News & Blog
An Undergraduate Computer Science Major Engages in Interdisciplinary Research on Southern Ocean Phytoplankton Modeling
The Southern Ocean is a large part of the global carbon cycle and phytoplankton play a key role by converting CO2 to organic carbon, which can be transported to the deep ocean. Previous works examined phytoplankton presence and CO2 flux but didn’t take community species composition into account. The purpose of this research, funded by a PCC Research Acceleration award to P.I.’s Alison Gray and Hannah Joy-Warren, was to determine the relationship between phytoplankton community composition and carbon fluxes.
Read morePaleoclimate Constraints on Future Climate: A Graduate Student Reflection on the 2025 PCC Summer Institute
Has paleoclimate genuinely changed our understanding of modern day climate? With an animated pre-Summer Institute paper discussion this past August, my PhD journey at UW began. Starting graduate school with an immersion in current thinking on paleoclimate via three days spent at Friday Harbor Laboratories attending the Summer Institute felt fitting. After all, I came to UW motivated to understand the future trajectory of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) – the largest source of uncertainty in future sea level rise projections.
Read more$1.5M donation transforms interdisciplinary research at the Program on Climate Change
The Program on Climate Change is expanding interdisciplinary climate science research efforts across the University thanks to the recent generous donation from Professors William Calvin and Katherine Graubard. This strengthened commitment to the Graubard Fellowship enhances the College of the Environment’s ability to recruit top PhD students by giving fellows the flexibility to pursue interdisciplinary collaborations and define their own research projects.
Read moreFinding My Research Focus: From Broad Curiosity to Methane Science
I started at the University of Washington in Fall 2024 with a broad interest in atmospheric sciences and a desire to understand how human and natural systems interacted to shape the Earth’s climate. As an undergraduate, I was drawn to questions that connected physical processes in the atmosphere to the real-world climate impacts, but I also recognized that my interests were still evolving.
Read moreGraubard Fellowship Supports Reconstructing Past Arctic Sea-Ice Coverage
The Arctic region is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the planet. Consequently, sea-ice coverage has reduced rapidly, with the summer minimum September sea-ice declining by about 40% since 1979. Sea-ice loss threatens the food security and infrastructure of coastal communities, drives unresolved changes in biological productivity, and promotes further global warming through ice-albedo feedback. However, model projections of the timescale of Arctic sea-ice decline and the resulting changes to the Arctic ecosystem vary widely.
Read morePainting with Data: Communicating Arctic Climate Change through Art and Science
Under anthropogenic climate change, the Arctic is warming up to 4 times more rapidly than the global average. This rapid warming impacts all facets of the Arctic system: altering seasonal weather patterns, intensifying the hydrologic cycle and storm events, reshaping ecosystem dynamics, and melting the land and sea ice that blankets much of the polar landscape. These changes do not remain confined to the Arctic.
Read moreConnecting two Ice Sheets: Glacier and Snow Seasonality in Greenland and Antarctica
As we continue to expand our understanding of climate change, it is crucial to study its effects on both short- and long-term time scales. Seasonality is the study of sub-annual patterns in data that are significant to long-term data trends. Here, I present my main PhD work on the seasonality of outlet glaciers in Greenland and a side project on the seasonality of firn, which led me to do fieldwork in Antarctica!
Read moreAnnouncing the PNW Climate Ambassadors: Building Capacity for Public Climate Conversations
How do scientists develop confidence and experience having conversations with the general public around climate science, global and local impact, and solutions when their areas of expertise are in a disciplinary science such as oceanography or urban planning? In Fall 2024, the Program on Climate Change (PCC), and the Washington State Climate Office (WASCO), set out to create a training program that would help develop the capacity for graduate students to do just that, and to serve as a community resource on climate science and solutions.
Read moreBeyond Prediction: Building Capacity and Innovation in Adaptation Through a Participatory Evaluation
As the impacts of climate change intensify, communities across Washington are increasingly engaging in climate change adaptation planning to prepare for more frequent and severe climate impacts. Monitoring and evaluation of these plans is a crucial step to improve their efficacy and implementation, but often goes undone, as many communities struggle to assemble the resources and staff capacity evaluation requires. This leaves a critical blind spot as to whether a community’s adaptation practices are yielding the desired results.
Read moreResilience in Diversity: Climate Change and Seed Selection on Organic Farms in Western WA
Since the dawn of agriculture, humans have been stewarding seeds. Traditionally bred seeds are the result of careful selections over time, the inheritors of traits selected by both environmental pressures and human desires. Seeds hold information for how to birth life anew, passed down along with the knowledge of how to care for them. They are tended into crops used for familiar meals and healing medicines.
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