Climate & Environment

The pine beetles are back. Here's why—and what you can do about it

Yvaine Ye — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 16:13:55 +0000

The pine beetles are back. Here's why—and what you can do about it Yvaine Ye Wed, 01/28/2026 - 09:13

Yvaine Ye

Colorado’s warm and dry winters have tipped the balance in a long-running ecological tug-of-war.

The mountain pine beetles, native insects to the Centennial State, have recently exploded in numbers in the Front Range after a decade of relatively low populations. The mild winter temperatures have allowed more beetle larvae to survive, while the lack of water has weakened pine trees’ natural defenses against the bugs.

Already, thousands of pine trees along the U.S. 285 and I-70 corridors are turning brown. The devastation prompted Gov. Jared Polis to sign an executive order in December to slow the spread of the beetles.

“A very high level of tree mortality, especially among ponderosa pines, is likely to continue for the next decade,” the order warned.

But the insects are not the antagonists of the story, said Samuel Ramsey, assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the BioFrontiers Institute.

Samuel Ramsey looking at a beehive in his lab. (Credit: Patrick Campbell/��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��)

“They are doing exactly what evolution has primed them to do, and they are just able to do it to the maximum because of the ways that climactic contexts have shifted. That is our fault,” he said.

The impact extends beyond tree loss. For the Front Range, a densely populated region already under persistent wildfire threat, dead trees can exacerbate risk.

To unpack what’s behind the outbreak and what may come next, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Today sat down with Ramsey to chat about its causes, the outlook for Colorado’s forests and steps people can take to limit the damage.

The Mountain pine beetles are native to Colorado. Why are they causing problems now?

As the climate has shifted, it has knocked the beetles out of their normal balance with the trees. Because the weather has been warm for longer stretches of time, these beetles are able to produce an additional generation of babies, in addition to the dozens of offspring they usually produce.

How do the pine beetles attack trees?

An adult mountain pine beetle. (Credit: Colorado State Forest Service)

The mountain pine beetles are smaller than a grain of rice. When a single pine beetle attacks a tree, it actually can’t do much damage. So, when a pine beetle locates a tree, it will release a smell that tells all the pine beetles in the area to come and attack it. When 1,000 pine beetles all attack the same tree, some get through and lay eggs in the tree. Once inside, the beetles will gum up the tree’s vascular system, cutting off its water and nutrient supply.

Do trees have a defense mechanism for keeping beetles out?

They did in the original climactic circumstances, such as secreting sap to push out the beetles. But when there isn't enough water, they can only produce a small amount of sap, and that is not enough to fend off thousands of beetles that just keep coming at them.

With the warm weather, pine beetles are also maturing faster. That means the trees are starting their battle against the beetles earlier than they had planned. The trees are also fighting later into the season because of the additional generation of beetles.

How bad will this round of the outbreak be?

I'm not a prognosticator, so I cannot tell you that this is going to be a terrible year. But the data is pointing in the direction. In the past, when we have had the same set of circumstances, we have had a banner year for mountain pine beetles. It is estimated that out of more than 4 million acres of pine forests across the state, more than 80% were damaged by the beetles between 1996 and 2013.

This winter has been really warm. That means that more pine beetles are going to survive the winter. So starting this year, their population will be large enough to likely overcome the defense of a lot of these trees. We could have dead stands of pine trees just sitting there ready to welcome the next wildfire.

Are mountain pine beetle outbreaks unique to Colorado?

The mountain pine beetles are distributed in many parts of North America, but Colorado kind of has a perfect storm of circumstances. We have these issues with a warmer winter. Really high winds can help these pine beetles move farther distances when they're flying. In addition, the wind can drive wildfires. Together, those factors make the risks here especially high.

Are there any actions individuals can take to reduce the damage?

There are ways that we can lean into our agency here.

If you have a pine tree in your yard, you need to make sure that it has adequate water by watering it and reducing competition for water from other plants around it.

If you are getting firewood, get it and burn it locally. It’s a really, really bad idea to move firewood, because you could inadvertently help spread the beetles.

If you're seeing mountain pine beetles in your area, and you haven't seen that before, contact your local forest service office.

The pheromone packets people used in the past might not be the best solution, because they won't stop an infestation, and sometimes they can make the problem worse by drawing more beetles to an area than would've arrived otherwise.

