Mark Williams

Mark Williams Obituary

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 14:30:17 +0000

Mark Williams Obituary Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/12/2023 - 08:30

We are very sorry to pass along the news that Mark Williams, Professor Emeritus of Geography and INSTAAR Fellow Emeritus, passed away in Boulder on June 6. Mark led Niwot LTER at ��Ƶ for two program cycles, 2004-2014, and is responsible for many of the accomplishments and directions that continue on in our program. Mark also was a founder of the Critical Zone Observatory program at ��Ƶ Boulder. Among his multiple awards, he was a Fulbright Scholar and appointed Fellow of the American Geophysical Union.

As an academic scholar, Mark’s focus was on factors influencing the hydrology and biogeochemistry of watersheds, particularly high elevation ecosystems. He also was concerned about environmental impacts to watersheds throughout Colorado and the West. That focus led Mark to pursue several areas of environmental concern:

Mark focused on nitrogen pollution from anthropogenic sources, being one of the first to recognize thresholds in nitrogen inputs to landscapes that alter the way nitrogen cycles through the ecosystem and could cause large deleterious changes in ecosystems often downstream from the source of pollution and inputs to the watershed. His findings spurred studies that are still ongoing today.

Mark and his students and colleagues recognized that greater understanding of the water quality impacts of acid rock drainage throughout the Colorado Mineral Belt required knowledge of groundwater flow paths and mineral weathering rates. His work set the stage for remediation efforts in several critical watersheds in southwestern Colorado.

Mark recognized that energy extraction methods had very large consequences on groundwater, and he contributed to a state-of-the-art assessment of fracking as a means of oil and gas extraction in the Great plans.

Perhaps most significantly, Mark saw the early signs of climate change affecting our mountains. Beginning in the 1990s, Mark and his students worked on a series of projects at NWT that monitored snowpack and the consequences of snow amounts and seasonality, and the consequences of early snowmelt. He demonstrated that snow functioned in multiple ways above and beyond its role as water provider to the west. He argued that our mountains are the water towers of the West, and that snow was the timing factor affecting the availability of that water. His snow survey program for the Front Range in the Green Lakes Valley of the Front Range is something we still conduct.

Mark has left a legacy of colleagues through his sponsorship of 35 graduate students and four postdocs, and his participation in multiple interdisciplinary studies. His legacy has allowed for so many successes at Niwot Ridge LTER. We honor his lasting impacts to our program and celebrate all his accomplishments. We will plan a time when we can come together and honor his contributions to NWT and high elevation science, likely this summer or fall.

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Alpine tundra releases long-frozen CO2

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Apr 2019 16:39:17 +0000

Alpine tundra releases long-frozen CO2 Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/02/2019 - 10:39

Trent Knoss

Thawing permafrost in high-altitude mountain ecosystems may be a stealthy, underexplored contributor to atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions, new ��Ƶ Boulder research shows.

The new findings, published today in the journal Nature Communications, show that alpine tundra in Colorado’s Front Range emits more CO2 than it captures annually, potentially creating a feedback loop that could increase climate warming and lead to even more CO2 emissions in the future.

A similar phenomenon exists in the Arctic, where research in recent decades has shown that melting permafrost is unearthing long-frozen tundra soil and releasing CO2 reserves that had been buried for centuries.

“We wondered if the same thing could be happening in alpine terrain,” said John Knowles, lead author of the new study and a former doctoral student in ��Ƶ Boulder’s Department of Geography and a researcher at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR). “This study is a strong indication that that is indeed the case.”

Forests have long been considered vital carbon ‘sinks,’ sequestering more carbon than they produce and helping to mitigate global CO2 levels. As part of the Earth’s carbon cycle, trees and other vegetation absorb CO2 via photosynthesis while microbes (which decompose soil nutrients and organic material) emit it back to the atmosphere via respiration, just as humans release CO2 with every breath.

Melting permafrost, however, changes that equation. As previously frozen tundra soil thaws and becomes exposed for the first time in years, its nutrients become freshly available for microbes to consume. And unlike plants, which go dormant in winter, microscopic organisms can feast all year long if environmental conditions are right.

To study this effect in alpine conditions, researchers measured the surface-to-air CO2 transfer over seven consecutive years (2008-2014) at the Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in Colorado, a high-altitude research project funded by the National Science Foundation that has been in continuous operation for over 35 years. The team also collected samples of soil CO2 and used radiocarbon dating to estimate how long the carbon forming that CO2 had been present in the landscape.

The study showed, somewhat surprisingly, that barren, wind-scoured tundra landscapes above 11,000 feet emitted more CO2 than they captured each year, and that a fraction of that CO2 was relatively old during the winter, the first such finding of its kind in temperate latitudes. The findings suggest higher-than-expected year-round microbial activity, even in the absence of a deep insulating snowpack.

“Microbes need it to be not too cold and not too dry, they need liquid water,” said Knowles, now a researcher at the University of Arizona. “The surprise here is that we show winter microbial activity persisting in permafrost areas that don’t collect much insulating snowpack due to wind stripping it away.”

