Check back in the fall!

Incentive awards for 3 incoming graduate students.

Tara Kalia (Oceanography) uses geochemistry to reconstruct past climatic conditions. She is particularly interested in using an isotope-based inorganic proxy to reconstruct sea-ice coverage over the past 150,000 years, allowing her to determine how the Arctic Ocean has changed as a function of climate change. Her research will provide a deeper understanding of the rate at which Arctic sea-ice declines as temperatures increase.

Claire Jensen (Earth and Space Sciences) uses satellite remote sensing and machine learning to characterize the seasonal dynamics of outlet glaciers that drain the northeast sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet. She uses geometric and dynamic measurements, including floating ice tongue length, ice thickness, and modeled meltwater runoff, to characterize seasonal velocity fluctuations of two drastically different outlet glaciers. Her research will provide a deeper understanding of how glacier sensitivity (and thus, ice mass loss) to environmental conditions evolves over time, and expand our knowledge of two of the largest and most significant Greenland outlet glaciers.

Iana Ferguson (Atmospheric and Climate Sciences) Iana studies the rising trend in atmospheric methane by combining real-world measurements with chemical box modelling. Her work focuses on the use of methane isotopes- compositional variations in the atoms that act like “fingerprints”- to identify the origins of methane and how it is being removed. By tracking both the sources (wetlands, fires, fossil fuels) and sinks (mainly reactions with OH), she aims to untangle the drivers of methane’s growth. This is important as knowing which specific processes, sources, or sinks are changing allows us to more effectively target them, leading to better-informed climate mitigation strategies.

Awards for 2nd or 3rd year students to broaden the scope of their research.

Ben Lloyd (Earth and Space Sciences) is using his fellowship to analyze fossil phytoliths (microscopic silica bodies that infill plant tissues), adding to other proxy records to gain insight into Australia’s transformation from a mostly forested landmass just 10 million years ago, to its current state, with 70% of the land area covered in arid, grassy ecosystems. These paleoecological understandings can then be used to forecast how changing environmental conditions in the future will impact modern vegetation.

John Morgan Manos (Earth and Space Sciences) uses robust fiber optic cables to sense temperature and strain within boreholes drilled in Antarctica at high spatial and temporal resolutions. Englacial ice measurements at this scale have only recently been possible and can provide new insights into small scale ice dynamics and climate. He will apply his strong background in geophysics and fiber optic techniques to both reconstruct ground surface temperature histories and better understand the ice deformation that allows ice older than 1 million years to be preserved in the Allan Hills, Antarctica. 

Jordan Winter (Oceanography) is using this fellowship to broaden her research focus to look at nitrous oxide production and utilization by an understudied and abundant bacterial phylum in the largest oxygen deficient zone in the world, the Eastern Tropical North Pacific. Jordan is expanding her work by using metagenomics to study how Marinimicrobia may contribute to the cycling of potent greenhouse gases in the nitrogen cycle. Jordan completed the fellowship in Autumn 2024 and shared this blog post.

Naomi Wharton (Oceanography) will use this fellowship to analyze temporal variability in submesoscale sea surface temperature (SST) fronts in conjunction with relevant modes of climate variability, deepening our understanding of the interactions between small-scale oceanic phenomena and longer-term variability in the Earth’s climate system. This expands upon her current work of developing an algorithm for blending SST observations from multiple satellites to produce ultra-high-resolution gridded SST estimates with quantitative uncertainties.

Awards for broadening dissertation projects.

Claire Schollaert‘s (Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences) fellowship provided an opportunity for her to increase her analytical skills and to grow as a collaborative scientist.  Claire evaluated the air pollution impacts of unmitigated wildfire relative to the potential effects from strategic forest management practices under different treatment scenarios designed to reduce long-term risk of large, high-intensity wildfire under changing climate conditions in the Central Sierra, CA. Read more in “Can ecological forestry improve public health outcomes? The Graubard Fellowship supports a case study in the Central Sierra.”

