News & Blog | Program on Climate Change

Nov 30, 2021 |

PCC Undergraduate Cohort: Finding Research Opportunities

The PCC Undergraduate Cohort hosted its first official event on November 18, 2021! The event aimed to inform climate-minded undergraduates about why they should get involved with research here at the UW, how to look for open positions, and how to apply for a research position once one is found. There was both a seminar-style presentation and a Q & A panel with current College of the Environment undergraduates who have gotten research positions in the past, providing lots of practical advice to the over two dozen interested undergrads who attended!

Nov 23, 2021 |

Education, JEDI, Workshops

Climate and Environmental Justice Course Development Workshop - Winter 2022

The Program on Climate Change and the Program on the Environment, with additional support from the College of the Environment, are sponsoring a Climate and Environmental Justice course development workshop during winter quarter 2022. First taught in winter 2021, this year it is co-facilitated by Dr.’s Heather Price (North Seattle College) and Alex Turner (UW ATM S). The interactive, results-driven workshop will consist of four 1.5-2 hour meetings spread over the winter quarter.

Nov 22, 2021 |

Blog Post, GCeCS Capstone

Can “scrollytelling” effectively communicate the link between climate science and fishery disaster impacts?

Creating a dynamic webpage to convey the cascading impacts of climate change on the U.S. West Coast Dungeness crab fishery. A capstone in fulfillment of the UW PCC Graduate Certificate in Climate Science. Written by: Katy Bland, M.M.A. 2021 (SMEA) On the U.S. west coast, harmful algal blooms (HABs) have become frequent over the last two decades. To the average person on the west coast, a bloom may mean that razor clams or Dungeness crabs are missing from the grocery, but to fishers, seafood processors, and coastal communities, HABs may mean that fisheries are delayed and livelihoods are affected.

Oct 26, 2021 |

Events, Seminars

Ahoy! Glacier Ahead: An Oceanographer's Journey to the Edge of the Ice Recording

Ahoy! Glacier Ahead: An Oceanographer’s Journey to the Edge of the Ice. We know not everyone was able to join us in person for our Walker Ammes Lecture this past week, so we wanted to be sure to share the recording with you. You can watch the lecture recording on our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/uwpubliclecture. This recording will be available for the next two weeks.

Oct 25, 2021 |

Blog Post, Events, Undergraduate Cohort

PCC Undergrad Cohort Kickoff Meeting

On 29 September 2021, the PCC hosted its first in-person undergraduate cohort meeting. We welcomed new undergrads, answered questions concerning the PCC, and discussed the future of the cohort. In a program like PCC that is grad student dominated, the undergrad cohort can be a place for undergrads to steer their own proverbial ship and create events and belong to a community of others interested in climate science.

Oct 13, 2021 |

Events, Seminars

Upcoming Event: Walker-Ames Public Lecture with Fiamma Straneo on 10/19

On Tuesday, October 19th, at 7:30 P.M., Professor Fiamma Straneo, co-Director of the Polar Center at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, and UW Oceanography alumni will be giving a public lecture in 120 Kane Hall, here at the UW! Her talk, “Ahoy! Glacier ahead: an oceanographer’s journey to the edge of the ice,” is part of the Walker-Ames Lecture Series, and will detail her quest to overcome the obstacles preventing the full understanding of how ice sheets respond to warming climates by utilizing “a collaborative, team science effort which spans across the natural sciences and engineering and includes local, indigenous knowledge.” Straneo’s research, which involved everything from helicopters to snow mobiles, brought her to the edge of glaciers, and in the end, enabled the development of improved climate models, and will be a crucial tool in the collaborative effort to understand our changing seas.

Sep 27, 2021 |

Blog Post, Events

A look at the PCC 20th Anniversary Celebration and Strategic Plan Release Party

On September 15th the PCC hosted our 20th Anniversary/Strategic plan release party at the Center for Urban Horticulture. Director Becky Alexander (ATM S) introduced the strategic plan which will be implemented over the next five years, and discussed the goals and priorities for the PCC during this time. This was followed by Former Director Jim Murray (OCN) as he looked back on the history of the PCC, the growth that has been made over the last 20 years, and his hopes for the future for the program.

Aug 27, 2021 |

In the News

Congratulations to Cecilia Bitz and Shuyi Chen, celebrated by the American Meteorological Society!

Cecilia Bitz, Chair of Atmospheric Sciences and former PCC Director, and Shuyi Chen, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and speaker at the 2020 PCC Summer Institute, have received honors from the American Meteorological Society (AMS) for their contributions to the world of ocean, atmosphere, and climate research. Bitz received the Syukuro Manabe Climate Research Award which AMS presents to "individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the fundamental understanding of Earth’s climate system," and Chen was awarded the Sverdrup Gold Medal for "outstanding contributions to the scientific knowledge of interactions between the oceans and the atmosphere, interactions between the oceans and the cryosphere, or ocean biogeochemistry." Join us in offering congratulations to both of these wonderful members of the PCC community!

IPCC releases landmark report emphasizing the existence of and threat posed by human-driven climate change

The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published its most dire assessment on climate change ever as part of its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). The report, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis, was contributed by Working Group 1, a group of 234 authors, including PCC Executive Board Member Kyle Armour (ATM S/OCEAN) as a Contributing Author, and cites over 14,000 scientific papers.

Jul 31, 2021 |

In the News

The Arctic Ocean's "Last Ice Area" may be vulnerable to climate change

The Arctic Ocean's "Last Ice Area" may be at risk according to a recent UW study led by scientists from the Polar Science Center at the Applied Physics Lab (APL), including Kristin Laidre (SAFS) and Mike Steele (APL). The "Last Ice Area," located north of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, is so named due to its potential to sustain the populations of ice-dependent species when the surrounding region is rendered uninhabitable, but this research asserts that some parts of the area are already experiencing a decline in summer sea ice. The team's research focused on ice in the Wandel Sea during the August of 2020, where sea ice has historically been thick and long-lasting. However, satellite images showed that the region experienced a record low 50% ice coverage on August 14, 2020. Using satellite data and sea ice models, the team found that 80% of the record low ice coverage could be accounted for due to weather-related factors including disruptive winds, but the remaining 20% was a result of the thinning of sea ice as a result of global warming. Critically, this melting occurred in spite of the presence of thick, aged sea ice, not without it, dispelling hopes that the reformation of older, thicker ice would significantly mediate the cycle of warming oceans leading to thinner ice. This data from the Wandel Sea cannot be immediately generalized to the entire "Last Ice Area," but if these trends are reflected across the region, the many creatures that depend on the presence of ice, including polar bears and walrus, will be greatly at risk.