May 11, 2016

Remembering UW’s Ed Miles (1939-2016)

Ed Miles’ impacts on marine and climate science, as well as the College of the Environment and across the University of Washington campus, will live on.

UW’s Jerry Franklin honored for lifetime of forest research, policy

Forest ecologist Jerry Franklin has made a career of straddling two sometimes very different worldviews — that of the ecologist and the forester. The two professions historically didn’t see eye to eye, but Franklin, in his current role as a UW professor of environmental and forest sciences and previously as a forester with the U.S. Forest Service, has in his 60-year career found a way to integrate ecological and economic values into forestry.

Aquatic and Fishery Sciences’ Ray Hilborn receives 2016 Award of Excellence

The School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences' Ray Hilborn.

Congratulations to the College of the Environment’s Ray Hilborn! The professor of aquatic and fishery sciences was recently selected as the 2016-2017 University Faculty Lecturer by UW President Ana Mari Cauce and Interim Provost and Executive Vice President Jerry Baldasty. Nominated by his colleagues and collaborators, this recognition shines a special light on Hilborn’s positive contribution to the scientific process as it affects fisheries from local to global scales.

First Salish Sea-wide shoreline armoring study shows cumulative effects on ecosystem

A seawall along Harbor Avenue Southwest in West Seattle.

A new study from the College's Friday Harbor Labs shows that armored shorelines can scale up to have massive impacts on the sea life they support.

Scientists recommend immediate plan to combat changes to West Coast seawater chemistry

Marine shelled organisms in Washington are already having difficulty forming their protective outer shells, and the local shellfish industry is seeing high mortality rates in early life stages of some commercially important shellfish species when shell formation is critical.

Global carbon dioxide emissions are triggering troubling changes to ocean chemistry along the West Coast that require immediate, decisive actions to combat through a coordinated regional approach, a panel of scientific experts has unanimously concluded. A failure to adequately respond to this fundamental change in seawater chemistry, known as ocean acidification, is anticipated to have devastating ecological consequences for the West Coast in the decades to come, the 20-member West Coast Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia (OAH) Science Panel warned in a comprehensive report unveiled April 4.