One of the most hotly debated numbers in climate science is how warm our planet will become given various green house gas levels. The degree to which warming will occur depends on the amount of emissions, which make these calculations crucial for global policy making to curb global warming. But a UW study shows that two leading methods for calculating how hot the planet will get are not as far apart as they have appeared.
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Scientists from the College of the Environment's School of Marine and Environmental Affairs and NOAA's Northwest Fisheries Science Center are working to help restoration managers make plans that support resilient systems.
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Arctic sea ice in recent decades has declined even faster than predicted by most models of climate change. Many scientists have suspected that the trend now underway is a combination of global warming and natural climate variability. A new study finds that a substantial chunk of summer sea ice loss in recent decades was due to natural variability in the atmosphere over the Arctic Ocean.
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Black swan events are rare and surprising occurrences that happen without notice and often wreak havoc on society. The metaphor has been used to describe banking collapses, devastating earthquakes and other major surprises in financial, social and natural systems. A new analysis by the University of Washington and Simon Fraser University is the first to document that black swan events also occur in animal populations and usually manifest as massive, unexpected die-offs.
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Polar bears depend on sea ice for essential tasks like hunting and breeding. As Arctic sea ice disappears due to climate change, bears across the species’ 19 subpopulations are feeling the strain. But even as scientists try to quantify just how much melting sea ice is affecting polar bears, another group that depends on the iconic mammal for subsistence also is at risk of losing an important nutritional and economic resource.
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