Shuyi Chen, a UW professor of atmospheric sciences, was traveling to a conference in Boston as Hurricane Ian approached the Gulf of Mexico. During breaks at the conference, she provided her thoughts on the closely watched catastrophic storm system that made landfall in Florida on Sept. 28. Q: What are your thoughts on Hurricane Ian? How does it compare to other storms?
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Forecasters are predicting a “three-peat La Niña” this year. This will be the third winter in a row that the Pacific Ocean has been in a La Niña cycle, something that’s happened only twice before in records going back to 1950. New research led by the University of Washington offers a possible explanation. The study, recently published in Geophysical Research Letters, suggests that climate change is, in the short term, favoring La Niñas.
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Heat-related deaths are an issue across Washington state, and they occur even in regions that typically have milder climates, according to a University of Washington study published Aug. 30 in the journal Atmosphere. This is the most extensive study yet of heat-related mortality in Washington state, and the first to look beyond the major population centers to include rural areas. Statewide, the odds of dying were on average 8% higher in recent decades on days when the combination of temperature and humidity, known as the humidex, was in the top 1% of recorded values at that location, compared to a day with a mid-range value for humidex.
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Scientists who drilled deeper into an undersea earthquake fault than ever before have found that the tectonic stress in Japan’s Nankai subduction zone is less than expected. The results of the study led by the University of Washington and the University of Texas at Austin, published Sept. 5 in Geology, are a puzzle, since the fault produces a great earthquake almost every century and was thought to be building for another big one.
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