Research

How an experiment in the mountains could reveal the future of alpine plants (KUNC)

Gabe Allen — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 13:00:00 +0000

How an experiment in the mountains could reveal the future of alpine plants (KUNC) Gabe Allen Fri, 12/12/2025 - 06:00

Researchers in Nancy Emery's lab are investigating how alpine plants respond to climate change at Niwot Ridge. Anticipated funding cuts could threaten the long-term ecological records that make this research possible.

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What can a mile-long stick of ice, stored away for 33 years, tell us about Earth’s climate?

Gabe Allen — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 17:43:41 +0000

What can a mile-long stick of ice, stored away for 33 years, tell us about Earth’s climate? Gabe Allen Thu, 12/11/2025 - 10:43

After years as a professional research assistant at INSTAAR’s stable isotope lab, Valerie Morris estimates she’s processed more than 10 kilometers of ice from around the world.

“You’ve done more ice than the Bolder ��,” co-principal investigator Tyler Jones joked around a table at the lab recently. “She’s done more high-resolution ice measurements than just about anyone in the world.”

Valerie Morris loads an ice core sample into a carousel in the stable isotope lab at INSTAAR. The carousel is the front end of a continuous flow analysis system developed by Morris and Bruce Vaughn, which continuously measures isotopic ratios for hydrogen and oxygen as the ice core melts. (Gabe Allen)

This fall, Morris loaded yet another chunk of ice into the one-of-a-kind ice analysis system at the lab. But, this one was significant. It was the final sample for a project that she and other lab members began a year-and-a-half before — to reanalyze an ice core that was drilled 33 years ago in Greenland using modern techniques.

The ice core in question was extracted at the Greenland Ice Sheet Project Two (GISP2) from 1988 to 1993. It took scientists five years to drill down from the top of the ice sheet to the bedrock. They were left with a cylinder of ice more than a mile long.

Though the effort was great, the payoff was worth it. Within the ice were chemical signatures of past temperatures, climate shifts and volcanic eruptions. The deeper those signatures, the older. At its base, the ice core dated back more than 100,000 years.

Brooke Chase looks at a readout of isotopic ratios from an ice core as Bradley Markle (left) and Tyler Jones (right) look on. (Gabe Allen)

Shortly after the ice core was extracted, researchers analyzed the chemical contents of samples spanning its length. Their results, combined with other records, provided a better understanding of Earth’s climate history from the start of the last ice age to today.

Yet, this earlier analysis was also limited. Sampling methods at the time required the scientists to melt down meter-long chunks of ice at a time. That meant, at best, each data point represented an average over about a decade of history.

Today, technicians at the stable isotope lab use a system developed by Morris and INSTAAR fellow emeritus Bruce Vaughn in 2009. Instead of measuring large, discrete chunks of ice, the system melts each sample slowly from tip to tail. As the sample melts, the water is quickly sucked into a matrix of instruments. The technique allows the scientists to analyze the ice millimeter by millimeter — literally.

The team of scientists that reconstructed the length of the GISP2 ice core poses at the NSF-Ice Core Facility. From Left to Right: Rhys-Jasper Leon, Richard Nunn, Ella Johnson, Valerie Morris, Adira Lunken, Brooke Chase, Tirso Jesus Lara Rivas, Max Eshbaugh, Megan Erskine, Theo Carr.

Using this method, lab members knew they could unlock new information in what was left of the GISP2 ice core, which has been stored in the National Ice Core Facility in Lakewood for the past three decades. Though much of the volume of the ice core was consumed by previous analyses, almost all of its length was preserved in the archive. Over the past year-and-a-half, Morris, PhD student Brooke Chase, and a team of research assistants reconstructed more than a mile of ice from GISP2 and ran it through the instruments at the lab.

The data they gathered has the potential to answer pressing questions about Earth’s past climate. Last winter, the lab published a new paper identifying periods of climatic stability preceding abrupt warming events during the last ice age. That analysis relied on data from the newer East Greenland Ice-Core Project. Chase is now busy processing and analyzing the data from GISP2, and the preliminary results seem to contradict these earlier findings.

“Brooke has some preliminary results suggesting that we are not getting the same answers,” Jones said. “But we only have a small chunk of time so far, so we’re sitting here waiting until we have the final data.”

