Spotlight Faculty Fellow

A Q&A with the scientists who built a decades-long record of Earth’s atmosphere

Gabe Allen — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 22:59:04 +0000

A Q&A with the scientists who built a decades-long record of Earth’s atmosphere Gabe Allen Wed, 09/23/2026 - 16:59

Gabe Allen

Want to learn about greenhouse gas research at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) in person? Join us for “Greenhouse Gases Up Close” on Thursday, October 15th. Visit this page for more information.

With each passing year, Earth’s atmosphere takes on higher and higher concentrations of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane. Yet, these changes are invisible to us. We can’t directly see, taste, smell, or feel them in the air.

Instead, we rely on precise measurements made by scientists day after day, year after year.

Above: Pieter Tans stands for an interview in the Carbon-14 lab in 2026. Below: Scott Lehman holds up graphite extracted from an atmospheric air sample while he meets with CU �Ǹ�Թ� Chancellor Justin Schwartz in 2025. (Gabe Allen)

INSTAAR Fellows Emeriti Pieter Tans and Scott Lehman are two scientists who have contributed immensely to this record. From 1985 to 2019, Tans led the effort to maintain and refine a global record of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In the early 2000s, Tans recruited Lehman to develop a method for recording radiocarbon concentrations — an isotopic tracer of the sources of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Both of these efforts continue to this day — at NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory and INSTAAR’s Laboratory for AMS Radiocarbon Preparation and Research, respectively. INSTAAR sat down with Tans and Lehman to discuss the history and future of atmospheric monitoring, as well as its role in international environmental policy.

How does the Carbon-14 Lab contribute to global atmospheric monitoring of greenhouse gases?

Scott: We've known for quite some time that carbon-14, also known as radiocarbon, is a theoretically ideal tracer for anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide derived from combustion of fossil fuels and cement production. In around 2003, Pieter came to me asking whether we would consider developing ultra-precise measurement capabilities for samples coming from the global atmospheric sampling network that Pieter had helped to develop through NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory.

We very quickly obtained measurement precisions that were scientifically meaningful. And so, for the first time, we had a tracer in the atmosphere that we could track back sources on the ground in order to estimate the timing and intensity of anthropogenic emissions. We can aggregate these values to come up with emissions estimates for specific regions, nations, or for the whole world.

Pieter: This really is an important capability for society. When governments decide to decrease emissions, you need to have an objective and transparent way to measure the outcome.

A heat map of the ratio of Carbon-14 found in atmospheric carbon dioxide around the world. Low Carbon-14 ratios occur in areas above or downwind of major fossil fuel emissions — seen in warm colors here. (Courtesy Scott Lehman)

This operation has been ongoing for more than two decades now. Give us a brief overview of how it got started and how it works today.

Scott: So Pieter came to us in 2003, and we started a pilot program making measurements on flasks of air gathered from Niwot Ridge right here in our backyard. That location gives us a pretty good baseline for the composition of well-mixed air over the North American continent, so that's where we chose to get started. It also happens to be the site of NOAA’s first-ever atmospheric CO2 measurement, which they sampled back in 1967, using INSTAAR’s Mountain Research Station.

The program grew substantially, through a series of grants that Pieter, our NOAA colleague John Miller, and I wrote over the next few years. This enabled us to extend the measurements into a number of different sites within the NOAA network that Pieter had helped to establish earlier.

Today, we measure roughly 50 sites around the world, mostly in North America — our initial focus was on independently determining US emissions. Basically, flasks come in and out of the central operational hub at the NOAA building here in �Ǹ�Թ�, where they measure a whole suite of greenhouse gases. Then we work with the air that's left over. Three times a week, flasks are brought to INSTAAR and returned from INSTAAR to NOAA. We have to turn those flasks around quickly so that they can get back into circulation within the global network.

From very early on, we streamlined a system where the Global Monitoring Lab and INSTAAR’s Carbon-14 Lab can basically function as one lab. Our databases are linked and we provide information back and forth in a secure way.

The "T-Van" air sampling site sits at more than 11,000 feet above sea level high in the Indian Peaks to the West of �Ǹ�Թ�. The site's high elevation allows researchers to gather baseline values for continental atmospheric gases. It is home to the second-longest continuous record of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the world, which INSTAAR has maintained since the 1960s. (Gabe Allen)

Field Technician Austin Willbern climbs into the "T-Van" air sampling cabin at Niwot Ridge high in the mountains south of Nederland, CO. The first sample Lehman's team ever analyzed for carbon-14 was gathered at this site in 2003. The Carbon-14 lab has continued to analyze air samples from the site ever since, creating a 23-year record. (Gabe Allen)

Pieter, you have played an outsized role in developing the field of greenhouse gas measurement and monitoring. What motivated you?

