News & Blog | Program on Climate Change

Feb 27, 2020 |

In the News, People

Changes in the Madden-Julian Oscillation affect global precipitation

UW Atmospheric Sciences professor Daehyun Kim studies tropical weather patterns, and contributed to a recent paper in Nature which suggests that trends in decreased rainfall here in the Pacific Northwest may be linked to warming in the Western Pacific Ocean, near Indonesia. The warming ocean affects weather patterns, increasing rainfall in the Amazon, southwest Africa and northern Australia, and reducing it in parts of Asia and Western North America.

Congratulations to Kyle Armour, 2020 Sloan Fellow for Early Career Research

Kyle Armour is an assistant professor in the School of Oceanography and Department of Atmospheric Sciences. He is studying the role of the ocean in climate change using a combination of oceanographic and atmospheric observations, numerical climate model simulations and theory, and is a lead author on the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report. Kyle currently serves on the PCC Board and has been an active member of the PCC community since he was a graduate student at UW. Congratulations Kyle!

Congratulations to Eric Steig, named AAAS fellow

Eric Steig uses ice cores to study climate variability, and has been an active voice on the board of the UW Program on Climate since it was founded. Eric regularly teaches courses central to the Climate Minor (ESS 201, Earth's Climate System) and the Graduate Certificate in Climate Science (ATMS/ESS/OCN 589 Paleoclimatology: Data, Modeling, and Theory), educational programs central to the Program on Climate Change. Congratulations Eric!

UW Climate Scientists Contribute to Multi-Institute Hackathon to Understand New Climate Model Data

by Robert Jnglin Wills Modeling centers around the world are now releasing data from simulations with the next generation of climate models, the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). For three days in October, thirty UW climate science graduate students and postdocs got together to see what they could learn about future climate change from these new simulations. We combined efforts with CMIP6 hackathons at two other institutes, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York.

Congratulations Becky Alexander, our new PCC Director

Welcome to Becky Alexander, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, our new Program on Climate Change Director. She and her group study how aerosol formation and the oxidative capacity of the atmosphere change in response to both climate change and anthropogenic activities. Thank you to the many members of the PCC community who provided thoughtful input during this selection process.

UW Researchers detect carbon dioxide outgassing in the Southern Ocean

Alison Gray (UW Oceanography) and her team recently published a paper in AGU about significant carbon dioxide outgassing in the Southern Ocean during the winter. The Southern Ocean was previously thought to be a carbon sink, based off of measurements that were sparse and tended to be from the summer. This paper used data from SOCCOM (Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling) floats that take measurements year-round. Steve Riser (UW Oceanography) leads the UW team that is a part of SOCCOM. They build and test the floats before they are deployed, and have a key role in SOCCOM's observational group.

Congratulations to Chris Bretherton, newly elected member of the National Academy of Sciences

Chris Bretherton, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and Applied Mathematics and former PCC Director was elected to the National Academy of Sciences on April 30th, 2019.

Deep ocean warming rates are accelerating in the South Pacific

PCC board member Gregory Johnson (NOAA/PMEL) and former student Sarah Purkey (now at Scripps Institute of Oceanography) have recently published papers in GRL measuring warming rates in the South Pacific with Deep Argo (Johnson) and the impact of these warming rates on local sea level and heat budget (Purkey). Previous measurements of deep ocean temperatures were made on 10-year intervals, and indicate warming since the 1990s, but new data from the Deep Argo floats over the last 4.4 years show that these rates have accelerated.

Janneke Hille Ris Lambers' Citizen Science Project featured in Science News for Students

Janneke Hille Ris Lambers, a professor in UW Biology, recently had her citizen science project MeadoWatch featured in Science News for Students. Science News for Students in an online publication that aims to provide students with approachable and relevant science news.

Early spring rain boosts methane from thawing permafrost by 30 percent

As permafrost thaws, wetlands form, from which methane is released into the atmosphere due to microbial and plant processes. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas with atmospheric warming abilities that can be up to 32 times stronger than that of carbon dioxide. A new study led by Dr. Rebecca Neumann, an associate professor in the UW Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, was recently published in Geophysical Research Letters examining the impact that spring rainfall has on permafrost thaw and wetland methane emissions.