As the climate continues to warm, these sorts of ecological issues are going to happen more often. So we need to make sure that instead of only treating the symptoms of climate change, we are reducing the amount of carbon that is going into the atmosphere.

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Today regularly publishes Q&As with our faculty members weighing in on news topics through the lens of their scholarly expertise and research/creative work. The responses here reflect the knowledge and interpretations of the expert and should not be considered the university position on the issue. All publication content is subject to edits for clarity, brevity and university style guidelines.

Mountain pine beetles are exploding in numbers again, killing ponderosa pines across large swaths of Colorado. A ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� entomologist explains why it's happening and what it means for wildfire risk.

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A moutain pine beetle chewing on a tree. (Credit: Colorado State Forest Service)

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A moutain pine beetle chewing on a tree. (Credit: Colorado State Forest Service)

Precious waterways: How contaminated mountain streams could power American-made technology

Megan M Rogers — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 18:56:12 +0000

Precious waterways: How contaminated mountain streams could power American-made technology Megan M Rogers Mon, 12/22/2025 - 11:56

INSTAAR

Diane McKnight and Tom Marchitto are collaborators on a new project looking for a way to extract rare earth metals from contaminated Colorado streams. The goal is to improve water quality while also increasing the domestic supply of raw materials for advanced technologies.

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CUriosity: Why hasn't it snowed much this year, and what does that mean for Colorado?

Daniel William Strain — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 22:59:54 +0000

CUriosity: Why hasn't it snowed much this year, and what does that mean for Colorado? Daniel William… Thu, 12/18/2025 - 15:59

Daniel Strain

In CUriosity, experts across the ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� campus answer questions about humans, our planet and the universe beyond.

Jennifer Kay, professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��, talks about why this winter has been so dry.

A deer on the ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� campus on Dec. 3, 2025, during a short-lived dusting of snow. (Credit: Patrick Campbell/��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��)

Jennifer Kay has a message for the skies above Colorado: “Let it snow.”

Kay is an atmospheric scientist who, in her free time, likes to go cross-country skiing in the Rocky Mountains.

But this year, the season’s typical white-out blizzards haven’t arrived.

Denver didn’t get its first snow—a wimpy dusting of just 0.2 inches—until Nov. 29, the second latest first snow on record. Temperatures around the Front Range have also been downright balmy, drawing close to or even setting record highs.

Could the late start to the winter be a bad omen for Colorado’s ski industry and its future water supplies?

Kay weighs in on the question from ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� East Campus with a view of the Flatiron Mountains behind her. They’re almost completely dry, with almost none of the sprinkling of white that usually marks them this time of year.

She says it’s not time to panic—yet.

“It's also really early in the season still, so people shouldn’t be too worried about what’s going to happen with the ski season or water,” says Kay, a fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��. “There are still a lot of different ways this season could unfold.”

In 2021, for example, Denver didn’t see its first snow until Dec. 10 (the latest on record). But snowfall totals inched closer to normal in the months that followed.

Kays says it’s not possible to predict how much snow will come to Colorado in an individual winter season months ahead of time.

A lot of that stems from a phenomenon known as the jet stream. That’s the name for a narrow band in the atmosphere above North America where winds reach tremendous speeds, sometimes over 250 miles per hour. When this band hovers above Colorado, it tends to bring big, rumbling storms to the state.

“When the jet stream brings storms to us, we get...a lot of wet, snowy days,” Kay said. “If the jet stream goes another direction, maybe to the north or south of us, we don’t get as many snowstorms.”

Previously in CUriosity

Why do so many people watch football on Thanksgiving?

Or read more CUriosity stories here

But, she adds, any number of complex factors can make the jet stream wiggle from month to month—although meteorologists can often predict what the jet stream will do several days in advance.

Recently, the jet stream has stuck mostly to the north of Colorado, crossing over states like Montana and the Dakotas.

This year’s less-than-snowy winter has Kay thinking about what the future may hold.

With warming, she says, many storms that might normally produce snow may instead bring rain. That could have a wide range of consequences for the state.

A thick blanket of snow on the ground, for example, can keep wildfires from starting and spreading. The Marshall Fire, which devastated parts of Boulder County in December 2021, erupted at a time when the ground was relatively dry, and winds were especially fierce.