Pieter: When I was a student in physics, I wanted to do something where I could do real science, find the truth, and at the same time, do something of value to society. In 1972, I came across this book called “Study of Man's Impact on Climate.” It was an important early scientific assessment of potential climate changes caused by CO2 emissions. So I thought, ‘that’s what I’m going to do.’ I picked climate change.

Scott: Pieter has had a foot in isotopic measurement for a very long time, and the algorithms that we use to understand our measurements are, to this day, based on his early work. When this whole thing got started, Pieter had the vision to know that isotopic measurements weren’t feasible at NOAA, but he could get them through collaboration with INSTAAR.

Why is this work important?

Scott: You cannot manage what you cannot see. So whether it's looking at the changing atmospheric concentrations of the gases themselves, or looking at the isotopes, which tell us about sources and sinks of those gases, it’s essential that we be able to see what's going on. The decision about what to do about it is not ours to make — though we might have our opinions.

Importantly, at any given moment, spatial gradients of CO2 over large land areas are dominated by exchange with the biosphere, and local concentrations rise and fall throughout the day and the year due to natural processes. Carbon-14 allows us to look past those variations and track contributions solely from fossil fuel use. This tells us on a region-by-region or nation-by-nation basis whether emissions are rising or falling, which is information you can't get from measuring CO2 alone.

Can you expand on that? What potential do these measurements have for measuring emissions on a national or international scale?

Scott: UN member nations are required to report their emissions using a set of mostly economic statistics. You have receipts for fossil fuel use, and you base the calculations off that. The problem is that this method requires almost perfect a priori knowledge of every emissions process and its intensity everywhere. You're more likely to undercount than overcount in a system like that.

Our methodology is top-down, because you're actually looking at the result of our emissions — the full impact of human activities. We can sense virtually all the emissions out there. And we tend to find that our estimates are larger than the so-called bottom-up or inventory-based estimates.

For instance, China is now the largest emitter of fossil fuel-derived CO2, but their methods of accounting have been changing over time in ways that sometimes seem favorable to them in terms of meeting emissions reduction targets. Our method theoretically allows a third party to look over their shoulder and say, ‘okay, this is what's really happening,’ based on the truth teller here, which is the atmosphere, which integrates all emissions at all temporal and spatial scales.

This work has to be international. It’s essential that we share our methods and data across international borders and encourage scientists in other countries to replicate this effort. We are currently working on a proposal to train other scientists around the world how to detect CO2 emitted by fossil fuel combustion using our methods. This would include a key collaboration with Chinese investigators so they can do their own top-down observations.

And, our work here in the US has recently taken on added importance. The US stopped reporting emissions data to the UN and the international community last year, so now records like ours are all we have.

Chad Wolak presses a graphite sample in the Carbon-14 lab. In order to measure the precise ratio of carbon isotopes in an air sample, technicians must first extract carbon atoms from each sample using a process called "graphitization." (Ethan Welty)

Graphite samples await analysis on a mass spectrometer in the Carbon-14 Lab. Each of these tiny pieces of graphite is made entirely of carbon atoms stripped from the carbon dioxide in a sample of air from Earth's atmosphere. (Ethan Welty)

This work has made it into a wide array of governmental and intergovernmental reports over the years. What makes it pertinent from a policymaking perspective?

Scott: Just about every scientific and policy exercise aimed at trying to understand changes in atmospheric composition and climate makes use of the NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory data, which greatly expanded under Pieter’s leadership. It’s a fundamental aspect of every Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. It was there in the very first IPCC report, which former INSTAAR Director Mark Meier also contributed important work to.

More recently in 2025, the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine did a fast track study of the Endangerment Finding — the 2009 EPA determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. Again, NOAA's data features very prominently in that Academy-level effort to defend the finding. The report upheld and even expanded on the science underlying the original finding, but ultimately it was ignored — the finding was rescinded by the EPA earlier this year.

Pieter: We don't advise on policy, but we also don’t omit or hold back information. That is our duty as scientists.

