UW News

College of the Environment


August 1, 2014

A unique lab class: UW students explore nation’s largest dam removal

students walking on sand

A spring research apprenticeship course had nine undergraduates living at Friday Harbor Labs and studying what will happen to sediment released by dam removals on the Elwha River.


July 17, 2014

Geophysicists prep for massive ‘ultrasound’ of Mount St. Helens

The crater of Mount St. Helens.

Dozens of geophysicists and volunteers will deploy 3,500 seismic sensors at Mount St. Helens next week in an unprecedented study of the volcano’s plumbing.


June 25, 2014

Shellfish center – named after UW’s Ken Chew – to tackle shellfish declines

Platter of raw shellfish

Washington state’s newest shellfish hatchery has been named after longtime faculty member Ken Chew.


June 18, 2014

Scientists ready to study magma formation beneath Mount St. Helens

Mount St. Helens as it appeared two years after its catastrophic eruption on May 18, 1980.

Scientists are embarking on research to improve volcanic eruption forecasting by learning more about how a deep-underground feeder system creates and supplies magma to Mount St. Helens.


June 6, 2014

Ocean technology course ends spring quarter with a splash

students on dock

A University of Washington undergraduate class has students design, build and test their own Internet-connected oceanographic sensors. The students are getting their feet wet, literally, in a new type of oceanography.


May 27, 2014

UW students, neighbors join forces down on the Union Bay ‘bayou’

Woman kneels by two-foot tall willow branches

Swamp once site of historic Yesler sawmill being restored with UW student and neighborhood help.


May 21, 2014

Marine apprenticeships give UW undergrads role in animal-ancestor breakthrough

Three people on beach with buckets

Comb jellies – and not sponges – may lay claim as the earliest ancestors of animals, according to new research in Nature.


May 12, 2014

West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse is under way

ice

The collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has begun, according to computer models using detailed topographic maps. The fast-moving Thwaites Glacier will likely disappear in a matter of centuries, researchers say, raising sea level by nearly 2 feet.


May 7, 2014

Greenland melting due equally to global warming, natural variations

Up to half of the recent warming in Greenland and surrounding areas may be due to climate variations that originate in the tropical Pacific and are not connected with the overall warming of the planet. Still, at least half the warming remains attributable to global warming caused by rising carbon dioxide emissions.


May 6, 2014

UW scientist a lead author on third National Climate Assessment

report cover

University of Washington climate scientist Amy Snover is one of two lead authors for the Northwest chapter of the newly published National Climate Assessment.


May 1, 2014

Amphibians in a vise: Climate change robs frogs, salamanders of refuge

Frogs head shows above surface of the water

Amphibians in the West’s high-mountain areas find themselves caught between climate-induced habitat loss and predation from introduced fish. A novel combination of tools could help weigh where amphibians are in the most need of help.


April 30, 2014

See National Ocean Sciences Bowl put the M (for “marine”) in STEMM

Students writing at table

The Super Bowl of high school marine studies, the National Ocean Sciences Bowl, takes place this weekend on the UW campus. The theme of this year’s event is ocean acidification.


April 29, 2014

Benjamin Hall, Eric D’Asaro elected to National Academy of Sciences

Benjamin Hall and Eric D’Asaro are among the 84 new members elected fellows the National Academy of Sciences.


April 23, 2014

Academy of arts and sciences inducting Franklin, Fine

Drumheller Fountain and Gerberding Hall on the UW campus.

Jerry Franklin and Arthur Fine have been elected fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences


Fisheries act, up for reauthorization, subject of UW symposium

Words and line drawing of fish

The Magnuson-Stevens Act is the subject of this year’s Bevan Series on Sustainable Fisheries.


April 14, 2014

Puget Sound’s rich waters supplied by deep, turbulent canyon

map of canyon

UW oceanographers found fast-flowing water and intense mixing in a submarine canyon just off the Washington coast.


April 11, 2014

Greenland ice cores show industrial record of acid rain, success of U.S. Clean Air Act

person with ice core

Detailed ice core measurements show smog-related ratios leveling off in 1970, and suggests these deposits are sensitive to the same chemicals that cause acid rain.


March 31, 2014

UW experts part of technical team investigating Snohomish County mudslide

An aerial photo of the Oso, Wash., mudslide.

A national team jointly led by a University of Washington geotechnical engineer and an engineering geologist will investigate what caused the March 22 mudslide in Snohomish County and what effects the disaster had on the nearby residential communities.


March 27, 2014

Citizen scientists: UW students help state legislator with climate policy

students at table with papers

Four graduate students were part of a year-long legislative process in Olympia working to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in Washington state.


March 26, 2014

Decline of natural history troubling for science, society

Two people kneel by tide pool

Seventeen North American scientists outline the importance of natural science and call for a revitalization of the practice.


March 7, 2014

Lifesaving milestone for Washington’s fishing industry

Six swimmers in survival suits float in a row in water

Washington Sea Grant field agents have conducted their 100th Coast Guard-certified Safety at Sea class for tribal and commercial fishers.


