Ice age climate analysis reduces worst-case warming expected from rising CO2

wolly mammoth animals walk along the earth.

As carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, the Earth will get hotter. But exactly how much warming will result from a certain increase in CO2 is under study. The relationship between CO2 and warming, known as climate sensitivity, determines what future we should expect as CO2 levels continue to climb. New research led by the University of Washington analyzes the most recent ice age, when a large swath of North America was covered in ice, to better understand the relationship between CO2 and global temperature.

UW Environment disciplines among top in nation, world in recent rankings

Several UW College of the Environment disciplines placed highly in two recent rankings: QS World University Rankings by Subject and U.S. News & World Report’s 2025 Best Graduate Schools. QS World University Rankings by Subject tracks an analysis, conducted by QS Quacquarelli Symonds, of 16,400 university programs at 1,500 institutions in 96 locations around the world. The University of Washington has five subjects in the top 10 in 2024, including Geology (No.

Students win big at 2024 Alaska Airlines Environmental Innovation Challenge

Taking home the $15,000 Grand Prize was AgroFilms, a team of students from the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences as well as a technology management MBA student. The team’s mulch film, both innovative and low-cost, has the potential to keep plastic waste out of farms, landfills and oceans.

New report ‘braids’ Indigenous and Western knowledge for forest adaptation strategies against climate change

two images of the same forest showing patterns

A report co-led by the University of Washington outlines a new approach to forest stewardship that “braids together” Indigenous knowledge and Western science to conserve and restore more resilient forestlands.

What four decades of canned salmon reveal about marine food webs

a graphic showing a fish sticking out of a can

Alaskan waters are a critical fishery for salmon. Complex marine food webs underlie and sustain this fishery, and scientists want to know how climate change is reshaping them. But finding samples from the past isn’t easy. “We have to really open our minds and get creative about what can act as an ecological data source,” said Natalie Mastick, currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University.