Scott: The records produced by the Global Monitoring Laboratory and INSTAAR are essentially unassailable. We do ongoing quality control, and if we find a measurement bias in the data we go back and correct it throughout our records.

Who has access to the information gathered by the Carbon-14 Lab? Is it accessible to the public?

Scott: One important thing for people to know is that all of the data we create is freely available to the public. Anybody else anywhere in the world can access the data, do their own analysis, and see what they think. That level of transparency is extremely important to the enterprise because it's fundamentally apolitical.

Pieter: Here’s a nice example of why transparency is important. In the mid-90s we had a lot of people questioning our data. I got an e-mail from somebody in Belgium who demanded to see the raw data from the Mauna Loa Baseline Observatory in Hawaii. I said, well the raw data is all voltages, but I can get you those — it's a long file. The voltages give you concentrations based on the voltages of standards with known concentrations. I said ‘pick a year, and then I'll send you everything you need.’ Then I gave him our conversion algorithm, and told him that he could make his own algorithm too if he liked. He came back a couple weeks later and said, ‘yeah, I get the same result as you guys do.’

Now, a few years later, there was some discussion in Europe between prominent climate skeptics and this guy actually defended us. Despite his general skepticism, he had faith in our data because he had seen the backend.

What is the current state of funding for the Carbon-14 Lab?

Scott: Our lab and the Stable Isotope Lab have relied on funding from NOAA to perform measurements for the Global Monitoring Laboratory for the past two plus decades. The contracts run for five years, and don't obligate NOAA to spend a dime. Instead, they set a cap for NOAA to spend on our services. Recently, we recompeted and were awarded a follow-up contract, but we received only about a third of the money we expected for this fiscal year.

It's not yet clear whether we might get a top-up next year to help offset this year’s reduction. The latest budget proposal from the federal Office of Management and Budget once again proposed a large cut to NOAA. This could be an existential threat to our operation long-term, unless Congress again steps in to preserve the organization’s research functions. This reality, along with recent federal rule changes, means there is a lot of uncertainty moving forward.

I think on that basis, we need to be on the lookout for private sector and foundation support. Maintaining the continuity and integrity of these long-term records is really important, and right now we need all the help we can get. That’s true no matter how our federal funding ends up. The best case scenario for us is flat funding, which equates to a funding cut if you factor in inflation.

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

Pieter Tans led NOAA’s Carbon Cycle Gases Group through its formative years, and Scott Lehman developed a technique to identify the sources of greenhouse gases globally. The two researchers reflect on decades of successful collaboration.

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Trip report: investigating the biological impact of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico

Gabe Allen — Mon, 04 May 2026 17:48:48 +0000

Trip report: investigating the biological impact of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico Gabe Allen Mon, 05/04/2026 - 11:48

Gabe Allen

In the spring of 2021, Shaily Rahman embarked from Cocodrie, Louisiana aboard the US Research Vessel Pelican bound for study sites near the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. Her goal was a one-off trip to collect sediment samples over 2 days at sea. But just two weeks after her return, Hurricane Ida roared into the gulf with such force that it briefly reversed the flow of the Mississippi River.

The storm devastated the Louisiana coastline. For Rahman and her students, it also created a scientific opening. Her sampling effort offered a pre-storm baseline that — if combined with subsequent data — could provide insight into how extreme weather affects the Gulf’s nutrient cycles.

Shaily Rahman takes a much-needed moment of respite aboard the RV Pelican, a boat in the US Academic Research Fleet. (Courtesy)

Rahman quickly secured funding through the National Science Foundation to return to the gulf. Since then, she has returned to the delta seven more times. This week, she is back again from another 10-day cruise aboard the Pelican with samples that will keep her lab busy for months.

Rahman’s focus is silicon, the second most abundant element in the Earth’s crust and an essential nutrient for life. Rivers like the Mississippi transport silicon into the ocean, where much of it is incorporated into the skeletons of single-celled plankton called diatoms. When the diatoms die, they sink to the ocean floor.

While the amount of silicon and other nutrients entering the gulf via the Mississippi River is well-understood, Rahman’s research aims to discern what nutrients are released by the seabed.

“How much of that nutrient flux is being recycled into the water column from the seabed and then available to algae?” Rahman posed.

Extreme weather, like Hurricane Ida, further complicates this question — and makes it more interesting. Heavy storms churn up the seabed and suspend sediment in the water. Rahman and her collaborators aim to discern if this disturbance may release a sudden pulse of nutrients before resettling.

