Climate Change

Scholars apply economic analysis to ecological research

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 20 May 2026 21:25:35 +0000

Scholars apply economic analysis to ecological research Rachel Sauer Wed, 05/20/2026 - 15:25

Rachel Sauer

In research published today, recent PhD graduate Asia Kaiser details how synthetic control methods estimated significant declines in bee observations when traditional analyses didn’t

Since it launched in 2008 as a UC Berkeley student’s master's project, the iNaturalist platform has been a source of both fascination and frustration for researchers.

The hundreds of millions of observations about the natural world logged by both professional and citizen scientists around the globe are a treasure trove of information about biodiversity. But is that data usable in research? The prevailing sentiment has veered toward doubt, skepticism or an outright “no.”

“I think the feeling has been, ‘Oh, because this data is just being collected opportunistically by nature enthusiasts and not in a standardized, rigorous way, it can’t be used in scientific research,’” says Asia Kaiser, who earlier this month earned her PhD in the �鶹��Ѱ�� Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. “If you haven’t planned out data collection in advance, a lot of researchers hesitate to use it.”

Recent PhD graduate Asia Kaiser studied how synthetic control methods estimated significant declines in bee observations when traditional analyses didn’t.

There had to be a way, Kaiser thought, to tap into the vast cache of information logged into iNaturalist without sacrificing scientific rigor, especially data collected in urban environments. The answer, it turned out, lay in economics.

In research published today, Kaiser and co-authors Julian Resasco and Laura Dee, both associate professors of ecology and evolutionary biology, detail how combining iNaturalist records with synthetic control methods, originally used in economics, estimated a significant decline in bee observations in Philadelphia during the two years following Hurricane Ida in 2021, while conventional ecological analyses didn’t detect the decline.

“Basically, the inspiration for this project was thinking about causal inference in ecology,” Kaiser explains. “When we have observational data, can we actually use that to ask questions about drivers of biodiversity?”

‘You can’t just go into people’s backyards’

These questions dovetailed neatly with Kaiser’s research focus, which is bees—specifically, how human land use affects different insect groups and, consequently, the ecosystem services they provide in coupled human-natural systems. Among her research aims is understanding biodiversity in urban environments, improving the resilience of urban agroecosystems, increasing equitable access to fresh produce and promoting environmental justice in cities.

However, monitoring biodiversity and evaluating drivers of change in urban environments is confounded by several issues: “Cities are mosaics of land-use types, including parks, private properties, buildings, roads and industrial zones,” Kaiser writes in the paper. “As a result, sampling efforts can be complicated by permission and safety issues, and leaving unattended sampling equipment in the field brings a higher risk of theft, tampering and vandalism in cities.

“Given these challenges, measuring biodiversity in cities requires different tools and data streams than those used in natural ecosystems. Participatory science data is a promising solution for monitoring biodiversity in cities; cities are the land use type with some of the highest upload volumes of data to participatory science platforms, largely because upload frequency is strongly influenced by population density.”

Despite the abundance of participatory science data in platforms like iNaturalist, researchers have hesitated to draw from it, relying instead on randomized, controlled and replicable experiments to identify and estimate causal relationships. That kind of science, Kaiser says, becomes more difficult in urban environments due to sampling challenges and historical legacies that shape different neighborhoods, among other reasons.

“If you’re studying a natural area, you could get a permit and go sample all over, but you can’t do that in a city,” Kaiser says. “Even if you get a permit, you can’t just go into people’s backyards.”

The idea of how to bridge the gap between the abundance of iNaturalist data logged in urban areas and the rigor expected in scientific research came to Kaiser when she was assigned to watch a lecture given by a Nobel laureate in economics. The lecture topic was synthetic control methods, which originated in economics as a way to create a nonexistent control group that allows for comparisons between real-world groups before and after an event or intervention.

One of the most famous uses of synthetic control methods in economics was in estimating the impact of Germany’s reunification after the fall of the Berlin Wall on the gross domestic product (GDP) of western Germany. Economists created a “synthetic” Germany from economic data to study GDP with and without reunification.

Though synthetic control methods hadn’t been widely used in ecology research, “I thought it could be adopted with iNaturalist data,” Kaiser explains. She was further interested in studying the effects of Hurricane Ida on her home city of Philadelphia, which included significant flooding.

“If you’re studying a natural area, you could get a permit and go sample all over, but you can’t do that in a city. Even if you get a permit, you can’t just go into people’s backyards,” explains �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scientist Asia Kaiser about the challenges of ecological research in urban areas. (Photo: Sandy Millar/Unsplash)

“Even though it didn’t have a huge impact on people per se, the effects of the hurricane were really dramatic. Looking at the water levels, the stream gauges had their highest values ever in the 100 years that they’ve been measuring. My feeling was that would have a pretty big impact on bees, because if you look at bee biodiversity, bees are pretty sensitive to precipitation and water. The ones that nest in the ground are really affected by huge flooding events.”

Declines following a hurricane

To apply synthetic control methods to ecological research, Kaiser and her colleagues drew data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, which collects research-grade iNaturalist data—that which includes, among other points, latitude and longitude, collection date and time and correct identification—as a proxy for bee abundance in Philadelphia.

They analyzed for bee population declines and, in addition to synthetic control methods, also performed the more traditional methods of interrupted time series regression, before-after control impact regression and before-after regression.

Kaiser and her colleagues found that synthetic control estimated a 15.5%—20.9% decline in bee observations in the two years following Hurricane Ida. In contrast, the three more common ecological analyses didn’t detect this decline.

“That was an amazing moment, seeing this decline in the data and better understanding how iNaturalist data may be able to help us look at the impact of unusual climate events—things that are happening more and more these days, like huge fires, huge floods, abnormally warm winters,” Kaiser says. “Unless you were already collecting data in a region before, you can’t really see the impact before the event, but synthetic control methods might be able to help us in those situations.”

Kaiser adds that this method also might be useful for looking at the effect of policy interventions. For example, the city of Boulder is establishing pollinator corridors, and Kaiser sees potential in using this method to draw from iNaturalist data in studying the outcomes of these corridors.

Scientists who reviewed the paper expressed excitement and skepticism about using synthetic control methods in ecological research, Kaiser says: “They asked questions about whether or not the decline I’m seeing is a true thing that’s happening or an artifact of the way data has been collected. iNaturalist is very sensitive to observers—wealthy neighborhoods have higher uploads, areas around research universities have higher uploads—but this statistical method can help control for those things.”

Thanks to the professional and citizen scientists gathering data and sharing it on iNaturalist, Kaiser says she sees potential to apply synthetic control methods to a range of ecological research. For example, “using the bee biodiversity that’s collected on iNaturalist, does that correlate with how well flowers are being pollinated? I think that’s something we’ll be able to study.”

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In research published today, recent PhD graduate Asia Kaiser details how synthetic control methods estimated significant declines in bee observations when traditional analyses didn’t.

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Top photo: Aaron Burden/Unsplash

When climate change threatens sacred sites

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 11 May 2026 22:05:02 +0000

When climate change threatens sacred sites Rachel Sauer Mon, 05/11/2026 - 16:05

Tiffany Plate

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder PhD candidate Chilton Tippin assesses how a warming climate is affecting not just humans, but also our archaeological record

In southwestern Colorado, just north of Mesa Verde National Park, sits the scenic—and historic—Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, or CANM. The sprawling monument spans more than 175,000 acres of pinyon-juniper woodlands, salt-desert scrub, big sagebrush plantations and riparian zones.

