News & Blog
Former PCC graduate student of ESS says goodbye to glaciers
Twila Moon, a PCC Fellow and former Department of Earth and Space Sciences graduate student recently wrote an article in Science talking about the the global retreat of glaciers. Moon states that "photographs and aerial and satellite images of glaciers show consistent, substantial, and anomalous retreat from the Antarctic Peninsula through Patagonia, Kilimanjaro, and the Himalayas to Greenland and the Arctic. Iconic glaciers—such as many in Glacier National Park, Montana—have already disappeared".
Read more at ScienceSurprising results with the atmosphere from looking at ice cores, bacteria and isotopes!
UW researchers, Lei Geng, Qiang Fu, and Becky Alexander published a study in the journal Nature that shows during large climate swings, oxidants shift in a opposite direction than researchers had expected, which means they need to rethink what controls these chemicals in our air. In their study, they analyzed slices from a Greenland ice core in the UW’s isotope chemistry lab. A new method was created to get a read on changes in the atmospheric oxidants.
Read more at UW NewsPCC alumni turned journalist
Deirdre Lockwood, who received her PhD in 2013 in Chemical Oceanography and was involved with the PCC during her time at UW is now a journalist. Her article in Chemical and Engineering News talks about the effect ocean acidification has on shellfish populations and what it means for the local oyster populations.
Read more at Chemical and Engineering NewsKnut Christianson is in Rolling Stone
Knut Christianson from the Department of Earth and Space Sciences, is featured in Rolling Stone for his work regarding Thwaites Glacier. Rolling Stone's Jeff Goodell talked to Knut about the possible collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet.
Read more at Rolling StoneICYMI: Union of Concerned Scientists Science (UCS) Advocacy Workshop
by Emma Kahle On April 12th, a lovely spring afternoon, students, faculty, and staff gathered to learn about science advocacy. OCN 425 filled to the brim with folks interested in how to address the topic of climate with audiences skeptical of climate change or of science in general. These “hostile” audiences could include reporters (getting interviewed for your latest climate publication?), legislators (testifying before the House Science Committee?), or members of the public you meet in person or on the Internet.
Read moreKyle Armour on climate sensitivity and global energy budgets
Kyle Armour received much praise for his most recent paper published in Nature. Armour's paper on estimates of climate sensitivity from global energy budget constraints suggest that they are in agreement with values derived from other methods and simulated by global climate models. Climate models do not exaggerate the predicted warming.
Read more at NatureGraduate Student Representative, Greg Quetin, has a new paper in the Journal of Climate
Department of Atmospheric Sciences Graduate Student and PCC Graduate Student Representative, Greg Quetin, recently published a paper in the Journal of Climate on the interaction of vegetation and global climate. The study found that the composition of ecosystems can be shaped by climate in order to take advantage of local environmental conditions. Moreover, the interaction between photosynthesis and temperature can respond to different climatological states. The combination of these two factors determines ecological-climate interaction and the pattern can provide a functional constraint for process-based models, helping to improve predictions of the global-scale response of vegetation to a changing climate.
Read more at the Journal of ClimateFormer PCC member Hilary Palevsky discusses the meaning of science activism
Hilary Palevsky, a former member of the Program on Climate Change, talks about the meaning behind the March for Science. Palevsky states that it is important to listen "to the voices of the most marginalized people when we talk about how we stand up for science because in a lot of ways, the organization of the March for Science reproduced a lot of the same issues that have been long standing in the scientific community”.
Read More at WCAIAbby Swann talks about climate change denial
Abby Swann from the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and the Department of Biology talked to David Hyde, a reporter from KUOW in Seattle about climate change denial. She explained why she signed a protest letter directed at the EPA director Scott Pruitt and expanded on a conversation she had with a border agent when traveling abroad.
Listen at KUOWDavid Battisti and Tom Ackerman talk about geoengineering in the NYT
David Battisti and Tom Ackerman of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences were quoted in The New York Times this past week. When talking about the uncertainty of putting aerosols in the atmosphere Battisti said it is “not obvious to me that we can reduce the uncertainty to anywhere near a tolerable level — that is, to the level that there won’t be unintended consequences that are really serious". Ackerman said that “we are doing an experiment now that we don’t understand" when talking about the risk of starting to geoengineer.
Read more at The New York Times