“It’s already a hard question to answer, and when you add in hurricanes and extreme weather — that makes it even harder,” she said.

Crew members pose for a group photo aboard the RV Pelican in April, 2026. (Courtesy)

These processes aren’t just theoretical, they have real-world tangible impacts. Diatoms, which rely on silicon, form the basis of the gulf’s marine food web. That food web, in turn, supports commercial fishing and tourism industries that contribute billions of dollars to regional economies each year. Diatoms are also responsible for more than 15% of Earth’s oxygen production

The right balance of silicon, and other nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, can support a thriving marine ecosystem with plentiful fish. Yet, the wrong balance can lead to a proliferation of harmful algae that strip the gulf of oxygen leading to massive fish kills — a scenario that played out off the Texas Gulf Coast in 2023.

Rahman’s research questions are among many others aboard the Pelican. One researcher, for instance, is investigating the overlapping effects of the silicon cycle and the carbon cycle — research that could have major implications for future predictions of greenhouse gas warming.

Rahman will also return to �Ǹ�Թ� with a cooler full of preserved sediment samples for use in various graduate student research efforts. Collectively, these inquiries will help to demystify how chemicals move through the sediment, water, and air of the Gulf of Mexico. The results could help regional managers predict and mitigate negative outcomes.

“Developing a baseline is good for predictive models,” Rahman said. “Are the fish going to die, or is your food web going to be more productive?”

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

INSTAAR fellow Shaily Rahman has just returned from her eighth research cruise in the Mississippi River Delta region of the Gulf of Mexico. Sediment samples from the trip will provide insight into the effects of extreme weather on marine food webs.

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Q&A: 39 days at sea, hunting for clues in seawater’s biological detritus

Gabe Allen — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 14:45:00 +0000

Q&A: 39 days at sea, hunting for clues in seawater’s biological detritus Gabe Allen Mon, 04/27/2026 - 08:45

Gabe Allen

Ten months may seem like an excessive amount of time to prepare for a cruise, but it’s not for a scientist.

Julio Sepúlveda and Edgart Flores got notice that there was a last-minute opening aboard the German Research Vessel Sonne this past December. This presented an opportunity to carry out an ambitious research project that had been indefinitely postponed since the COVID-19 pandemic, but it only left them 10 months to prepare before the ship departed from Antofagasta, Chile in October.

“We had to get ready in a relatively short time, but we managed to do it, in large part because of the efforts by the chief scientists and collaborators in Germany and Chile,” Sepúlveda said.

The cruise, on the whole, was organized around investigations of the extremely arid Atacama Desert and the ocean waters that abut it. The Atacama is the driest nonpolar desert in the world, while the nearby ocean is home to a unique ecosystem that flourishes despite extremely low levels of dissolved oxygen.

Sepúlveda and Flores’ mission was at sea. They came to collect biological detritus from vast quantities of seawater in search of a deeper understanding of the ecosystem at a molecular level.

This week, INSTAAR sat down with Sepúlveda to debrief about the cruise, the research, and what comes next.

Click for caption info

One of the projects you were working on during the cruise focused on microbial communities in low-oxygen zones. Can you give us the context?

Yes, so one of the areas we visited, off the coast of northern Chile, right next to the Atacama desert, is characterized by ocean upwelling — water from below is brought up to the surface by local wind and currents. Because of this upwelling, phytoplankton are highly abundant on the surface. When that biomass sinks, it's degraded by microbes, which consume a lot of oxygen. This creates an oxygen-deficient zone. Some people call them dead zones — though that phrase is more often in reference to anthropogenically driven impacts in coastal areas. What we have here occurs naturally in the open ocean.

The problem is that these areas are expanding and becoming more intense because of warming in the ocean. There have been a few studies showing this, and they have also predicted further expansion with global warming. Low oxygen is a big stressor for marine life. So if these areas are becoming larger, that means that the habitat of certain organisms is shrinking.

But these areas are also home to some very unique microbial communities. Unlike other life forms, these organisms don’t rely on oxygen to drive their metabolisms. Instead, they gain energy by breaking down nitrogen-containing compounds into inert nitrogen gas and water. This process removes nitrogen from the ecosystem. So, these microbial communities are very important on a global scale, because they can basically control how much oxygen and nitrogen is available in the ocean.

Julio Sepúlveda logs data at a work station aboard the Sonne. (Courtesy)

What kind of data did you collect on these microbial communities and what questions are you investigating?

