climate change
September 17, 2018
Shift in large-scale Atlantic circulation causes lower-oxygen water to invade Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence
![red and blue swirls on map](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/09/17085756/ModelOutput_MarionaClaret-150x150.jpg)
Rapid deoxygenation in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is caused by shifts in two of the ocean’s most powerful currents: the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current. A detailed model shows that large-scale climate change is causing oxygen to drop in the deeper parts of this biologically rich waterway.
September 6, 2018
Volcano under ice sheet suggests thickening of West Antarctic ice is short-term
![animation of straight blue line over bumpy base](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/09/05230741/VideoOfFeature3DPosition-150x150.gif)
Evidence left by a volcano under the ice sheet suggests that the observed bulging of ice in West Antarctica is a short-term feature that may not affect the glacier’s motion over the long term.
August 30, 2018
Climate change projected to boost insect activity and crop loss, researchers say
![Image of ears of wheat](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/08/29125021/Wheat_ears_web-150x150.jpg)
In a paper published Aug. 31 in the journal Science, a team led by scientists at the University of Washington reports that insect activity in today’s temperate, crop-growing regions will rise along with temperatures. Researchers project that this activity, in turn, will boost worldwide losses of rice, corn and wheat by 10-25 percent for each degree Celsius that global mean surface temperatures rise.
August 20, 2018
California plain shows surprising winners and losers from prolonged drought
![wildflowers on hill](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/08/20101749/Superbloom_at_Carrizo_2017_BLM-150x150.jpg)
Meticulously tracking of 423 species before, during and after the worst droughts to hit California in more than a thousand years shows surprising patterns. Key prey species plummeted in the third year of the drought, and carnivores were hardest hit in later years.
July 30, 2018
Sea-level rise report contains best projections yet for Washington’s coasts
![Google Map of Washington](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/07/27153935/map_of_sites2-150x150.png)
A University of Washington report provides the best projections yet for sea-level rise due to climate change at 171 sites along Washington’s coasts.
July 18, 2018
Atlantic Ocean circulation is not collapsing – but as it shifts gears, global warming will reaccelerate
![Depiction of Atlantic circulation with red arrows pointing north and blue arrows pointing south.](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/07/18101731/Atlantic_flow-150x150.jpg)
New research suggests the Atlantic Ocean is transitioning back to its slower phase, which means average global air temperatures will go back to rising more quickly.
June 11, 2018
Warmer climate will dramatically increase the volatility of global corn crops
![corn field in sunshine](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/06/04124618/corn-fields-pixabay-150x150.jpg)
A study of global maize production in 2100 shows dramatic increases in the variability of corn yields from one year to the next under climate change, making simultaneous low yields across multiple high-producing regions more likely, which could lead to price hikes and global shortages.
May 23, 2018
A promising target in the quest for a 1-million-year-old Antarctic ice core
![yellow tent on snow](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/05/04125018/FieldCamp-150x150.jpg)
The oldest ice core so far provides 800,000 years of our planet’s climate history. A UW field survey in Antarctica has pinpointed a location where an entire million years of undisturbed ice might be preserved intact.
May 8, 2018
UW researchers will survey Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier as part of major international effort
![International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration logo](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/05/04125256/thwaites-logo-139x150-139x150.png)
UW glaciologist Knut Christianson is part of a massive collaboration that will collect on-the-ground data about a key Antarctic glacier that shows signs it could be collapsing into the sea.
April 25, 2018
UW faculty selected as authors, editors of international report on climate change
![](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/04/04125639/IPCC_Logo30e-150x150.png)
About twice each decade, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, looks at what is known about the science of climate change, the extent to which human activities are changing the Earth’s climate, and what risks these changes pose to human and natural systems. Organized into three working groups, each assessment is…
February 7, 2018
Ice core shows North American ice sheet’s retreat affected Antarctic weather
![iceberg from above](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/02/04131619/icefloe-150x150.png)
A study from the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Washington finds that the retreat of the ice sheet covering North America made Antarctic weather more similar from one year to the next.
February 5, 2018
UW atmospheric scientists flying through clouds above Antarctica’s Southern Ocean
![clouds](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/02/04131715/SouthernOceanClouds_NCAR-150x150.jpg)
UW atmospheric sciences faculty and graduate students are in Tasmania studying how clouds form over Antarctica’s Southern Ocean.