CANM also happens to be home to critical pieces of Southwest history, including an estimated 30,000 habitation sites, field houses, kivas, shrines, artifact scatters, sacred springs and masonry towers that date as far back as the Paleo-Indian period (10,000–14,500 years ago).

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder PhD candidate Chilton Tippin (left) spent months with farmers whose livelihoods depend on the Rio Conchos, a tributary of the Rio Grande in Chihuahua, Mexico. (Photo: Eduardo "Lalo" Talamantes)

But the monument’s location in the high desert makes the landscape, and these historical sites, especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In the summer of 2025, Chilton Tippin, a �鶹��Ѱ�� anthropology PhD candidate, helped map out exactly how warmer weather and heavy rainstorms could impact these culturally significant structures.

The resulting Climate Change Impact Assessment, which was done with Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) colleagues Kira Clark-Wolf and Christy Miller Hesed, was published in January 2026. The project was funded through the Rapid Climate Assessment Program from �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center.

The assessment laid out projections for CANM’s climate future—including many more days with temperatures above 90°F, more days of drought that could lead to increased wildfire risk and more intense and frequent extreme-rainfall events that can cause flooding and erosion.

“This is kind of the initial stepping stone that will hopefully catalyze discussions between the Bureau of Land Management and tribal partners to begin the long planning process for how they're going to adapt the landscape to absorb shocks from climate change,” says Tippin.

Projections and partnerships

To create the projections in the report, Tippin worked from information provided by archaeologists at CANM that pinpointed the exact location of known historical sites. He then used Climate Toolbox to produce climate projections from 20 different models. He compared those projections to literature covering similar projections to come up with general metrics such as how much daily temperatures might increase and how many days the area might go without rain (thus increasing wildfire potential).

At CANM, climate projections show that heat indices will register above 90°F an average of 35 days per year in the 2050s (up from 6 days in the 1990s). (Graphic: climatetoolbox.org)

“We found that most of the stone towers are embedded in pinyon-juniper habitats,” says Tippin. If the climate models and the literature are all saying that the pinyon-juniper forests will be more vulnerable to fire, he says, then they have a better idea of the threats those towers are likely to be facing over the next 50 to 100 years.

“Then CANM can make climate adaptation and forest management decisions so that they can fulfill their mission of protecting not just stone towers, but the kivas, and wiki-ups, and room blocks, too.”

Those decisions would not be made, however, without meaningful input from CANM’s 26 tribal partners whose ancestral presence is reflected in thousands of habitation sites across the landscape.

In cases like these, that knowledge is imperative to take into account. “These are places where their ancestors dwell,” says Tippin. “These heritage sites are part of this living cultural landscape.”

In fact, in the Pueblo worldview, these structures are also deeply spiritual places. “For many Pueblo people, the towers themselves, as well as the materials and rocks within them, are imbued with sentience,” says Tippin. “They're alive, and they themselves have spirit. And the natural course of things is for them to go through processes of decay and reintegration into the ecology.” As a result, a Pueblo person whom Tippin consulted suggested that adapting the habitats in which structures are embedded would be a more culturally appropriate approach than directly shoring up the structures themselves.

Exploring climate-caused conflict

Tippin was tapped to lead the CANM assessment not just for his social science research skills but also for his previous work with indigenous people in the Southwest—much of which he did for his dissertation (completed Spring 2026).

While Tippin’s PhD research is not directly focused on the climate change impacts of historical sites, it still very much explores its impacts on humans, especially in relation to water insecurity. His interest in water interactions stemmed from his childhood in El Paso, Texas, where he spent a lot of time playing in the Rio Grande. Tippin’s experiences with the river and other natural landscapes inspired a lifelong desire to examine, and tell stories, about human interactions with nature.

Chilton Tippin spent several days touring Canyons of the Ancients National Monument’s significant historical sites, including Moose Tower, which was built by Ancestral Puebloans in the late 1200s. In 2020, an extreme rainfall event caused the tower’s west wall (not pictured) to collapse. The storm’s timing and intensity are characteristic of convective rainfall, a type of extreme weather event increasingly linked to climate change in the Southwest. (Photo: Chilton Tippin)

Tippin spent his first few post-college years doing just that, working as a reporter in Wyoming after earning his undergraduate degree in journalism. “For the longest time, I've wanted to tell stories about people and how they interact with the environment, with a specific lens on environmental disputes and conflict,” he says.

So, for his doctoral research, Tippin returned to the Rio Grande and its watershed. The river now sees markedly less flow—thanks in part to a warming climate and diminishing snowpack in the Rocky Mountains—and he wanted to explore the ways those low flows are affecting people who rely on it in one way or another.

To do so Tippin spent a year at three field sites that are all hydrologically connected to the Rio Grande. He first spent several months in Taos, NM, where he teamed up with Puebloans working to protect their traditional uses of water.

Next was El Paso and Juárez, Mexico, where the Rio Grande has become completely militarized. He spent time with the people of the Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo who have a ceremonial relationship with the river, as well as first responders helping deliver water to migrants. “That piece of the dissertation looked at the juxtaposition of this river, which is the bringer of hope and life to the desert and a ceremonial site for the Tigua people,” Tippin says. “How is this same river also the site of widespread, racialized migrant death and violence?”

The final months he spent with farmers along the Rio Conchos in Chihuahua, Mexico, where the river sustains farmers’ agricultural output. In this final site, specifically, Tippin saw how drought and climate change are already causing civil unrest.

In 2020 a rebellion arose among farmers there who were protesting a 1944 treaty that requires Mexico to deliver a certain amount of water from the Rio Conchos to Texas.

“I was in Chihuahua amid that backdrop and came to understand how this megadrought is insinuating itself into people's day-to-day lives,” he says. It was amazing to see how these farmers could mobilize themselves to protect their agricultural water, he says.

Continuing the work

Tippin’s next steps will be to pursue his interest in the human dimensions of climate change through a postdoctoral appointment with the U.S. Geological Survey. He’ll work closely again with the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center on applied climate-adaptation social science projects.

Part of this postdoctoral work will be to assess how past research projects have been executed in the field; another part is to help ensure agencies like the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Department of Fish and Wildlife have access to the latest climate science when they’re making decisions about land and water management.

In the meantime, he hopes that the climate assessment he performed at CANM can be used to help evaluate similar natural and historic sites.

“It's a niche area within the world of climate change adaptation research,” he says. “But it's just another indication of how climate change is this all-encompassing threat multiplier that affects a lot of things that people find to be valuable.”  

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder PhD candidate Chilton Tippin assesses how a warming climate is affecting not just humans, but also our archaeological record.

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Top image: Bureau of Land Management

Come for the beer, stay for the science

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 08 May 2026 00:07:52 +0000

Come for the beer, stay for the science Rachel Sauer Thu, 05/07/2026 - 18:07

Rachel Sauer

The May 11 Earth on Tap event at Rayback Collective in Boulder, open to all, invites scientists and non-scientists to gather for discussions of climate research

It started, as good things often do, with CAKE. In this case, that’s the Climate Action Knowledge Exchange, a group formed by �鶹��Ѱ�� atmospheric and oceanic sciences (ATOC) graduate students Max Elling, Dora Shlosberg and Josh Gooch. They noticed, the further they progressed in their studies, that there are “a lot of different people working in climate, but not necessarily working together,” explains Shlosberg, a PhD student.

If you go

What: Earth on Tap

When: 5:45-7:30 p.m. Monday, May 11

Where: Rayback Collective, 2775 Valmont Road in Boulder

Who: All are invited

Learn more

So, they formed an interdisciplinary outreach group, CAKE, to break down silos and build partnerships between scholars, industry professionals and community members. From there, CAKE began collaborating with ATOC’s existing Outreach Committee, a group dedicated to educating the public on Earth science through engaging and interactive learning. Outreach teaches children through their SEEDS program, bringing live demonstrations on Earth-system science to local elementary schools.

