The UW Climate Impacts Group, an EarthLab member organization, along with nine community, nonprofit and university partners, is launching a program of community-led, justice-oriented climate adaptation work across Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. The Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative will be founded with a five-year, $5.6 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA). The program will be one of 11 across the country funded through NOAA’s Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program.

The Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative will advance efforts to adapt to climate change in frontline communities — communities that have been excluded from spaces of power and who are disproportionately facing the impacts of climate change.

The program will be led by Climate Impacts Group director Amy Snover, with several community members and university partners steering the direction of the Collaborative as members of the Leadership Team. The Leadership Team will include Snover along with Aurora Martin, co-executive director of Front and Centered; Don Sampson, climate change program director of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians; Jennifer Allen, associate professor and senior fellow of the Institute for Sustainable Solutions at Portland State University and Russell Callender, director of Washington Sea Grant.

“Many incredible organizations across Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington are joining with the UW Climate Impacts Group to work toward a future where all people and communities can thrive,” Snover said. “It is my hope that the Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative will push the climate adaptation field toward equity and justice. I am proud that the Climate Impacts Group is helping to steward this shift, guided by the leadership of frontline communities, and I am honored by the trust and collaboration from these community partners.”

Projects led by the Collaborative will build climate resilience in rural communities and coastal tribal communities, while leveraging the successes from these projects to inform policy and work in other regions. The Collaborative is innovative in the climate adaptation sciences and services fields for its community engagement model, explicit focus on community priorities, equity and justice, and for centering the voices of frontline communities in its effort.

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A clear tube crammed full of electronics, protected by a purple cage studded with thrusters, traveled from Seattle to Tennessee to compete with underwater robots from all over the world in the MATE ROV World Championship Competition. This particular robot, named Nautilus, is the result of three years of work from the Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicles (UWROV) team at the University of Washington. This club, partly housed in the School of Oceanography as a collaborative effort to bring together students from the College of the Environment and College of Engineering, teaches members how to build underwater robots from scratch — everything from the basics of robotics to building software and even product marketing and outreach.

“Building underwater robotics is a really interdisciplinary project,” says current UWROV president Peyton Lee. “We need to think of the applications for the robot outside of just building it. How does it relate to real-world problems? Building an underwater robot requires knowledge of power systems, propulsion, physics, software engineering, marine biology and more. This club is really neat because we get to bring in many different students and there are many ways to contribute to the club. No matter what someone is studying, there will be opportunities for them to get involved.”

The club prides itself on this beginner-friendly aspect. Anyone who has an interest in robotics is encouraged to join, as most of the current members started off with limited experience but lots of enthusiasm.

“I joined because I really connected with the amazing role marine technology could play in conservation,” says business team leader Leah Davis. “I had no experience with business or engineering in the beginning, but over the course of the year I learned how to handle marketing and all of the community outreach and sponsor engagement. This year, I will be the lead of the business subgroup. There are so many things to explore on the business side of this club, and even if you don’t have experience yet, the business subgroup could be an amazing fit for you.”

As with the rest of the world when the pandemic hit, the club had to rethink the recruitment and outreach process.

“Last year with everything remote, it was both a really big challenge to communicate with people and a huge opportunity to reach people who might not have attended in-person events,” said Lee. “We held virtual lab tours and info sessions, and put that information in as many places as possible. We also sent out communications to different mailing lists, and tried our best at being really communicative, staying organized and being clear about ways to get involved. We emphasized that we’re a beginner-friendly team and that our focus is more on building skills, rather than expecting that you join already knowing all the skills.”

After a successful recruitment season resulted in around 30 new members, the UWROV leadership team needed to start training those newcomers up. This required close coordination with the School of Oceanography and College of the Environment, with a careful eye towards ensuring all UW health and safety policies were followed. Now-former club president Daelyn Bergsman worked with School of Oceanography Director Rick Keil and team advisor Rick Rupan to secure permission to work on campus, determine safe lab capacity and work through other logistical concerns.

“It was really important that we try to be able to go into the lab and build the robot,” said Bergsman. “We weren’t able to get into the lab until December, and we were only able to have one to two people there at any given time, sometimes even in separate rooms. Luckily, we were still able to build the components we needed. The physical part was challenging because we still had to teach people how to do it. A lot of the trainings were still in person and hands-on, while masked and six feet apart and making sure everyone was vaccinated in spring. We held Zoom trainings for the design side for the first couple months, but visualization is hard without a physical example so getting in person was key to hammering in fundamentals.”

User interface lead Andrew Jang and software lead Peter Gunarso spent three months setting up virtual tutorial projects to get new members familiar with the software development environment. The leads updated many of the ROV’s systems, including migrating to ROS (the Robot Operating System), the industry standard for professional robotics. 

