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    May 2022

    Feature Story

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    May 25, 2022
    • Climate

    How climate change will impact outdoor recreation in the Pacific Northwest

    As the seasons change in Washington state from winter to spring, you can almost hear the collective cheers at the promise of warmer weather and sunnier days. For some, though, this time of year also marks the dreaded end of winter fun, as snow starts melting on the Pacific Northwest’s tallest peaks. But how will climate change affect outdoor recreation, not only during these transitional periods but throughout the year? And what can we expect in the coming years and decades?

    According to Climate Impacts Group Director Amy Snover, “we should expect warmer winters with less snow in higher elevations, earlier springs, with the snowpack melting sooner than what we have typically experienced in the past, and hotter and drier summers.”

    Climate change’s effects on winter sports

    A Husky on the slopes.
    University of Washington
    Climate researchers expect the Northwest ski season to be cut almost in half by the end of the century.

    Warmer winters with less snow in higher elevations is unwelcome news for skiers, snowboarders and snowshoers. When will the big changes come?

    The snow is “not going to all go away instantly,” said Snover. “It’s not even going to all go away this century. But one of the challenges we have in the Northwest is that our mountains aren’t that tall, so when you think about where the snowline is and how high the mountains are, there’s not a lot of extra space up there. The warmer it gets, the higher the snowline also gets.” All of which means less snow to play in.

    When Climate Impacts Group scientists looked at how much the snow season in the Cascades might shrink in the future, they found that, for the 4,000-5,000 foot elevation range, we can expect the length of the snow season to decrease by nearly half by the end of the century. Compared to the historically typical 142 days of snow on the ground that the Cascades experienced from 1950-1999, we can expect the snow season to last only 87 days on average in the 2080s. That being said, natural climate variability will still bring us individual years with a lot more snow, as well as years with a lot less snow as the average decreases.

    How fast the Northwest loses snow depends on how quickly society chooses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Under a moderate greenhouse gas emissions scenario, Washington state would lose 46% of its end-of-winter snowpack by the 2040s compared to the 20th century average, and lose 70% by the 2080s. That means the lower and more southerly places would lose their snow, leaving snow only in the colder, higher places up north. If greenhouse gas emissions are significantly reduced, snow losses would be less, especially later in the century.

    Changing rivers and lakes affect swimmers, rafters and fishers

    Whitewater rafters
    Vince Fleming / Unsplash
    Seeking whitewater? The ideal time to raft might be a month earlier in some rivers.

    Less snow, however, doesn’t equal less precipitation. The expectation is that the total amount of precipitation will increase in winter, spring and fall, with more falling as rain and less as snow, meaning higher river flow in the fall and winter, and lower river flow in the late spring and summer. Many rafters and kayakers in Washington visit rivers that depend on mountain snow melt, and can expect peak streamflows from snowmelt to be lower overall. The melt will also likely happen earlier in the spring. For all the whitewater fans out there, the ideal time to raft might be a month earlier in some rivers. 

    Those same rivers, come late spring and summer, will have lower flows and warmer water than what we have seen historically. This will affect some recreational lakes in the area, where many Washingtonians have already seen dried out “dead zones” in the surrounding banks.

    Hiking, backpacking, camping and mountaineering

    Hikers near Mount Hood.
    University of Washington
    Decreased snowpack may mean earlier trail openings, while wildfire cleanup could lead to more trail and campsite closures.

    Washington has some of the most scenic peaks in the country, and hiking has always been one of the most popular outdoor activities for both residents and tourists. The start of COVID-19 saw a spike in people hitting the trailheads as a way to escape the city and recharge in nature. Snover sees the changing climate affecting this group of people in two main ways.

    The first major change is the loss of mountain snowpack. The consequences may include earlier trail and campground access as the snow melts earlier, and later access in the fall before snow accumulates. Public lands managers may have more staffing challenges, due to the need to staff campgrounds, provide back-country rangers, and fill other roles over a longer recreational season.

    With decreased snowpack, winter precipitation will bring more rain, causing erosion and higher river flows which will wash out trails, bridges and roads. Heavy rain events are also expected to be more intense in the future — under a high greenhouse gas emissions scenario, about 22% more rain will fall during the heaviest rain storms in the 2080s compared to the 1980s. This not only affects the trail itself, but flooding and landslides may make road access to the trails and campgrounds more difficult. Both Olympic and North Cascades National Parks identified such access impediments as a primary concern in their recent climate change vulnerability assessments.

    The second issue is something that the entirety of the western United States has already experienced: wildfires. The western US has already seen more area burn in recent years, partially due to climate change, and projections show bigger and more frequent fires moving forward. This could lead to more trailhead closures due to ongoing fires or high fire risk, and poor air quality from smoke may keep more hikers indoors.

