Samples of microbes from puddles on top of glaciers, part of a study that won a Signals in the Soil grant

New grant crumbles mysteries of the soil

March 3, 2020

A project that examines soil following the disappearance of glaciers and a project that studies ways to detect and fix damaged soil are winners of Signals in the Soil grants.

Sun shining on water.

Early Earth may have been a ‘waterworld’

March 2, 2020

Kevin Costner, eat your heart out. New research shows that the early Earth, home to some of our planet’s first lifeforms, may have been a real-life "waterworld."

A radar dish mounted on the bed of a truck.

Let it snow: Researchers put cloud seeding to the test

Feb. 24, 2020

For the first time, researchers have used radar and other tools to accurately measure the volume of snow produced through cloud seeding.

A forest in the southern Rocky Mountains with trees killed by bark beetles.

Forests bouncing back from beetles, but elk and deer slowing recovery

Feb. 13, 2020

New research reveals that even simultaneous bark beetle outbreaks are not a death sentence to the state’s beloved forests.

A mushroom cloud erupts during the Castle Bravo nuclear weapon test at Bikini Atoll in 1954.

First-of-its-kind study examines toll of nuclear war on world’s oceans

Feb. 5, 2020

A new study finds that a nuclear war could throw the world's ocean chemistry for a loop—and coral reefs could pay the price.

A forest sinks into a thawed permafrost lake.

Arctic permafrost thaw plays greater role in climate change than previously estimated

Feb. 3, 2020

Abrupt thawing of permafrost will double previous estimates of potential carbon emissions from permafrost thaw in the Arctic and is already rapidly changing the landscape and ecology of the circumpolar north, a new CU Boulder-led study finds.

Phi Phi Island in Thailand packed with tourists

What’s Hollywood’s dirtiest secret? Its environmental toll

Jan. 27, 2020

From classics such as “Gone with the Wind” to modern films such as “Avatar,” the movie industry packs a serious, and often hidden, environmental cost, says film scholar Hunter Vaughan.

Oil and gas operation

Air pollution from oil and gas production sites visible from space

Jan. 16, 2020

Oil and gas production has doubled in some parts of the U.S. in the last two years, and scientists can use satellites to see impacts of that trend: a significant increase in the release of the lung-irritating air pollutant nitrogen dioxide, for example, and a more-than-doubling of the amount of gas flared into the atmosphere.

A shot of clouds in the sky

Iodine may slow ozone layer recovery

Jan. 15, 2020

A new paper quantifying small levels of iodine in Earth’s stratosphere could help explain why some of the planet’s protective ozone layer isn’t healing as fast as expected.

The loss of Antarctic ice as seen inÌęLandsat images.

Ice in motion: Satellites capture changes to polar regions

Dec. 10, 2019

CU Boulder graduate student Devon Dunmire is searching for the lakes hidden beneath Antarctica's surface—features that, she said, could have huge influences on the future of polar ice sheets.

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