March 4, 2014

Polar science this weekend at Pacific Science Center

event poster

The 9th annual Polar Science Weekend will bring polar research, art and an actual ice core to the Pacific Science Center.


February 26, 2014

Pine forest particles appear out of thin air, influence climate

Trees in snow

German, Finnish and U.S. scientists have discovered how gas wafting from coniferous trees creates particles that can reflect sunlight or promote formation of clouds.


February 24, 2014

Vitamin water: Measuring essential nutrients in the ocean

researchers on boat

Oceanographers have found that archaea, a type of marine microbe, can produce B-12 vitamins in the ocean.


February 18, 2014

Embarking on geoengineering, then stopping, would speed up global warming

Sun rays

Carrying out geoengineering for several decades and then stopping would cause warming at a rate more than double that expected due to global warming.


February 14, 2014

UW helps protect $30 million to $40 million in U.S. wood exports to Japan

Ends of logs in a row

A recently introduced homebuilding subsidy program in Japan put logs and lumber imported from the U.S. and other countries at a competitive disadvantage.


January 17, 2014

UW seismologists expand stadium monitoring for NFC championship game

A Seattle Seahawks "12th man" flag, representing the fans, flies over the Space Needle.

UW scientists installed a third seismograph at CenturyLink Field this week after the trial by fire of a website and new monitoring tools during last weekend’s Seahawks game.


January 16, 2014

Soil production breaks geologic speed record

person on mountain ridge

Samples from steep mountaintops in New Zealand shows that rock can transform into soil more than twice as fast as previously believed possible.


January 15, 2014

DNA detectives able to ‘count’ thousands of fish using as little as a glass of water

Visitors stand looking through glass as sea animals swim by

A mere glass full of water from a 1.2 million-gallon aquarium tank is all scientists really needed to identify most of the 13,000 fish swimming there.


January 9, 2014

Big is not bad: Scientists call for preservation of large carnivores

Gray wolf in forest

Despite their scary reputation, carnivores deserve credit for all kinds of ecological services when they eat grazing animals that gobble down young trees and other vegetation that could be holding carbon and protecting streams.


January 6, 2014

‘Future of Ice’ initiative marks new era for UW polar research

The UW’s new “Future of Ice” initiative includes several new research hires, a new minor in Arctic studies and a free winter lecture series.


January 2, 2014

El Niño tied to melting of Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier

ice and sky

A new study in Science, co-authored by the British Antarctic Survey and UW authors, shows that melting of the floating Pine Island ice shelf is tied to global atmospheric patterns associated with El Niño.


December 19, 2013

Sinuous skeletons, glowing blue and crimson, leap from lab to art world

Skeleton

Fish “stripped” to their skeletons and stained for UW research are now part of an art exhibit at the Seattle Aquarium.


December 17, 2013

Hack the planet? Geoengineering research, ethics, governance explored

ship that sprays clouds

A special interdisciplinary issue of the journal Climatic Change includes the most detailed description yet of the proposed Oxford Principles to govern geoengineering research, and surveys the technical hurdles, ethics and regulatory issues related to deliberately manipulating the planet’s climate.


December 10, 2013

What climate change means for federally protected marine species

salmon

As the Endangered Species Act nears its 40th birthday at the end of December, conservation biologists are coming to terms with a danger not foreseen in the 1970s: global climate change.


December 9, 2013

Astronomers solve temperature mystery of planetary atmospheres

The sun is just below the horizon in this photo and creates an orange-red glow above the Earth's surface, which is the troposphere, or lowest layer of the atmosphere. The tropopause is the brown line along the upper edge of the troposphere. Above both are the stratosphere, higher atmospheric layers, and the blackness of space.

An atmospheric peculiarity the Earth shares with Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune is likely common to billions of planets, University of Washington astronomers have found, and knowing that may help in the search for potentially habitable worlds.


November 19, 2013

Paddlers spread pump-out ‘gospel’ to recreational boaters

Washington Sea Grant’s “Pumpout Paddlers” are readying their kayaks for winter paddling to deliver more adapters so boaters have a cleaner, easier way to pump their sewage-holding tanks.


November 18, 2013

Post-shutdown, UW Arctic research flights resume

researchers in plane

UW researchers this month are on missions to fly above the Arctic Ocean to measure glacier melt, polar storms and Arctic sea ice.


November 8, 2013

Forest fires and fireside chats: UW students learn about management challenges

Students uses hand lens to examine moss on rock

An intensive two week field course helped 20 University of Washington students learn firsthand about the challenges of managing dry, fire-prone forests of the Pacific Northwest.


November 6, 2013

Floods didn’t provide nitrogen ‘fix’ for earliest crops in frigid north

Trees, sediments in floodplain

Floods didn’t make floodplains fertile during the dawn of human agriculture in the Earth’s far north. Turns out early human inhabitants can mainly thank cyanobacteria. It raises the question of whether modern farmers might reduce fertilizer use by taking advantage of cyanobacteria that occur, not just in the floodplains studied, but in soils around the world.



Previous page Next page