Feb 13, 2019

Assessing riverside corridors — the ‘escape routes’ for animals under climate change — in the Northwest

A black bear walks along the South Fork Flathead River in Montana.

Under climate change, plants and animals will shift their habitats to track the conditions they are adapted for. As they do, the lands surrounding rivers and streams offer natural migration routes that will take on a new importance as temperatures rise. An open-access study led by the University of Washington pinpoints which riverside routes in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and western Montana will be the most important for animals trying to navigate a changing climate.

Heatwaves, floods and traffic mayhem. What to expect in Washington State with global warming of 1.5°C

Arial view of a refinery near Anacortes.

The UW Climate Impacts Group has released a brief discussing the implications of a 1.5°C increase in average temperatures for Washington State. No Time to Waste summarizes The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, and projects the impacts likely to be realized in Washington as soon as 2030. The brief assesses the current state of warming globally and outlines the most profoundly felt impacts likely to affect communities in Washington, including disruptions to transportation, infrastructure, public utilities and port operations.

Read more from UW Climate Impacts Group »

Feb 6, 2019

Dean Graumlich at the State of the Union

Dean Lisa Graumlich and Representative Pramila Jayapal.

Dean Lisa Graumlich attends the State of the Union as a guest of Representative Pramila Jayapal.

For 35 years, the Pacific Ocean has largely spared West’s mountain snow from effects of global warming

Washington state’s Mount Shuksan in February 2014.

A new study has found that a pattern of ocean temperatures and atmospheric circulation has offset most of the impact of global warming on mountain snowpack in the western U.S. since the 1980s. The study from Oregon State University, the University of Washington and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was published Jan. 11 in Geophysical Research Letters. “The western U.S. has received a big assist from natural variability over the past 35 years,” said lead author Nick Siler at Oregon State University, who began thinking about the project as a doctoral student in atmospheric sciences at the UW.

UW, partners reach milestone in program using robots to monitor world’s oceans

Steve Riser (center, in black), students and technicians in July 2017 inside the UW School of Oceanography’s floats lab.

Around the planet’s oceans, nearly 4,000 floats — many of them built at the University of Washington — are plunging up and down, collecting and transmitting observations of the world’s oceans. This fall, one of these diving robots made the program’s 2 millionth measurement, reporting temperature and salinity recorded to a depth of about a mile. The Argo Program is a 20-year-old project to gather 3D data on the oceans.