While the alpine tundra’s net CO2 contributions are small compared to a forest’s sequestration capability, the newly-documented effect may act as something of a counterweight, hampering atmospheric CO2 reductions from mountain ecosystems in general. The findings will need to be factored in to future projections of global warming, Knowles said.

“Until now, little was known about how alpine tundra behaved with regard to this balance, and especially how it could continue emitting CO2 year after year” Knowles said. “But now, we have evidence that climate change or another disturbance may be liberating decades-to-centuries-old carbon from this landscape.”

Additional co-authors of the study include Peter Blanken of ��Ƶ Boulder’s Department of Geography; Mark Williams of ��Ƶ Boulder and INSTAAR; and Corey Lawrence of the U.S. Geological Survey. The National Science Foundation provided funding for the research.

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GEOG 4311 Watershed Biochemistry

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 20:56:49 +0000

GEOG 4311 Watershed Biochemistry Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/08/2017 - 14:56

This course is a quantitative investigation of the physical, chemical, and biological processes that determine the hydrology and hydrochemistry of headwater catchments (watersheds). A watershed is a natural unit of land from which the surface, subsurface and groundwater runoff drain to a common outlet. In this course, the emphasis is on the movement and storage of water, nutrients, and solutes on and in the context of the watershed. This course provides a process-level understanding of watershed biogeochemistry such that students will be able to understand the consequences of our planned and inadvertent human activities on water flow and quality at the catchment scale.

This course builds on and complements existing courses in Geography, particularly ‘Introduction to Hydrology’. Topics include: hydrography separation, isotopic and geochemical hydrologic tracers, water quality, pollution, geochemistry, nutrient cycling, field experiments, and simulation modeling. These processes will be applied to a range of geographic regions, emphasizing headwater catchments in montane environments.

See the University Catalog for specifics, recommendations, and prerequisites.

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Mountains west of Boulder continue to lose ice as climate warms

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 19:55:50 +0000

Mountains west of Boulder continue to lose ice as climate warms Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 01/14/2016 - 12:55

New research led by the University of Colorado Boulder indicates an ongoing loss of ice on Niwot Ridge and the adjacent Green Lakes Valley in the high mountains west of Boulder is likely to progress as the climate continues to warm.

The study area encompasses the Niwot Ridge Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site, thousands of acres of alpine tundra, subalpine forest, talus slopes, glacial lakes and wetlands stretching to the top of the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains. The Niwot Ridge LTER site, which includes Green Lakes Valley and ��Ƶ-Boulder’s Mountain Research Station (MRS), is one of 26 North American LTER sites created and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and one of the initial five LTER sites designated by the federal agency in 1980.

The decline of ice at the Niwot Ridge LTER site appears to be associated with rising temperatures each summer and autumn in recent years, said ��Ƶ-Boulder Professor Mark Williams of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, lead study author. The decline is especially evident on the Arikaree glacier -- the only glacier on Niwot Ridge -- which has been thinning by about 1 meter per year for the last 15 years.

“Things don’t look good up there,” said Williams. “While there was no significant change in the volume of the Arikaree glacier from 1955 to 2000, severe drought years in Colorado in 2000 to 2002 caused it to thin considerably. Even after heavy snow years in 2011 and again in 2014, we believe the glacier is on course to disappear in about 20 years given the current climate trend.”

The new study looked at changes in the cryosphere -- places that are frozen for at least one month of the year-- at the Niwot Ridge LTER site going back to the 1960s. In addition to the changes occurring on the Arikaree glacier, the researchers also have seen decreases in ice associated with three rock glaciers (large mounds of ice, dirt and rock) as well as subsurface areas of permafrost – frozen soil containing ice crystals.

The team used several methods to measure surface and subsurface ice on Niwot Ridge: ground-penetrating radar, which measures ice and snow thickness; resistivity, which measures the conductivity of electrical signals through ice; and seismometers to measure signals bounced through subsurface ice. “We found that a combination of all three methods provided the best picture of changing snow and ice conditions on Niwot Ridge,” said Williams.

The researchers also discovered an increased discharge of water from the Green Lakes Valley in late summer and fall after the annual snowpack had melted, a counterintuitive trend that began in the early 1980s, said Williams. The increased discharge appears to be due to higher summer temperatures melting “fossil” ice present for centuries or millennia in glaciers, rock glaciers, permafrost and other subsurface ice.

“We are taking the capital out of our hydrological bank account and melting that stored ice,” he said. “While some may think this late summer water discharge is the new normal, it is really a limited resource that will eventually disappear.”

Scientists have been gathering information on the snow, ice and plant and animal abundance and diversity on Niwot Ridge going back to the 1940s, when ��Ƶ-Boulder Professor John Marr and colleagues began studies. The two highest climate stations on Niwot Ridge, one at 10,025 feet and the other 12,300 feet, have been monitoring data continuously since 1952.

