News – Page 22

Scientists Find New Dangers in Tiny but Pervasive Particles in Air Pollution

Written on February 18, 2012.

Felicity Barringer, New York Times Fine atmospheric particles — smaller than one-thirtieth of the diameter of a human hair — were identified more than 20 years ago as the most lethal of the widely dispersed air pollutants in the United States. Linked to both heart and lung disease, they kill an estimated 50,000 Americans each year. But more recently, scientists have been puzzled to learn that a subset of these particles, called secondary organic aerosols, has a greater total mass, and is thus...

Using water to predict fire

Written on January 17, 2012.

UCI researchers can forecast wildfires using sea surface temperatures. Janet Wilson, University Communications As a boy in coastal San Diego in the 1980s, Jim Randerson loved the exotic fish, birds and even tides of red crustaceans that washed ashore during storms created by temperature changes in far-off seas. Across the globe, Yang Chen was a child in rural southeast China witnessing the pollution created by new manufacturing and power plants. “I actually grew up at the same time that...

New Exhibit on Sherwood Rowland’s Ground-Breaking Research

Written on December 12, 2011.

UCI Libraries The UCI Libraries new exhibit, Discovery of a Lifetime: F. Sherwood Rowland and the Ozone Layer, is now on display in the Langson Library Muriel Ansley Reynolds Exhibit Gallery. This exciting new exhibit celebrates the research contributions of world-renowned atmospheric scientist F. Sherwood “Sherry” Rowland, 1995 Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry, and UCI Donald Bren Research Professor of Chemistry in Earth System Science. Dr. Rowland generously donated his professional...

No day at the beach

Written on November 21, 2011.

Global warming could cut into mental health benefits of beaches. Janet Wilson, University Communications It’s 67 degrees and sunny on a November afternoon at Crystal Cove State Park. Waves crash gently into transparent tide pools and fan out over empty golden sands. “This is ideal: cool temperatures, no crowds. I love the sound of the waves; that’s the most calming sound in the world to me,” says UC Irvine public health professor Oladele Ogunseitan. He glances down. “This beach seems...

F. Sherwood Rowland, UCI Nobel Laureate, Has Groundbreaking Climate Research on Exhibit

Written on November 18, 2011.

Matt Coker, OC Weekly An exhibition celebrating the research contributions of Nobel laureate and UC Irvine chemistry professor F. Sherwood “Sherry” Rowland opens this evening in the Langson Library at UCI. Ralph J. Cicerone, the National Academy of Sciences president who was UCI’s dean of the School of Physical Sciences when Rowland shared the Nobel for Chemistry in 1995, and university Chancellor Michael Drake will share remarks at a 6 p.m. reception, which is followed...

Chile, Greenland Glacier Study: $2 million

Written on November 18, 2011.

Pat Brennan, Orange County Register A UC Irvine scientist will receive a $2.2 million grant to study glaciers in Chile and Greenland, potentially shedding further light on the links among vanishing glaciers, rising sea levels and a warming planet. Eric Rignot, a researcher at UC Irvine and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena who specializes in polar ice, will measure subtle changes in gravity during helicopter flights over the glaciers and ice fields of Patagonia. He’ll also...

Deep Green: Long-Term Zero-Carbon Power for the 21st Century

Written on November 15, 2011.

Tatiana Arizaga, School of Physical Sciences E-Newsletter On October 18, 2011, Dr. Shaka gave a lecture as part of the 2011-2012 Discover the Physical Sciences Breakfast Lecture Series in which he proposed nuclear technology as the solution to obtaining clean energy. Dr. Shaka believes that continued burning of fossil fuels, with the large influx of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, could prove to be an enormous and expensive future problem. Furthermore, even if such changes...

Forecasting Fire Season Severity in South America Using Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies

Written on November 11, 2011.

Yang Chen, James T. Randerson, Douglas C. Morton, Ruth S. DeFries, G. James Collatz, Prasad S. Kasibhatla, Louis Giglio, Yufang Jin, Miriam E. Marlier, Science Deforestation and forest degradation in South America contribute to anthropogenic carbon emissions and regional and global climate change. Fire is the dominant method for converting forest to cropland or pasture, and fires account for approximately half of the carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in South America....

Ocean Temperatures Can Predict Amazon Fire Season Severity

Written on November 11, 2011.

Peter Lynch, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center By analyzing nearly a decade of satellite data, a team of scientists led by researchers from the University of California, Irvine and funded by NASA has created a model that can successfully predict the severity and geographic distribution of fires in the Amazon rain forest and the rest of South America months in advance. Though previous research has shown that human settlement patterns are the primary factor that drives the distribution...

Sea Change Can Forecast South American Wildfires, UCI-Led Study Finds

Written on November 10, 2011.

Janet H. Wilson, UC Irvine Communications Tiny temperature changes on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans provide an excellent way to forecast wildfires in South American rainforests, according to UC Irvine and other researchers funded by NASA. “It enables us three to five months in advance to predict the severity of the fire season,” said UCI assistant project scientist Yang Chen, lead author of a paper that will be published Friday, Nov. 11, in the journal Science. Wildfires, once rare...