Resolving these contradictions might unlock a new understanding of these abrupt warming events in the past, or it might further muddy waters. Either way, the researchers now have much more detail to parse through than before. The new project provided around 1,000 times more data points per meter of ice than the previous sampling effort. At its best, each value now represents a few months of climate history.

“What were trying to do with this project is see what Earth was capable of at higher frequencies,” Jones said. “You lose the ability to look at variability in the climate when you only measure every meter. But if you can look at a higher resolution, you can see those changes.”

Although ancient history may seem far removed from the pressing concerns of modern climate change, it's more relevant than it appears. Understanding how Earth’s climate evolved is essential to scientist’s ability to understand current climate dynamics and predict future outcomes.

“We only have about 40 years of satellite observations of Earth’s climate, and a few hundred years of people standing around with thermometers,” co-principle investigator Bradley Markle explained. “The time scales that people care about are on the order of decades and centuries, but to understand variability on those time scales you have to look at records of Earth’s climate over thousands of years.”

Learn more:

What do ice cores reveal about the past? (National Snow and Ice Data Center)

Thawing the Mysteries of ancient climate changes (INSTAAR)

Inside an ice stream (Science)

If you have questions about this story, or would like to reach out to INSTAAR for further comment, you can contact Senior Communications Specialist Gabe Allen at gabriel.allen@colorado.edu.

Researchers at the stable isotope lab just finished resampling more than a mile of ice from Greenland. Further analysis will probe unanswered questions about climate change, sea ice and Earth’s history.

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Brooke Chase stands in the main storage area of the National Science Foundation Ice Core Facility. This part of the facility is held at -36 degrees Celsius and houses over 30,000 meters of ice from polar regions around the world.

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Brief: New funds for student research at the Mountain Research Station

Gabe Allen — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 13:00:00 +0000

Brief: New funds for student research at the Mountain Research Station Gabe Allen Wed, 12/03/2025 - 06:00

The Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation has pledged $75,000 to support student research projects at the Mountain Research Station. The donation will fund three years of research expenses and stipends for undergraduate and graduate students working on scientific investigations in the alpine.

The foundation already contributed $15,000 toward five undergraduate research grants in 2024 and 2025. These research experiences allow students to take a first step toward a career in science.

Ecology and evolutionary biology student Isabella Manning spent a summer studying plant-pollinator interactions in a subalpine meadow above the station. Earlier this year, Manning authored a paper covering the investigation in Oecologia — an enormous accomplishment for an undergraduate researcher.

According to Mountain Research Station director Scott Taylor, the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation grants serve a dual purpose. They provide seed funding for important research in a rapidly changing alpine environment, while also giving students valuable experience in field science.

“This is a unique opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students to pursue independent research — and to build hands-on skills in the field,” he said.

The Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation has pledged $75,000 to support student research at the Mountain Research Station. The donation will fund three years of research expenses and stipends for undergraduate and graduate students.

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Hymenoxys grandiflora, also known as old man of the mountain, blooms on Niwot Ridge above the Mountain Research Station. (Courtesy, Scott Taylor)

Scientists predict a sea change in Arctic ecosystems by the end of the century

Gabe Allen — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 13:00:00 +0000

Scientists predict a sea change in Arctic ecosystems by the end of the century Gabe Allen Wed, 11/19/2025 - 06:00

Gabe Allen

The lush greenery of the Amazon rainforest is often called the “lungs of the planet,” but really land plants are just half of the equation. The other lung dwells in the sea. Single-celled photosynthetic algae, known collectively as phytoplankton, produce about half of the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere.

Phytoplankton are especially abundant at high latitudes, where seasonal sea ice retreat leads to explosive summer blooms.

“Polar regions can experience rapid growth,” INSTAAR postdoctoral fellow Courtney Payne explained. “They have a pretty short window, but phytoplankton can grow like crazy over a period of weeks or months.”

According to a new paper from Payne and collaborators, that cycle may soon be disrupted in the Arctic Ocean. Using a suite of modeling tools, the researchers predicted the state of phytoplankton blooms 80 years into the future — in the year 2100 — and compared them to records from the 1970s. They found that summer blooms will start more than a month earlier on average by the end of the century.

Unfortunately, the models predict that this change in seasonal timing will disrupt the foundation of the marine food web, leading to scarcity at every trophic level. It’s a change that will impact marine animals and the Indigenous communities that rely on them for sustenance.