The road to the MATE World Championships was a long one that started prior to the pandemic. 

“We were so excited to apply to MATE after not competing for six years,” said Lee. “We had to cancel in-person meetings after everything started shutting down, which was a huge setback and so disappointing. Getting accepted into Worlds was incredibly exciting, and it was the culmination of three years of effort. All of the late nights and weekends we spent in the lab were finally worth it.”

The application process involved submitting a video demonstrating robot functionality. The theme of Worlds 2021 was focused on environmental conservation, requiring the team to demonstrate their ROV’s ability to navigate simulated coral reefs and clear plastic debris from the ocean floor. MATE also emphasized the importance of documentation and communication, and the team submitted a 25-page document outlining their ROV’s development, the team’s safety and COVID policies, and the volunteer outreach done on behalf of the team. The competition also sought to build student skills in marketing and presentation, with Davis leading the development of a marketing display that communicated the robot’s features to potential customers.

Unfortunately, rough waters greeted the UWROV team when they arrived in Tennessee for the competition. “The competition was interesting because we were putting out one fire after another,” said Gunarso. “First, two of our motor mounts broke off in transit and we didn’t have any spares, so we had one hour to engineer a fix using just what we had on hand. The next day wasn’t any easier. We found a bug in the software that didn’t show up in testing, a malfunction in our tether which effectively halved our power output, and nearly all the nuts in the pressure hold came loose … despite all these setbacks, we were determined to have a working ROV which resulted in a four-hour session one night just trying to troubleshoot all these issues. The lab space was closed for the night, so we had to haul the ROV about a mile back to the dorms, where the seven of us were on the floor trying to diagnose and fix all the issues. It was definitely a very stressful time, but I’m really proud of the team and how much effort they put in, not to mention the snap-second engineering and reacting when things go wrong. I think the judges picked up on our communication skills and the fact that we created an encouraging and positive space to work together and resolve issues.”

Despite all the technical issues that arose, the team stuck together and persevered. Out of 25 teams, UWROV placed third in the machine learning satellite challenge (first among US teams) and sixth overall in the in-person, college-level division. Most importantly, says Lee, “we know what to expect. Our goal last year was to qualify for Worlds, and we met and surpassed our expectations. This year, we’re going to apply what we’ve learned to increase our engineering quality, build more robust systems and push the boundaries of our oceanography engineering skills, creating solutions to real world problems. We’re looking forward to another exciting competition season.”

Applications for UWROV’s 2022 competition season are now open, with more information available on the team’s website. The team is also hosting a live Q&A with the undersea exploration group Ocean Exploration Trust (Nautilus Live) on September 24th, with more information available on the Dawg Daze calendar.

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Friday Harbor Laboratories (FHL) recently established the Friday Harbor Laboratories Ocean Observatory (FHLOO), vastly expanding their capabilities to collect and share real-time data about the surrounding marine environment. Connected to the larger Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS), FHLOO takes continuous seawater measurements such as salinity, temperature, CO₂, oxygen and chlorophyll, in addition to monitoring microplankton. While the system has been taking measurements since the summer of 2020, the ability to live-stream its data is new, providing a window into the Salish Sea accessible to researchers, students and the public.

Kirk Sato

“FHLOO is the only live-streaming asset of its kind in the San Juan Archipelago, so I like to think of it as a digital ‘lighthouse’ for marine scientists,” says postdoctoral researcher Kirk Sato. “Until the FHLOO was installed, FHL only monitored for water temperature and salinity. Using programming and code, we’ve been able to translate incoming raw bits of data from multiple sensors and package all the data into a single file, which is what you can see on the NANOOS NVS Data Explorer site.”

FHL is unique because of its physical location, which is not quite in the open ocean but not quite in Puget Sound proper, either. Influenced by the Fraser River and Strait of Juan de Fuca, there is significant freshwater and saltwater tidal mixing due to currents and reef formations throughout the archipelago. FHLOO will collect data over the long term, allowing scientists to better understand the dynamics of this marine ecosystem.

So, what is this new system measuring exactly and why?

FHLOO quantifies chlorophyll in the water, which gives researchers information about the phytoplankton present. Phytoplankton are microscopic marine algae that play a critical role at the base of the food web and are crucial for energy flow in the ocean. Using an instrument called the Imaging FlowCytoBot (IFCB), biological oceanographers like Evelyn Lessard can study the abundance and diversity of phytoplankton, shedding light on which species are prevalent at certain times and how changes in the environment might affect them.

Kirk Sato

“We still have little understanding how the multiple stressors brought on by ocean change, like ocean acidification, warming and pollution, may be affecting phytoplankton and the food webs they support,” Lessard explains. “This data will also make possible the development of an automated harmful algal bloom (HAB) alert system to provide timely alerts for Sound Toxins, and tribal, state and federal resource managers in the region.”