Kay believes it’s important for Coloradans to prepare themselves for hotter and dryer weather.

She lives in Boulder and keeps a go-bag packed at all times, even during the winter months. It includes a change of clothes, important documents, chargers for electronic devices and contact information for her neighbors.

“I have already adapted to the reality of more fires as we get hotter and drier in Colorado,” she says. “Understanding what's happening around you and having a plan for extreme events like the strong wind events we have along the Front Range is important.”

This year, the normal blizzards haven't come to most of Colorado, but atmospheric scientist Jennifer Kay says there's still time for the season to turn around.

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Record heat, ice loss and rust-stained rivers mark another year of Arctic change

Elizabeth Lock — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 23:49:30 +0000

Record heat, ice loss and rust-stained rivers mark another year of Arctic change Elizabeth Lock Tue, 12/16/2025 - 16:49

The 2025 Arctic Report Card shows record heat, record-low sea ice, shrinking glaciers, rivers turning rusty orange, a typhoon, the continued warming of Arctic seas and more.

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CIRES research reconstructs ancient Indus River flow to understand a disappeared civilization

Megan M Rogers — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 20:20:44 +0000

CIRES research reconstructs ancient Indus River flow to understand a disappeared civilization Megan M Rogers Tue, 12/16/2025 - 13:20

CIRES

Research co-authored by Balaji Ragagopalan of CIRES helped identify hydrologic records that are key to understanding a disappeared civilization.

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New window insulation blocks heat, but not your view

Daniel William Strain — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 17:38:41 +0000

New window insulation blocks heat, but not your view Daniel William… Thu, 12/11/2025 - 10:38

Daniel Strain

Abram Fluckiger, an undergraduate student at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��, holds up a block containing five layers of MOCHI material and two panes of glass. (Credit: Glenn Asakawa/��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��)

Physicists at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� have designed a new material for insulating windows that could improve the energy efficiency of buildings worldwide—and it works a bit like a high-tech version of Bubble Wrap.

The team’s material, called Mesoporous Optically Clear Heat Insulator, or MOCHI, comes in large slabs or thin sheets that can be applied to the inside of any window. So far, the team only makes the material in the lab, and it’s not available for consumers. But the researchers say MOCHI is long-lasting and is almost completely transparent.

That means it won’t disrupt your view, unlike many insulating materials on the market today,

“To block heat exchange, you can put a lot of insulation in your walls, but windows need to be transparent,” said Ivan Smalyukh, senior author of the study and a professor of physics at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��. “Finding insulators that are transparent is really challenging.”

He and his colleagues published their results Dec. 11 in the journal “Science.”

Eldho Abraham, left, and Taewoo Lee, right, hold up a thin sheet of MOCHI affixed to clear plastic.(Photo by Glenn J. Asakawa/��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��)

Shakshi Bhardwaj holds up blocks of MOCHI in different sizes. (Credit: Glenn Asakawa/��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��)

From left to right, Eldho Abraham, Gewei (Gary) Chen, Abram Fluckiger, Taewoo Lee, Keita Richardson, Shiva Singh, Shakshi Bhardwaj, Hanqing Zhao, Ivan Smalyukh, and Alex Adaka. (Credit: Glenn Asakawa/��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��)

Buildings, from single-family homes to office skyscrapers, consume about 40% of all energy generated worldwide. They also leak, losing heat to the outdoors on cold days and absorbing heat when the temperature rises.

Smalyukh and his colleagues aim to slow down that exchange.

The group’s MOCHI material is a silicone gel with a twist: The gel traps air through a network of tiny pores that are many times thinner than the width of a human hair. Those tiny air bubbles are so good at blocking heat that you can use a MOCHI sheet just 5 millimeters thick to hold a flame in the palm of your hand.

“No matter what the temperatures are outside, we want people to be able to have comfortable temperatures inside without having to waste energy,” said Smalyukh, a fellow at the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI) at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��.

Bubble magic

Smalyukh said the secret to MOCHI comes down to precisely controlling those pockets of air.
The team’s new invention is similar to aerogels, a class of insulating material that is in widespread use today. (NASA uses aerogels inside its Mars rovers to keep electronics warm).