Ben Sullender‘s (Environmental and Forest Sciences) PhD research explores the connections between snow conditions, predator-prey interactions, and climate change.  Ben describes the opportunity provided by this funding to quantifying the impact of climate change on snow and the links between these snow conditions and wildlife distribution. Read more in his blog post: “A Shifting Snowpack Links Climate Change with Wildlife Habitat Selection in the Northeast Cascades”. 

Alyssa Poletti (Atmospheric Sciences) used the PCC-Graubard Fellowship to explore the low-energy demand climate solutions. Alyssa combined a climate model called the Finite Amplitude Impulse Response model (FaIR) with an economic model that prioritizes human need over consumption. Using this new model, Alyssa explored how economic choices such as speed of renewable energy production, speed of fossil fuel phase out, and reliance on carbon capture technology impacted the temperature by 2100.

Jacob Cohen (Oceanography) used the PCC-Graubard Fellowship to use large data sets from global climate models to understand how well we forecast the area, extent, timing, and location of predicted marine heat waves (MHWs).  Read more in his blog post: “Forecasting the spatial extent of marine heatwaves”.

Interannual Variability in Southern Ocean Ventilation. Assistant Professor Alison Gray (Oceanography)

Shallow Ice Core Drilling at Crary Ice Rise: A Pilot Project Proposal. Associate Research Professor TJ Fudge (Earth and Space Sciences)

New techniques for connecting global climate and regional vegetation change in Australia using wind-transported fossil phytoliths. Professor Caroline Strömberg (Biology)

Calibrating a stopwatch to study past climates at University of Washington. Assistant Professor Frank Pavia (Oceanography)

Understanding the impacts of climate change requires knowing the rates at which the climate system changes. Past shifts in Earth’s climate state recorded in the geologic record can reveal clues to the pattern and pace of future anthropogenic climate changes, however diagnosing the pace of these past shifts requires precise and accurate geologic timekeeping. We are working towards developing a calibrated geochemical “stopwatch” for quantifying the pace of climate shifts in the geologic past using uranium-series disequilibrium dating, which takes advantage of the radioactive decay of uranium to thorium at a constant rate. The calibration process involves measuring the precise ratios of artificial uranium and thorium isotopes in a chemical “spike” we developed that can be added to samples to obtain precise, accurate geologic ages. Calibrating this spike requires geologic samples of known ages that have been chemically closed systems for millions of years.

The project has been a successful collaboration between geochemists in Oceanography (Frankie Pavia) and ESS (Marjorie Cantine) and has supported the research experience of post-bac undergraduate student Helen Latting who has performed research on this project in the Pavia Lab while competing on the UW Women’s Rowing team. This past year, Pavia and Cantine conducted fieldwork in New Mexico to collect ancient closed-system carbonate rocks for spike calibration. Cantine conducted evaluations of closed-system carbonate rocks using laser ablation geochemical analysis and established the closed system behavior of several rocks to be used for spike calibration. Latting has conducted experiments to develop the chemical techniques for laboratory purification of thorium and uranium isotopes from geologic samples. Over the summer of 2025 we plan to make the mass spectrometry measurements that calibrate the spike solution, unlocking our ability to precisely date the last 500,000 years of geologic climate change. PCC support to develop this isotopic stopwatch enabled the recruitment of a Ph.D. student, Kyle Nash, who is joining UW ESS in Fall of 2025 to perform uranium-series dating of past abrupt climatic shifts in temperature and rainfall and their connection to societal changes.

Quantifying near-surface temperature lapse rates: a path to improved melt estimates for the Juneau Icefield, Alaska.  Awarded to Mira Berdahl (Earth and Space Sciences UW). Key participants:  Daniel Otto, Graduate Student, Earth and Space Sciences, UW and Jessica Badgeley, Research Scientist, Applied Physics Lab, UW.

