Tag: climate change

UCI-led Team to Study Socioeconomic Effects of Coastal Flooding in California

Written on October 9, 2019.

NSF-funded project involving 3 other UC campuses will use advanced simulations October 9, 2019 – Researchers at the University of California, Irvine are leading a new project with three other UC campuses to study the impact of coastal flooding on disadvantaged communities in California. Launched with funding from the National Science Foundation’s Coastlines & People initiative, the effort will employ advanced simulation systems to deepen understanding of increasing...

UCI Team Uses Machine Learning to Help Tell Which Wildfires Will Burn Out of Control

Written on September 17, 2019.

New technique could help authorities conduct triage in multiple-blaze scenarios September 17, 2019 – An interdisciplinary team of scientists at the University of California, Irvine has developed a new technique for predicting the final size of a wildfire from the moment of ignition. Built around a machine learning algorithm, the model can help in forecasting whether a blaze is going to be small, medium or large by the time it has run its course – knowledge useful to those in...

UCI, UC Merced: California forest die-off caused by depletion of deep-soil water

Written on July 1, 2019.

Study warns of threats from future concurrent drought and heat events Irvine, Calif., July 1, 2019 – A catastrophic forest die-off in California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range in 2015-2016 was caused by the inability of trees to reach diminishing supplies of subsurface water following years of severe drought and abnormally warm temperatures. That’s the conclusion by researchers from the University of California, Irvine and UC Merced outlined in a study published today in Nature Geoscience. “In...

Combination of water scarcity and inflexible demand puts world’s river basins at risk

Written on June 3, 2019.

Data science will help identify best practices to preserve California’s forests, wildlands Irvine, Calif., June 3, 2019 – Nearly one-fifth of the world’s population lives in a stressed water basin where the next climate change-driven incident could threaten access to an essential resource for agriculture, industry and life itself, according to a paper by University of California, Irvine researchers and others, published today in Nature Sustainability. The study’s authors analyzed trends...

Improved land management project co-led by UCI gets $4.6 million in state funding

Written on February 6, 2019.

Data science will help identify best practices to preserve California’s forests, wildlands Irvine, Calif., Feb. 6, 2019 – California’s Strategic Growth Council recently approved $4.6 million for a project led by the University of California, Irvine and the University of California, Merced to develop new tools and methods for better managing the state’s forests and wildlands. The Innovation Center for Advancing Ecosystem Climate Solutions is a three-year project with the goals of improving...

UCI/JPL: Antarctica losing six times more ice mass annually now than 40 years ago

Written on January 14, 2019.

Climate change-induced melting will raise global sea levels for decades to come Irvine, Calif., Monday, Jan. 14, 2019 – Antarctica experienced a sixfold increase in yearly ice mass loss between 1979 and 2017, according to a study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Glaciologists from the University of California, Irvine, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Netherlands’ Utrecht University additionally found that the accelerated melting caused global sea...

Climate Change-driven Droughts are Getting Hotter, UCI Study Finds

Written on August 1, 2018.

Temperature increases during dry periods outpace average climate warming August 1, 2018 – Dry months are getting hotter in large parts of the United States, another sign that human-caused climate change is forcing people to encounter new extremes. In a study published today in Science Advances, researchers at the University of California, Irvine report that temperatures during droughts have been rising faster than in average climates in recent decades, and they point to...

Glaciers in East Antarctica also ‘imperiled’ by climate change, UCI researchers find

Written on July 26, 2018.

Usually seen as less vulnerable, they carry the potential to add 16 feet to global sea level Irvine, Calif., July 26, 2018 – A team of scientists from the University of California, Irvine has found evidence of significant mass loss in East Antarctica’s Totten and Moscow University glaciers, which, if they fully collapsed, could add 5 meters (16.4 feet) to the global sea level. In a paper published this week in the American Geophysical Union journal Geophysical Research Letters, the glaciologists...

Ice loss in Antarctica is increasingly contributing to global sea level rise

Written on June 13, 2018.

UCI scientists are part of international team conducting 25-year assessment Irvine, Calif., June 13, 2018 – Loss of ice in Antarctica has caused global sea levels to rise by 7.6 millimeters since 1992, with 40 percent of the increase happening in just the past five years, according to a team of 84 scientists, including discipline-leading experts from the University of California, Irvine. Their assessment of conditions in Antarctica is based on combined data from 24 satellite surveys and...

Rise in Severity of Hottest Days Outpaces Global Average Temperature Increase

Written on January 24, 2018.

UCI study also finds megacities affected most by uptick in extreme-heat events Jan. 24, 2018 – While our planet’s average annual temperature has increased at a steady pace in recent decades, there has been an alarming jump in the severity of the hottest days of the year during that same period, with the most lethal effects in the world’s largest cities. Engineers at the University of California, Irvine have learned that urban centers with more than 5 million inhabitants and parts...