Then, last semester, they began discussing what more they could be doing to involve adults in science, particularly those who aren’t professional scientists but are science curious.

Earth on Tap organizers express that there has been a lot of misinformation spread about science, and there is sometimes an element of mystery among the public as to what it is local scientists do. Earth on Tap aims to break down these barriers and connect people of all backgrounds to the science being done in their own backyard.

The key is to make it fun, says ATOC PhD student Maggie Scholer. But how?

The answer: Beer.

Not to make the science go down easier, but as a tool to bring science out of the lab and field research sites and into spaces where all are welcome, where community grows, where learning can happen with a chocolate stout and a shared plate of sliders. So, that’s how Earth on Tap came to be.

An event at which all ages are welcome—though you’ll have to show ID if you want that beer—Earth on Tap features climate scientists discussing their research with a focus on how it applies to and affects the broader community.

The second Earth on Tap will be from 5:45-7:30 p.m. Monday, May 11, at the Rayback Collective in Boulder. Kyle Manley, an interdisciplinary climate scientist, and Molly Wieringa, a postdoctoral fellow with the National Center for Atmospheric research, will discuss fires and public land recreation as well as sea ice and polar climate engineering.

Telling science stories

Monday’s Earth on Tap topic is especially timely, Josh Gooch says, because he and his ATOC colleagues frequently discuss how “to communicate how abnormal this winter has been and contextualize it to the future. Each week we have a weather discussion that one of our professors leads, and we get these branching discussions of, ‘If we make up the precipitation deficit in the future, what does that mean in terms of more fuel for wildfires?’ So, one of our goals (with Earth on Tap) is to set the context of what current weather events that are occurring on the Front Range may lead to in future seasons. That’s a concern that a lot of people share.”

Max Elling, an ATOC PhD student and researcher in the Oceans and Climate Lab, notes that the Boulder area is interesting because of its large population of scientists as well as its population of non-scientists, who are nevertheless involved in Earth science, yet there still can be a disconnect between the research that’s happening in this area and what community members know about it.

“With Earth on Tap, we’re learning more about what people are curious about,” Elling says, adding that he and his colleagues are learning to better understand their audiences and tailor their outreach style accordingly.

“We have an inherent language that we use as scientists, certain acronyms, and we’re taught to present at conferences where everyone is aware of this language,” Gooch says. “We need to be more aware of situations where an audience member might not be as familiar because they don’t interface with these things every day.”

Jonah Shaw, a post-doctoral associate at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) who spoke at the inaugural Earth on Tap in January, adds that all of his communication training in graduate school was in a conference environment, which doesn’t necessarily translate to climate discussions over beers at the Rayback.

“Something that I think is really important when you’re communicating within a scientific field is a story, but it becomes even more important when you’re communicating with the general public,” Shaw says. “It’s meeting people where they are, so for me, instead of talking about what I do on a day-to-day basis, I talked about a satellite mission I worked on, the story of that mission. I was talking about the narrative aspects and connecting with people’s experiences, and I was incredibly excited to see how well attended it was by non-scientists. Everyone is in their own realm and able to connect (with the science) in their own way.”

Scholer says that Earth on Tap organizers learn from event to event how to better involve audience members in the presentation, including trivia questions with prizes and QR codes that people can scan to submit questions if they’re not inclined to raise their hand. Ideally, she adds, people will come to Earth on Tap and have a great time and be more inclined to take climate action when opportunities arise.

“I think, especially in atmospheric science, ideally the outcome of what we do in the field is actionable for policy makers,” says ATOC PhD student Lucas Howard. “I think having the public more informed about not just the science in terms of outcomes, in terms of uncertainty, but the process of what goes into generating the science, can only have good downstream effects.”

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The May 11 Earth on Tap event at Rayback Collective in Boulder, open to all, invites scientists and non-scientists to gather for discussions of climate research.

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Politicians talk climate change on X

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 05 May 2026 16:54:02 +0000

Politicians talk climate change on X Rachel Sauer Tue, 05/05/2026 - 10:54

Bradley Worrell

Study by �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scholar Meaghan Daly looks at how members of Congress framed their arguments for or against taking action on climate change on the popular social media site

For members of Congress, the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has become one of the most direct ways to communicate with constituents about their thoughts on climate change, allowing them to choose how to address the issue in an unfiltered way.

“X allows politicians to communicate directly and informally with the public, and posts occur much more frequently than polished press releases, so it provides a unique window into how politicians frame climate change in direct engagement with constituents in real time,” explains Meaghan Daly, a climate communications scholar in the �鶹��Ѱ�� Department of Environmental Studies whose research focus includes climate communication and media studies.

In a new study, Daly and her co-authors analyze posts on X by members of Congress, finding that while few U.S. lawmakers now reject the science of climate change outright, conservative members tend to frame the issue in ways that discourage or delay meaningful action. Rather than denying the problem, their messages emphasize economic costs, question the feasibility or redirect responsibilities to other countries, Daly says.

Meaghan Daly is a climate communications scholar in the �鶹��Ѱ�� Department of Environmental Studies whose research focus includes climate communication and media studies.

Drawing from more than 13,000 climate-related messages in 2021 from members of Congress on X, the study co-authors found a spectrum of political climate communication that ranges from active obstruction to concrete advocacy, with a large “murky middle.”

“This research challenges the idea that climate communication is just pro-climate or anti-climate,” Daly says. “It’s more complex than that, and those nuances matter when we’re trying to understand why action does or doesn’t happen.”

In a recent interview with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine, Daly talks about why X offers a uniquely powerful lens for studying political climate communication and how these messaging strategies differ by party. Her remarks have been lightly edited for style and grammar and condensed for space.

Question:How did this paper come together?

Daly: I’m a member of the Media and Climate Change Observatory, headed by Max Boykoff in the Department of Environmental Studies. We’ve been doing global monitoring of media coverage of climate change for about 15 years now across newsprint, radio and television.

One of my co-authors, Lucy McAllister (assistant professor at Denison University and a research associate with the Department of Environmental Studies at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder), is also part of that group. We’ve worked on several projects over the years, including media coverage in legacy news outlets across five countries over time. Our other co-author, Siddharth Vedula (associate professor at Miami University), has also been a long-time collaborator. All three of us received our doctorates from �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder, and the team brought together a strong mix of qualitative and quantitative research backgrounds.

For this paper, we noted in our 2021 study on newspaper coverage that, while climate denial used to be common, more recently fewer people deny climate change outright. Instead, there’s been a shift toward questioning the feasibility of taking action.

About six years ago, a group of scholars published a paper about what they called ‘discourses of delay.’ That paper was preliminary, and in our 2021 study we noted the need to follow up and examine these discourses in greater detail—particularly how they interface with the public in the political sphere. There hadn’t been a comprehensive study of how U.S. politicians communicate about climate change on social media, so we wanted to see how these discourses of delay manifest in political communication.

But we then expanded that framework because we didn't want to just look at how is climate action being delayed, but also how is climate action being advanced, by U.S. politicians. We wanted to have this entire spectrum, looking from delay to action and everything in between, and how politicians are approaching this issue and communicating with the public about it.

Question:Why did you choose to focus on the January to December 2021 timeframe for members of Congress posting on X about climate change?

