"Encompassing South American wildfires, Arctic sea-ice retreat, post-Soviet politics, climate change in Tibet and GIS, CU Â鶹ӰԺ geographers keep their fingers on the pulse of a changing world"

A new article titled  by CU's Clint Talbott featuring the Geography Department has been published in the Colorado Arts and Sciences magazine. The article presents an overview of the breadth of research undertaken by several faculty members and aims to redefine "Geography" by discussing the nature of our work. 

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Western U.S. forests killed by the mountain pine beetle epidemic are no more at risk to burn than healthy Western forests, according to new findings by the Â鶹ӰԺ that fly in the face of both public perception and policy.

The CU-Â鶹ӰԺ study authors looked at the three peak years of Western wildfires since 2002, using maps produced by federal land management agencies. The researchers superimposed maps of areas burned in the West in 2006, 2007 and 2012 on maps of areas identified as infested by mountain pine beetles.

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A new study that included researchers at the University of Colorado asserts that despite the series of damaging forest fires across the state in the past decade, they don't represent a dramatic departure from the historical norm.

The area of the authors' study encompassed 1.3 million acres of ponderosa pine and mixed conifer forest from Teller County west of Colorado Springs through Larimer County west and north of Fort Collins. They reconstructed the timing and severity of past fires using fire-scarred trees and tree-ring data going back to the 1600s.

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Tania Schoennagel quoted in NASA Earth Observatory, Building in Colorado's Fire Zone , 11.7.13 and , 11.8.13.

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Results of a new study show that episodes of reduced precipitation in the Southern Rocky Mountains, especially during the 2001-2002 drought, greatly accelerated a rise in numbers of mountain pine beetles. The overabundance is a threat to regional forests.

The research is the first to chart the evolution of the current pine beetle epidemic in the southern Rocky Mountains.

It compared patterns of beetle outbreaks in the two primary host species, the ponderosa pine and lodgepole pine, said University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ (CU-Â鶹ӰԺ) researcher Teresa Chapman.

A paper on the subject is published in the current issue of the journal Ecology. Chapman is lead author of the paper; co-authors include CU-Â鶹ӰԺ scientists Thomas Veblen and Tania Schoennagel.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the research.

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Whizzing along the I-70 corridor into the Rocky Mountains, it's hard not to notice widespread patches of dry, dead, red trees dispersed throughout the steep green hillsides. Whether they are ponderosa pines or lodgepole pines, many of these trees have been killed by insect infestation, most notoriously by pine beetles.

For many head-shaking observers, there is a next logical thought: All those dead trees are going to provide highly combustible fuel for a wildfire at some point. And, the thinking often goes, that's going to translate into more and more catastrophic fires.

But that conventional wisdom might be wrong. That's the conclusion of research by three Â鶹ӰԺ scientists recently published article in PLoS One, an online peer-reviewed research journal.

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Tania Schoennagel quoted in National Geographic article, 

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