Dec 19, 2017

Partnership will use robotic network to explore Antarctic ice shelves

The team members performed a final test in Puget Sound in November. Instruments will be deployed in the Southern Ocean from a Korean research ship in mid-December.

One of the biggest unknowns for the future of Earth’s climate is Antarctica, where the West Antarctic Ice Sheet holds so much ice that, if it collapsed, it could bring several feet of rising seas.

A new partnership between the University of Washington’s College of the Environment, the UW Applied Physics Laboratory and Paul G. Allen Philanthropies will use a robotic network to observe the conditions beneath a floating Antarctic ice shelf. Observations in the water-filled caves under ice shelves could help explain how warmer seawater interacts with the glacier’s underbelly.

“This is a high-risk, proof-of-concept test of using robotic technology in a very risky marine environment,” said Craig Lee, a UW professor of oceanography and senior principal oceanographer at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory.

Interdisciplinary UW project seeks sustainable blueprint for hydropower dams

A young boy sits in a boat on top of brackish waters, another boat in the background. — A young fisher prepares to go out on Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake.

In Southeast Asia along the Mekong River, the debate is over when and how — not whether — dams will be built.

The river and its tributaries support what’s likely the largest inland fishery in the world, worth more than $2 billion annually. Every day, 60 million people or more rely on the Mekong for food and their livelihoods. In the coming years, nearly 100 hydropower dams are slated to be built along the main stem of the river’s 2,700-mile stretch and its connected tributaries.

In a study published Dec. 8 in Science, researchers from the University of Washington, Arizona State University and other institutions have proposed a solution that allows dam operators to generate power in ways that also protect — and possibly improve — food supplies and businesses throughout the Mekong River basin. The proposed solution, the first of its kind, can be applied to other large river systems around the world facing similar tradeoffs.

“One of the challenges in dealing with these systems and environmental change is the conversation is largely stuck in, ‘don’t build dams,’ or ‘yes, build dams,’” said Gordon Holtgrieve, a UW assistant professor of aquatic and fishery sciences. “What this does say is, let’s try to find ways we can work together. This won’t solve all the problems, but let’s work to find solutions.”

Dec 7, 2017

New research shows hydropower dams can be managed without an all-or-nothing choice between energy and food

Three Cambodian fisherpeople on a long, narrow boat with fishing lines and baskets. They are on the rough, brackish water of Tonle Sap Lake. — Commercial fishing in Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia.

Nearly 100 hydropower dams are planned for construction along the tributaries and main stem of the Mekong River’s 2,700-mile stretch. The river, one of the world’s largest, flows through Burma, China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia. It is an economic engine for fishermen and a food source for millions of people worldwide. While the dams are expected to provide clean energy to the region, if not managed properly they also have the potential to offset natural river patterns, which would damage food production, supply and business.

The University of Washington, Arizona State University and other collaborators have proposed a solution to this problem in the Dec. 8 issue of Science that allows dam operators to generate power in ways that also protect — and possibly improve — food supplies and businesses throughout the Mekong river basin. The proposed solution, the first of its kind for this problem, can be applied to other large river systems around the world facing similar tradeoffs.

“We have taken this conversation around fisheries and dams in the Mekong from a yes-or-no conversation, from a good idea-bad idea conversation, and we have come up with an alternative, a mathematical formula that has the possibility to achieve dam operator goals and protect fisheries,” said co-author Gordon Holtgrieve, a UW assistant professor at the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences.

Dec 19, 2017

Fish to benefit if large dams adopt new operating approach

The San Juan River’s Navajo Dam and reservoir above.

Thousands of dams built along U.S. rivers and streams over the last century now provide electricity for homes, store water for agriculture and support recreation for people. But they also have downstream impacts: They reduce the amount and change the timing of flowing water that fish rely on for spawning, feeding and migration.

Recognizing that many large dams are here to stay, a UW team is investigating an emerging solution to help achieve freshwater conservation goals by re-envisioning the ways in which water is released by dams. The hope is that “designer flows” downstream from dams can be tailored to meet the water needs of humans while promoting the success of native fishes over undesirable invasive fish species.

The team’s approach is described in a paper appearing Dec. 18 in Nature Communications.

“Rapidly changing water availability demands new dam management strategies to deliver water downstream that balances human and ecosystem needs,” said senior author Julian Olden, a UW professor of aquatic and fishery sciences.

Dec 12, 2017

Q&A: UW’s Shuyi Chen on hurricane science, forecasting and the 2017 hurricane season

Shuyi Chen and graduate student Adja Savarin, who is also now at the UW, flew June 21, 2017, on a NASA DC-8 research aircraft into Tropical Storm Cindy. They measured temperature, moisture, pressure and winds using “dropsondes” deployed from the aircraft. — Shuyi Chen and grad student Adia Savarin on a NASA DC-8 research aircraft during Tropical Storm Sandy in 2017.

The United States just suffered the most intense hurricane season in more than a decade, and possibly the costliest ever. Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in mid-August. Hurricane Irma struck Florida in early September, followed just two weeks later by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.

Now, with the close of hurricane season on Nov. 30, new UW faculty member Shuyi Chen, professor in the UW’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences and an expert on hurricanes, answered a few questions about the state of hurricane forecasting and the 2017 storm season.

Read the Q&A at UW Today »