The mountain pine beetle has destroyed more than 40 million acres of forest in the western United States — an area roughly the size of Washington state. The beetles introduce a fungus that prevents water and critical nutrients from traveling within a tree. They also lay eggs under the conifers’ bark, and their feeding larvae help kill trees — sometimes just weeks after the initial attack.
Read more at UW Today »Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, USGS and partners launch West Coast earthquake early warning system
The U.S. Geological Survey and university, public and private partners held an event April 10 at the University of Washington to introduce the ShakeAlert earthquake early warning program as a unified, West Coast-wide system. The event also introduced the first pilot uses of the earthquake early warning in Washington and Oregon. The first Pacific Northwest pilot users of the system are Bothell, Wash.-based
Read more at UW Today »Using a method from Wall Street to track slow slipping of Earth's crust
A researcher at the College's Department of Earth and Space Sciences is utilizing a Wall Street technique used to monitor stocks to detect slow slip earthquakes.
Read more at UW Today »‘Black swan’ events strike animal populations
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.
Read more at UW Today »UW's Kristin Laidre awarded Pew marine fellowship to study effects of climate change, subsistence hunting on polar bears
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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