Daly: We chose 2021 because a lot was happening. The Biden Administration had recently rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement, and multiple major pieces of legislation—what became the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as Build Back Better—were being actively discussed. That gave us a rich dataset and a good microcosm for understanding how climate conversations were being framed and the range of communication strategies being used.

Question:You collected more than 13,000 posts from politicians on X that were related to climate change but then focused on a much smaller subset. How confident are you that the smaller sample represents the broader dataset?

Daly: We started with about 600,000 posts and used an initial screening with established search terms from prior research to ensure they were actually about climate change, which produced a sample of about 13,000 posts. From there, we applied a randomized sampling method stratified by month, since discussion topics ebb and flow over time.

We also conducted six rounds of pilot testing to refine the codebook. Throughout, we ran randomized spot checks and maintained over 80% inter-coder agreement. The final randomized sample had 1,075 posts. Across the pilot and final analysis, we coded a total of 2,844 posts, or 21% of the total sample, which for a qualitative study is quite comprehensive and gives a detailed understanding of communication strategies.

Question:It sounds like the discussion about climate change has moved beyond whether the science is accurate to whether it is feasible to take action to address the issue?

Daly: Yes, absolutely. We saw very few posts questioning the existence of climate change or the science itself. Instead, many posts emphasized downsides—potential economic damage, harm to the fossil fuel industry or job losses. Others redirected responsibility, asking why the U.S. should act if other countries aren’t doing so. Why should we have to be the ones who are taking the lead or paying to implement some of these policies when the rest of the world isn't doing the same?

We also saw a lot of posts pushing non-transformative solutions—unproven technologies, ‘clean coal’ or these fossil fuel–based approaches that are ostensibly less polluting but, in practice, typically aren’t.

Also, we saw postings that we should only rely on things like incentives rather than government regulation or policy mandates that we act on climate change. Basically, arguing we should only have voluntary approaches to addressing climate change, rather than requiring action. So, solutions that aren’t at the scale needed to address climate change.

Question: If a conservative politician talks about job losses or other potential downsides of addressing climate change on X, how do you differentiate between them raising valid questions versus engaging in what could be considered delaying tactics?

Daly: We do know that there are always trade-offs in climate policy. We’re not trying to say that we don’t need to acknowledge those trade-offs.

For example, in making the argument that, as we shift away from fossil fuels and toward more renewable energy technologies, we need to make sure that those people who were working in those industries and relied on it for their livelihoods are not left behind. That’s something that I think is very important to acknowledge and that can get lost in this conversation.

We need to make sure that this is a fair transition, and that those people are connected with jobs and new opportunities in these emerging sectors that are going to create new types of jobs. That comes along with other policy components like retraining, and that’s not treated as a bad thing in our codebook.

"This study is a starting point for understanding how politicians communicate about climate change and how they might improve that communication to advance action," says Meaghan Daly. "One key takeaway is connecting climate discussion to specific actions so people don’t feel the problem is overwhelming and unsolvable." (Photo: iStock)

The way we addressed this is: If people are talking about these downsides, but they are not acknowledging the gravity of climate change at the same time—because it is this massive problem that is going to affect us all in really deep ways that are integral to how we live—that’s when we felt it qualified as delaying rather than simply acknowledging there are trade-offs in all climate policies.

Question:For those members of Congress who have been proponents of taking action on climate change, what kinds of messages did they post?

Daly: Posts promoting climate action emphasized benefits and co-benefits—health, ecosystems and quality of life. Many argued that because the U.S. has historically contributed the most to the problem, it should lead globally, especially as the country rejoined the Paris Climate Accord. There were also many posts highlighting legislation being passed or developed, budget allocations and building systems and structures for action. We describe this as ‘grounded optimism’—linking climate discussion to concrete legislative or on-the-ground action, rather than vague future hope.

Question:Do you know whether some arguments were more effective than others, either on the pro-action or delay-action side?

Daly: I think that’s a great question. This study didn’t address effectiveness in terms of public response, but I think that’s an important next step for future research.

Question:Did you find differences among members of Congress by age, race or ethnicity when it came to posting on X about climate change?

Daly: Yes. Politicians of color were more likely to post about climate change, likely because they represent constituencies on the front lines of climate impacts. Older politicians were also more likely to post about climate action, possibly because their longer tenure gives them more leeway to address controversial issues.

Question:You say in the paper that climate obstructionism can be intentional or unintentional. What do you mean by that?

Daly: One key contribution of the study is identifying what we call the ‘murky middle.’ Some communication strategies can support action or delay depending on context. For example, ‘all talk, little action’ was previously categorized as a delay (tactic), but talking about climate change does raise issue salience. However, simply talking isn’t enough—if it’s not paired with concrete strategies, people may feel overwhelmed and disengage. Posts in this category acknowledged climate change but weren’t attached to pathways for action, which can inadvertently contribute to delay.

Question:Are you planning follow-up work on this topic?

Daly: Yes. Our next step is to apply this typology over a longer timeframe. We’re exploring mixed-methods approaches, including using large language models to apply our codebook at scale, because manual coding is extremely time-intensive.

This study is a starting point for understanding how politicians communicate about climate change and how they might improve that communication to advance action. One key takeaway is connecting climate discussion to specific actions so people don’t feel the problem is overwhelming and unsolvable.

The research also challenges the idea that climate communication is simply pro- or anti-climate. It’s more of a spectrum, which opens up important avenues for future research.

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Study by �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scholar Meaghan Daly looks at how members of Congress framed their arguments for or against taking action on climate change on the popular social media site.

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Documentary shares secrets of the bees

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 14:21:04 +0000

Documentary shares secrets of the bees Rachel Sauer Fri, 04/03/2026 - 08:21

Rachel Sauer

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher Samuel Ramsey served as science advisor and a producer, alongside executive producer James Cameron, for Secrets of the Bees, premiering this week on National Geographic, Disney+ and Hulu

Would you like to hear a secret about bees?

Not many people know this, but bees in Southeast Asia have figured out that water buffalo dung isn’t the only pungent substance that will keep hornets away.

See, Vespa mandarinia—more sensationally known as the murder hornet—can wreak havoc on a bee colony. One or two dozen hornets can wipe out an entire colony, although bees have developed some pretty awesome defenses. One of these involves vibrating their flight muscles to create a convection oven effect that essentially cooks invading hornets.

Samuel Ramsey, a �鶹��Ѱ�� assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, served as science advisor and producer, alongside executive producer James Cameron, on the documentary Secrets of the Bees. (Photo: Shin Arunrugstichai)

However, sometimes a hornet can escape bees’ defenses and flee the hive—but not before leaving a figure-eight pattern of pheromones outside the hive that acts as a beacon to future hornet invasions. Bees deduced that they’d need something even more pungent to spread at the hive entrance to mask the hornet pheromones, “and for a long time we thought they were just relying on water buffalo dung for that purpose,” explains Samuel Ramsey, a �鶹��Ѱ�� assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.

But bees are smart. They figured out they could chew the leaves of an extremely pungent plant to spread at the hive entrance, “which was something we’d never seen before,” Ramsey says.

He and his colleagues discovered this behavior in pursuit of Secrets of the Bees, the fifth installment of the Emmy Award-winning “Secrets of…” series premiering this week on National Geographic, Disney+ and Hulu.

Ramsey, a National Geographic Explorer, served not only as science advisor and featured expert, but as a producer alongside executive producer James Cameron.

Yes, that James Cameron.

“It’s always a pleasure to say I produced a documentary with James Cameron,” Ramsey says with a laugh. “It’s opened up a lot of opportunities to talk with people about bees and together making sure that there’s unity in concept—so we’re not talking in terms of ‘right’ bees and ‘wrong’ bees, but we’re talking about what we can do to support all bees’ survival.”

