A team of 9 researchers, including Atmospheric Sciences’ David Catling, has published a paper in the December issue of Astrobiology that enumerates two ways of narrowing down the growing number of known exoplanets and exomoons to those that might harbor life – an Earth Similarity Index (ESI) for categorizing a planet’s more earth-like features and a Planetary Habitability Index (PHI) for describing a variety of chemical and physical parameters that are theoretically conducive to life in more extreme, less-earthlike conditions. Read more here.
|
The cold weather over the weekend highlighted the temperature “convergence zone” in the Puget Sound. This video from Atmospheric Sciences shows how clouds flow across the lower airspace above the Puget Sound, as the air warmed by the water is displaced by the colder air flowing off of the land. If your holiday season includes trimming a tree, SFR students have just the thing for you! The Forest Club organizes an annual Tree Sale, and are offering 6-8ft. Noble Firs for only $45. The trees will be cut on December 3 and the pickup date is December 4. To pre-order yours, download this form! Washington’s forests are deteriorating so quickly the state commissioner of public lands says he’ll appoint an emergency panel to seek ways to stabilize the situation or reverse the decline. Jerry Franklin, professor of forest resources, is quoted. November 16 is GIS day across the world. This year, UW had an all-day celebration, and many of our College’s members took part. From the student poster competition to lightning talks, and from Dean Graumlich’s keynote talk to the new geocaching series on campus, #UWGISday was a great success. The event was put on by a coalition of GIS researchers around campus, and was supported by University Libraries, UW Geospatial Club & Puget Sound ASPRS Student Chapter, the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, the School of Oceanography, the Department of Geography, Earth and Space Sciences, the College of Built Environments, ESRI and CUGOS. Although deficit struggles still rage on, a spending bill was passed and signed on the 17th of November that provided modest increases to major US science agencies. Read more here. ABC news teamed up with a company that makes an infrared camera to provide this insightful video of what our world would look like if we could see the emissions of greenhouse gases. This video was discovered over at Climatide, a blog about oceans, coasts and climate change on Cape Cod.
|
 |
|
|
College of the Environment | Log in | Privacy | Terms | Copyright © 2013 University of Washington Powered by WordPress & Atahualpa |
||
Follow CoEnv