Payne kneels on sea ice in the Chukchi Sea during a research cruise in 2023. (Courtesy, Courtney Payne)

Mismatches in the food web

The first time Payne saw a phytoplankton bloom, she was behind a pair of oars in a boat off the coast of Maine. It was just another day of practice for her collegiate rowing team, but the water, which had remained deep blue all winter, had turned green.

“Each spring, someday it would turn this violent green color,” Payne said. “Several years we would have these big swarms of jellyfish come through to consume the phytoplankton.”

These days, Payne spends most of her working hours behind a computer, but her history on the water allows her to visualize the ecosystems she studies. Just like the jellyfish in Maine, phytoplankton in the Arctic provide food for drifting grazers known collectively as zooplankton. This interaction forms the base of a rich marine food web. The zooplankton feed fish and whales, and the nutrients trickle their way up to seals, sea birds, polar bears and other Arctic animals.

The earlier spring bloom predicted by Payne and her collaborators may not seem like a bad thing. In fact, the researchers predict that the bloom will last more than a month-and-a-half longer on average by the end of the century. But, marine organisms have adapted to the current cycle over millennia, and they are ill prepared for it to change so quickly and drastically.

The researchers predict that scarcer sea ice will lead phytoplankton to bloom during the cold early-summer months. Zooplankton struggle to multiply at these temperatures and thus will not be able to take advantage of the bounty. Each spring, a large proportion of the bloom will go uneaten and sink to the ocean floor.

“If the spring bloom happens earlier and at these colder temperatures, the things that feed on the phytoplankton aren’t able to grow as much in response,” Payne said. “That means that whales and other animals that migrate to the area won’t have as much food to feast on.”

Maps of the Arctic Ocean showing the change in the average start date of the spring phytoplankton bloom from 1970 to 2020 (left) and from 1970 to 2100 (right). So far, the change has been subtle, but Payne and her collaborators predict a much earlier bloom by the end of the century. (Courtesy of Courtney Payne)

The culprit is clear

Overall, the new study paints an alarming picture for the future of Arctic marine ecosystems. But, there is a silver lining. Payne and her collaborators proved the efficacy of a methodology seldom seen in ecological research.

While previous studies have relied on limited observational data or single model simulations, the new study took a more comprehensive approach. The researchers worked off of an Earth system model that had been tweaked 50 times to produce 50 different, equally likely, future scenarios.

“If we used real world observational data, we would have to rely on one example of what the Earth is doing over a short period, which may not be representative of changes in the long run,” Payne said. “One of the benefits of using an Earth system model is that you can run the same years over and over again and use the mean to figure out, on average, what is going on.”

By comparing this “ensemble” of outcomes, the researchers were able to separate out the effects of anthropogenic climate change from natural climate variability. In short, they could identify a culprit: greenhouse gas emissions.

“With our methodology, we are able to specifically isolate the impact of climate change on the timing of the bloom,” Payne said. “Thus far it has only led to a shift of about 5 days, but we see a much more substantial impact by the end of the century.”

INSTAAR director Nicole Lovenduski, NCAR scientists Alice Duvivier, Marika Holland and Kristen Krumhardt are coauthors on this report.

If you have questions about this story, or would like to reach out to INSTAAR for further comment, you can contact Senior Communications Specialist Gabe Allen at gabriel.allen@colorado.edu.

A team, led by INSTAAR’s Courtney Payne, used a powerful methodology to predict outcomes for life in the Arctic Ocean in the year 2100. Their results predict disrupted phytoplankton blooms, which will ripple throughout the ecosystem.

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A phytoplankton bloom in the Barents Sea, north of Norway and Russia, as seen from space in July, 2021. (NASA Earth Observatory)

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A phytoplankton bloom in the Barents Sea, north of Norway and Russia, as seen from space in July, 2021. (NASA Earth Observatory)

New pika research finds troubling signs for the iconic Rocky Mountain animal (CU �� Today)

Gabe Allen — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 22:37:44 +0000

New pika research finds troubling signs for the iconic Rocky Mountain animal (CU �� Today) Gabe Allen Tue, 11/18/2025 - 15:37

A new study from INSTAAR's Chris Ray and Jasmine Vidrio sounds the alarm for pikas in the Rocky Mountains. The paper provides the first empirical evidence for a theory long held by wildlife biologists — that pikas are struggling to adapt to warming temperatures.

