News – Page 9

Student Team Excels in Business Contest

Written on April 26, 2017.

April 26, 2017 – A multidisciplinary team of UC Irvine undergraduate students from the schools of engineering and arts took fourth place in an international business competition with their bicycle-powered, sustainable, closed-loop 3-D printing process. The ambitious prototype, originally developed as a research endeavor, recently took a “serious turn toward entrepreneurship,” according to Jesse Colin Jackson, arts assistant professor and the team’s adviser. Closed Loop Plastics...

India’s outsized coal plans would wipe out Paris climate goals

Written on April 12, 2017.

UCI, CoalSwarm: Hundreds of new dirty power plants aren’t needed Irvine, Calif., April 25, 2017 – India will not be able to meet its Paris climate agreement commitments in the coming years if it carries through with plans to construct nearly 370 coal-fired power plants, according to University of California, Irvine and CoalSwarm researchers. “India is facing a dilemma of its own making,” said UCI associate professor of Earth system science Steven Davis, co-author of a study published today...

UCI air quality symposium will mark designation of Rowland Hall as historic landmark

Written on April 11, 2017.

EVENT: UCI will host a two-day symposium on air quality research and a ceremony in honor of Rowland Hall’s designation as a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society. The building was the site of groundbreaking research on chlorofluorocarbons and stratospheric ozone loss by Nobel laureates F. Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina in 1974 and is a leading atmospheric chemistry research center today. WHEN/WHERE:AirUCI symposium: 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday, April 18 (including...

Manufacturing, global trade impair health of people with no stake in either

Written on March 29, 2017.

UCI expert helps map migration of air pollution risk to regions far from factories Irvine, Calif., March 29, 2017 – The latest products may bring joy to people around the globe, but academic researchers this week are highlighting the heightened health risks experienced by people in regions far downwind of the factories that produce these goods and on the other side of the world from where they’re consumed. In a study published in the journal Nature, scientists quantify and map the shift of...

UCI Scientist Recounts South China Sea Coral Death

Written on March 23, 2017.

March 23, 2017 – A South China Sea atoll lost nearly half of its living coral in one summer due to spiking ocean temperatures and stagnant weather, according to new research by Kristen Davis. UCI assistant professor of Earth system science and civil & environmental engineering and colleagues. The findings in Scientific Reports describe how a two-degree-Celsius rise in surface temperatures in the South China Sea was amplified by weather conditions and local circulation...

Researchers explain spike in ocean temps that caused mass coral death in South China Sea

Written on March 23, 2017.

A South China Sea atoll lost nearly half its living coral in one summer due to spiking ocean temperatures and stagnant weather, according to new research by Kristen Davis, UCI assistant professor of Earth system science and civil & environmental engineering, and colleagues. The findings, published in Scientific Reports, describe how a 2-degree-Celsius rise in surface temperatures in the South China Sea was amplified by weather conditions and local circulation to a 6-degree increase at Dongsha...

Designing an Energy-Efficient Cement

Written on March 15, 2017.

March 15, 2017 – Two engineering assistant professors think they’ve found a way to manipulate the most commonly used building material in the world – cement – to make it less of an energy drain while not compromising its superior strength. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, space heating and cooling accounts for more than 50 percent of energy consumption in buildings. A staggering amount of energy seeps out through walls, windows and doors. “It’s imperative...

Concurrent heat waves, air pollution exacerbate negative health effects of each

Written on March 1, 2017.

Future may bring more overlap of synergistic weather factors, UCI researchers warn Irvine, Calif., March 1, 2017 – The combination of prolonged hot spells with poor air quality greatly compounds the negative effects of each and can pose a major risk to human health, according to new research from the University of California, Irvine. “The weather factors that drive heat waves also contribute to intensified surface ozone and air pollution episodes,” said UCI professor of Earth system science...

Over time, nuisance flooding can cost more than extreme, infrequent events

Written on February 21, 2017.

Long-term impact of climate change on US cities is rising, UCI researchers find Irvine, Calif., Feb. 21, 2017 – Global climate change is being felt in many coastal communities of the United States, not always in the form of big weather disasters but as a steady drip, drip, drip of nuisance flooding. According to researchers at the University of California, Irvine, rising sea levels will cause these smaller events to become increasingly frequent in the future, and the cumulative effect will...

Canadian glaciers now major contributor to sea level change, UCI study shows

Written on February 14, 2017.

Nine times more ice is melting annually due to warmer temperatures Irvine, Calif., Feb. 14, 2017 — Ice loss from Canada’s Arctic glaciers has transformed them into a major contributor to sea level change, new research by University of California, Irvine glaciologists has found. From 2005 to 2015, surface melt off ice caps and glaciers of the Queen Elizabeth Islands grew by an astonishing 900 percent, from an average of three gigatons to 30 gigatons per year, according to results published...