News – Page 15

Small drains mean big problems at ‘baby beaches’

Written on December 3, 2014.

Dry-weather ‘urban slobber’ runoff is a major pollution culprit, UCI finds Irvine, Calif., Dec. 3, 2014 – High fecal counts frequently detected at so-called “baby beaches” may not be diaper-related. UC Irvine researchers found that during summer months, small drainpipes emptying into enclosed ocean bays have a disproportionate impact on calmer waters. The findings were published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. Researchers have long known that creeks...

West Antarctic melt rate has tripled: UC Irvine-NASA

Written on December 2, 2014.

A comprehensive, 21-year analysis of the fastest-melting region of Antarctica has found that the melt rate of glaciers there has tripled during the last decade. Irvine, Calif., Dec. 2, 2014 – A comprehensive, 21-year analysis of the fastest-melting region of Antarctica has found that the melt rate of glaciers there has tripled during the last decade. The glaciers in the Amundsen Sea Embayment in West Antarctica are hemorrhaging ice faster than any other part of Antarctica and are the most...

UC Irvine increasing on-site solar power production fourfold

Written on November 4, 2014.

UC Irvine is quadrupling the amount of green power it generates on-site with the addition of solar photovoltaic canopies on three campus parking structure roofs. Irvine, Calif., Nov. 4, 2014 —UC Irvine is quadrupling the amount of green power it generates on-site with the addition of solar photovoltaic canopies on three campus parking structure roofs. Construction has already begun on the Social Science Parking Structure on Campus Drive. It will be followed by installations on the Student...

Walkabout for water

Written on July 29, 2014.

Twelve UC undergrads go Down Under to study Aussie approaches to drought, conservation and resource management Bright undergraduates from UC Irvine, UCLA and UC San Diego spent some of this summer Down Under, immersing themselves in drought solutions, wetlands design and related issues – sometimes literally. “I thought it was ground, and it wasn’t. It was water, it was cold, and it got way deep,” says Clint Rosser, who’ll be a UC San Diego senior this fall, describing how he accidentally...

Rising waters

Written on June 9, 2014.

UCI students help coastal communities brace for climate change UC Irvine undergraduates Tristan Lanza and Enrique Uribe have been catching the bus regularly from campus down to Newport Beach to knock on doors. Lanza, 21, noticed the first time they neared the coast right where flooding would likely begin. Back in UCI’s Engineering Tower, graduate student Adam Luke, 23, pores over computerized hydraulic models that he has spent weeks constructing of the Tijuana River estuary straddling the...

A gamble of global proportions

Written on April 28, 2014.

UCI’s Michael Prather is a lead author on the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. The cherry blossoms came earlier than normal this year in Yokohama, Japan. By the time delegates from 70 countries, including UC Irvine’s Michael Prather, met to finalize another stark assessment for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, rain had whipped many of their delicate pink petals to the ground. Like much of the planet’s plant life, the iconic spring flowers bloom a week...

Time travelers

Written on April 1, 2014.

Scientists use radiocarbon dating to analyze everything from the world’s oldest shoe to sediment samples that shed light on global climate change Kathryn Bold | UCI Magazine Benjamin Fuller, an assistant project scientist in UC Irvine’s Earth system science department, has a stash of rare wines that many connoisseurs would envy, such as the $2,300 1961 Chateau Latour that Wine Advocate describes as “liquid perfection.” Alas, the fine vintage is not for tasting but for testing. Like the...

Power player

Written on November 26, 2013.

Vice Chancellor Wendell Brase is widely credited with curbing campus’s energy consumption and costs Wendell Brase stops midstride behind the Bonney Research Laboratory and cocks an ear. “Hear that? That fan is much too loud. We need to do something about that,” he says. “Noise is the signature of energy waste.” Most vice chancellors for administrative & business services might not notice the dull roar of a building fan. But take a stroll with Brase and you quickly realize he sees the...

On track for clean energy

Written on September 30, 2013.

UCI will host – and compete in – the California Challenge, which pits alternative-fuel race cars against each other Janet Wilson, UC Irvine (Update: UC Irvine’s natural-gas-powered Delta, aka Old Faithful, won the California Challenge Sunday evening on the race track at the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2013 and XPO.) On the bottom floor of UC Irvine’s Engineering Tower sits the secret weapon – maybe. Dubbed Gamma Prime, it looks like do-it-yourself shelving laid flat. But...

Water: The Flow of Technology

Written on September 26, 2013.

Farmers must develop new approaches if they are to keep producing crops as water supplies dwindle. Katherine Bourzac, Nature On a still, warm evening in mid-June, leaves are reflected in the cool water that fills the irrigation channels of a pecan orchard in Clovis, California. This placid scene seems to have barely changed in the past 40 years. Underground, however, the water table tells a different story. Satellite data show that in California’s Central Valley, the most productive...