Mira Berdahl

Alaska’s glaciers are only beginning to retreat due to recent warming and are expected to continue losing mass over the coming decades. To project glacier mass change and melt evolution, most studies exploit the simple dependence of melt on near-surface temperature, which is typically taken from global climate model projections. Because most climate models are too coarse to resolve mountain landscapes, a common and simple approach to down-scale temperature to the local topography is to use near-surface temperature lapse rates – the rate of temperature change with elevation. This assumption is problematic because lapse rates have been shown to vary in space and time. Moreover, glaciated regions are typically not well-observed, and simple assumptions about lapse rates may not hold in this unique environment.

With support from the PCC Climate Research Accelerator Fund, we will directly measure the spatial and temporal variability of temperature lapse rates across a large glacier complex near Juneau, Alaska. After much field planning this past winter and spring, our team has just begun to deploy an extensive array of low-cost temperature sensors across the Juneau Icefield and the surrounding region. This network of sensors will collect data over the entire summer melt season before we recover them in coordination with the Juneau Icefield Research Program student expedition. This coming autumn and winter, we will use this dataset to better estimate current and future melt in this critical region. We will also analyze the dataset for general insights into the unique meteorological conditions of glacierized regions.

Optimal Sensor Analysis for Identifying Shallow Antarctic Ice Core Drilling Locations. Associate Research Professor TJ Fudge (Earth and Space Sciences)

6 projects received funding in our second round:

Climate Mitigation and Solutions

Mudflats as a Blue Carbon Ecosystem and Climate Mitigation Tool.  Assistant Professor Kendall Valentine (Oceanography).

Valentine

Coastal vegetated ecosystems, known as “blue carbon ecosystems”, are a recognized potential climate change solution. These systems accumulate large amounts of organic carbon relative to their size and remove it from the atmosphere. However, PI Valentine is exploring the power of mud as another method of carbon sequestration in coastal ecosystems. Organic carbon sticks to mud particles, and the rapid burial of this carbon in addition to the burial of other forms of organic matter (leaves, wood), and production of carbon from microalgae can allow mudflats to be large reservoirs of stored carbon. This past summer, Dr. Valentine collected dozens of sediment cores around coastal Washington, from Friday Harbor Labs all the way to Willapa Bay and is quantifying the amount of carbon stored in the coastal mudflats. Leveraging these critical ecosystems may be another way to combat climate change.

Increasing Carbon Storage Capacity of Agricultural Soils and Enhancing Crop Growth Through Hydrogel Encapsulated Microbes and Biochar. Professor Mari Winkler and Post-Doctoral Scholar Korena Mafune (both Civil and Environmental Engineering)

New approaches to rejuvenating soil to a healthy state are needed to sustain worldwide crop production.  Plant-bacterial-fungal substrate interactions can be leveraged as a sustainable biotechnology that increases carbon storage capacity of soils.  PI’s Winkler and Mafune and others in the Winkler Lab develop hydrogels, mycorrhizal fungi, nitrogen fixing bacteria and phosphate solubilizing bacteria encased in a gel, that can be applied to soils.  This funding supported the first greenhouse pilot study in which different biogels were deployed on two host plants, Sorghum and Sunflower.  They found that the microbial hydrogels with and without biochar, a charcoal-like substance made by burning organic material from agricultural and forestry wastes, significantly increased soil organic carbon. But the incorporation of biochar provided an added benefit, it boosted remediation of certain soil pollutants. This funding allowed the PI’s to train four undergraduates who are passionate about implementing climate-smart solutions and enabled a collaboration with a local farm who applied customized hydrogels to lettuce. The PI’s are excited to continue to collaborate with farmers and other stakeholders to develop other useful climate-smart solutions. Additional detail can be found in this blog post.