Communicating science (and bees)

This all came about, in part, because “bees really, really need our help,” Ramsey says, a fact he quickly realized as a lifelong, self-described “bug nerd” observing how human-caused changes to the natural world are affecting bee populations.

During his undergraduate and graduate studies, Ramsey focused on diseases and parasites affecting bees, particularly the Varroa mite, and began raising bees so that he could study them. When he came to �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder, that move included installing a research and observation hive in his lab in the Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building.

Because his research interests also include symbiotic relationships, it’s perhaps no surprise that Ramsey the scientist is also Ramsey the science communicator: passionate about describing the beauty, wonder, fragility and resiliency of the natural world to broad and interested—although often non-scientific—audiences. He has been at the vanguard of using social media to tell the dynamic stories of science.

Thanks in part to this outreach, documentarians and filmmakers began requesting his expertise and consultation. He worked on the documentary My Garden of a Thousand Bees and has discussed insects on NPR, CBS and many other outlets, in addition to becoming a National Geographic Explorer. Still, he says, it’s a little surreal to get that call proposing a collaboration with the director of Titanic and Avatar.

“(Cameron) has 300 hives at his farm in New Zealand, so this really has been a labor of love for him,” Ramsey says.

Making a difference for bees

The framework of Secrets of the Bees is to show a hive of honeybees preparing for winter, but that simple concept took Ramsey and his collaborators around the world, exploring bee colonies as the dynamic cities they are and bees not as mindless automatons, but as intelligent, adaptive creatures that form complex societies.

The filmmakers used groundbreaking technologies, including cameras similar to those used in endoscopes, to peer inside hives for never-before-seen views of bees living, working and playing together. Yes, bees play, Ramsey says, and it’s a wonderful thing to see.

The cutting-edge filmmaking technology allows viewers to see close-up, time-lapse scenes of larva growing into adult bees, as well as the funerary process of pushing dead bees from the hive. “The advent of universal childcare is what allowed this to be one of the most successful species on the planet,” Ramsey says, “which you really see up-close in the film.”

He adds that it was important to him that the documentary not sugarcoat the peril in which Earth’s more than 20,000 bee species currently exist, including calamitous population declines associated with climate change, monoculture crops, parasites, chemical use and habitat loss, among other causes.

“But the film also emphasizes hope, because there are things every one of us can do to support bees,” Ramsey says. “Something as simple as planting a window box with flowers can make a big difference to a lot of bees.”

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher Samuel Ramsey served as science advisor and a producer, alongside executive producer James Cameron, for Secrets of the Bees, premiering this week on National Geographic, Disney+ and Hulu.

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Project harnesses next-generation satellites to preserve Arctic sea ice

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 22:11:24 +0000

Project harnesses next-generation satellites to preserve Arctic sea ice Rachel Sauer Tue, 03/17/2026 - 16:11

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher Ivy Tan leads a project recently funded by Ocean Visions that aims to assess whether mixed-phase cloud thinning is a viable method for cooling the Arctic

Ivy Tan, a �鶹��Ѱ�� assistant professor of physics, recently was awarded funding from Ocean Visions for a project she leads that is assessing whether mixed-phase cloud thinning is a viable method for cooling the Arctic and restoring sea ice.

Tan’s project is one of six funded by Ocean Visions, a nonprofit ocean conservation organization pursuing solutions to counter and reverse climate impacts on ocean health. The selected projects are being funded through Ocean Visions’ Arctic Sea Ice Restoration Research Fund, which was created to identify, prioritize and support research on cutting-edge ideas to slow the loss of Arctic sea ice.

“Arctic summer sea ice is a critical foundation of the global ocean and climate system, and its rapid loss is creating a series of severe risks to nature and people across the planet,” says Brad Ack, Ocean Visions CEO. “These research projects, and others to come, are intended to help answer the glaring question: Is there anything else we can do to forestall these potentially irreversible outcomes?”

“This support from Ocean Visions will allow us to better understand the radiative influence of Arctic clouds on the rapidly warming Arctic by spectrally fingerprinting the far infrared radiative signature of clouds using state-of-the-art technology,” Tan says.

Tan and her research colleagues—Sebastian Schmidt, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, Michael Diamond at Florida State University and Colten Peterson with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center—are developing a new, satellite-based Arctic cloud observation product using recently launched satellites with unprecedented routine measurements of far-infrared radiation (NASA’s PREFIRE CubeSats), as well as collocated radar, LiDAR and imager instruments.

“We will compare the satellite observations to those made with ESA/JAXA’s recently launched EarthCARE satellite and an aircraft (as part of NASA’s ARCSIX campaign),” Tan and her colleagues explain. “These comparisons will be used to produce and validate an algorithm that provides information on cloud properties and their radiative effects on the Arctic surface on a broad spatial scale. Our framework will uniquely take into account the influence of the vertical thermal stratification of the Arctic atmosphere helping us to determine where and when mixed-phase cloud seeding would, or would not, have potential as a climate intervention strategy.”

Among their aims is to help make mixed-phase cloud thinning a more viable method for cooling the Arctic and restoring sea ice. For this to happen, however, “there would need to be enough of the right type of cloud present to be thinned by seeding (clouds containing supercooled liquid water), at the right time (polar night), to produce the desired climate forcing (cooling). Unfortunately, accurately measuring these clouds, especially at night, is very challenging with current satellite products,” the researchers explain.

Ocean Visions selected the six projects through a competitive process, including review by an independent international expert panel. The research to be conducted will provide the foundation for future work, if warranted, to further advance knowledge and address ecological, social and ethical dimensions, as well as develop guidance on safeguards or stage gates for future research, according to Ocean Visions.

“The research supported through the Arctic Sea Ice Restoration Research Fund prioritizes scientific merit, interdisciplinary approaches, and careful risk assessment through a rigorous review,” says Dr. Ginny Selz, Ocean Visions senior program director. “We are excited to watch this research progress and see how it expands our understanding of potential approaches to protect and restore Arctic sea ice.”

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher Ivy Tan leads a project recently funded by Ocean Visions that aims to assess whether mixed-phase cloud thinning is a viable method for cooling the Arctic.

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New minor spans disciplines in studying climate science

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 21:39:09 +0000

New minor spans disciplines in studying climate science Rachel Sauer Mon, 02/23/2026 - 14:39

The interdisciplinary climate science minor, available in Fall 2026, will allow students to capitalize on �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s role as a leader in climate research

A new College of Arts and Sciences minor available in Fall 2026 will allow students to study the defining global, environmental, social and political issues of our time across disciplines and departments.

The interdisciplinary climate science minor capitalizes on the �鶹��Ѱ��’s place at the vanguard of research, innovation and action—with internationally recognized programs, institutes and departments.

Classes in the interdisciplinary climate science minor span the natural sciences, giving students a broad foundation in understanding how Earth’s climate works, evolves and influences other aspects of the planet and society. Students will receive deep exposure to the science of climate and broader understanding of the complexities of climate change.

“Climate change is perhaps the defining global environmental, social and political issue of our time,” says Bradley Markle, an assistant professor of geological sciences and faculty fellow in the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.“The climate system consists of the interactions between the atmosphere, the oceans, the land surface, the biosphere, the cryosphere and the energy the planet receives from the sun. The climate knows nothing of departments, or majors, or any of the other distinctions we impose upon studying the world. An interdisciplinary approach is not just advantageous, but essential, to understanding this system. With this new minor �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder provides our students a path to connect and inter-tangle the world class learning opportunities that already exist within our college.”

