Successful sustainability research initiatives are grounded in long-standing relationships among scientists, local communities and decision-makers, and widely accessible research data and results, shared CoEnv Dean Lisa Graumlich at last month’s AAAS meeting. She spoke as part of a panel of deans, directors, and department heads who are all interested in bringing science to bear to meet societal issues around sustainability. Read the full article from UW News here. 

Climate models that don’t portray enough clouds in the Southern Ocean have led to a persistent bias elsewhere on the planet: greater rainfall in the tropics. ATMO’s Yen-Ting Hwang and Dargan Frierson discovered this connection; read the full story from UW News here. 

A University of Washington research team has captured color photographs of what could be a previously undocumented species of chambered nautilus, a cephalopod mollusk often classified as a “living fossil,” in the waters off American Samoa in the South Pacific. Peter Ward/UW A Samoan nautilus about 2 miles offshore is seen in this photo from February 2013. At this location, the water was about 1,200 feet deep and the nautilus was at a depth of about 75 feet. 

When you look around the streets of Seattle, you can expect to see less concrete and more greenery being put in over the next 12 years.  The City is planning to dramatically increase its use of green infrastructure to treat stormwater runoff.  Read more about these plans on KPLU. 

The South Pole Ice Core (SPICE) project aims to retrieve an ice core 1,500 meters long beginning in the 2014-15 austral summer field season.  College of the Environment’s faculty member Eric Steig is co-leading the project.  Read more about this project and their goals in the Antarctic Sun.