 

Using Microbial Endophytes to Mitigate Heat Stress in Host Plants Amid Rising Global Temperatures. Graduate Student Morgan Raimondo and Professor Sharon L. Doty (Environmental and Forest Sciences)

Bacterial endophytes (microbes that live within plants) have the potential to mitigate heat stress in plants amid rising global temperatures. This study focuses on identifying and characterizing endophytes extracted from Populus trichocarpa (black cottonwood) in the Yakima River region of Washington state that can confer heat tolerance to host plants. The project’s main objectives include identifying specific endophyte strains that increase plant survival under heat stress, identifying potential genes responsible for conferring heat tolerance, and designing an optimized consortium of heat tolerance-conferring endophytes for use in agriculture, bioenergy, and forestry. This award supports thesis research for graduate student Morgan Raimondo, an additional plant experiment to elucidate the potential mechanisms responsible for heat stress tolerance with three endophytes. Results were shared at the American Society for Plant Biologists’ Plant Biology 2024 Conference in June 2024, the Space Ecology Workshop (virtual) and with the International Commission on Poplars and Other Fast-Growing Trees Sustaining People and the Environment in October 2024. Funds awarded were also used to purchase the Oxford Nanopore MinION sequencer to explore differences in the bacterial community composition between west and east Cascade P. trichocarpa to identify stress-specific endophyte species. We anticipate completion Spring quarter 2025, to complete the sequencing project, mechanism exploration, and consortium development.

The Science and Ethics of Marine Cloud Brightening. Professor Rob Wood, Cecilia Bitz, Tom Ackerman (all Atmospheric Sciences) and Steven Gardiner (Philosophy).

Climate Impacts and Prediction

Impacts of Climate Change on Snow Algal Communities in the North Cascades. NSF Post-Doctoral Scholar Brooke Weigel, Professor Jodi Young (UW Oceanography), and Dr. Robin Kodner (Western Washington University)

Snow algae are unique microscopic algae that live on glaciers and snowfields worldwide. They darken the snow surface with their brightly colored pigments, lowering its albedo and accelerating snowmelt, yet we know little about what controls their primary productivity. This project examined the impacts of changing light and CO₂ levels on the rate of snow algal photosynthesis, with the goal of understanding how snow algal physiology will respond to future environmental conditions. The research team included National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Brooke Weigel, UW Professor Dr. Jodi Young, and Dr. Robin Kodner at Western Washington University. Diverse snow algal communities were collected from 6 different alpine field sites in the North Cascades Mountains of Washington. Back in the lab, we experimentally tested the physiological responses of snow algae to varying light (0 – 3000 µmol m-2 s-1) and CO₂ levels (0 – 1600 ppm) to better understand what controls their productivity. We found that the primary productivity of these important bloom-forming snow algae will rise as atmospheric CO₂ concentrations increase, and they are adapted to extremely high light levels. A publication is currently in preparation, to be submitted this fall. To learn more about this project, check out this article that was featured in the Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/algae-blooms-that-cause-pink-snow-could-accelerate-melting-as-earth-warms/

Using Unsupervised Learning to Predict Phytoplankton Taxa Distributions in the Southern Ocean. Post-Doctoral Scholar Hannah Joy-Warren, Assistant Professor Alison Gray and an undergraduate student (Oceanography)

The Southern Ocean has historically been considered a strong carbon dioxide (CO₂) sink—responsible for roughly 40% of anthropogenic CO₂ that enters the ocean—but its efficacy as a CO₂ sink may be more variable than previously thought. Phytoplankton are a key driver in global carbon cycling through photosynthesis and export of organic carbon to the deep ocean. Because different taxa consume differing amounts of carbon, changes in phytoplankton community composition have the potential to impact carbon cycling. This relationship, however, is not well understood in the Southern Ocean, due in large part to the lack of in situ observations in this remote and inhospitable region.