Majors and Minors Fair

Learn more about College of Arts and Sciences departments and their majors, minors and certificates at the Majors and Minors Fair!

When: 12-3:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 26

Where: University Memorial Center ballroom

Who: All students, faculty and staff are invited

Learn more

Students pursuing the minor will select from a course menu that encompasses astrophysical and planetary sciences, atmospheric and oceanic sciences, applied math, Earth science, ecology and evolutionary biology, environmental studies, geography and physics. They will pursue a total of 18 credits in classes broadly grouped as air and water; ice, land and past climate; the impact of climate on Earth’s environment; quantitative methods; and climate impacts and solutions.

Courses include:

Arctic Climate System
Oceanography
The Cryosphere: Earth’s Icy Environments
Paleoclimatology
Mountain Ecology and Conservation
The Art and Strategy of Science Communication
Climate Politics and Policy
Global Geographies: Societies, Places, Connections

“From this new minor a student can expect to gain both a deep and a broad understanding of Earth’s climate,” says Robert Anderson, a distinguished professor of geological sciences and faculty fellow in the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. “They will develop knowledge of the physical mechanisms of climate, gain an appreciation for the web of connections between the atmosphere, ocean, land and biosphere that make up the climate, and learn about the intricacies of modern climate change within the context of past climates on Earth. This background will uniquely position our minors to tackle the challenges that our changing climate poses in the future, and indeed sets the intellectual context for exploration of climates of our planetary neighbors.”

Students pursuing the interdisciplinary climate science minor will be able to connect with students and faculty across campus who share a similar passion for climate science. They also will be able to build connections with research labs through tours and potential internships at NOAA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. National Science Foundation Ice Core Facility. They also will be able to apply to participate in the Juneau Icefield Research Program, an eight-week summer field school in earth and climate sciences.

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The interdisciplinary climate science minor, available in Fall 2026, will allow students to capitalize on �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s role as a leader in climate research.

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Young voices must rise in the climate conversation

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 21:27:51 +0000

Young voices must rise in the climate conversation Rachel Sauer Thu, 02/12/2026 - 14:27

Cody DeBos

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder geography PhD student Ethan Carr joins colleagues worldwide to confront climate change across continents

Ethan Carr has always been drawn to cold places. Growing up, he spent summers exploring national parks and winters immersed in the stark beauty of Alaska.

Now, as a PhD student in the �鶹��Ѱ�� Department of Geography, he spends his days researching the world’s melting ice and participating in an innovative youth leadership forum alongside fellow climate activists from around the world.

They are part of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) - Arctic Youth Leadership Forum, an ambitious new initiative connecting young people from mountain and polar regions to amplify voices in the climate fight and search for new solutions.

“Not everybody needs to be a scientist or a strict climate activist to have an impact. Really, all you need is to have a voice and a passion for it," says Ethan Carr, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder PhD student in geography. (Photo: Ethan Carr)

From soldier to scientist

“It’s been a long, kind of windy road to get to where I’m at today,” Carr says.

That road, it turns out, began at West Point.

Carr didn’t originally set out to become a climate researcher when he enrolled at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. But a mandatory earth-science course nicknamed “DIRT” sparked an interest he didn’t know he had.

“That was kind of the first time I realized that you can make a career out of studying and being in really cool environments while you do it,” he says.

After graduating in 2020 and serving as an infantry officer, Carr’s career was redirected by an injury, forcing him to reassess his path forward. Business school wasn’t appealing, but geography still was.

“I took a couple of pre-MBA courses and couldn’t have been more bored in those,” he recalls. “So I said, ‘I have this geography degree, I might as well try to make a career out of it.’”

That decision led him to �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder, one of the country’s top hubs for cryosphere research. He moved to the area before even getting into grad school, taking a chance on himself that would soon pay dividends.

First came a master’s degree. Then he turned his attention to pursuing a PhD in geography with support from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES).

Climate leadership across continents

Carr was recently named part of the inaugural class of youth champions in the HKH - Arctic Youth Leadership Forum, a yearlong fellowship launched by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Nepal. The forum brings together 12 young leaders from some of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions.

Carr first saw the application on LinkedIn and was intrigued not just by the opportunity, but by the forum’s emphasis on public education and policy.

“One thing I’ve realized in my scientific journey so far is you have a lot of scientists who are obviously very intelligent, but not everyone wants to engage in public education, especially on the policy side,” Carr says.

Coming from a military background, he was already used to thinking geopolitically, so he saw the forum as a way to merge science with diplomacy while making a real impact.

“Within our cohort, we represent nations that are some of the largest emitters, being the U.S., China, and India,” Carr explains. “But we also have representatives from some of the countries that are experiencing the effects of climate change firsthand.”

While studying at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Ethan Carr took a mandatory earth-science course nicknamed “DIRT” that sparked an interest he didn’t know he had. (Photo: Ethan Carr)

In the Arctic, Carr points to the rapid melting of the Greenland ice sheet, a reality threatening both biodiversity in the region and Indigenous fishing economies. Meanwhile, countries like Pakistan, Nepal, and India, home to thousands of Himalayan glaciers, are confronting retreating ice sheets that underpin their water security.

“We see a lot of similarities in how things are changing, but this collaboration shows the kind of differences in who’s being affected and the populations being affected more so,” he says.

Data meet lived experience

As part of his doctoral work, Carr studies glacial lake outburst floods in Greenland—events in which meltwater lakes suddenly burst through glaciers, often with destructive force. He relies on satellite data to track water levels, but he’s also learned to listen to what local people are witnessing on the ground.

“Local fishermen have been noticing trends where, after these drainage events, they see an increase in primary productivity in local fjords. That has a significant impact on fishing for the year,” he says.

“That’s not something I would have expected as a scientist just looking at satellite imagery.”

This experience is one among many that has shaped Carr’s belief in combining scientific knowledge and the lived experiences of those native to the regions being studied. It also helped reinforce his understanding of the importance of bringing more voices to the table.

“Our generation and the generation after us are going to be the ones that are inheriting the climate mess we’ve been given by former generations, so those voices need to be heard,” he says.

Speaking of his fellow members on the leadership forum, Carr adds, “These are people that are passionate and empowered youth that have good ideas.”

A global generation

Carr sees connection as a unique advantage in his generation’s ability to catalyze change in the climate arena.

“We’re the most globalized generation there has ever been. My parents couldn’t pick up the phone and directly communicate with someone living in Bangladesh or Bhutan. But we can do that and form genuine working relationships with somebody 12 hours across the globe and work on projects that connect our regions,” he says.

He says the ability to collaborate across borders and cultures is a crucial advantage in the fight against climate change.

But so is perspective.

In his conversations with peers in South Asia, Carr has come to appreciate just how immediate the crisis is elsewhere and why people closer to home might not be able to recognize the urgency.

“In the U.S., I think sometimes we can be kind of separate from understanding what’s really happening in the world. Obviously, we’ve had massive disasters, but we’re not going to be seeing the 10-, 15-million people being displaced in Southeast Asia if sea level rises a few centimeters,” he says.

Ethan Carr (bottom row, left) and his colleagues in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) - Arctic Youth Leadership Forum. (Photo: Ethan Carr)

“These are real impacts happening on that side of the world that we can be pretty ignorant to in the U.S., and it’s something I’ve become way more aware about after talking with folks from over there. They have a lot more urgency in their fight for climate solutions because they can’t afford to wait as long as other parts of the world can,” he adds.