January 18, 2018
Civil War-era U.S. Navy ships’ logs to be explored for climate data, maritime history
![soldiers on shore](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/01/04132318/BatonRouge_Flickr-150x150.jpg)
A new grant will let a University of Washington-based project add a new fleet to its quest to learn more about past climate from the records of long-gone mariners. The UW is among the winners of the 2017 “Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives” awards, announced Jan. 4 by the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Library…
December 18, 2017
Partnership will use robotic network to explore Antarctic ice shelves
![yellow instrument in dark water](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/11/04133514/Image-3-150x150.jpg)
A new partnership between the UW and Paul G. Allen Philanthropies will use a network of robots to observe conditions beneath a floating Antarctic ice shelf.
November 7, 2017
With climate change, Mount Rainier floral communities could ‘reassemble’ with new species relationships, interactions
![Wildflowers growing on a mountain.](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/11/04133908/MtRainier_summer_Theobald-150x150.jpg)
An unseasonably warm, dry summer on Mount Rainier in 2015 caused subalpine wildflowers to change their bloom times and form ‘reassembled’ communities, with unknown consequences for species interactions among wildflowers, pollinators and other animals.
August 31, 2017
Q&A: How Idaho, Montana, North Dakota and Yellowstone National Park are confronting climate change
![barn with mountains in the back](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/08/04135216/Barns_grand_tetons-150x150.jpg)
A new book focuses on climate change risks in the Northern Rocky Mountains, and how managers of public lands can prepare.
August 7, 2017
UW to host Interior Department’s Northwest Climate Science Center
![center logo](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/08/04135910/nwscs-150x122.jpg)
The University of Washington is the new host for the federally funded Northwest Climate Science Center, a consortium that supports climate-adaptation research in the Northwest.
July 31, 2017
Earth likely to warm more than 2 degrees this century
![bar chart](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/07/04135950/temperature_projections-150x150.jpg)
A new UW statistical study shows only 5 percent chance that Earth will warm less than 2 degrees, what many see as a “tipping point” for climate, by the end of this century.
July 27, 2017
UW building underwater robots to study oceans around Antarctica
![people looking at float](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/07/04140230/Riser_Lab-1156-150x150.jpg)
Oceanographers are building swimming robots to carry out an ambitious mission gathering climate data from one of Earth’s most challenging locations: the icy water that surrounds Antarctica.
April 17, 2017
Models, observations not so far apart on planet’s response to greenhouse gas emissions
New analysis debunks reports that recent observations are showing that Earth’s temperature responds less to greenhouse gases than predicted by climate models.
Retreating Yukon glacier caused a river to disappear
![chunks of sediment-covered ice](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/04/04142159/IceWallCanyon_JimBest-150x150.jpg)
A new study provides a postmortem on the Yukon’s Slims River, whose flow was diverted in early 2016. It is the only documented case of “river piracy” in modern times.
March 13, 2017
Rapid decline of Arctic sea ice a combination of climate change and natural variability
![a photo of Arctic sea ice as seen from an ice breaker](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2012/08/04205730/sea-ice1-150x150.jpg)
Dramatic declines in Arctic sea ice during the past four decades are due to a mixture of global warming and a natural decades-long hot spot over Greenland.
February 8, 2017
Hidden lakes drain below West Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier
![topography of lakes](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/02/04143509/Subglacial_Lake_BSmith-150x150.jpg)
Drainage of four interconnected lakes below Thwaites Glacier in late 2013 caused only a 10 percent increase in the glacier’s speed. The glacier’s recent speedup is therefore not due to changes in meltwater flow along its underside.
January 18, 2017
Listen to the Earth smash another global temperature record
![upward-sloping line](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2017/01/04143819/NOAA_NASA_Temp_Data-150x150.png)
The year 2016 was officially the hottest in recent history, beating previous records in 2014 and 2015. UW scientists let you hear the data speak for itself.
November 21, 2016
How to monitor global ocean warming – without harming whales
![map with stripes](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/11/04145039/itot_map-150x150.png)
Tracking the speed of internal tides offers a cheap, simple way to monitor temperature changes throughout the world’s oceans.
November 16, 2016
Large forest die-offs can have effects that ricochet to distant ecosystems
![dead conifers on slope](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/11/04145129/6_thumb_L1040299_1024_breshears-150x150.jpeg)
Major forest die-offs due to drought, heat and beetle infestations or deforestation could have consequences far beyond the local landscape. Wiping out an entire forest can have significant effects on global climate patterns and alter vegetation on the other side of the world.