We're trying to understand how these communities can adapt to multiple environmental stressors, including ocean warming, ocean acidification, and deoxygenation. How do we do this? We study the fats, or lipids, found in the cell membranes of these organisms. Why? Because organisms are able to change the chemistry of their cell membranes in order to adapt to environmental factors.

Imagine a stick of butter in a cool room, versus a bottle of olive oil. The butter is solid, because it is a saturated fat, while the olive oil is liquid, because it is an unsaturated fat. Organisms that live in warmer waters produce more butter-like fats to keep their cell membranes sturdy, while organisms that live in colder environments produce more olive oil-like fats, to keep their cell membranes flexible. If, all of the sudden, you put an organism that lives in warm waters in the Arctic, it will freeze to death unless it can adjust the ratio of fats it is producing — and the same vice versa.

So, what we do is collect large volumes of sea water at different depths using instruments known as in situ pumps. That allows us to capture a large swath of suspended particles coming from organisms in the ocean. Then we concentrate this material using large filters, freeze it, and bring it to the lab. In the lab, we can study the chemical composition of the entire microbial community at a particular water depth.

This approach is called environmental lipidomics. Basically, we’re able to see all of the fats produced in a given ecosystem. It allows us to do chemical fingerprinting, where we link certain fats back to the organisms that produce them. We also try to figure out which of these chemical signatures are unique to which systems and which signatures represent adaptations to environmental stressors.

Another part of the work we did was to filter smaller volumes of sea water to analyze DNA, which basically allows us to get a better sense of who's there, and look at the genetic potential of certain organisms to produce certain lipids. Finally, we also filtered samples for RNA, which allows us to see which genes are actually being expressed.

So, now we know which lipids are present, which organisms are present, and which genes they are expressing. This allows us to look at how the entire system is adapting to change. Is the makeup of species in the community shifting, or are the existing species genetically equipped to adapt to these changes, for instance? The integration of these genomics techniques with lipidomics is called meta-omics.

Why are these important questions?

If the chemistry of these organisms changes, that influences the quality of the organic matter consumed by all of the organisms in the marine trophic web. If you, for instance, reduce the number of unsaturated fats, that will have huge implications for animals. Animals cannot produce omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, we have to get them from eating primary producers like plants and phytoplankton, or from animals that feed on them like fish. So if the composition of phytoplankton changes, that has implications for zooplankton and then fish and eventually all the way up to us. It impacts the nutritional value at the very base of the food web.

This can also have big impacts on fish physiology — fish will struggle if they don't have the right proportion of good fatty acids. It could impact reproduction and potentially even lead to the collapse of some fisheries around the world. Now, this is speculation beyond the current research, obviously, but these are things that we care about, and that's where we study how these ecosystems are changing.

The scientific crew of Expedition SO315 poses aboard the Sonne. (Courtesy)

What’s next?

One of the things that I would love to do in the near future is to team up with some biogeochemical modelers or ecological modelers or climate modelers, people we have in-house, like [INSTAAR director Nicole Lovenduski]. Modelers may be able to put all of this data that we’re parsing into more complex numerical models or statistical analyses that allow us to get a much more quantitative idea of what drives change in these communities —what are the lipids telling us?

The long-term objective is to use some of these chemical signatures as indicators of the status of marine ecosystems. If we can infer which organisms are present, how they are adapting, and which adaptations might occur in response to certain environmental stressors, we might be able to see when and how an ecosystem is experiencing environmental pressure, just from analyzing a water sample.

We may also be able to use these tools to power predictive models of future ecological and chemical changes. It could help us go from models of things like temperature and dissolved oxygen to the future conditions of trophic webs, ocean chemistry, and fisheries. This is really thinking a lot further in time, but I guess those are the kinds of things that get me and others in my group excited about the work we do. We're trying to make stronger connections between what we find and what's really critical for us as humanity to understand.

Lastly, we plan to apply the information gathered from the water column to study changes in microbial processes associated with the expansion of oxygen-deficient zones during glacial-interglacial cycles. Stay tuned.

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

Julio Sepúlveda and Edgart Flores spent more than a month aboard a German Research Cruise off the coast of Chile last fall. Now, they hope to unlock a new method for inferring ecological health from water samples.

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What does it take to make a hit podcast about science?