A message for future climate leaders

When asked what he would say to those who feel overwhelmed by the negativity surrounding climate change, Carr doesn’t hesitate. He knows the scale of the crisis can feel suffocating, but he’s also quick to challenge the idea that only scientists belong in the fight.

“Not everybody needs to be a scientist or a strict climate activist to have an impact. Really, all you need is to have a voice and a passion for it,” he says.

Carr believes that the most effective climate solutions will come not just from labs or policy think tanks, but from every corner of society. In fact, he sees this diversity of thought as essential.

“We need climate-minded people in all professions, from business to economics, engineering, and especially journalism. The more we talk about it, the more awareness we can bring to the issue,” he says.

He also sees a need to reframe how climate change is discussed.

“The same rhetoric that’s been used the last few decades of, ‘This is bad because our planet is warming up, and we aren’t going to be able to live,’ hasn’t delivered. Changing how we discuss it to focus on what climate change will do in certain regions and how it will affect local people and economies, I think, is a better way to look at it,” Carr says.

More than anything, Carr encourages young people to speak up and get involved—even if they don’t have a degree or defined role yet.

“The world needs the youth to step up in these spaces. Don’t wait to be asked. Make a space for yourself and move into it. Use your voice to make good things happen in the world.”

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder geography PhD student Ethan Carr joins colleagues worldwide to confront climate change across continents.

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Top image: Ethan Carr (third from left) and fellow member of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) - Arctic Youth Leadership Forum (Photo: Ethan Carr)

Photojournalist turning aerial art into climate archive

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 14:30:00 +0000

Photojournalist turning aerial art into climate archive Rachel Sauer Thu, 12/04/2025 - 07:30

Cody DeBos

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder geography alumnus Katie Writer shares Alaska’s changing landscape from the skies

On a clear day high above south-central Alaska, you can find Katie Writer pulling open the window of her Super Cub airplane and leaning her camera out into the rushing wind. Below, the landscape doesn’t look like the same one she once hiked and skied. That’s exactly why she’s flying.

For Writer (Geog’91), flying offers a unique vantage point from which to witness the planet changing in real time.

“Climate change is something I saw coming all the way back in my �鶹��Ѱ��days studying geography, and I knew it would be a big part of my life’s calling. I have a sense of duty as a photojournalist pilot and an advocate for the environment. Whenever there’s a chance for me to tell the story of the landscape or point emphasis to an area that needs some protection, I jump on it,” she says.

Geography alumnus Katie Writer has built a career at the intersection of science, storytelling and adventure. (Photo: Katie Writer)

From documenting glacier retreat to photographing generations of spruce trees withered by beetle kill, she’s built a career at the intersection of science, storytelling and adventure.

Skiing onto the page

Writer’s journey to the cockpit wasn’t traditional. At �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder, she majored in geography and raced on the ski team, balancing course loads with weekend races. After graduating, she worked as an interpreter for the United States Olympic Committee at the 1992 Winter Olympics in France, and that lit a fire in her for world-class racing.

“I quickly moved up the ranks and placed 17th at the U.S. National Championships in 1994,” Writer recalls.

But when an injury derailed her career, she pivoted her skiing passion from racing to the page, becoming an aptly named writer of outdoor adventure articles for the likes of Couloir and Powder magazines. One story led her to Denali National Park.

“On that trip, I was inspired to become a pilot,” she says. “I’d also been on another ski trip where a Cessna 185 flew us into the wilderness in a ski plane, and it made me realize that these little planes give you some great access to the wilderness.”

After earning her pilot’s license with support from aviation scholarships, Writer settled in Alaska, where she has since filled her appetite for adventure and storytelling through the lens of her camera. She didn't give up competitive skiing entirely, though, and races in three World Extreme Skiing competitions in Alaska

“Others were noticing my photography and really appreciating the bird’s eye view I was getting as an aerial photographer/pilot. It helped me realize that capturing these images was something I was really passionate about,” she says.

Seeing the story from above

When Writer takes her camera into the sky, the viewpoint of Alaska’s stunning landscapes brings awe, but also a sense of urgency. From her Super Cub, she observes patterns of change. Hillsides of dying spruce. Once thriving glaciers shrinking every year. Riverbanks collapsing after torrential storms. She has returned often to the same places, documenting changes that most people never get to see.

“There’s no doubt when you live in Alaska, you see the effects of the beetle kill. I realized this was an excellent way to present climate change with the visuals from an aerial perspective,” Writer says.

Warmer winters have allowed spruce beetles to survive year-round, leaving entire forests stained with rust-colored decay. Glaciers tell a parallel story of loss.

Aerial views of the changing Alaska landscape captured by Katie Writer from the open window of her Super Cub airplane. (Photos: Katie Writer)

“We spent a lot of time going back to the toe of the Ruth glacier, photographing the specific area year after year and seeing how dramatically the receding lines were, as well as observing the collapsing walls,” she adds.

She also tracks what happens downstream. After record rainfall from an atmospheric river in August 2025, she flew over the swollen Talkeetna River and saw entire stretches of bank washed away.

“These weather events with high levels of moisture, in my opinion, are another visual acceleration of erosion.”

These scenes are part of a photographic timeline Writer has spent years assembling. With each flight, she adds a new layer to the growing visual archive that captures the rapid reshaping of Alaska’s wilderness. For those of us on the ground, it’s a rare glimpse at what our world looks like from above.

Exploring a new medium

In time, the stories Writer wanted to tell outgrew both print and pictures. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she launched the All Cooped Up Alaska Podcast, a show born from isolation and the desire to connect. It’s since evolved into the Alaska Climate and Aviation Podcast, where she explores stories of weather, flying and environmental change.

“Being in the air and photographing the landscape feels like artistic movement and is a spiritual experience. The natural world is just stunning,” says Katie Writer. (Photo: Katie Writer)

“The benefit of producing your own podcast is that you get to be as creative as you want and can tell the stories you want to tell,” she says. “A lot of the stories I used to create for our local radio station would be edited down to three and a half minutes for airtime. I was always a little bit frustrated by that.”

Now, Writer brings on regular guests, including prominent Alaskan climatologists Rick Thoman and Brian Brettschneider, to discuss everything from wildfire smoke to Arctic feedback loops. She also covers major events like the Arctic Encounter Symposium in Anchorage.

“Arctic Encounter is attended by world leaders from all around Arctic countries, including Indigenous leaders, policymakers, scientists, villagers and Arctic dwellers,” she says. “It’s a very inspiring event with fascinating panels of people talking about the problems they’re having and solutions they envision.”

Writer has also added a sightseeing business to Visionary Adventures, taking people out on Super Cub Airplane Rides so they can experience the beauty themselves. And these days, her children are her most frequent fliers: "We—my son, Jasper, and daughter, Wren—have also enjoyed soaring above the wilds looking for wild game and fishing spots."

�鶹��Ѱ��at altitude

Looking back, Writer credits her time at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder with helping to shape her worldview.

“One of the primary things that made a major influence on choosing geography as a major was an upper-division course that was in the Arctic Circle, learning field research techniques,” she says.

She also recalls the atmosphere of both Boulder’s scientific community and cultural diversity.

“As a sophomore, our house was across the street from the Hari Krishnas, where we ate a meal a week and enjoyed philosophizing on life and world religions. It was just a really neat place to be,” Writer says. “All of the beautiful architecture and even the Guggenheim building for Geography really held a special place in my heart for a place of learning.”

Her advice for today’s students? Write often.

“Writing is a really important skill that I’m noticing more and more being lost with the use of AI. Getting the pen flowing onto a piece of paper lets you tap into a whole different type of creativity,” she says.