The overarching goal of this project was to decipher the role of phytoplankton community composition in air-sea CO₂ flux variability in the Southern Ocean. This work was a successful collaboration between two oceanographers (Hannah Joy-Warren and Alison Gray) and an undergraduate student majoring in computer science (Ayush Nag). We used a machine learning model to estimate the probability of presence of five phytoplankton taxa across the Southern Ocean, based on in situ measurements. The resulting probability distribution of Phaeocystis is shown in the figure. We then coupled these data with estimates of inorganic carbon based on observations collected by autonomous profiling floats that were sampling in the region from 2008 to 2024. We found that where the presence of Phaeocystis was more likely, the total dissolved inorganic carbon in the surface ocean was lower relative to areas where diatoms were predicted to dominate. The significant correlation between surface ocean carbon and the dominant phytoplankton taxa demonstrated by this study indicates that further work is greatly needed to better understand the mechanisms that link phytoplankton community composition and carbon cycling in the Southern Ocean.

The four projects that received funding in our first round:

Mapping the REAL Road to Decarbonization with Realistic Carbon Cycle Feedbacks.  Associate Professor Abby Swann, Professor Dargan Frierson, and Assistant Professor Alex Turner (Atmospheric Sciences)

The leaders of this project are working to quantify the uncertainty in how the temperature of our planet will respond to declining carbon emissions, and to in particular explore the uncertainty in pathways to net zero stemming from our structural representation of the carbon cycle. Activities in support of that goal include a summer reading group with graduate students, postdocs, and faculty from UW who discussed a variety of reduced-complexity models, each of which represents the climate system in a unique way as well as a model intercomparison of simple climate models. Results from the group were shared at the Atmospheric Sciences Physics and Chemistry Seminar Series in Nov 2023.  In addition, this award supports the research of graduate student Greta Shum who is assessing structural uncertainty and global carbon budgets.  Greta presented at AGU Fall 2023 and at the Community Earth System Model Biogeochemistry Working Group Meeting in Feb 2024 on this work.

Building Future-Facing Partnerships on Climate Maladaptation Research and Education. Assistant Professor Sameer Shah, (Environmental and Forest Sciences) and Assistant Professor Celina Balderas Guzman, (Landscape Architecture).

Climate maladaptation is an emerging field of research in the climate science and climate solutions community, and refers to outcomes where an adaptation activity, designed to reduce climate-related risks, in fact has an inverse effect – increasing climate vulnerability. This project supported an early-career researchers workshop in March 2023 on maladaptation at the UW, a workshop that built cross-campus collaborations on theoretical and applied climate maladaptation research. Once that was complete the project moved to phase 2, hiring of two graduate research assistants to support the development of one of the first empirical assessments of how maladaptation is driven and manifests across sectors around the world. 

Impact of Tree Encroachment on Multi-Species Meadow Pollination Systems. Associate Professor, Berry Brosi (Biology). The PI and graduate student Madeleine Strait are applying an experimental approach to examine how climate-induced tree encroachment into subalpine meadows affects plant-pollinator interactions. Pilot data was collected and research sites were scouted within Mount Rainier National Park last summer, providing critical information needed to apply for foundation and federal funding. They are planning to collect a full season of data this summer with the assistance of undergraduate researchers to begin determining the impact of treeline shifts on communities of flowering plants and insect pollinators.”

Polar Science at a Human Scale: Knowledge co-production and application for community climate resilience in Kivalina, Alaska. Assistant Professor Joshua Griffin (Marine and Environmental Affairs and American Indian Studies)

This project focuses on the co-production of knowledge with hunters, whalers, and search and rescue volunteers from the 500-person Iñupiaq community of Kivalina, Alaska. Kivalina is located on a barrier island in the Chukchi Sea, 80 miles above the Arctic Circle. Polar Science at a Human Scale (PSHS) is a multidisciplinary research initiative to co-produce knowledge of climate hazards—especially from sea ice loss—and support locally-identified adaptation priorities. The PCC Research Accelerator Grant provided critical support in the third year of collaboration, advancing work in several key directions, including a sea ice knowledge exchange and interviews with whaling captains on the dynamics of bowhead whaling safety and access. This accumulated data, combined with the qualitative contributions of collaborative ethnography, has catalyzed progress towards creating localized seasonal to subseasonal (S2S) sea ice forecasts for Kivalina’s coastline and created visibility through relationships with wider regional research networks.