Gabe Allen — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 12:00:00 +0000

What does it take to make a hit podcast about science? Gabe Allen Thu, 03/12/2026 - 06:00

Scott Taylor posts a note to an idea board as he and Zach Karl plan the first 12 episodes of “Okay, But… Birds.” (courtesy photo)

Gabe Allen

Scott Taylor posts a note to an idea board as he and Zach Karl plan the first 12 episodes of “Okay, But… Birds.” (courtesy photo)

Scott Taylor has his hands full at CU �Ǹ�Թ�. He is an associate professor with research and teaching responsibilities, and the director of the Mountain Research Station. Yet, he recently added another job title to the list: podcast host.

Visit the Okay, But... Birds site

Taylor’s podcast, “Okay, But… Birds,” tackles a wide range of avian topics, ranging from the status of bird flu in 2026 to the rising popularity of birding. He mostly interviews fellow academics, but has a knack for keeping conversations compelling without diving too far into the scientific weeds. And, he isn’t afraid to bring on ornithophiles from other fields. One recent episode featured Pulitzer Prize-Winning popular science author Ed Yong.

Taylor’s goal? To spark scientific curiosity in bird-curious listeners.

“A lot of people are interested in birding, which is great,” Taylor said. “Less people understand the science behind these amazing creatures.”

“Okay, But… Birds” is already making waves. In just a few short months, the podcast has published 14 episodes and amassed thousands of followers on social media. Just before its debut, Taylor was invited onto NPR’s 1A to talk about birds and answer listener questions.

This week, INSTAAR sat down with Taylor to pull back the curtain on “Okay, But… Birds.”

The show is so polished. Your written intros are punchy and immediate, the sound design, set design and video are crisp and attractive. Who is working on this aside from yourself?

My partner, Zach Karl, is the producer and editor. He’s a business consultant, and he’s also an RnB artist — he’s been doing sound design and production for years. It’s been amazing to have him thinking through design and filming and editing. The podcast felt like a really cool way to take my love of talking to the public about science and birds and combine that with my partner's love of production and media.

Take us through the show format. How is it structured?

We start with a sizzle reel — something memorable from the episode. Then there’s a monologue at the beginning, usually a storytelling monologue where I relate the topic back to a personal anecdote. Then the main segment is an interview with someone who is either an expert in the science of birds, or someone for whom birds really matter — we call it “talk birdy to me.” Then we have a segment called “that’s BS,” which stands for “bird stuff,” where we basically debunk a myth — like if you touch a baby bird it won’t be rejected by its parents. We end with a fact, for the listeners that want to come away with a conversation piece. The episodes are typically 30 minutes — not too long.

Who do you have on? Is there a vetting process?

At the beginning we came up with 12 topics that we thought would be really interesting to our audience. We started by just asking, who do we already know, but thinking carefully about career stage and life experience. So we’ve had a lot of people on who I have a direct connection to and some where the connection is less direct. For instance, there’s Linda Macaulay, who is the namesake of the world's largest and oldest scientific archive of wildlife recordings. We were really excited to have her on the show, and the episode turned out great because we could pull from a vast catalogue of her field recordings.

As we progress past the initial list, we’re considering a lot of things like topics our listeners are suggesting, and representation. Recently we filmed with Doug Tallamy, a renowned entomologist who is widely known as a thought leader in yard naturalization and who founded Homegrown National Park. That episode is great and we’re excited for it to air.

You are such a skilled storyteller. How did you develop that aptitude?

I was a really shy kid. I always really loved nature, and I spent a lot of time walking around in the woods where I grew up in Ontario. But, I haven’t always been comfortable with public speaking. The year after I finished high school, I got a job as a naturalist at McGregor Point Provincial Park. It was everything from leading wildlife walks to dressing up as a turtle and singing campfire songs. That’s when I really started to get into the idea that you can be animated and show people how much you care about these things. I did that job for five years, while I was in school studying science in a serious way for the first time. Finding ways to talk about science that were really inspiring was a part of my job, and it really served me well.

Scott Taylor kneels by a newly-constructed backdrop for “Okay, But… Birds.” (courtesy photo)

The paint dries on the backdrop for “Okay, But… Birds” in Scott Taylor and Zach Karl’s garage. (courtesy photo)

For people new to the show, what is a good episode to start with?

People should start with the question that seems most interesting to them! The podcast is called Okay… But…” because each episode is centered around a big bird question. The first episode, “Okay, but is bird monogamy just PR?” breaks a lot of myths and our recent episode “Okay, but why is a bird’s world more colorful?” is a really fun and approachable topic. I think all of the episodes have something for everyone. Science is a journey, and we take people along and try to keep it really understandable.

