These awards are to encourage students to think across disciplinary boundaries and engage in research that is distinct from their dissertation research. Proposed research must have the support of advisors in two different departments. Two awards were made for 2017/2018. Miriam Calkins, a graduate student in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences (DEOHS) will be working on “Near future projections of heat-related workers compensation injury claims in Washington State, 2020-2050” and will be advised by Kris Ebi (Global Health), Tania Busch-Isaksen (DEOHS) and Karin Bumbaco (JISAO/State Climatologists Office).
Read moreGerard Roe helps connect climate change to individual glacier retreats
Gerard Roe, of the Earth and Space Sciences department, recently published a paper on glacier retreat as evidence of regional climate change. Gerard says, "because of their decades-long response times, we found that glaciers are actually among the purest signals of climate change." This method uses a signal-to-noise ratio that relies on observational records for glacier length, local weather, and the basic size and shape of the glacier, but does not require detailed computer modeling. The technique could be used on any glacier that had enough observations.
Read more at UW NewsEric Steig was mentioned in The Washington Post
Eric Steig, of the Earth and Space Sciences department was mentioned in The Washington Post about the current destabilization of Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica.
Read more at The Washington PostPCC Graduate Twila Moon talks about mapping Greenland glaciers
Glaciers and ice sheets move in unique and hard to map patterns as observed by satellite images that help map the speed of flowing ice in Greenland, Antarctica and mountain ranges around the world. Twila Moon, a graduate of the PCC, talks about using this evidence to help map out glaciers in Greenland. With the new database, she can study the movements of more than 240 glaciers, which comprise nearly all of the outlets from the ice sheet.
Read more at The University of BristolAbby Swann talks about the implications of forest die-offs on global climate
"People have thought about how forest loss matters for an ecosystem, and maybe for local temperatures, but they haven’t thought about how that interacts with the global climate,” said study co-author Abigail Swann in a news release. "We are only starting to think about these larger-scale implications."
Read more at The Huffington PostTom Ackerman and Stephen Gardiner - Can a Philosopher and Scientist Co-teach a Class on Climate Engineering?
Tom Ackerman and Stephen Gardiner discuss the success and limitations of a social science and geoscience partnership with a co-taught course in Winter of 2015. The course aimed at trying to provide scientific and ethical foundations to students through climate engineering.
Read More at Climate Engineering AssessmentLuAnne Thompson on KUOW talking about being a climate scientist
LuAnne Thompson talked with Bill Radke of KUOW.org about "being a little braver" when it comes to climate science communication.
Listen at KUOW.orgHarry Stern discusses the future of Arctic Ocean shipping
Hannah Hickey interviews Harry Stern, a polar scientist at the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory who has been studying the Arctic Ocean for decades, about the fate of future shipping routes through the Arctic Ocean.
Read more at UW NewsThe Program on Climate Change: Moving Forward
by Miriam Bertram, LuAnne Thompson and Greg Quetin LuAnne Thompson opened our PCC-sponsored gathering “Where do we go from here?” on Thursday, Nov. 17 with a quote by Winston Churchill: “It’s not always enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what is required.” John Kerry shared that call to arms the day before, as part of his remarks at the 22nd Conference of the Parties (COP22) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Read moreAbby Swann and Elizabeth Garcia on Forest Ecosystems
Professor Abby Swann and postdoctoral researcher Elizabeth Garcia are in the news. Their paper published in PLOS ONE talks about large forest die-offs and the effect that ricochets to distant ecosystems.
Read more at UW Today