“Realize that you may not know what your whole career is going to be, but don’t be afraid to explore and take a risk in opportunities you might get. When I look back at the journals that I had at that time in my life, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m doing it,’” she adds.

Even now, after decades of flying and learning to balance the art with the business, Writer isn’t sure where her career will lead next.

“I always aspired to work for National Geographic as a photojournalist,” she says. “And I still haven’t met that goal—but who knows what could happen in the future.”

One thing is certain: Writer has no plans to stop flying over Alaska and documenting its changes.

“Being in the air and photographing the landscape feels like artistic movement and is a spiritual experience,” she says. “The natural world is just stunning.”

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder geography alumnus Katie Writer shares Alaska’s changing landscape from the skies.

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Meet the scientist who stumbled into the cold—and stayed

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 14:30:00 +0000

Meet the scientist who stumbled into the cold—and stayed Rachel Sauer Mon, 11/17/2025 - 07:30

Clint Talbott

John Cassano, professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and fellow at CIRES, recently returned from his 15th research trip to Antarctica

The first time John Cassano flew to Antarctica, he found the 12-hour commercial flight from Los Angeles to Auckland, New Zealand, uncomfortable. Then he boarded a C-130 cargo plane bound for Antarctica.

“Put me on a commercial plane in a middle seat for 12 hours,” he says, chuckling. “I’ll take that over being in a cargo plane any day.”

John Cassano, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and self-described "weather weenie," has been pursuing research in Antarctica since 1994.

That was January 1994. Cassano was 25 and a graduate student who had agreed to work on a project installing weather stations in Greenland and Antarctica. He figured he’d go once, check Antarctica off his list and move on with life. Thirty years later, he’s still going back.

Cassano did not plan to be a polar researcher. Growing up in New York, he imagined a career in architecture—something tangible, predictable. But a freshman weather class at Montana State University changed everything. “I decided architecture wasn’t for me.”

Meteorology seemed a better fit. Montana State didn’t offer meteorology, so Cassano earned an earth science degree and headed to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, intending to study storms. Then came an invitation from Charles Stearns, professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, asking if Cassano would be interested in working on a project in Antarctica.

“I had no real interest in the polar regions,” Cassano admits. “But I wasn’t going to pass up the chance to go to Antarctica once.”

That “once” became a career. After two field seasons with Stearns, Cassano pursued a PhD at the University of Wyoming, focusing on Antarctic meteorology. Today, as a professor in the �鶹��Ѱ��’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, he has lived about a year in Antarctica over the course of 15 trips there.

Cassano is also lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and a fellow at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

'A weather weenie at heart'

The science keeps him coming back. Cassano’s work explores how the atmosphere behaves in Earth’s most extreme environments—knowledge that underpins climate models and weather forecasts worldwide.

The adventure is also alluring. “I’m a weather weenie at heart,” he says. “I like experiencing extremes—strong winds, big snowstorms, really cold temperatures. Antarctica gives me that.”

He recalls standing in minus 56°F air, frostbite nipping his fingers as he launched drones. “I enjoy experiencing those conditions,” he says. “I wouldn’t want to camp in a tent for months like the early explorers, but I like the challenge.”

John Cassano (right) and then-fellow graduate student Mark Seefeldt (left), now a research scientist in Cassano's group at CIRES, on their first trip to Antarctica in 1994. (Photo: John Cassano)

Cassano’s contributions have helped reshape polar science. In 2009, he led the first U.S.-funded drone research campaign in Antarctica, opening new ways to measure the atmosphere where traditional instruments fall short.

“Drones let us probe the boundary layer—the part of the atmosphere that exchanges heat and moisture with the surface,” he explains. “That’s critical for understanding climate.”

Earlier, as a postdoctoral researcher at Ohio State University, Cassano helped modernize Antarctic weather forecasting. The Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System, launched in 2001, transformed flight safety.

“When I started going down in the ’90s, forecasters were confident about eight hours out,” he says. “Now it’s five days. That’s huge.”

That’s a big change for several reasons, not the least of which is that an eight-hour forecast could change from the time a plane left Christchurch, New Zealand, and got closer to Antarctica. Planes often had to turn around mid-flight back then, Cassano recalls.

Witnessing dramatic changes

Cassano has witnessed dramatic changes in three decades of research.

Arctic sea ice has declined about 40 percent in recent decades. Antarctic sea ice, once at record highs, now hovers at record lows. Ice shelves are collapsing.

“These changes matter,” he says. “They alter the temperature gradient between the tropics and poles, which drives global weather. Even if you never go to the polar regions, it affects the storms you experience.”

Meanwhile, fieldwork isn’t all adventure. “Emotionally, it’s hard,” Cassano says. “When I was single, I didn’t mind being gone for months. Now, being away from my wife and daughter is tough.”

Comforts are few: shared dorm rooms, institutional food and the knowledge that if something happens at home, he can’t leave. “Once you’re there in August, you’re stuck until October.”

But Cassano treasures the Antarctic community—a self-selecting group of scientists and support staff who thrive in isolation. “You don’t wind up in Antarctica by mistake,” he says.

“Everyone wants to be there. Contractors work six-month stints and spend the rest of the year traveling. It’s like living in a travelogue.”

Kara Hartig (left), CIRES visiting fellow postdoc, and John Cassano (right), in Antarctica during the 2025 research season. (Photo: John Cassano)

He loves the stories: a mechanic who spent his off-season trekking through South America, a cook who had just returned from hiking in Nepal. “You hear all these amazing experiences,” Cassano says. “It’s like living inside a travel magazine.”

Behind every scientific breakthrough lies a vast support system. “I can focus on science because others make sure I have food, water, transportation and a warm place to sleep,” Cassano says. “That infrastructure is critical.”

Cassano worries about the cost of fieldwork and the ripple effects of recent disruptions. “Field projects are expensive,” he says. “COVID and a major McMurdo Station rebuild created a backlog. My project was supposed to be in the field in 2021—we went in 2025. NSF is still catching up.”

Federal priorities are a concern in the current political climate, but Cassano suggests that Antarctic research might be less vulnerable than other kinds of federally sponsored science.

“Antarctic research has always had a geopolitical dimension,” Cassano notes. “The Antarctic Treaty encourages nations to maintain scientific programs. It’s how you keep a seat at the table.”

Constant curiosity

For Cassano, mentoring is particularly rewarding. “I love bringing new people down,” he says. “Seeing Antarctica through their eyes makes me excited again.” On his latest trip, he watched a young researcher, Kara Hartig, CIRES visiting fellow postdoc, as she experienced the ice for the first time. “Her enthusiasm reminded me why I do this.”

That excitement ripples outward. After Cassano shared photos in class, a former student emailed, saying, “I’m on my way to Antarctica to work as a chef at McMurdo,” the largest research station on the continent.

“He just wanted to experience it,” Cassano says. “I think that’s awesome.”

Cassano’s curiosity remains undiminished. On his latest trip, when drones failed to arrive, he improvised with van-mounted sensors, uncovering puzzling temperature swings across the ice shelf.

What might we learn from the data? “It hints at important processes,” he says. “Now we need to go back and figure out why.”

After three decades, Cassano still marvels at the complexity of the atmosphere—and the urgency of understanding it. “Increasing our knowledge is broadly beneficial,” he says. “And for me, it’s just fascinating.”

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Top image: Sunset over the Royal Society Range (background), sea ice in McMurdo Sound (mid-ground) and McMurdo Station from John Cassano's 2025 Antarctic trip. (Photo: John Cassano)

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