At the College of the Environment, boundless field opportunities await our students and researchers. The Friday Harbor Laboratories are a research gateway to the Pacific, where you can foster your skills as a marine biologist, oceanographer, or in any number of ocean-related sciences. Sitting on the shores of Friday Harbor in the San Juan Archipelago, the labs are a renowned destination to immerse yourself in marine sciences as they relate to the Salish Sea.
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Far above the wildfires raging in Washington’s forests, a less noticeable consequence of this dry year is taking place in mountain ponds. The minimal snowpack and long summer drought that have left the Pacific Northwest lowlands parched have also affected the region’s amphibians through loss of mountain pond habitat. According to a new paper published Sept. 2 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, this summer’s severe conditions may be the new normal within just a few decades.
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Groves of poplar trees could one day fuel our vehicles and be the source of chemicals that we use in our daily lives. A five-year, $40 million study is laying the foundation for a Pacific Northwest industry that converts sustainably produced poplar feedstock into fuels and chemicals. The research, led by the University of Washington, will seed the world’s first wood-based cellulosic ethanol production facility.
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The College of the Environment in partnership with The Graduate School and the UW Alumni Association is pleased to present the fall speaker series Surviving Disaster: Natural Hazards & Resilient Communities. Join us for a series of discussions centered around natural disasters — like earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides and hurricanes — and how they can affect the lives and livelihoods of people here in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
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Understanding the planet’s history is crucial if we are to predict its future. While some records are preserved in ice cores or tree rings, other records of the climate’s ancient past are buried deep inside the seafloor. An increasingly popular method to deduce historic sea surface temperatures uses sediment-entombed bodies of marine archaea, one of Earth’s most ancient and resilient creatures, as a 150-million-year record of ocean temperatures.
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