FHLOO also provides fundamental measurements that inform scientists about the impacts of ocean acidification. The system is now part of the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network, a network of scientists who observe the status of ocean acidification and its effects across the globe. With the release of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, it’s clear that ocean observing systems are more relevant and necessary than ever to determine how the ocean responds to a changing climate.

“Water is habitat, just like the forest and rocky intertidal, and it’s important to study how climate change affects these waters. Events like marine heat waves and summer droughts affect the temperature and salinity of these waters,” says UW principal oceanographer Jan Newton. “Having the high-resolution FHLOO data allows us to see these influences and to assess how they may affect marine resources. We can look at the area over different time scales, such as changes between day and night, between seasons or interannually to see long-term trends.”

Other scientists and students can reap the benefits from the observing system as well. For example, biologists studying crab populations now have real-time data about habitat conditions and no longer have to make assumptions when experimenting in the lab. Additionally, the constant stream of data can inform forecasting models about conditions in the marine environment and provide early warning of changes looming for researchers, managers and industry. For example, temperature and pH are important for shellfish growing operations, and a forecasting tool can help determine if environmental parameters are favorable for shellfish crops. Such capabilities allow for early action to mitigate negative effects.

This system is also a boon for students, such as those in Newton’s Pelagic Ecosystem Function research apprenticeship, allowing them to develop more accurate analyses over a short period of time. As the database grows, the chance to analyze data over time and compare to prior years will too.

“Friday Harbor Labs is one of many working marine research and education facilities around the world, and one of many organizations on San Juan Island that cares deeply about conservation and sustainability,” says Sato. “We want to share what we learn within the vast network to understand how global climate change is affecting local marine life. It’s the power of partnership!”

Thanks to funding from the National Science Foundation and a collaboration of efforts between the University of Washington College of the Environment, Friday Harbor Laboratories, School of Oceanography, Applied Physics Laboratory, NANOOS and the Department of Biology, FHLOO is currently up and live streaming with open-source data. The data are gathered and processed in the context of similar observation and forecast data gathered by NANOOS, which serves the Pacific Northwest. All of the data are archived and available in the national Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office at NSF. If you are a user of FHLOO, researchers are looking for feedback to continuously strengthen the system.

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University of Washington glaciologists will join colleagues from around the country in a new effort to discover Antarctica’s oldest ice and learn more about the history of our planet’s climate.

The new Center for Oldest Ice Exploration, or COLDEX, will be created under a five-year, $25 million National Science Foundation grant announced on Sept. 9. Roughly $5 million of that grant will go to the UW.

UW researchers will lead in aspects of Antarctic fieldwork and modeling to identify the drilling location, deploy new technologies to scan the ice, and use new ways to analyze the ice once it is retrieved. The center will bring together experts from across the United States to generate knowledge about Earth’s climate system and share this knowledge to advance efforts to address climate change and its impacts.

“Establishing a center makes it possible to go after the big scientific goal of finding and analyzing the oldest ice remaining on Earth to address fundamental questions about the climate system,” said co-principal investigator Michelle Koutnik, a UW research associate professor of Earth and space sciences. “This is a tremendous opportunity that will bring together an ambitious research program with coordinated education, outreach and knowledge transfer programs as part of a new center that is founded on broadening participation in ice and climate science.”

One aspect of COLDEX will involve new development of a probe, the University of Washington Ice Diver, that melts through layers of ice and provides information about the age of the ice and other data without having to lift a core back up to the surface. The technology is being developed by COLDEX participant Dale Winebrenner, a UW research professor in Earth and Space Sciences and senior physicist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory, in collaboration with Ryan Bay at the University of California, Berkeley.

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It may seem counterintuitive, but on the heels of the most recent IPCC report on our changing climate, Kyle Armour finds reasons for optimism.

“The degree of climate change we’ll experience this century depends on our future greenhouse gas emissions, which depend on the collective choices we make. Our future is up to us,” says Armour. He posted his thoughts on Twitter when many headlines about the report’s findings were overwhelmingly grave. Human beings have a lot of work to do, and the clock is ticking. But all is not lost.

IPCC

The UW oceanographer and atmospheric scientist was a lead author of the report. It’s the sixth issued from Working Group 1 — the group of scientists charged with assessing the physical science of climate change — and it’s become even clearer that the Earth is warming because of human activity. The report is also clear that some further warming is inevitable because it will take time to substantially curb our greenhouse gas emissions. But a closer look tells us the choices we make today will have major impacts in the next few decades, and therein lies the key to staving off the worst warming and its impacts.

