ABRUPT ANTARCTIC WARMING.

James White et al use the Siple Dome ice core from coastal West Antarctica to show that temperatures rose up to 18 degrees Fahrenheit in just a few decades about 19,000 years ago. This is the largest and most abrupt warming spike ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere.

CU Press Release

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INSTAAR GETS SUPERCOMPUTER.

James Syvitski and Tad Pfeffer are constructing the new Environmental Computation and Imaging (ECI) Facility using funds from the Dept. of Defense, SUN Microsystems, and the CU Graduate School. The facility has two super-servers, 14 SunRay terminals, and other equipment. The facility is designed as a secure facility.

ALASKAN GLACIERS IN RETREAT.

Tad Pfeffer, Mark Meier, Josh Cohn, et al study the ongoing rapid retreat of Columbia Glacier. Published in EOS (28 Nov).

LARGE AUSTRALIAN ECOSYSTEM CHANGE CA. 300 YRS AGO.

Gifford Miller et al find a dramatic loss of grasslands beginning roughly 300 years ago, mostly based on carbon isotopic composition of emu eggshell. Grassland loss was due to the arrival of Europeans and the introduction of exotic grazing animals.

$2.6 MILLION NSF AWARD FOR STUDENTS TO STUDY CARBON, CLIMATE AND SOCIETY (CCSI).

James White and Alan Townsend are co-PI's on a $2.6 million National Science Foundation grant that will allow scores of students from the natural sciences, social sciences and journalism fields to join forces and explore novel solutions to environmental problems.

RECENT CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE ARCTIC IS PERVASIVE.

NSIDC's Mark Serreze and INSTAAR's Mark Dyurgerov are part of a team that recently showed that Arctic temperatures in the late 20th century - which were the warmest in four centuries- have been accompanied by a variety of other environmental changes. Published in CLIMATE CHANGE (Vol. 46, No. 1/2).

UNDERGRAD RESEARCH PROGRAM TAKES STUDENT UP 18,9OO' PEAK.

CU undergraduate student Sarah Blakeslee participated in an expedition led by Mark Williams to collect ice cores from Antisana, a high Ecuadoran peak. The cores may provide a history of biomass burning in the Amazon basin and shed light on the relationships between El Nino/La Nina and glacier retreat.

CU Press Release

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AAAR webpage

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