The Great Barrier Reef, Mars, and more

Each week we share the latest peer-reviewed publications coming from the College of the Environment. Over the past week, nine new articles co-authored by members of the College were added to the Web of Science database. They include articles about the Great Barrier Reef, Mars, and more. Read on!

A summer of science communication in Alaska's Prince William Sound

UW Environment grad student Amy Brodbeck.

In a plane flying over Alaska’s stunning Prince William Sound, the pilot and crew keep their eyes peeled for schooling groups of herring. The fish are easy to spot from above as they congregate here and there along the shoreline. Each cluster behaves in its own unique way, allowing scientists to tell one group from another. Amy Brodbeck, a graduate student in the UW College of the Environment’s School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, is among those searching for the fishy cohorts.

Morel mushrooms pop up, cluster together after wildfires

The researchers collected morels in the forest that burned in Yosemite National Park. Current park regulations allow the collection of 1 pint per person per day.

Avid mushroom hunters will tell you that fire is essential for finding morels. These fungi, distinguishable for their dark, honeycomblike caps, pop out of the ground by the bushel in spring after a large wildfire. This ecological knowledge is mostly anecdotal, shared among morel enthusiasts for recreational hunts and commercial harvesting, in what is now a multimillion-dollar, worldwide industry. Yet few scientific studies have actually quantified morels’ abundance after a fire.

CO2 record at Mauna Loa, the music video: The sounds of climate change

The UW Department of Atmospheric Sciences‘ Judy Twedt, a doctoral student, and Dargan Frierson, an associate professor, recently put the world’s longest-running measure of atmospheric carbon dioxide to music. The result is a 90-second rendition of human-induced climate change:

Atlantic Ocean's slowdown tied to changes in the Southern Hemisphere

The ocean circulation that is responsible for England’s mild climate appears to be slowing down. The shift is not sudden or dramatic, as in the 2004 sci-fi movie “The Day After Tomorrow,” but it is a real effect that has consequences for the climates of eastern North America and Western Europe. Also unlike in that movie, and in theories of long-term climate change, these recent trends are not connected with the melting of Arctic sea ice and buildup of freshwater near the North Pole.