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New insight into how sunlight transforms legacy mining pollution in mountain wetlands (CSU)

Gabe Allen — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 18:04:02 +0000

New insight into how sunlight transforms legacy mining pollution in mountain wetlands (CSU) Gabe Allen Tue, 11/11/2025 - 11:04

Lauren Magliozzi has published a new analysis of an INSTAAR experiment conducted by Diane McKnight and Sabre Duren. The researchers characterized daily chemical fluctuations in wetlands downstream from an inactive Colorado mine.

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Global Leaders Unite to Protect Ross Sea (Tasmanian Times)

Gabe Allen — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 17:45:34 +0000

Global Leaders Unite to Protect Ross Sea (Tasmanian Times) Gabe Allen Wed, 10/29/2025 - 11:45

Leaders from 26 countries and the European Union offered support for a new research and coordination network focused on the Ross Sea in Antarctica this week. INSTAAR fellow and Antarctic scientist Cassandra Brooks leads the steering committee for the NSF-funded network.

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Researchers granted $1.6 million to study microbes' influence on alpine tundra (Niwot Ridge LTER)

Gabe Allen — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 16:56:23 +0000

Researchers granted $1.6 million to study microbes' influence on alpine tundra (Niwot Ridge LTER) Gabe Allen Tue, 10/28/2025 - 10:56

A team, led by INSTAAR scientist Will Wieder, received an NSF grant to study the role of microbes in shrub encroachment in the alpine tundra. The project will be based at Niwot Ridge.

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Researchers aim to identify pika calls through 'acoustic fingerprinting'

Gabe Allen — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 12:30:00 +0000

Researchers aim to identify pika calls through 'acoustic fingerprinting' Gabe Allen Tue, 10/28/2025 - 06:30

Gabe Allen

On a foggy, cool morning earlier this fall, wildlife biologist Chris Ray and PhD student Rachel Mae Billings sat down at the edge of a rock-strewn mountain slope and listened — just listened. All was quiet aside from the scratching of pencils in field notebooks, the occasional chickadee twitter and, most importantly, squeaking pikas.

Chris Ray writes in a field notebook beside rocky pika habitat near Mitchell Lake in the Indian Peaks Wilderness on Sept. 13, 2025. (Gabe Allen)

Pikas — small herbivorous mammals related to rabbits — are easily recognizable by their staccato, piercing calls. They squeak to warn others of impending danger, shoo away neighbors that stray too far into their turf, and attract potential mates.

Some day in the future, Ray and Billings hope to use these vocalizations to study the animals on a scale never before possible. Their collaboration began with this goal in mind — if you could find a way to distinguish between individual pika calls, you could gather more information with an audio recorder than was previously possible from a full day of trapping.

“My life would be so much easier if I could just take a microphone out and sit in each territory and get a few calls.” Ray said. “Then I could go back and sit on those same rocks and see whether I get the same individual next year.”

Heralds of change

Ray has studied pikas since 1988, when she was an undergraduate student at the University of California, San Diego. Over the past 37 years, she has amassed countless days in the field.

Much of her work has focused on how climate change is impacting the diminutive mammals. Pikas are adapted to rocky slopes high in the mountains, where it stays cool through the summer. As temperature and precipitation has shifted across the American West, some pika populations have become small and isolated, or even disappeared. Others, like the populations here in the front range, have remained stable despite showing signs of stress.

A study published by Ray and collaborators a decade ago predicted that warming temperatures could extirpate pikas from large parts of their current habitat by the end of the century. But, those same researchers are continually learning more about how the animals adapt to environmental change.

“I’m interested in whether or not that’s actually happening,” Ray said. “Pikas are really good at finding microclimates that suit them.”

To answer these questions, Ray has continued monitoring pika populations across the American West. Each year, she returns to the mountains to trap the animals and collect health, survival and genetic data with help from a rotating cast of collaborators, volunteers, field technicians and students.

Click to zoom

Acoustic fingerprints

When Billings asked Ray to mentor her through her PhD candidacy, Ray saw an opportunity. She knew, from spending time with the animals, that individual pikas sounded slightly different from each other. Billings, who previously studied electronics engineering and is doing a PhD in quantitative biology, had the skills to develop technological tools that could identify those differences.

