UW oceanography senior finds plastic microfibers are common on Puget Sound beaches
Earl Arzadon
Oceanography’s Frances Eshom-Arzadon collects beach sediment at Edmonds Marina Beach in February. She sampled each beach in the same way and at the same point in the tidal cycle to allow comparisons between sites.
As part of a yearlong project, Frances Eshom-Arzadon visited 12 Puget Sound beaches to tally the number of nearly invisible bits of plastic, or microplastics. While the School of Oceanography major found Seattle-area beaches to be clean compared to some — on the Mediterranean Sea, for example — they’re still far from pristine.
Her findings also suggest that polar fleece and other synthetic fibers are the main source of plastic fragments on local shores. They enter the environment when fibers are shed in washing machines and then flow out of homes toward the Sound.
“Plastics can harm marine life and can in some cases be the primary cause of death. Smaller organisms ingest microplastics, and then larger organisms, including humans, consume it indirectly,” said Eshom-Arzadon, who graduated in June.
Rob Wood, recent AGU Ascent Award winner, to serve as the College’s Associate Dean for Research
Atmospheric Sciences’ Robert Wood
The College is pleased to announce that Rob Wood, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, has agreed to serve as the UW Environment’s Associate Dean for Research effective September 16, 2017. In this role he will foster multidisciplinary collaborations, promote and support the range of basic and applied research programs across the College and University, and help faculty identify opportunities to partner and collaborate with universities and research organizations around the U.S. and the world.
Throughout his career, Rob has facilitated, conducted and managed innovative, interdisciplinary research collaborations. It is through this work that he gained a deep appreciation for scientific endeavors outside of his areas of expertise. He is committed to building on our strengths by working with faculty and researchers to seize opportunities for collaboration in research.
Rob leads an active research group focused on understanding how clouds interact with and influence Earth’s climate system. His research involves the use of instrumented aircraft, ships and ground stations, as well as satellite-based sensing. Rob has held various leadership positions in the planning and execution of large interagency and international projects. At UW, he has participated in his department’s Undergraduate Curriculum Committee and Diversity Interest Group, served on the UW Faculty Senate and has been a long-time member of the American Association of University Professors (including two terms as president of the UW chapter).
In June 2017, Rob received the American Geophysical Union’s Ascent Award. The prestigious award honors exceptional mid-career scientists in the fields of atmospheric and climate sciences. Alongside other 2017 AGU Section and Focus Group Awardees, including Earth and Space Sciences Emeritus Professor John Booker, he will be recognized at the group’s Fall Meeting.
“I am incredibly pleased that he will now be in a position to share his talents with the entire College community. I know that you will enjoy working with him as well,” Dean Lisa J. Graumlich said.
Ivan Eastin, Rob’s predecessor in this position, accepted a faculty position at the University of Michigan earlier this year. Many thanks are due to the Associate Dean for Research search committee, which included Santosh Devasia (Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Affairs, College of Engineering) as chair, Julian Sachs (Professor, Oceanography), Ryan Kelly (Assistant Professor, Marine and Environmental Affairs), David Catling (Professor, Earth and Space Sciences), Renata Bura (Associate Professor, Environmental and Forest Sciences), Becky Alexander (Associate Professor, Atmospheric Sciences) and Stephanie Harrington (Associate Dean for Administration, College of the Environment).
Bottom-trawling techniques leave different traces on the seabed
MaxPixel
Trawlers use nets that are pulled through the water or along the bottom to capture fish.
Fishing fleets around the world rely on nets towed along the bottom to capture fish. Roughly one-fifth of the fish eaten globally are caught by this method, known as bottom trawling, which has been criticized for its effects on the marine environment.
An international group has taken a close look at how different types of bottom trawling affect the seabed. It finds that all trawling is not created equal — the most benign type removes 6 percent of the animal and plant life on the seabed each time the net passes, while the most other methods remove closer to a third. UW Professor Ray Hilborn is among the main authors on the study, led by Bangor University in the U.K. and published July 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“These findings fill an essential science gap that will inform policy and management strategies for sustainable fishing practices by enabling us to evaluate the trade-off between fish production for food, and the environmental cost of different harvesting techniques,” said Hilborn.
Featured class: Sustainability: Personal Choices, Broad Impacts
UW Environment
Kristi Straus’ Environment 239 class dives deep into sustainability.
Offered in fall, winter and summer quarters, Kristi Straus’ Environment 239 class is a great fit for students interested in taking a deep dive into sustainability — its meaning, history and what it looks like in action. Sustainability: Personal Choices, Broad Impacts challenges students to map the concept back to their own lives, examining questions around their eating habits, purchasing decisions, transportation choices and more.
“A large portion of the work we do in this class is done outside of the classroom by design,” said Kristi Straus, the instructor and 2017 Distinguished Teaching Award winner. “We’re not going to move toward sustainability by reading a textbook alone. I really wanted students in this class to physically engage with the idea of sustainability in their lives. If they’re thinking about personal choices, it’s not an abstract concept anymore.”
Straus is a lecturer at the University of Washington’s Program on the Environment, home of UW’s interdisciplinary environmental studies major. Program on the Environment faculty come from across campus and teach environmental economics, environmental history and sustainability, among other areas of expertise.
Could spraying particles into marine clouds help cool the planet?
Could marine cloud brightening help scientists further understand the climate system?
The idea of climate engineering is controversial, but as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in our atmosphere, scientists are beginning to look at possible emergency measures.
A new University of Washington study looks at marine cloud brightening, which is being investigated by an on-campus group as a promising strategy to offset global warming. The idea, which could be a short-term measure to offset global warming in a future extreme emergency, is to spray saltwater into the air to make marine clouds reflect more incoming solar rays. Small-scale tests of marine cloud brightening would also help answer scientific questions about clouds and aerosols, Atmospheric Sciences’ professors Rob Wood and Thomas Ackerman and their colleagues found.
“A major, unsolved question in climate science is: How much do aerosol particles cool the planet?,” said Wood, who was recently named the College of the Environment’s Associate Dean for Research. “A controlled test would measure the extent to which we are able to alter clouds, and test an important component of climate models.”
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