Apr 13, 2018

UW Environment alumna Eliza Dawson to row across the Pacific Ocean for climate change awareness

Female rower wearing a hat and wetsuit rows on Lake Washington with Fremont Bridge behind her.

Eliza Dawson, a former UW crew member who majored in atmospheric sciences at UW’s College of the Environment, is part of a four-woman team that will row across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii this June. She and her team hope to break the world record for women rowers — 50 days, 8 hours, 14 minutes — set in 2014. Dawson is also taking part in the 2,400-mile rowing race from Monterey, California, to Honolulu to spotlight the far-reaching impacts of humankind on the Earth by rowing across parts of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a vast gyre of plastic garbage occupying an area four times the size of California.

Using infosonics to tap into the emotional side of climate change

Judy Twedt remembers the moment when she started to think differently about her work on climate change: when the U.S. pulled out of the Paris Agreement. “It was a turning point for me. I realized I needed to start engaging with people on an emotional level.” She thought deeply about how she wanted to spend the remaining two years of her PhD work at the University of Washington, and how to build the emotional connection of climate change as a centerpiece of her dissertation.

UW atmospheric scientists flying through clouds above Antarctica’s Southern Ocean

Roger Marchand with UW students Litai Kang (left) and Emily Tansey (center) in front of the Hiaper research aircraft.

University of Washington scientists are part of an international team that is spending six weeks in the remote Southern Ocean to tackle one of the region’s many mysteries: its clouds. What they discover will be used to improve climate models, which routinely underestimate how much solar energy bounces off clouds in that region. Simulating how much solar energy is absorbed or reflected on Earth is key to calculating the future of the planet under climate change.

Shuyi Chen

Q&A: UW’s Shuyi Chen on hurricane science, forecasting and the 2017 hurricane season

The United States just suffered the most intense hurricane season in more than a decade, and possibly the costliest ever. Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in mid-August. Hurricane Irma struck Florida in early September, followed just two weeks later by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. Now, with the close of hurricane season on Nov. 30, new UW faculty member Shuyi Chen, professor in the UW’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences and an expert on hurricanes, answered a few questions about the state of hurricane forecasting and the 2017 storm season.

Read the Q&A at UW Today »