Eight University of Washington subjects ranked in the top 10 and Atmospheric Sciences moved to its position as No. 1 in the world on the Global Ranking of Academic Subjects list for 2022. The ranking, released Tuesday, was conducted by researchers at the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, a fully independent organization dedicating to research on higher education intelligence and consultation. Other UW subjects in the top 10 include oceanography at No.
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Countries around the world pledged in the Paris Agreement to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or, at most, 2 degrees Celsius. As emissions rates gradually begin to decline, countries are looking at how many greenhouse gases can still be emitted while remaining below these temperature targets, which are deemed the upper limits to avoid the most catastrophic impacts to the climate system.
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The UW Department of Atmospheric Sciences strives to create an inclusive and welcoming environment where students, staff and faculty are supported and set up for success. Department Chair Cecilia Bitz has prioritized Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, citing her personal work history as a motivator to create an equitable environment. “Diversity is so important to me personally because when I started my career, women were definitely a minority,” she said.
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The UW College of the Environment is pleased to announce that Professor Joel Thornton has agreed to serve for a five-year term as director of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, effective July 1, 2022. Thornton is an atmospheric scientist who studies the impacts of human activities on air quality and climate through changes to the atmosphere’s composition and chemistry. His focus is on the processes which regulate the formation and removal of short-lived greenhouse gasses such as methane and ozone, and the formation and growth of airborne particulate matter.
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Clouds come in myriad shapes, sizes and types, which control their effects on climate. New research led by the University of Washington shows that splintering of frozen liquid droplets to form ice shards inside Southern Ocean clouds dramatically affects the clouds’ ability to reflect sunlight back to space. The paper, published March 4 in the open-access journal AGU Advances, shows that including this ice-splintering process improves the ability of high-resolution global models to simulate clouds over the Southern Ocean – and thus the models’ ability to simulate Earth’s climate.
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