Established in 1988, the IPCC released their first assessment in 1990. Since then, five additional reports have been released, along with several special reports, each becoming increasingly confident in the role humans play in climate change. The first assessment was fairly cautious, stating that while humans are increasing greenhouse gas concentrations and that scientists expect global warming will occur, they had yet to assign unequivocal detection of a human influence. By the fifth assessment, scientists stated that global warming was certain and driven by humans. The latest report goes even further, saying with certainty that human influence has warmed the climate, quantifying the likely range of warming humans have contributed, and finding evidence that many aspects of recent climate change are unprecedented for thousands of years. This shift in language reflects significant scientific progress over the past few decades, and highlights that enough warming has occurred to unmask many climate change signals that were harder to see previously.

Over 230 scientists from 66 different countries wrote the current report. Working closely with a dozen of these scientists, Armour helped lead the writing of chapter seven focusing on the Earth’s energy budget, climate feedbacks and climate sensitivity. Their job was to assess the literature and “provide the physical science backbone” that then tees up subsequent reports on climate change impacts on human systems, ecosystems, economies, and importantly our options for limiting future climate change. Included in their assessment were responses to numerous comments that came from the peer-review process. Armour also contributed to additional chapters beyond his own, and helped write the report’s technical summary and high-profile summary for policy makers. The latter summarizes all the chapters and is written in collaboration with delegates from governments across the globe.

University of Washington

“The summary for policymakers is a totally unique document,” says Armour. “The scientists work closely with the delegates to write it as clearly as possible while making sure every statement is consistent with and supported by the underlying science in the full report. With each sentence receiving approval by all the governments, the document then serves as a starting point for international climate negotiations. Importantly, the IPCC does not advocate for any specific policies. Instead, it seeks to provide policymakers, and the public in general, with an up-to-date understanding of our climate and its changes.”

One of the biggest advances in the latest report is scientists’ ability to draw on additional sources of information that were previously unavailable. “In this report, we’re less reliant on numerical climate models to make projections of future warming,” says Armour. “While we relied partly on models for this report, we used many other lines of evidence too, like paleoclimate records, observations of recent global warming and new observations from satellites. We were better able to constrain the range of uncertainty in the climate’s sensitivity to greenhouse gases, which we narrowed for the first time in decades.”

Previously, the scientific observations were used to ground truth that models were in the right ballpark. This time, Armour and colleagues looked at the observations first, then compared that information against what the models predict. For the most part, the models remained robust, but “the observations allowed us to say with confidence that the most extreme warming scenarios predicted by the models are less likely to occur. Some good news for our climate.”

While the task at hand was daunting, Armour found bright spots in the process. “We were free as authors to provide our assessment of the literature without any influence from anyone else, except through several grueling rounds of peer review. It was a cool process because it was entirely written by scientists and the experts. The IPCC process is the gold standard for assessing climate change and its impacts.”

He also found enjoyment working with scientists around the world, people he would have otherwise never gotten to know. “On my chapter team alone, we had representation from nine different countries spanning six different time zones.” The team initially met in person at various locations around the globe, including China, Canada and France. But as the COVID-19 pandemic set in, they finished all their work virtually.

“IPCC authors volunteer their time and expertise, and the work is performed entirely on top of their day jobs,” says Armour. “The findings are based on an assessment of thousands of scientific papers, and the report has gone through multiple rounds of review by hundreds of scientists, experts and governments over a three year period. I’m proud of the way we responded to get this report done.”

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The National Science Foundation has funded a multi-institutional team led by Oregon State University and the University of Washington to work on increasing resiliency among Pacific Northwest coastal communities.

The new Cascadia Coastlines and Peoples Hazards Research Hub will serve coastal communities in Northern California, Oregon and Washington. The hub’s multidisciplinary approach will span geoscience, social science, public policy and community partnerships.

The Pacific Northwest coastline is at significant risk of earthquakes from the Cascadia Subduction Zone, an offshore fault that stretches more than 600 miles from Cape Mendocino in California to southern British Columbia. The region also faces ongoing risks from coastal erosion, regional flooding and rising seas due to climate change.

The newly established Cascadia CoPes Hub, based at OSU, will increase the capacity of coastal communities to adapt through community engagement and co-production of research, and by training a new generation of coastal hazards scientists and leaders from currently underrepresented communities.

The initial award is for $7.2 million over the first two years, with the bulk split between OSU and the UW. The total award, subject to renewals, is $18.9 million over five years.

“We’re not thinking only about the possibility of one magnitude-9 earthquake; this effort is about the fabric of hazards over time,” said co-principal investigator Harold Tobin, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences and director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. “The heart of this project is merging physical science and social science with a community focus in an integrated way — translating scientific discovery with actions that coastal communities can use.”

Read more at Washington Sea Grant »

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