“This study demonstrates declines in ice -- glaciers, permafrost, subsurface ice and lake ice in the Niwot Ridge area over the past 30 years,” said Saran Twombly, LTER program director in NSF’s Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research. “Long-term research at Niwot Ridge offers a rare opportunity to document the continuous, progressive effects of climate change on high alpine ecosystems, from ice and nutrients to plant and animal communities.”

A special issue of the journal Plant Ecology and Diversity that includes several research papers involving ��Ƶ-Boulder faculty and students is being published this month. Study co-authors on the Niwot Ridge snow and ice paper, part of the special issue, include emeritus Professor Nel Caine of ��Ƶ-Boulder, Professor Matthew Leopold of the University of West Australia and professors Gabriel Lewis and David Dethier of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

From an ecological standpoint, Niwot Ridge has seen a significant increase in alpine shrubs above treeline in recent decades, said Williams. At one research site known as “The Saddle” at about at 11,600 feet in elevation and 3.5 miles from the Continental Divide, the ecosystem has gone from all tundra grasses and no shrubbery in the early 1990s to about 40 percent shrubs today.

“Places that once harbored magnificent wildflowers in this area are being replaced by shrubs, particularly willows,” he said. “The areas dominated by shrubs are increasing because of a positive feedback – patches of these shrubs act as snow fences, causing the accumulation of more water and nutrients and the growth of more shrubs.”

One nutrient, nitrogen -- produced primarily by vehicle emissions and agricultural and industrial operations on the Front Range and elsewhere in the West -- is being swept into the atmosphere and deposited on the tundra in increasing amounts, said Williams. Nitrogen deposition also is an issue in nearby Rocky Mountain National Park.

Niwot Ridge is part of the Roosevelt National Forest and has been designated a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Biosphere Reserve. The Green Lakes Valley is part of the City of Boulder Watershed and ��Ƶ-Boulder’s MRS is devoted to the advancement of mountain ecosystems, providing research and educational opportunities for scientists, students and the general public.

To view a video on snow, ice and water research on Niwot Ridge visit this ��Ƶ-Boulder climate website and click on “Water: A Zero Sum Game.” For more information on the Niwot Ridge LTER program and ��Ƶ-Boulder’s Mountain Research Station visit this ��Ƶ-Boulder webpage.

See more at >

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Colorado high peaks losing glaciers as climate warms

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 19:42:59 +0000

Colorado high peaks losing glaciers as climate warms Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/12/2016 - 12:42

Melting of ice on Niwot Ridge and the adjacent Green Lakes Valley in the high mountains west of Boulder, Colorado, is likely to progress as climate continues to warm, scientists have found. They report their results in a special issue of the journal Plant Ecology and Diversity. The study area is in the National Science Foundation (NSF) Niwot Ridge Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site. It encompasses thousands of acres of alpine tundra, subalpine forest, talus slopes, glacial lakes and wetlands at the top of the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains. Read NSF article

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Mark Williams Interviewed on the Mine Spill into the Animas River

Anonymous — Tue, 11 Aug 2015 02:25:47 +0000

Mark Williams Interviewed on the Mine Spill into the Animas River Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 08/10/2015 - 20:25

KUSA, Channel 9 News Interview with Mark

Animas River spill: How Colorado's 'Gold Medal' waters turned mustard | The Christian Science Monitor

What The Colorado Waste Water Spill Tells Us ��Ƶ Mining Contamination | TIME

Spill sheds light on legacy of abandoned mines out West | CBS News

NPR Interview | NPR

Could a Gold King Mine spill happen in Aspen? | Aspen Public Radio

The Truth Behind The EPA's Animas River Spill Is Messier Than You Think | Popular Science

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Testing the Water

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 16:01:26 +0000

Testing the Water Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/15/2014 - 10:01

Mark Williams interviewed on KGNU Science Show.

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Mark Williams Quoted in Inside Energy

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 16:00:10 +0000

Mark Williams Quoted in Inside Energy Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 09/12/2014 - 10:00

For people who live in close proximity to this country's current oil and gas boom, are there health risks? It’s a question people are asking from Pennsylvania to North Dakota, from Colorado to Texas, as more and more communities find themselves in the midst of unprecedented energy development. Inside Energy met with health researchers, scientists and engineers to learn how oil and gas drilling affects your health and to clarify the confusion about the issue. A Colorado-based research collaboration - the first of its kind - is bringing more than 40 experts together to study natural gas development from all angles to understand the risks and benefits.

Read entire article

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Warming trend boosts nitrogen in Boulder watershed

Anonymous — Mon, 30 Jun 2014 15:55:36 +0000

Warming trend boosts nitrogen in Boulder watershed Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/30/2014 - 09:55

Colorado Arts & Sciences Magazine highlights some of Mark Williams' research on nitrogen cycling for the Niwot Ridge LTER program. Read article

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Landowners can test wells for oil and gas pollutants

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 15:54:20 +0000

Landowners can test wells for oil and gas pollutants Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 06/20/2014 - 09:54

Mark Williams interviewed by the Coloradoan Landowners can test wells for oil and gas pollutants

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