The gusting westerly winds that dominate the climate in central Asia, setting the pattern of dryness and location of central Asian deserts, have blown mostly unchanged for 42 million years. A University of Washington geologist led a team that has discovered a surprising resilience to one of the world’s dominant weather systems. The finding could help long-term climate forecasts, since it suggests these winds are likely to persist through radical climate shifts.
Read more at UW Today »Interactive map shows where animals will move under climate change
Scientists predict that as Earth warms and climate patterns morph in response, animals will be forced to move to survive. That usually means hightailing it to higher latitudes as equatorial areas become too hot and dry. The University of Washington and The Nature Conservancy have created an animated map showing where mammals, birds and amphibians are projected to move in the Western Hemisphere in response to climate change.
Read more at UW Today »Plants' future water use affects long-term drought estimates
As humans pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and global temperatures rise, many questions loom. One major issue is how much fresh water will be available for people, forests and agriculture. A study led by the University of Washington shows that popular long-term drought estimates have a major flaw: They ignore the fact that plants will be less thirsty as carbon dioxide rises.
Read more at UW Today »Marine carbon sinking rates confirm importance of polar oceans
A University of Washington study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences uses a new approach to get a global picture of the fate of marine carbon. It finds that the polar seas export organic carbon to the deep sea, where it can no longer trap heat from the sun, about five times as efficiently as in other parts of the ocean.
Read more at UW Today »UW oceanographers grow, sequence genome of ocean microbe important to climate change
A University of Washington team has shed new light on a common but poorly understood bacteria known to live in deep, low-oxygen waters where the impacts of climate change are becoming significant.
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