What is a moment from an interview that stands out to you?

Linda Macaulay told some crazy stories. She was recording bird calls in West Africa with a former British spy who had used bird watching as his cover. One day, they went back to the hotel for lunch and saw all of these people with machine guns in the woods outside. Later, they were having dinner at the hotel and two tables over was Charles Taylor, the Liberian rebel warlord. Then, they saw some American guys in suits drop a metal briefcase with him — probably CIA operatives.

It’s also just fun to see where people’s excitement about their work comes from. Everyone has a different reason for loving birds, and often it comes from personal experiences.

Even though I’ve spent my career studying birds, there’s so much I still don’t know. For instance, I didn’t realize that avian influenza is the biggest outbreak in wildlife ever. I learn something new each episode.

What advice would you give to another academic who wants to start a podcast about their field?

We built a really solid pitch deck — basically a presentation that covers the show’s concept, mission, and target audience. We didn’t actually end up pitching it to any networks, but it was a really useful way to really think carefully about personas, audiences and branding. It’s my partner’s job to do that sort of thing. It's really important, and Zach is really amazing at it.

I’m a good storyteller, but that alone is not enough to do this successfully. We’re really lucky that, within our partnership, we have all of the skills we need to do this well. There’s little things, like we have a tech kit that we send out to interviewees. At the end of the day, it’s really just two guys in a garage, but together we have really complimentary experience that makes the show what it is.

What’s next?

We have 24 episodes already planned out for season one and two. Right now we’re focused on producing those and getting them out there. We also want to engage with our followers more, perhaps by bringing in listener questions or commentary to the show.

One thing we would like to do in the future is have a featured slot on the podcast as an award for a graduate student speaking at a conference. I want to find ways to use the show to encourage scientists to engage with a wider audience and encourage people to engage with science.

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

At the end of last year, Scott Taylor launched a new podcast called “Okay, But… Birds.” The ornithology-focused podcast has already attracted thousands of followers and the attention of a national radio program.

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'Hiding in plain sight': Scientists reflect on years studying life in Antarctic desert (CU �Ǹ�Թ� Today)

David J Lubinski — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 23:48:47 +0000

'Hiding in plain sight': Scientists reflect on years studying life in Antarctic desert (CU �Ǹ�Թ� Today) David J Lubinski Wed, 02/11/2026 - 16:48

Researchers at the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-Term Ecological Research Program have spent more than three decades studying ecosystems in one of the world’s most hostile environments. Diane McKnight and Mike Gooseff discuss the importance of the research, its challenges, and its rewards.

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Research highlight: Dr. Keith Musselman and the EcoTram (MRS News)

Gabe Allen — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:53:42 +0000

Research highlight: Dr. Keith Musselman and the EcoTram (MRS News) Gabe Allen Wed, 01/14/2026 - 09:53

INSTAAR fellow Keith Musselman and collaborators have constructed an "EcoTram" that continuously measures hydrological and ecological variables across a 400-foot transect high in the Indian Peaks. The system provides a wealth of data for investigations into shifting mountain systems.

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Embracing excellence: CU �Ǹ�Թ� honors postdocs and mentors during National Postdoc Appreciation Week (Postdoctoral Affairs)

David J Lubinski — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 17:55:06 +0000

Embracing excellence: CU �Ǹ�Թ� honors postdocs and mentors during National Postdoc Appreciation Week (Postdoctoral Affairs) David J Lubinski Mon, 09/22/2025 - 11:55

Among a select group to receive awards were two INSTAARs: Nathalie Vriend was selected as a CU �Ǹ�Թ� Outstanding Postdoc Mentor of the Year and Edgart Flores won an honorable mention as an Outstanding Postdoc. Congratulations to both of them!

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INSTAAR welcomes two new faculty fellows

Gabe Allen — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 21:31:58 +0000

INSTAAR welcomes two new faculty fellows Gabe Allen Tue, 08/26/2025 - 15:31

Gabe Allen

INSTAAR has hired two new faculty fellows, Laura Sunberg and Zhi Li. Both Sunberg and Li will join the department of civil, environmental and architectural engineering as assistant professors in addition to conducting research at INSTAAR.

