Melting polar ice is causing sea levels to rise around the world, but how much of an increase will the future bring, and where? These are the key questions to be addressed by Isabella Velicogna, UCI Earth system scientist, as a recently named member of NASA’s Sea Level Change Team. She and her research group will work to reduce the uncertainty in global and local sea-level estimates using data from a variety of sources, including the European Space Agency’s CryoSat mission and NASA’s ICESat,...
UCI-created high-resolution charts will inform future ice and sea level forecasts
Irvine, Calif., Nov. 1, 2017 – New maps of Greenland’s coastal seafloor and bedrock beneath its massive ice sheet show that two to four times as many coastal glaciers are at risk of accelerated melting as had previously been thought.
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, NASA and 30 other institutions have published the most comprehensive, accurate and high-resolution relief maps ever made of...
Landforms ‘self-organize’ to withstand human and natural disturbances
Oct. 18, 2017 – River deltas, with their intricate networks of waterways, coastal barrier islands, wetlands and estuaries, often appear to have been formed by random processes, but scientists at the University of California, Irvine and other institutions see order in the apparent chaos.
Through field studies and mathematical modeling, they have concluded that deltas “self-organize” to increase the number, direction...
Sept. 20, 2017 – The U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy has awarded $1.8 million to UCI oceanographic engineer Kristen Davis to study offshore kelp cultivation. “Macroalgae are fast-growing and highly versatile; they can be used for feedstock, fuels, chemicals and many other commercial products,” said Davis, assistant professor of civil & environmental engineering and Earth system science. “My goal with this research is to assess new...
Aug. 28, 2017 – Coastal areas are threatened by both oceanic and terrestrial flooding, and the combination of these factors is especially concerning as sea levels continue to rise. Untangling how oceans and rivers interact – their so-called compounding effects – is a challenge for scientists and engineers trying to estimate the current and future risk of flooding. UCI researchers have developed a new method to characterize this dual flood threat, finding that in a warming...
Coastal areas are threatened by both oceanic and terrestrial flooding, and the combination of these factors is especially concerning as sea levels continue to rise. Untangling how oceans and rivers interact – their so-called compounding effects – is a challenge for scientists and engineers trying to estimate the current and future risk of flooding. UCI researchers have developed a new method to characterize this dual flood threat, finding that in a warming climate, future sea level rise will...
Industrial farming disrupts burn-regrowth cycle in grasslands, study finds
Irvine, Calif., June 29, 2017 – The world’s open grasslands and the beneficial fires that sustain them have shrunk rapidly over the past two decades, thanks to a massive increase in agriculture, according to a new study led by University of California, Irvine and NASA researchers published today in Science.
Analyzing 1998 to 2015 data from NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites, the international team found that the total...
Extreme lightning storms are the main driver of recent massive fire years in Alaska and Canada, and these storms are likely to move farther north with climate warming, potentially altering landscapes, according to findings in Nature Climate Change by researchers from UCI, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and elsewhere. Analyzing satellite images and data from ground-based networks, they discovered increases of 2 to 5 percent a year in lightning-ignited fires since 1975. In addition, the scientists...
UCI-led analysis of data from India could have dire implications for future
Jun. 7, 2017 – An increase in mean temperature of 0.5 degrees Celsius over half a century may not seem all that serious, but it’s enough to have more than doubled the probability of a heat wave killing in excess of 100 people in India, according to researchers at the University of California, Irvine and other institutions.
This could have grim implications for the future, because mean temperatures are projected...
Earth system scientist is honored for climate change studies
Irvine, Calif., May 3, 2017 – James Randerson, whose studies on the relationships among humans, the ecosystem and the environment have advanced our understanding of the effects of climate change, has been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences.
He is one of 84 new members and 21 foreign associates announced May 2 by the academy. Considered one of the highest honors in science, NAS membership is based on distinguished...