17 news posts from April 2016

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UW-led field project watching clouds from a remote island off Antarctica

Instruments, installed in late March, will record just how cloudy it is in the Southern Ocean, how much sunlight reaches the surface, and how much water is in these clouds.

It turns out not all clouds are created equal. Though Seattle presents an ideal location for cloud-gazing, it can’t reproduce the unique clouds in a part of the world thought to play a key role in the planet’s climate. The vast Southern Ocean circling Antarctica soaks up a large portion of the carbon emissions taken up by the oceans and stores some of the extra heat trapped by the carbon emissions that remain in the air. 

Read more at UW Today »

ROV team with ties to UW Environment heads to the White House

In 2015, prior to the International Competition, AMNO & CO took first place at the MATE ROV Pacific Northwest Regional competition.In 2015, prior to the International Competition, AMNO & CO took first place at the MATE ROV Pacific Northwest Regional competition.

AMNO & CO, a team of local students who design and build ocean-ready remote-controlled submersibles, was recently invited to attend the prestigeous White House Science Fair on April 13, 2016. According to the White House, students attending this year’s Science Fair—the last of six hosted by the Obama Administration—are tackling the nation’s greatest challenges, from combatting climate change to uncovering new ways to fight cancer and reaching farther beyond our atmosphere as part of the Mars generation. 

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UW Environment wildlife scientist receives 2016 UW Award of Excellence

The School of Environmental and Forest Sciences' Jorge Tomasevic.

The School of Environmental and Forest Sciences’ Jorge Tomasevic recently received a 2016 UW Award of Excellence for his achievements in teaching, mentoring, public service, and staff support. Tomasevic is a wildlife scientist who’s at the University of Washington on a Fulbright-Conicyt scholarship from Chile. He works on the ecology and conservation of forest birds, and is especially interested in improving the conservation status of forest birds like the Chilean Woodstar and Masafuera. 

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Scientists recommend immediate plan to combat changes to West Coast seawater chemistry

Marine shelled organisms in Washington are already having difficulty forming their protective outer shells, and the local shellfish industry is seeing high mortality rates in early life stages of some commercially important shellfish species when shell formation is critical.

Global carbon dioxide emissions are triggering troubling changes to ocean chemistry along the West Coast that require immediate, decisive actions to combat through a coordinated regional approach, a panel of scientific experts has unanimously concluded. A failure to adequately respond to this fundamental change in seawater chemistry, known as ocean acidification, is anticipated to have devastating ecological consequences for the West Coast in the decades to come, the 20-member West Coast Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia (OAH) Science Panel warned in a comprehensive report unveiled April 4. 

Read more at UW Today »