Though Sunberg is new to her position, she is not new to INSTAAR. For the past two years, she has studied how microplastics circulate through the ocean during an NSF-funded postdoctoral position at the institute. Starting last year, she also served as the postdoc representative on the INSTAAR directorate, the institute’s governing body. As a faculty fellow, she will now rejoin the directorate as a voting member.

Sunberg will join a small, but growing cohort of INSTAAR researchers with expertise in environmental fluid mechanics. Institute leadership hope that her appointment will spark new collaborations and expand the institute’s focus on emerging environmental hazards.

“Dr. Sunberg’s novel laboratory and numerical modeling studies of microplastic and firebrand transport will expand INSTAAR’s research portfolio into new areas of growing environmental concern,” INSTAAR director Nicole Lovenduski said.

Zhi Li comes to INSTAAR after wrapping up a postdoctoral position at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. He is an expert in surface water modeling, with a particular focus on refining flood prediction methods. At INSTAAR, he also plans to establish a “collaboratory” aimed at understanding the overlapping impacts of climate change and flooding on agriculture, infrastructure and public health.

This summer, Li was quoted in multiple stories covering flash flooding across the U.S., including this New York Times article. Li will join a growing number of INSTAAR members studying climate-related extremes and hazards, an emerging focus area for the institute.

“Dr. Li will elevate INSTAAR’s research on climate-related extremes by bringing additional expertise on hydrology and flood impacts,” Lovenduski said. “His numerical modeling research will complement the CSDMS program, and his community efforts will enhance INSTAAR’s public engagement.”

Laura Sunberg, an expert in marine microplastic transport, and Zhi Li, an expert in flood modeling, are INSTAAR’s latest faculty members. Both researchers are also beginning professorships in the department of civil, environmental and architectural engineering.

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Report paints grim picture of how nuclear war could impact oceans (CU �Ǹ�Թ� Today)

Gabe Allen — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 15:48:40 +0000

Report paints grim picture of how nuclear war could impact oceans (CU �Ǹ�Թ� Today) Gabe Allen Wed, 07/30/2025 - 09:48

In a Q&A, INSTAAR director Nicole Lovenduski talks about her contributions to a report on the environmental impacts of a hypothetical nuclear war. Lovenduski was tasked with modeling impacts in the world's oceans, which could be global and long-lasting.

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Rainy spring may be bad news for fire season. Here’s what you can do about it (CU �Ǹ�Թ� Today)

Gabe Allen — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 19:13:19 +0000

Rainy spring may be bad news for fire season. Here’s what you can do about it (CU �Ǹ�Թ� Today) Gabe Allen Tue, 06/17/2025 - 13:13

Grassland fires are becoming more frequent and more dangerous across the country. Ecologist Katharine Suding has spent her career understanding the ecosystems that produce them. She shares insights in a Q&A.

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Spotlight Faculty Fellow

A Q&A with the scientists who built a decades-long record of Earth’s atmosphere

Want to learn about greenhouse gas research at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) in person? Join us for “Greenhouse Gases Up Close” on Thursday, October 15th. Visit this page for more information.

How does the Carbon-14 Lab contribute to global atmospheric monitoring of greenhouse gases?

This operation has been ongoing for more than two decades now. Give us a brief overview of how it got started and how it works today.

Pieter, you have played an outsized role in developing the field of greenhouse gas measurement and monitoring. What motivated you?

Why is this work important?

Can you expand on that? What potential do these measurements have for measuring emissions on a national or international scale?

This work has made it into a wide array of governmental and intergovernmental reports over the years. What makes it pertinent from a policymaking perspective?

Who has access to the information gathered by the Carbon-14 Lab? Is it accessible to the public?

What is the current state of funding for the Carbon-14 Lab?

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Q&A: 39 days at sea, hunting for clues in seawater’s biological detritus

One of the projects you were working on during the cruise focused on microbial communities in low-oxygen zones. Can you give us the context?

What kind of data did you collect on these microbial communities and what questions are you investigating?

Why are these important questions?

What’s next?

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What does it take to make a hit podcast about science?

The show is so polished. Your written intros are punchy and immediate, the sound design, set design and video are crisp and attractive. Who is working on this aside from yourself?

Take us through the show format. How is it structured?

Who do you have on? Is there a vetting process?

You are such a skilled storyteller. How did you develop that aptitude?

For people new to the show, what is a good episode to start with?

What is a moment from an interview that stands out to you?

What advice would you give to another academic who wants to start a podcast about their field?

What’s next?

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