Awards Made (thru August 2025):

• Alex Mausshardt (SEFS). To explore the mechanisms that are fueling the community of North Cove to develop collective climate/erosion adaptation strategies.
• Jade Sauve (OCEAN). Attend the 2025 Ocean Visions biennial summit where participants focus on the latest innovations in ocean climate solutions. An emphasis is on community building and considering with other scientists,  steps to address our climate emergency.
• Amelia Dogan (i-School). Build capacity of overburdened, under-resourced communities to utilize informatics tools in the design processes of climate technology. Collaboration with Front and Centered.
• Sydney Sappenfield (SEFS). Research into how practitioners in the spaces of forest resilience and salmonid population restoration think about wildfire and its impacts.

Projects currently underway:

• Masha Vernik (SEFS). Collaborative research with the Organic Seed Alliance regarding the role of climate change on crop and seed selection among organic vegetable farmers in the Pacific Northwest.
• Hannah Cothren (ESS). Initial Remediation Assessment for Abbott’s Pond in Port au Port West-Aguathuna-Felix Cove.
• August Wettstein (SEFS). An investigation of adaptation planning organized and pursued by the North Olympic Development Council.
• Carlyn Schmigdall (OCEAN). Painting with Data: Communicating Arctic Climate Change through Art and Science.

• Jade Sauve (Oceanography) attended the 3-day biennial Ocean Visions summit in April 2023, an event focused on trajectory-changing climate solutions and on strengthening the community developing those solutions. Jade presented on the summit to the PCC community as part of the PCC 586 Seminar, including concepts from the sessions on the ethics of climate intervention, on successful community-driven research and on breaking down barriers to the field.
• Ana Fonongava’inga Stringer (SMEA) and Chase Puentes (Geography) traveled to Kivilina, Alaska in February 2025 to continue collaboration with Colleen Swan (Administrator and Coordinator, KVL-SAR) and Reppi Swan (President, KVL-SAR; Member, Kivalina Whaling Captains Association),  Polar Science on a Human Scale co-directors, with P. Joshua Griffin (Assistant Professor of Indigenous Health and Environment, UW School of Marine and Environmental Affairs & American Indian Studies)

• An interdisciplinary team of graduate students, Ellen Koukel (Atmospheric Sciences), Charlie Hahn (Anthropology) and Chase Puentes (Geography) traveled to Kivalina, Alaska, in early December 2022 to meet with the Kivalina community to discuss capacity building around climate resilience, sea ice data collection, design funding strategies for hunter-preparedness kits, and record video interviews. The overarching project is led by Assistant Professor Joshua Griffin (Marine and Environmental Affairs and American Indian Studies) and Kivalina partners Colleen Swan and Reppi Swan (Kivalina Volunteer Search and Rescue). Read more about their adventures in their blost post “Community-Engaged Climate Adaptation: Partnering with Search and Rescue in Northwest Inupiaq, Alaska”.
• Graduate student Mary Margaret Stoll (Oceanography) collaborated with climate science communicator and rap artist, Baba Brinkman, to develop a rap about marine carbon sequestration. Baba, who recently performed at the COP27 UN Climate Conference, as well as at the UW, is a burgeoning figure on the world stage who merges science with music to build awareness about climate change with new audiences. As part of the project, Mary Margaret worked with UW School of Oceanography professors Alex Gagnon and Julian Sachs to not only create climate-science content digestible for broad public consumption, but also to examine how new forms of science communication can engage the next generation of climate scientists and activists.