...
View downstream of the North St. Vrain Creek on the property of the Rocky Mountain Hydraulic Laboratory.
October 1, 2025 at 8:48 PM
instaar.bsky.social
Are you a grad student? Learn how to turn complex research into clear, engaging stories with Dr. Samuel “Sammy” Ramsey on Thursday Oct 2nd 10:30am. The CU Boulder Graduate School is hosting his presentation.

Register through this link: calendar.colorado.edu/event/scicom...
Advertisement for Dr. Sammy Ramsey's presentation on SciComm 101: how to give a great talk. Thursday Oct 2nd 2-25 10:30 am in the CU Boulder Center for Community (C4c), Flatirons Room, N301. Sammy is pictured in a beekeeper coat with bees covering both of his hands.
September 29, 2025 at 9:25 PM
instaar.bsky.social
🙏🏽 Thank you Edgart Flores Rafael! We're sorry to see you head off to 🇨🇱 but appreciate all your efforts, incl. your awesome postdoc research & for co-leading the Spanish Language Lunch Table with Leanne Lestak!

All are welcome to future lunch table meetings: calendar.colorado.edu/event/spanis...
Edgart Flores Rafael and Leanne Lestak strike a funny pose next to a sign for the Spanish Language Lunch Table, a monthly meeting that they have led together.
September 29, 2025 at 9:10 PM
instaar.bsky.social
👏🏽 Congrats to Linda Holubar Sanabria! She received Boulder County's Land Conservation Award for preserving the 493-acre Spruce Gulch property with conservation easements, forever ensuring its protection bouldercounty.gov/open-space/m...
Spruce Gulch Reserve info: www.colorado.edu/instaar/rese...
View from atop a steep grassy hillslope in the Colorado foothills looking eastward past more hills and cliffs and onto the plains. Above is a bright blue sky with puffy white clouds. Photo taken from the Spruce Gulch Wildlife and Research Reserve outside Boulder, Colorado. Credit: Linda Holubar Sanabria.
September 26, 2025 at 3:15 PM
instaar.bsky.social
Warren Sconiers (EBIO & INSTAAR) has started a three-year term of service as a CU Boulder faculty fellow creating programming to support teaching and clinical professors through the unique challenges that characterize their careers. Thank you Warren! 🙏🏽
www.colorado.edu/facultyaffai...
Warren Sconiers working on Niwot Ridge Colorado
September 26, 2025 at 1:06 PM
instaar.bsky.social
RIP Alfred Scott McLaren (1932-2025)
🎓 CU Boulder PhD 1986, Arctic under-ice surveys (John Andrews & Nel Caine on his committee).
🎖️ Captain of a nuclear attack submarine.
📍 President, Explorers Club.
🚢 Dives on Titanic & Bismarck.
➕ much more.
See CV alfredmclaren.academia.edu
Alfred Scott McLaren Surfaced at the North Pole, August 1970. Chief Quartermaster Jack Patterson, dressed as Santa Claus, greets Commander Alfred S. McLaren, USN, Commanding Officer of the USS Queenfish.
September 25, 2025 at 8:31 PM
instaar.bsky.social
Hola A Todos! 👋🏾 Join the Spanish Language Lunch table this Thursday, Sept 25th at 12pm in the SEEC Café. We'll have lots of fun while practicing our vocabulary & listening skills. All welcome.
Cohosts: Edgart Flores Rafael & Leanne Lestak
calendar.colorado.edu/event/spanis...
Humorous advertisement for the Spanish Language Lunch Table in the SEEC Cafe at CU Boulder. The heads of the two co-hosts are crudely photoshopped onto to silly cartoon bodies. The table meets the last Thursday of each month, 12pm.
September 24, 2025 at 7:59 PM
instaar.bsky.social
🏆 Congrats to Nathalie Vriend (Mechanical Engineering + INSTAAR) for being selected as a CU Boulder Outstanding Postdoc Mentor of the Year!
www.colorado.edu/postdoctoral...
Image of Nathalie Vriend of Mechanical Engineering and INSTAAR. Overlying text congratulates her on being a CU Boulder Outstanding Postdoc Mentor of the Year
September 23, 2025 at 8:42 PM
instaar.bsky.social
"Science opportunities at the CU Spruce Gulch Wildlife and Research Reserve"