Like MOCHI, aerogels trap countless pockets of air. But those bubbles tend to be distributed randomly throughout aerogels and often reflect light rather than let it pass through. As a result, these materials often look cloudy, which is why they’re sometimes called “frozen smoke.”

In the new research, Smalyukh and his colleagues wanted to take a different approach to insulation.

To make MOCHI, the group mixes a special type of molecule known as surfactants into a liquid solution. These molecules natural clump together to form thin threads in a process not unlike how oil and vinegar separate in salad dressing. Next, molecules of silicone in the same solution begin to stick to the outside of those threads.

Through a series of steps, the researchers then replace the clumps of detergent molecules with air. That leaves silicone surrounding a network of incredibly small pipes filled with air, which Smalyukh compares to a “plumber’s nightmare.”

In all, air makes up more than 90% of the volume of the MOCHI material.

Trapping heat

Smalyukh said that heat passes through a gas in a process something like a game of pool: Heat energizes molecules and atoms in the gas, which then bang into other molecules and atoms, transferring the energy.

The bubbles in MOCHI material are so small, however, that the gases inside can’t bang into each other, effectively keeping heat from flowing through.

“The molecules don’t have a chance to collide freely with each other and exchange energy,” Smalyukh said. “Instead, they bump into the walls of the pores.”

At the same time, the MOCHI material only reflects about .2% of incoming light.

The researchers see a lot of uses for this clear-but-insulating material. Engineers could design a device that uses MOCHI to trap the heat from sunlight, converting it into cheap and sustainable energy.

“Even when it’s a somewhat cloudy day, you could still harness a lot of energy and then use it to heat your water and your building interior,” Smalyukh said.

You probably won’t see these products on the market soon. Currently, the team relies on a time-intensive process to produce MOCHI in the lab. But Smalyukh believes the manufacturing process can be streamlined. The ingredients his team uses to make MOCHI are also relatively inexpensive, which the physicist said bodes well for turning this material into a commercial product.

For now, the future for MOCHI, like the view through a window coated in this insulating material, looks bright.

Co-authors of the new study include Amit Bhardwaj, Blaise Fleury, Eldo Abraham and Taewoo Lee, postdoctoral research associates in the Department of Physics at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��. Bohdan Senyuk, Jan Bart ten Hove and Vladyslav Cherpak, former postdoctoral researchers at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��, also served as co-authors.

Physicists at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� have developed a new material that is completely transparent but so good at blocking heat that you can use it to hold a flame in the palm of your hand.

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Libraries, CIRES partner to transform 19th century tsunami records into open data

Megan M Rogers — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 15:16:08 +0000

Libraries, CIRES partner to transform 19th century tsunami records into open data Megan M Rogers Thu, 12/11/2025 - 08:16

Through a collaborative grant, librarians worked with CIRES researchers and applied expertise in metadata and data stewardship to help transform thousands of historic marigram charts into a structured, shareable dataset for tsunami modeling.

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Curbing climate change would also reduce harmful air pollutants, saving millions of lives

Yvaine Ye — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 17:14:03 +0000

Curbing climate change would also reduce harmful air pollutants, saving millions of lives Yvaine Ye Tue, 12/09/2025 - 10:14

Yvaine Ye

If nations reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, they could slow climate change. Those actions would also have the added benefit of saving over two million lives globally that might be lost because of harmful air pollutants by 2050, according to preliminary data in new ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� research.

The findings come from an ongoing study led by Patrick Wiecko, a doctoral student in the Environmental Engineering Program. He will present the data at the American Geophysical Union annual conference (AGU25) in New Orleans on Dec. 18. The results have not been peer-reviewed.

Patrick Wiecko

Air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2), fine particulate matter (PM 2.5), and ozone are among the main components of the smog that often shrouds urban skies. These pollutants can penetrate deep into the lungs and bloodstream, leading to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, asthma and premature death.

Globally, chronic exposure to these air pollutants kills more than seven million people each year, including 150,000 in the United States.

These numbers could rise or fall depending on how nations choose to curb emissions over the next few decades, Wiecko said. The same sources that emit greenhouse gases, such as the burning of fossil fuels in vehicles, power plants and factories, are also major contributors of air pollutants.

