Dean’s Letter: UW’s Freshwater Initiative

To understand the importance of freshwater, we need look no further than the current map of drought in the western United States. California is in the grips of an extreme multi-year drought, and farmers and ranchers are facing critical water shortages that affect the nation’s food supply.  Here in Washington we are more fortunate in that we are “only” in a moderate drought, but are nevertheless concerned about how low snowpack will impact our water supply and wildfire in the coming months. 

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Vitamin water: Measuring essential nutrients in the ocean

The phrase, ‘Eat your vitamins,’ applies to marine animals just like humans. Many vitamins are elusive in the ocean environment. University of Washington researchers used new tools to measure and track B-12 vitamins in the ocean. Once believed to be manufactured only by marine bacteria, the new results show that a whole different class of organism, archaea, can supply this essential vitamin. 

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UW helps protect $30 million to $40 million in U.S. wood exports to Japan

Precut lumber post and beam house

By showing the economic benefit to Japanese saw mills, a University of Washington researcher has helped protect U.S. exports of Douglas-fir logs and lumber worth $30 million to $40 million a year. A recently introduced homebuilding subsidy program in Japan put logs and lumber imported from the U.S. and other countries at a competitive disadvantage, according to Ivan Eastin, UW professor of environmental and forest sciences. 

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Embarking on geoengineering, then stopping, would speed up global warming

Earth

Spraying reflective particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and then stopping it could exacerbate the problem of climate change, according to new research by atmospheric scientists at the University of Washington. Carrying out geoengineering for several decades and then stopping would cause warming at a rate that will greatly exceed that expected due to global warming, according to a study published February 18 in Environmental Research Letters. 

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