Join us for Tim Seastedt's Monday noon talk at INSTAAR:
🆓 Free event
🗓 Sept 22nd
🕖 12:00 pm
📍 SEEC rm S228 & on Zoom
🔗 calendar.colorado.edu/event/instaa...
Tim Seastedt Volunteers in orange hard hats remove invasive spotted knapweed from an upland meadow on the Spruce Gulch Reserve during a co-sponsored U.S. Forest Service event. (Photo: Tim Seastedt)
September 19, 2025 at 3:42 PM
instaar.bsky.social
Know a CU Boulder undergrad who might want to be an Ecology Lab Technician for 8-10 hrs/wk?
• Process alpine plant seeds collected in Colorado.
• Ideal start date: Oct 1 (or as soon as possible).
• Application deadline: Sep 19.
Look for student jobs at www.colorado.edu/instaar/jobs
Alpine wildflowers bloom on the tundra of Niwot Ridge. Photo by William Bowman.
September 12, 2025 at 10:00 PM
instaar.bsky.social
📢 2 talks at INSTAAR's Monday seminar on Sept 8th at 12pm
calendar.colorado.edu/event/instaa...

🏔️ "Getting real about rock glaciers"
Bob Anderson

🧊 "The Next Ice Age began 2000 years ago but was terminated in 1960 CE by atmospheric heating from anthropogenic greenhouse gases"
Giff Miller
Robert Anderson and Gifford Miller
September 2, 2025 at 11:27 PM
instaar.bsky.social
Andrew Mayock & Cara Carmichael, @colorado.edu's VC & Assoc VC for Sustainability, recently visited INSTAAR. They toured some of our labs, meeting with faculty & discussing future collaborations. It was a great followup to Mayock's earlier trip to our Mtn Research Station & Niwot Ridge! 👍🏽
INSTAAR Stable Isotope Lab: Kerstin Braun discusses isotopic data from air samples on Niwot Ridge with fellow lab colleague Bruce Vaughn and visitors Andrew Mayock and Cara Carmichael. Some months earlier Mayock help collect one of those air samples. Photo: Tom Marchitto. INSTAAR Stable Isotope Lab: Standing in a walk-in freezer, Bruce Vaughn holds and illuminates an ice core segment, showing its layering and other characteristics to Cara Carmichael and Andrew Mayock. The Stable Isotope Lab has made high precision isotopic measurements of such cores for many years. Photo: Tom Marchitto. INSTAAR AMS Radiocarbon Lab: Lab Director Scott Lehman discusses atmospheric flask sampling with Andrew Mayock and Cara Carmichael. Lehman's lab collaborates with NOAA to develop and use 14C measurement in CO2 to help determine recently-added emissions from fossil fuels. Photo: Tom Marchitto. INSTAAR AMS Radiocarbon Lab: Lab Director Scott Lehman shows Andrew Mayock and Cara Carmichael some of the sample preparation process for radiocarbon measurement. Lehman's lab researches applications of 14C dating to climate change studies, calibration of 14C timescale, and use of 14C as a geochemical and geophysical tracer. His lab also provides radiocarbon preparation and measurement services to the local University and Federal research communities Photo: Tom Marchitto.
August 28, 2025 at 6:40 PM
instaar.bsky.social
Hola A Todos! 👋🏾 Join the Spanish Language Lunch table this Thursday, August 28th at 12pm in the SEEC Café. We'll have lots of fun while practicing our vocabulary & listening skills. All welcome.
Cohosts: Edgart Flores Rafael & Leanne Lestak
calendar.colorado.edu/event/spanis...
Humorous advertisement for the Spanish Language Lunch Table in the SEEC Cafe at CU Boulder. The heads of the two co-hosts are crudely photoshopped onto to silly cartoon bodies. The table meets the last Thursday of each month, 12pm.
August 26, 2025 at 8:38 PM