    After a wildfire is out, all the dead and downed trees require maintenance and management. Trails may be closed entirely as the US Forest Service and others try to reduce the risk of falling trees injuring hikers, and normally moderate hiking trails may become much more strenuous as hikers have to hurdle fallen tree trunks. Streams and rivers downstream of fires are also affected, generally leading to bigger floods in winter, lower flows in summer, and higher water temperatures.

    However bleak this all sounds, there are still actions we can take now to protect the future of outdoor recreation. Decreasing and working to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions will reduce the amount of climate change that actually occurs. And taking climate impact science into account when managing and restoring public lands for recreation is essential for minimizing the negative impacts of the changes that we cannot avoid.

    “The future isn’t written, meaning we don’t know exactly what will happen,” said Snover. “We have already set some climate change impacts in motion, but how bad it is on the ground here in the Northwest depends on how quickly we act to reverse it.”

     

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    May 6, 2022
    • Marine Science

    Unchecked global emissions on track to initiate mass extinction of marine life

    An illustration of several marine animals.
    Evan Davis
    The study authors modeled future marine biodiversity under projected climate scenarios and found that species such as dolphinfish, or mahi mahi (large fish in foreground shown here) would be imperiled as warming oceans decrease the ocean’s oxygen supply while increasing marine life’s metabolic demands.

    As greenhouse gas emissions continue to warm the world’s oceans, marine biodiversity could be on track to plummet within the next few centuries to levels not seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs, according to research from the University of Washington and Princeton University.

    Oceanographers modeled future marine biodiversity under different projected climate scenarios. They found that if emissions are not curbed, species losses from warming and oxygen depletion alone could come to mirror the substantial impact humans already have on marine biodiversity by around 2100. Tropical waters would experience the greatest loss of biodiversity, while polar species are at the highest risk of extinction, according to the April 28 study in the journal Science.

    “Aggressive and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are critical for avoiding a major mass extinction of ocean species,” said senior author Curtis Deutsch, who began the research as a professor of oceanography at the UW and is now at Princeton University.

    The study found, however, that reversing greenhouse gas emissions now could reduce the risk of extinction by more than 70%.

    “The silver lining is that the future isn’t written in stone,” said first author Justin Penn, who began the study as a graduate student at the UW and is now a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton. “The extinction magnitude that we found depends strongly on how much carbon dioxide we emit moving forward. There’s still enough time to change the trajectory of CO2 emissions and prevent the magnitude of warming that would cause this mass extinction.

    Read more at UW News »

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    May 4, 2022
    • Extreme Environments
    • Marine Science

    Experiments measure freezing point of extraterrestrial oceans to aid search for life

    This image, taken by the Galileo spacecraft in 1996, shows two views of Jupiter’s ice-covered satellite, Europa. The left image shows the approximate natural color while the right is colored to accentuate features. Europa is about 3,160 kilometers (1,950 miles) in diameter, or about the size of Earth’s moon.
    NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
    This image, taken by the Galileo spacecraft in 1996, shows two views of Jupiter’s ice-covered satellite, Europa. The left image shows the approximate natural color while the right is colored to accentuate features. Europa is about 3,160 kilometers (1,950 miles) in diameter, or about the size of Earth’s moon.

    Researchers from the University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley have conducted experiments that measured the physical limits for the existence of liquid water in icy extraterrestrial worlds. This blend of geoscience and engineering was done to aid in the search for extraterrestrial life and the upcoming robotic exploration of oceans on moons of other planets.

    The results were recently published in Cell Reports Physical Sciences.

    “The more a liquid is stable, the more promising it is for habitability,” said co-corresponding author Baptiste Journaux, an acting assistant professor of Earth and space sciences at the UW. “Our results show that the cold, salty, high-pressure liquids found in the deep ocean of other planets’ moons can remain liquid to much cooler temperature than they would at lower pressures. This extends the range of possible habitats on icy moons, and will allow us to pinpoint where we should look for biosignatures, or signs of life.”

    Jupiter and Saturn’s icy moons — including Europa, Ganymede and Titan — are leading candidates within our solar system for hosting extraterrestrial life. These ice-encrusted moons are thought to harbor enormous liquid oceans, up to several dozen times the volume of oceans on Earth.

    Read more at UW News »

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    May 25, 2022
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

    Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at UW Atmospheric Sciences

    Students walking on campusThe UW Department of Atmospheric Sciences strives to create an inclusive and welcoming environment where students, staff and faculty are supported and set up for success. Department Chair Cecilia Bitz has prioritized Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, citing her personal work history as a motivator to create an equitable environment.

    “Diversity is so important to me personally because when I started my career, women were definitely a minority,” she said. “I saw firsthand how important it is to have leaders and more senior people in the department that I am able to identify with. It’s hard to persevere if you don’t see a path for yourself.”

