News & Blog
Conversations in Climate Progress and Interventions: The 2024 PCC Summer Institute
The 2024 Summer Institute was held at UW’s Friday Harbor Laboratories, nestled on San Juan Island in the northern region of Puget Sound. This year’s event spanned three days, September 9th through the 11th. The theme was the controversial topic of geoengineering, which explores technologies with the potential to alter Earth’s climate system to offset the impacts of anthropogenic climate change.
Read moreClimate Change at the Poles: An Overview of the 2023 PCC Summer Institute
The Arctic has warmed four times faster than the lower latitudes over the historic record whereas warming and sea ice loss in polar regions of the Southern Hemisphere has been limited until very recent years. These hemispherically asymmetric trends in observed polar climate challenge our basic understanding of atmospheric, oceanic and cryospheric processes contributing to climate change and their representation in the climate models used to predict future climate change.
Read moreConsidering Pathways to Net-Zero Emissions at the 2022 PCC Summer Institute
The release of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report in 2021 re-emphasized the need to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in order to stabilize the climate and stop global warming, putting pathways towards net-zero on center stage. Thus, it was not surprising that members of the climate science community attending the annual PCC Winter Welcome voted for “Pathways to Net-Zero Emissions” as the topic for the PCC’s first in-person Summer Institute (SI) since 2019.
Read more2020 PCC SI: Climate Extremes and Climate and Environmental Equity
PCC held its first virtual Summer Institute (SI) over five days from September 14 – 18, 2020. The topic of this year’s SI was “Climate Extremes and Climate and Environmental Equity” Written by Becky Alexander, Lead Summer Institute Organizer, PCC Director and Atmospheric Sciences Professor The topic was chosen via in-person (pre-COVID) voting at the annual Winter Welcome on February 25, 2020.
Read moreClimate Change Impacts on 21st Century Food and Water Security
A 2019 Program on Climate Change Summer Institute and Friday Harbor Symposium, 11-13 September 2019 Written by Becky Alexander, PCC Director and Atmospheric Sciences Professor The PCC held another highly successful Summer Institute (SI) at Friday Harbor Labs from September 11-13, 2019 organized by Cecilia Bitz and David Battisti (both Atmospheric Sciences). The topic of this year’s SI was “Climate Change Impacts on 21st Century Food and Water Security”.
Read moreAfter Counting Our Summer Institute Carbon Emissions—Now What?
By Alex Stote The PCC Summer Institute, which brings together UW climate scientists, UW grad students, and several visiting climate scholars for a 3-day conference at Friday Harbor Labs, took a critical look at its own emissions footprint for the first time in its 11-year tenure. The exercise seemed fitting with year’s theme (Climate Change Impacts on Food and Water Security), and with the recent push-back climate scientists have received for their “business-as-usual” practices in their professional lives.
Read more“Sources of Uncertainty in Long-Term Climate Projections” - PCC Summer Institute 2018
by Sarah Ragen and Hannah Director On September 12-14, 2018, members of the UW community and invited guests gathered at UW’s Friday Harbor Labs for the Program on Climate Change’s annual Summer Institute. The topic this year was “Sources of Uncertainty in Long-Term Climate Projections.” Participants attending the institute were introduced to many issues that affect how we quantify the uncertainty related to long-term climate projections.
Read moreThings I learned from leading the PCC
The 2017 Program on Climate Change Summer Institute on “Population Health and Climate Change” that took place at the beautiful UW Friday Harbor Laboratory last week gave me the opportunity to reflect on my tenure as Director of the Program on Climate Change that started in fall 2011. In fall of 2010 at the beginning of my last sabbatical, I joined an effort to build collaborations between the newly formed College of the Environment and the also young Department of Global Health to focus on global environmental change and human health.
Read more