Wiecko and his team analyzed how the number of deaths associated with air pollution would change under three different global emission scenarios: one in which nations cooperate on the global stage to drastically reduce their emissions, one that maintains “business as usual” emissions, and one in which nations ramp up emissions without considering their global impacts.

Using a computer program, the researchers simulated how emitted pollutants move and react in the atmosphere, considering meteorological factors such as wind, temperature, sunlight and humidity.

The researchers paired those projections with global health data to estimate how shifts in air quality under the three scenarios could affect premature deaths by 2050.

Their model showed that in 2019, PM 2.5 was responsible for 4.3 million deaths worldwide, ozone for 880,000 and nitrogen dioxide for 2 million. If the world makes significant efforts toward reducing emissions and developing green technologies by 2050, it could save 2.7 million lives globally, including 86,000 in the United States and 1.1 million in China.

“Countries like China that have made huge progress in shifting away from fossil fuels—by electrifying their vehicle fleets, for example—could see substantial health benefits,” Wiecko said.

But if the world backtracks its coordinated climate efforts and fails to keep warming below 1.5°C, some nations might see more deaths from air pollution. In India, for example, 65,000 more people would die from deteriorating air quality.

Click here to see what else ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� experts are presenting at AGU 2025.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries have pledged to reduce emissions and limit global warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F) above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century to avert the worst impacts of climate change. But the latest projection shows the global average temperature is likely to rise by 2.5 to 2.9°C if countries stick to current policies.

Because air pollution crosses borders, the team also examined how many deaths each nation could prevent by cutting emissions, both at home and abroad. Under the low-emission scenario, for example, the United States could see 86,000 fewer deaths. Domestic efforts account for 72,000 of those saved lives, while the remaining 14,000 depend on pollution-cutting measures implemented by neighboring countries.

“A lot of the costs of emissions are felt elsewhere,” Wiecko said.

He added that air pollution not only damages lungs, but also harms crops and ecosystems.

“It’s going to impact other parts of our society, like crop failure stemming from higher ozone concentrations,” Wiecko said. “Even if we don’t always see it or feel it, we’re all connected by the air we share, and we all have a role in cleaning it up.”

Beyond the story

Our sustainability impact by the numbers:

First student-run campus environmental center in the U.S.
No. 11 university for environmental and social impact in the U.S.
First zero-waste major sports stadium in the U.S.

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A preliminary study shows that reducing greenhouse gas emissions could also prevent people from dying prematurely from respiratory diseases and other health conditions that come from air pollution.

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Smoke is coming out of the chimneys in an industrial area. (Credit: Intel Core i9 12900K/Pexels)

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Smoke is coming out of the chimneys in an industrial area. (Credit: Intel Core i9 12900K/Pexels)

Wind tunnel research could help predict how wildfires spread

Amber Carlson — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 16:02:24 +0000

Wind tunnel research could help predict how wildfires spread Amber Carlson Fri, 12/05/2025 - 09:02

Amber Carlson , Nicholas Goda

In a windowless, warehouse-sized lab on campus, a team of ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� researchers huddle around two wind tunnels—long metal tubes that blow air currents at controlled speeds.

Laura Shannon, a graduate student in CU’s Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering, turns a dial, releasing a hiss of gas that quickly ignites a burner inside one tunnel.

The crew turns out the overhead lights. The fire, glowing blue and yellow through a window in the tube, is the only light to be found. Shannon turns on the air current, speeding it up and slowing it down, and the flames flicker and sway wildly.

The researchers are using the wind tunnels to study wildfire behavior. For nearly a decade, the team has been delving into the hundreds of factors that can affect the way wildfire starts, moves and spreads, as well as the damage it causes.

Ultimately, the team has an ambitious goal: to build computational tools that can predict how wildfire will behave. They envision a day when, shortly after a fire starts, firefighters can plug in details about it and learn where—and how quickly—it could spread. The tools could help keep communities safer in a world where climate-driven wildfire is becoming more common—and more dangerous.

“Being able to have more accurate, better predictors of fires is extremely important to protecting people, lives and property,” said Shannon. “The more accurate we can make our simulations in the long run, the safer we can keep wildfires.”

The research team also brings a unique, interdisciplinary approach to studying wildfire, blending ideas and technology from mechanical and aerospace engineering.