    The department has two formal groups working on DEI: the grassroots, graduate student-led Diversity and Inclusion Group (DIG), and the department’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee. DIG serves as a forum for organizing DEI efforts within Atmospheric Sciences, is open to everyone in the department, allows participants to bring their ideas and add them to the meeting agenda. This two-committee system allows for more people to be involved in brainstorming and planning DEI efforts through DIG, while the EDI Committee takes on more formal activities or those that require a faculty lead.

    “This system gets more people involved, especially students, and I like that it allows for that,” said EDI Committee Chair Abby Swann. “I think it’s valuable to invite everyone to collect ideas at the volunteer-based level, then formalize them at the committee level. It’s important to allow room for grassroots, self-motivated ideas, as well as for the department to put faculty time into these ideas.”

    Grassroot ideas

    A major project that started within DIG was the creation of a diversity class, now in its second year. This class features an intense study of racism in the environmental sciences, and allows students to participate in discussions about how racism pervades the field today in terms of where people live in cities, air quality maps, green spaces, and other ways people are historically oppressed based on race.

    “I’ve seen a lot of the individual projects from DIG come to fruition, but I don’t see these as the ultimate goal, which is to see more underrepresented people in STEM,” said DIG leader and atmospheric sciences PhD student Travis Aerenson. “However, I do think we are successfully implementing projects that we hope will get us to our goal.”

    Department-level projects

    To enable fair consideration of more diverse applicants, the Committee worked jointly with the graduate program chair to restructure the department’s graduate admissions process to offer a more holistic view of the applicant. After attending a training session led by the UW Graduate School, the department engaged in discussions about what they were looking for in incoming students. Thinking through the characteristics of successful Atmospheric Sciences graduate students, the committee reworked both the prompt and the grading rubric to seek out applicants with those characteristics. All faculty now participate in reviewing applications, with an eye towards seeking out potential for success in the program outside of the grades and test scores that have historically excluded underrepresented groups.

    The biggest project the committee is currently working on is creating a strategic plan for DEI activities. The committee wanted to create a record of ideas brainstormed in DIG so that they can be worked on over a longer time frame. Graduate students are with the department for a relatively short amount of time, so the committee wants to create an official system to retain these ideas after grad students leave.

    “I think the most unique thing about our department is the two DEI groups and the collaborative community,” said Bitz. “I cherish the fact that everyone works together on issues of diversity, which is the only way we can be successful in our efforts. I’m proud to say we’re on the path to doing just that.”

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    May 17, 2022
    • Ecology

    Model finds COVID-19 deaths among elderly may be due to genetic limit on cell division

    This illustration represents the core theory in a new modeling study led by the University of Washington: The circles represent the immune system’s aging, in which its ability to make new immunity cells remains constant until a person (represented by the human figures) reaches middle-age or older and then falls off significantly. The central blue figure represents a virus or a challenge to the immune system.
    Michele Kellett and James Anderson/University of Washington
    This illustration represents the core theory in a new modeling study led by the University of Washington: The circles represent the immune system’s aging, in which its ability to make new immunity cells remains constant until a person (represented by the human figures) reaches middle-age or older and then falls off significantly. The central blue figure represents a virus or a challenge to the immune system.

    Your immune system’s ability to combat COVID-19, like any infection, largely depends on its ability to replicate the immune cells effective at destroying the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the disease. These cloned immune cells cannot be infinitely created, and a key hypothesis of a new University of Washington study is that the body’s ability to create these cloned cells falls off significantly in old age.

    According to a model created by School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences research professor James Anderson, this genetically predetermined limit on your immune system may be the key to why COVID-19 has such a devastating effect on the elderly. Anderson is the lead author of a paper published March 31 in The Lancet eBioMedicine detailing this modeled link between aging, COVID-19 and mortality.

    Read more at UW News »

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    Events

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    May 27, 2022

    Queer Trans Ecologies and River Justice with Cleo Wölfle Hazard

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    June 1, 2022

    Program on the Environment Spring Capstone Symposium

    Calendar Icon Check out our calendar for more events

    News From Around the College

    • A Lidar’s-Eye View of How Forests Are Faring, Eos / Environmental and Forest Sciences
    • Pandemic delays to afflict polar science until late this decade, Science / Earth and Space Sciences
    • Gov. Inslee Appoints Dolšak to Coastal Marine Advisory Council, Marine and Environmental Affairs
    • Dinosaur Apocalypse: The Last Day (Featuring Mark Richards), PBS NOVA / Earth and Space Sciences
    • Invasive European green crab found in Hood Canal for first time, Seattle Times / Washington Sea Grant
    • UW's Native Garden fostering community, sustainability among students, King 5 / UW Farm
    • Biology Professor Emeritus James Truman elected to the National Academy of Sciences, UW News / Friday Harbor Laboratories
    • Ted Pietsch awarded Society for the History of Natural History Founders’ Medal 2022, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

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