News & Blog
Alexander and Hess in “3 Ways Climate Change Affects Your Health”
This past Earth Day (April 22nd) PCC Director Becky Alexander and Dr. Jeremy Hess of UW Medicine were interviewed for “3 Ways Climate Change Affects Your Health” produced by the UW Medicine digital publication, Right As Rain. The article touches on the three things climate is changing; more frequent and extreme weather events, snow and ice melt, ocean acidification and higher sea level, but primarily focuses on how climate change affects our health.
Read moreDon’t ask officials what they think of global warming — ask if they want a warning
Professor Dale Durran, past chair and current professor for the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, has recently published an article through the Washington Post, titled “Don’t ask officials what they think of global warming — ask if they want a warning”. The article mainly focuses on the issue of warning the public about events exacerbated by climate change, as our continued use of fossil fuels will only further drastic weather events.
Read moreThicker-leaved plants may thrive due to climate change, which may help temper climate change's effects
Work by a team of scientists including Abigail Swann, who serves on the PCC executive board, and Marlies Kovenock, a former PhD student of Swann, looked into how tropical forests may be adapting to changing climate and how these adaptations have the potential to mitigate the effects of climate change. Tropical forests are currently responsible for absorbing a large amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but information on how plants and ecosystems may respond to the rising CO2 levels is not abundant, making this research critically important.
Read moreHuman-driven climate change found to increase risk of flooding in the Peruvian Andes, and other glacial lakes
A recent study published by a team of scientists from the University of Oxford and the University of Washington shows, for the first time, a direct connection between human-driven climate change and an increased risk of glacial lake flooding. The study focused on Lake Palcacocha, a glacial lake in the Peruvian Andes, and demonstrates how human-induced global warming has increased flood risk, due to the lake's growth as the glacier that formed it continues to retreat. This study will be important evidence in an ongoing court case in which a resident of the town most at risk from increased flooding is suing a German electricity producer for its role in worsening global warming. Additionally, this process can be expanded to other glacial lakes across the world, serving as an instrumental piece in understanding the consequences and risks associated with global warming in affected areas it results in the growth and creation of glacial lakes worldwide. A key researcher in this study was UW professor of Earth and Space Sciences Gerard Roe, whose participation in the study and previous work in creating a method that can determine if an individual glacier's retreat can be directly linked to anthropogenic climate change was instrumental to the study. Roe is also a member of the PCC Executive Board.
Read more at UW NewsCongrats to Kyle Armour, recipient of the 2020 James B. Macelwane Medal from AGU!
Kyle Armour, PCC Executive Board member and associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and School of Oceanography, has been selected as a recipient of the 2020 James B. Macelwane Medal from the American Geophysical Union (AGU). The Macelwane Medal is given annually to three to five early-career scientists in recognition of their significant contributions to Earth and space science. Congrats Kyle!
Read more at UW Atmos NewsIntroducing ACORN Projects
We often refer to an “academic bubble” filled with researchers, professors, and students, like ourselves, who are isolated from the broader communities they inhabit. Importantly, academic research objectives don’t always align with the immediate, actionable priorities of these wider communities. While the extent to which “academic bubbles” exist can be debated, there is undoubtedly room for improvement in conducting meaningful engagement and research in partnership with communities.
Read moreChanges 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.
Read MoreCongratulations 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!
Read more at UW NewsConnecting ice-core data with climate models: An interdisciplinary project to examine glacial-interglacial changes in Antarctica
Which of the following is a more effective tool for learning about past changes in Earth’s climate: measurements from paleoclimate records or outputs from climate model simulations? Depending on who you ask, you will probably get a different answer to this question. Through my research on climate in Antarctica, I’ve been convinced that both tools are equally important. In fact, both tools are necessary in order to maximize understanding of the Earth’s climate system.
Read moreUW 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.
Read More at ScienceNews