“This research was driven by recognizing that there was a gap. There were these really advanced aerodynamics and sensing tools that had not been used in this field yet,” said Greg Rieker, a research team member and professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Teasing apart the elements of wildfire

Wildfire behavior is complex and hard to predict because there are so many variables—like wind, rain, humidity, fuel and topography—to consider. The researchers have been methodically isolating and studying these variables to understand more about how fire behaves under different conditions.

The team is using wind tunnels to better understand basics like how fire moves, its shape and structure, and how it transfers heat downstream. They’re also looking at the impact of ground slope on fire spread, using a tunnel that can tilt at an angle.

“The idea is to model the influence of ground slope to think about wildfires climbing hills versus descending. You have different physics and different dynamics,” said John Farnsworth, a team member and associate professor in CU’s Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences.

The team is also exploring how embers form and spread. Wind can carry these burning pieces of wood or debris miles away from a fire, sparking additional blazes. Embers were likely a major driver of the December 2021 Marshall Fire and the October 2020 East Troublesome Fire, which spread from Grand Lake to Estes Park overnight due to blowing embers.

A large smoke plume from the 2020 East Troublesome Fire in Grand and Larimer counties. Wind helped push the fire across the Continental Divide from Grand Lake to Estes Park, prompting massive evacuations. (Source: BLM)

In a study that has not yet been published, former mechanical engineering graduate student Charlie Callahan set one-millimeter wooden discs on fire to create embers, then dropped them into a wind tunnel and took a high-speed thermal video of the embers moving through the tunnel.

“Larger firebrands can travel long distances and start a fire a mile away, which causes fire spread. But also, small firebrands can change the rate of fire spreading over short distances,” Callahan said. “There hadn't been too many studies on looking at this specific size of firebrand.”

The study found that the embers, or firebrands, fluctuated rapidly in temperature—by hundreds of degrees—as they traveled through the tunnel. And the fluctuations happened more frequently in embers that were traveling at faster speeds compared to the wind speed. The faster they moved, the hotter they got.

Callahan and the other researchers plan to continue studying firebrands to understand more about the significance of these temperature changes and how they affect fire spread.

Looking forward

The researchers say it’s still extremely difficult for firefighters to predict how fires behave and spread, especially in areas with variable terrain and wind conditions. Fires such as the Marshall Fire and the East Troublesome Fire can spread more quickly and erratically than expected.

Scientists believe wildfire will likely become an even more significant threat as climate change progresses, temperatures rise and drought conditions persist in many areas. When fires happen, it’s crucial to be able to understand and predict how they’ll behave.

The work is particularly urgent for communities in the wildland-urban interface that border on wilderness and are more vulnerable to wildfire. The researchers hope their predictive tools might help improve evacuation plans and enhance firefighting approaches.

Peter Hamlington, a professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering and the principal investigator behind this research, noted the impacts of wildfire extend beyond direct burn damage, and smoke from the fires can also travel long distances and negatively affect human health.

“A better understanding of the causes and dynamics of wildland fires will help us develop new computational tools for predicting the occurrence of fires and mitigating their most devastating effects,” Hamlington said.

“Ultimately, our project is focused on the development of more accurate and reliable predictive tools that can be used by those seeking to understand and reduce fire risk.”

Beyond the Story

Our research impact by the numbers:

$742 million in research funding earned in 2023–24
No. 5 U.S. university for startup creation
$1.4 billion impact of ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��'s research activities on the Colorado economy in 2023–24

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CU researchers are setting fires inside wind tunnels to gain a better understanding of how fire spreads across different terrain.

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Scientists predict sea change in Arctic ecosystems by century's end

Megan M Rogers — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 19:35:29 +0000

Scientists predict sea change in Arctic ecosystems by century's end Megan M Rogers Mon, 11/24/2025 - 12:35

INSTAAR

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. The results show disrupted phytoplankton blooms, which will ripple throughout the ecosystem.

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Climate & Environment

The pine beetles are back. Here's why—and what you can do about it

The Mountain pine beetles are native to Colorado. Why are they causing problems now?

How do the pine beetles attack trees?

Do trees have a defense mechanism for keeping beetles out?

How bad will this round of the outbreak be?

Are mountain pine beetle outbreaks unique to Colorado?

Are there any actions individuals can take to reduce the damage?

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Bubble magic

Trapping heat

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Looking forward

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