September 30, 2016
CO2 record at Mauna Loa, the music video: The sounds of climate change
![smokestacks and smoke](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/09/04150208/screenshot-150x150.jpg)
University of Washington scientists have put world’s longest-running measure of atmospheric carbon dioxide to music. The result is a 90-second rendition of human-induced climate change: The video project was done by Judy Twedt, a UW doctoral student in atmospheric sciences, and Dargan Frierson, a UW associate professor of atmospheric sciences and amateur musician. Their techno…
September 23, 2016
Week-long exhibit in La Conner joins climate scientists, artists
![river valley and water](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/09/04150438/WaterOnTheMountainDetail_CaraJaye-150x150.jpg)
UW scientists worked with artists for an exhibit at the Museum of Northwest Art focusing on climate change impacts on coastal communities.
August 29, 2016
Plants’ future water use affects long-term drought estimates
![farmers in field](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/08/04151017/large_drc-drc-lubumbashi-0629-06-150x150.jpg)
Many popular long-term drought estimates ignore the fact that plants will be less thirsty as carbon dioxide goes up. Plants’ lower water use could roughly halve some current estimates for the extent of future drought, especially in central Africa and temperate Asia.
July 25, 2016
Marine carbon sinking rates confirm importance of polar oceans
![white dots on blue background](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/07/04151641/marinesnow-splash_NOAA-150x150.jpg)
Polar oceans pump organic carbon down to the deep sea about five times as efficiently as subtropical waters, because they can support larger, heavier organisms. The finding helps explain how the oceans may function under climate change.
July 6, 2016
Acid attack — can mussels hang on for much longer?
![Mussels](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/07/04152033/Mussel-TILE-150x150.jpg)
Scientists from the University of Washington have found evidence that ocean acidification caused by carbon emissions can prevent mussels attaching themselves to rocks and other substrates, making them easy targets for predators and threatening the mussel farming industry.
July 5, 2016
Long-term Pacific climate cycle linked to expansion of Antarctic sea ice
![white continent on blue background](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/07/04152058/antarctic_seaice_sept19_2014_nasa-150x150.jpg)
A long-term Pacific climate cycle may be driving the expansion of Antarctic winter sea ice since 2000, but a new study finds that the trend may soon reverse.
May 30, 2016
Deep, old water explains why Antarctic Ocean hasn’t warmed
![global map red at top, blue at bottom](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/05/04153205/GlobalTempChg50Years-150x150.jpg)
The waters surrounding Antarctica may be one of the last places on Earth to experience human-driven climate change, because of its unique ocean currents.
May 19, 2016
Will more snow over Antarctica offset rising seas? Don’t count on it
![person in red coat pointing at ice](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/05/04153600/snow_pit_fudge_2011-150x150.jpg)
Heavier snowfall over Antarctica was supposed to be one of the few brakes on sea-level rise in a warming world. But that prediction is not reliable, says a new study of Antarctic snowfall over the past 31,000 years.
April 20, 2016
UW experts call Paris climate agreement ‘bold,’ ‘encouraging’
![Eiffel Tower with 'Paris Climate 2015'](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/04/04154434/COP-21-150x150.jpg)
As the U.S., China and other countries sign the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions and limit climate change, UW experts talk about the possibilities and risks in what could be a turning point for global economies.
April 6, 2016
UW-led field project watching clouds from a remote island off Antarctica
![penguins in front of research station](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/04/04154814/MICRE-8-150x150.jpg)
From a tiny island halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica, scientists hope to learn more about the physics of clouds above the stormy, inhospitable Southern Ocean.
March 11, 2016
Video contest challenges students to creatively define climate change
![contest logo](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/03/04155359/video-contest-2016-150x150.jpg)
The UW’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences is hosting its second-annual contest for undergraduate and high school students in Washington to create videos about what climate change means to them, in three minutes or less.
January 20, 2016
UW-designed climate change games honored this week in Washington, D.C.
![people playing a board game](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/01/04160854/AdaptNationPic-150x150.jpg)
Two University of Washington teams claimed top prizes in a national competition to design a game about climate adaptation.
December 10, 2015
Trees either hunker down or press on in a drying and warming western U.S. climate
![Trembling aspen.](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2015/12/04161801/trembling_aspen_tile-150x150.jpg)
Two University of Washington researchers have uncovered details of the radically divergent strategies that two common tree species employ to cope with drought in southwestern Colorado. As they report in a new paper in the journal Global Change Biology, one tree species shuts down production and conserves water, while the other alters its physiology to continue growing and using water.
December 9, 2015
Iceland volcano’s eruption shows how sulfur particles influence clouds
![lava and big emission plume](https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2015/12/04161829/Bardarbunga-Arctic-Images-2-150x150.jpg)
The long, slow 2014 eruption of Iceland’s Bardarbunga volcano offers a testbed to show how sulfur emissions, from volcanoes or humans, act to brighten clouds and reflect more sunlight.
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