“She has the right background to work on a bioacoustic project — and she’s really good at it too,” Ray said.

This summer, Ray and Billings began making audio recordings of pikas that had previously been trapped, tagged and characterized. The next step will be to try to find “acoustic fingerprints” within these recordings. To do this, Billings will analyze digital visualizations of the calls. She may even employ machine learning tools to assist.

Chris Ray and Rachel Billings check a pika trap near Mitchell Lake in the Indian Peaks Wilderness on Sept. 13, 2025. (Gabe Allen)

“If you look at a graphical representation of a pika call, known as a spectrogram, it sort of looks like a thumbprint,” Billings said. “The goal is to collect enough recordings to see, are these really unique enough to tell them apart?”

If Billings can unlock an acoustic fingerprinting technique, the research potential is great. Already, the team has stationed solar-powered audio recorders that passively record pika calls at field sites on Niwot Ridge.

“We have terabytes of acoustic data from Niwot Ridge already,” Billings said. “The hope is to eventually use that data to infer population trends and track individual survival from year to year without observing and tagging them through an invasive trapping process.”

Of course, acoustic fingerprinting is, for now, theoretical. This winter, Billings will hang up her field gear and spend her days behind a computer working out the methodology.

But, even if it doesn’t work, Ray, Billings and their collaborators are trying other noninvasive methods to expand their pika observation powers. One option is to analyze pika scat for “DNA fingerprints,” a technique that is becoming cheaper as genetic analysis evolves.

A third project, which has been ongoing since 2010, leverages Coloradans’ fondness for the animals. The Colorado Pika Project employs teams of volunteers to keep track of pikas around the state. And, as of 2022, citizen scientists can upload observations to a mobile app called Pika Patrol.

No matter the method, their goal is clear. To better understand these charismatic little mammals, and safeguard their future in a changing environment.

“The pika has been singled out as one of the animals more sensitive to climate change,” Ray said. “We're trying to find out how they survive in some of the most challenging climates on earth, and whether they're nearing their limits.”

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An American pika in Alberta, Canada. Photo courtesy of Alan D. Wilson, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

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An American pika in Alberta, Canada. Photo courtesy of Alan D. Wilson, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

North Atlantic dolphins are dying younger, new study shows (CU �� Today)

Gabe Allen — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 22:53:58 +0000

North Atlantic dolphins are dying younger, new study shows (CU �� Today) Gabe Allen Mon, 10/13/2025 - 16:53

Common dolphins in the Bay of Biscay aren't living as long as they were in the '90s, according to a new paper led by INSTAAR postoc Etienne Rouby. The study used a novel sampling method to update inaccurate estimates and propose solutions.

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Research

How an experiment in the mountains could reveal the future of alpine plants (KUNC)

Related Articles

What can a mile-long stick of ice, stored away for 33 years, tell us about Earth’s climate?

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Brief: New funds for student research at the Mountain Research Station

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Scientists predict a sea change in Arctic ecosystems by the end of the century

Mismatches in the food web

The culprit is clear

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New pika research finds troubling signs for the iconic Rocky Mountain animal (CU �� Today)

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New insight into how sunlight transforms legacy mining pollution in mountain wetlands (CSU)

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Researchers aim to identify pika calls through 'acoustic fingerprinting'

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Off

North Atlantic dolphins are dying younger, new study shows (CU �� Today)

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Research

How an experiment in the mountains could reveal the future of alpine plants (KUNC)

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What can a mile-long stick of ice, stored away for 33 years, tell us about Earth’s climate?

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Brief: New funds for student research at the Mountain Research Station

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Scientists predict a sea change in Arctic ecosystems by the end of the century

Mismatches in the food web

The culprit is clear

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New pika research finds troubling signs for the iconic Rocky Mountain animal (CU �������� Today)

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Global Leaders Unite to Protect Ross Sea (Tasmanian Times)

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Researchers aim to identify pika calls through 'acoustic fingerprinting'

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Off

North Atlantic dolphins are dying younger, new study shows (CU �������� Today)

Related Articles

New pika research finds troubling signs for the iconic Rocky Mountain animal (CU �� Today)

North Atlantic dolphins are dying younger, new study shows (CU �� Today)