News
(updated May 29, 2008)

CSAS adds an on-line donation function to website.
The CSAS website at www.snowstudies.org now features an on-line donation function, allowing Operating and Mountain System Monitoring donations to be made using Paypal.  Click here to view this new page.     

CSAS's Senator Beck Study Plot Featured on Cover of New Book

We're flattered that a photograph of our Senator Beck Study Plot instrument mast was chosen for the cover of a new book edited by Richard Armstrong and Eric Brun titled: Snow and Climate: Physical Processes, Surface Energy Exchange and Modeling, soon to be released by Cambridge University Press.  Richard Armstrong spent several years working here in Silverton and within shouting distance of the Senator Beck Basin Study area during the San Juan Avalanche Project conducted by INSTAAR, in the 1970's, and is now a Senior Research Scientist at the World Data Center for Glaciology and at CIRES - University of Colorado.  His co-editor, Eric Brun, is Head of Research at Meteo France. You can preview the book at Amazon - simply search the title.

Heidi Steltzer Joins Board of Directors, Lee Dexter Retires

After six years of service to the CSAS, and a much longer teaching career at Northern Arizona University as a Professor of Geography, and as a celebrated teacher and researcher of snow and avalanche processes, Lee Dexter will make a gracious exit from academic life after the spring semester of 2008, making more time for what may be his most dangerous career to-date, high-level 'civilian' rocketry.  We may yet benefit more from his keen interest and unique skills in snow physics and snow measurements and look forward to his continued winter pilgrimages to Silverton.

Lee is proud to be replaced on the CSAS board of directors, as of June 1, 2008 by Dr. Heidi Steltzer, a researcher at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University.  Heidi's interests and already impressive research record in alpine and arctic ecology match up perfectly with the CSAS's "snow system science" research and Mountain System Monitoring programs, and she's recently begun a pioneering experiment in Senator Beck Basin invesitigating the affects of advanced snowmelt timing and warmer summer temperatures on alpine plants, research that will illuminate the possible affects of climate change in alpine environments.

Outdoor Companies Supporting CSAS Mountain System Monitoring

 We’re proud to announce that two leading outdoor companies are now supporters of the CSAS’s long-term, mountain system monitoring program.  Mountain Hardwear, through its Gives Back program has awarded the CSAS $5,000 for 2007, and Patagonia Environmental Programs, through Pine Needle Mountaineering of Durango, Colorado, has provided an additional $1,500 for 2007.  We welcome them and others to our growing list of monitoring program funders.

Dust-on-Snow Research Published

Our dust on snow research team, led by Dr. Tom Painter, now at the University of Utah, recently had our first peer-reviewed article on the project’s results published in Geophysical Research Letters, by the American Geophysical Union. 

MTNCLIM to be in Silverton, June 2008 

CIRMOUNT, the Consortium for Integrated Climate Research in Western Mountains, has selected Silverton, Colorado as the site for its bi-annual symposium on the effects of climate change in western mountains, MTNCLIM.  The meeting will run from June 9-12 and is being facilitated by the Mountain Studies Institute.  The CSAS will host a field tour of the Swamp Angel Study Plot and Senator Beck Stream Gauge monitoring facilities, and convene a monitoring working group session – stay tuned.

CSAS Receiving 1% For the Planet Grants

The CSAS recently became eligible for direct donations by companies participating in the innovative One Percent for the Planet project founded by Yvon Chouinard and Patagonia, setting the standard for “environmental tithing”.  Already, in 2008, we've received generous grants from: Verde PR & Consulting, of Durango, Colorado; Patagonia and affiliate Pine Needle Mountaineering, also of Durango; Venture Snowboards, of Silverton, Colorado, and Stellar Wood and Glass, of Marble, Colorado.
    Verde PR & Consulting  http://verdepr.com/verde/
    Patagonia  http://www.patagonia.com/web/us/patagonia.go?assetid=2927
    Pine Needle Mountaineering http://www.pineneedle.com/store/pc/
    Venture Snowboards http://www.venturesnowboards.com/

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