News & Events
INSTAAR News
Accelerating boreal wildfires releasing old carbon to the atmosphere, study reveals
August 21st, 2019More frequent and larger wildfires are releasing old carbon stored in soils that in the past was able to escape burning, according to a new study involving incoming INSTAAR director Merritt Turetsky.
Merritt Turetsky to become new INSTAAR director
August 2nd, 2019Ecologist and carbon cycle scientist Merritt Turetsky has been named the director of INSTAAR and will step into her new role in January. Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation Terri Fiez appointed Turetsky following the recommendation of the INSTAAR Directorate.
A new book looks at the complicated politics around China’s international infrastructure loans
April 25th, 2019In 2013, China launched a $4 trillion-dollar initiative to finance infrastructure projects in dozens of countries. Loans are designed to put countries on a fast track to development or to aid in further development--and to gain China superpower status. But secrecy around such loans has raised concerns that they are debt traps disguised as diplomacy. A new book by authors at the Consortium For Capacity Building (CCB) has just been released on the complicated international politics of development around OBOR.
Marine organisms face fatal horizon in Southern Ocean
March 12th, 2019Marine microorganisms in the Southern Ocean may find themselves in a deadly vise grip by century’s end as ocean acidification creates a shallower horizon for life, new INSTAAR-led research finds. The modeling study, published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, forecasts that at current carbon dioxide emission rates, the depth at which some shelled organisms can survive will shrink from an average of 1,000 meters today to just 83 meters by the year 2100, a drastic reduction in viable habitat. The steep drop, which could happen suddenly over a period as short as one year in localized areas, could impact marine food webs significantly and lead to cascading changes across ocean ecosystems, including disruptions of vital global fisheries.
Professor Tim Seastedt receives Chase Faculty Community Service Award from CU System
January 29th, 2019INSTAAR fellow Timothy Seastedt has been selected as the recipient of the 2019 Chase Faculty Community Service Award. The award is sponsored by an endowment from the Chase Corporation through the CU Foundation, and given to a full-time CU System faculty member who, in addition to university responsibilities, has provided exceptional educational, humanitarian, civic or other service in the community pro bono.
A landscape unseen in over 40,000 years
January 25th, 2019Glacial retreat in the Canadian Arctic has uncovered landscapes that haven’t been ice-free in more than 40,000 years, and the region may be experiencing its warmest century in 115,000 years, new INSTAAR-led research finds. The study, published today in the journal Nature Communications, uses radiocarbon dating to determine the ages of plants collected at the edges of 30 ice caps on Baffin Island, west of Greenland.