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    January 2019

    Feature Story

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    Jan 14, 2019
    • Climate
    • Engineering
    • Marine Science

    UW, partners reach milestone in program using robots to monitor world’s oceans

    Steve Riser (center, in black), students and technicians in July 2017 inside the UW School of Oceanography’s floats lab.
    Dennis Wise/University of Washington
    Steve Riser (center, in black), students and technicians in July 2017 inside the UW School of Oceanography’s floats lab.

    Around the planet’s oceans, nearly 4,000 floats — many of them built at the University of Washington — are plunging up and down, collecting and transmitting observations of the world’s oceans.

    This fall, one of these diving robots made the program’s 2 millionth measurement, reporting temperature and salinity recorded to a depth of about a mile.

    The Argo Program is a 20-year-old project to gather 3D data on the oceans. The U.S. program is part of an international observing effort with 26 countries that operate floats throughout the planet’s waters.

    “When we started in 1999, no one would have even considered the 2 million profile milestone,” said Stephen Riser, a UW professor of oceanography. “In the beginning there was some question about whether the instruments would even work well enough to do this. We were just hoping it would work for the first few years.”

    The UW has manufactured between one third and one half of the U.S. floats now in use, Riser said, which account for about half the international total. So the UW has manufactured about a fifth or a sixth of the world’s supply.

    Not to be too hyperbolic, but Argo has really revolutionized physical oceanography,” said Alison Gray, an assistant professor of oceanography. “I think it’s been one of the largest successes of any observational program of its kind.”

    “One of the most important practical uses for the data is in weather forecasting, in that the data that we get from Argo have significantly improved weather forecasts and marine forecasting around the world,” Gray said. “But scientists are interested in the data to understand the processes that are controlling the ocean, and how the ocean impacts the climate system.”

    Read more at UW News »

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    Jan 16, 2019
    • Climate

    For 35 years, the Pacific Ocean has largely spared West’s mountain snow from effects of global warming

    Washington state’s Mount Shuksan in February 2014.
    PIxabay
    Washington state’s Mount Shuksan in February 2014.

    A new study has found that a pattern of ocean temperatures and atmospheric circulation has offset most of the impact of global warming on mountain snowpack in the western U.S. since the 1980s.

    The study from Oregon State University, the University of Washington and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was published Jan. 11 in Geophysical Research Letters.

    “The western U.S. has received a big assist from natural variability over the past 35 years,” said lead author Nick Siler at Oregon State University, who began thinking about the project as a doctoral student in atmospheric sciences at the UW. “That’s been great for us so far, but it’s bad news for the future.”

    Cristian Proistosescu, a postdoctoral researcher at the UW’s Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean is one of the study’s co-authors, along with Stephen Po-Chedley, a former UW graduate student who is now a research fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Berkeley.

    Read more at UW News »

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    Jan 17, 2019
    • Awards and Honors

    Nominations for 2019 College of the Environment Awards open through Feb. 22

    Dean Lisa J. Graumlich (center) with 2018 College of the Environment Award winners.

    Update: Due to the inclement weather, the nomination deadline has been extended to Friday, February 22, 2019.
    Do you know a student, faculty or staff member who deserves recognition for their work at the College of the Environment? Nominations for the 2019 College of the Environment Awards are open through Friday, February 22, 2019 at 5:00 p.m. Submit your nominations in any or all of these categories:

    • Distinguished Staff Member
    • Exceptional Mentoring of Undergraduates
    • Graduate Dean’s Medalist
    • Outstanding Community Impact: Staff, Faculty, or Student
    • Outstanding Diversity Commitment
    • Outstanding Teaching Faculty
    • Undergraduate Dean’s Medalist

    Full details, including criteria and eligibility and past winners, are available online. Nominations can come from within the College, University of Washington or the wider community, and winners will be honored at the College’s 2019 Spring Celebration.

    To submit a nomination please refer to the nomination instructions, and submit via email, in PDF or Word format, to Kiki Hower, HR associate at kikih@uw.edu. Have questions or need help? Contact Kiki via email or at 206-616-2736.

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    Jan 23, 2019
    • Extreme Environments
    • Geophysical Sciences
    • Marine Science

    One year into the mission, autonomous ocean robots set a record in survey of Antarctic ice shelf

    A Seaglider, with the Getz Ice Shelf in the background, being prepared for deployment in January 2018 under the neighboring Dotson Ice Shelf.
    Jason Gobat/University of Washington
    A Seaglider, with the Getz Ice Shelf in the background, being prepared for deployment in January 2018 under the neighboring Dotson Ice Shelf.

    A team of ocean robots deployed in January 2018 have, over the past year, been the first self-guided ocean robots to successfully travel under an ice sheet and return to report long-term observations.

    Beyond mere survival, the robotic mission — a partnership between the University of Washington’s College of the Environment, the UW Applied Physics Laboratory, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, the Korean Polar Research Institute and Paul G. Allen Family Foundation — has ventured 18 times under the ice shelf, repeatedly reaching more than 40 kilometers (25 miles) into the cavity, among the farthest trips yet into this treacherous environment.

    Read more at UW News »

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    Jan 22, 2019
    • Students

    Join us for the 2019 UW Environmental Career Fair

    The UW Environmental Career Fair at Mary Gates Hall.
    Kelly Knickerbocker
    The UW Environmental Career Fair at Mary Gates Hall.

    On February 20, some of the region’s most notable organizations working in environmental and natural resources—including Boeing, Port of Seattle and The Nature Conservancy—will be on-hand at the UW Environmental Career Fair!

    The event gives students a unique opportunity to connect with potential future employers and explore career options across the nonprofit, government, and private sectors. Open to UW students and alumni, this year’s fair includes working environmental professionals from more than 30 organizations in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. The popular annual event hosted by the College of the Environment typically attracts around 400 students and recent alumni from a range of environmental fields and disciplines.

    The UW Environmental Career Fair will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Mary Gates Hall Commons on Wednesday, February 20, 2019.

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    Events

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    January 4, 2019

    Fish and WIldlife Ecology Seminar Series: "Of ravens and wolves"

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    February 20, 2019

    SEFS Winter Seminar: "The role of fire in Yosemite’s ecosystems"

    Calendar Icon Check out our calendar for more events

    News From Around the College

    • 3 steps to boost your child’s outdoor time — and health (EarthLab's Nature for Health), The Seattle Times
    • Generating hope: Washington State Ferries plans to decarbonize their fleet by switching to electric power, Marine and Environmental Affairs
    • Ocean undergrad gets outside of the classroom to do real-world oceanography, Oceanography
    • Volunteers Give Back on MLK Day of Service 2019 at the Union Bay Natural Area, UW Botanic Gardens
    • App connects kids to the outdoors, Environmental and Forest Sciences
    • SAFS Centennial Stories, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences
    • Washington’s greenhouse gas emissions spiked 6 percent in most recent tally, Climate Impacts Group
    • 2018 Graduate Climate Conference, hosted by UW PCC students, is largest yet, Program on Climate Change
    • Inmates Learn About Climate from WA State Climatologist, Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean

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