Research published by scientists at the College of the Environment Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean and NOAA has yielded new findings in the role that the tropical Pacific plays in regulating global CO2. The ocean acts both a source and sink for atmospheric CO2, and the tropical Pacific has always had a disproportionately large influence on that interplay.
Read more »In a twist on the concept of citizen scientist, University of Washington science students helped the state Legislature with environmental policy. During the past year and a half, four UW graduate students participated in a working group tasked with creating policies to satisfy the 2008 law requiring Washington state to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Read more about these students and how they participated on UW Today.
Read more »
The fifth event in the Future of Ice Speaker Series featured Dee Boersma, a UW scientist who has spent her career studying the ecology of our world’s penguins. Much of her time is spent in Punto Tombo, Argentina, focused on a large population of Magellanic penguins. She and her team have collected an impressive time-series of data on these birds–over 30 years–which has proved instrumental in understanding penguin ecology and the pressures that affect them.
Read more »
On March 1, Washington Sea Grant and other programs and schools from the University of Washington College of the Environment hosted the 2014 Orca Bowl on the UW campus. More than 100 students from 13 Washington state high schools competed at the event, focused this year on ocean acidification. This year, Everett’s ORCA high school team took top honors, and newcomer Redmond High placed second.
Read more »
Spraying reflective particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and then stopping it could exacerbate the problem of climate change, according to new research by atmospheric scientists at the University of Washington. Carrying out geoengineering for several decades and then stopping would cause warming at a rate that will greatly exceed that expected due to global warming, according to a study published February 18 in Environmental Research Letters.
Read more »
