Mar 17, 2023

S1 E1: Ocean Acoustics with Shima Abadi and Rachel Aronson

Shima Abadi is Director of the Ocean Data Lab and an associate professor at the UW School of Oceanography. She also holds a joint appointment as an associate professor in the Mechanical Engineering Program at UW Bothell’s School of Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM). Abadi’s intricate research primarily focuses on ocean acoustical signal processing, noise propagation in the ocean, machine learning in analyzing ocean ambient noise, and developing algorithms for analyzing large data sets collected by underwater networks.

Ice cores show even dormant volcanoes leak abundant sulfur into the atmosphere

Volcanoes draw plenty of attention when they erupt. But new research led by the University of Washington shows that volcanoes leak a surprisingly high amount of their atmosphere- and climate-changing gases in their quiet phases. A Greenland ice core shows that volcanoes quietly release at least three times as much sulfur into the Arctic atmosphere than estimated by current climate models.

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Dec 13, 2022

Signals from the ionosphere could improve tsunami forecasts

NASA satellite image of the Hunga Ha'apai eruption.

Research from the University of Washington shows that signals from the upper atmosphere could improve tsunami forecasting and, someday, help track ash plumes and other impacts after a volcanic eruption. A new study analyzed the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption in the South Pacific earlier this year. The Jan. 15, 2022, volcanic eruption was the largest to be recorded by modern equipment.

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Dec 9, 2022

UW brings field geology to students with ‘Virtual Field Geology’

University of Washington geologists had set out to create computer-based field experiences long before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Juliet Crider, a UW associate professor of Earth and space sciences, first got a grant from the National Science Foundation to send a former graduate student and a drone to photograph an iconic Pennsylvania geological site and pilot a new approach to field geology.

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Sep 28, 2022

Deepest scientific ocean drilling effort sheds light on Japan’s next ‘big one’

Harold Tobin of the University Washington inspects drilling pipes.

Scientists who drilled deeper into an undersea earthquake fault than ever before have found that the tectonic stress in Japan’s Nankai subduction zone is less than expected. The results of the study led by the University of Washington and the University of Texas at Austin, published Sept. 5 in Geology, are a puzzle, since the fault produces a great earthquake almost every century and was thought to be building for another big one.

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