Climate Change

“There’s never been a more dynamic or optimistic moment for the U.S. and global energy policy,” Jason writes. “The imperative to simultaneously grow and decarbonize our economy while strengthening national security is the defining challenge of the next 30 years.”

I have a clear memory of the first class that I took on climate change as a college freshman, where I excitedly learned about the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) at which nations gather to negotiate on furthering the aims of the Convention.

The need for global-scale, open access, fit-for-purpose coastal and inland water quality information is shared by scientists, decision-makers, industry professionals, and the general public. GEOAquawatch’s Google Earth Engine (GEE) working group set out to explore the ability for Google Earth Engine to fill this shared need.

Lara Cushing is the lead author of a December 2022 study finding that historical red-lining is associated with fossil fuel power plant siting and present-day inequalities in air pollutant emissions. Read the open-access article in Nature Energy and a summary in Axios.

Kimberly Miner was interviewed by the Daily Show and an NBC News segment about how climate change has fueled recent extreme weather events and flooding in California. “Climate change is warming the whole planet and that includes the atmosphere and the oceans. What that means for us is that the atmosphere is able to hold more moisture, so these storms can be bigger,” Miner told NBC.

Naomi Fraga wrote on Twitter: "I am so incredibly grateful for this California rain, but I am also anticipating the inevitable... The dreaded conversations about the "superbloom". You might be saying, what the heck Naomi, you are a botanist, don't you love superblooms?"

“One of our biggest recommendations was the need for a type of clearinghouse for decision makers to be able to bring together these different types of information,” Hsu said. “It’s currently very scattershot and everyone’s doing their own thing, and that’s created an incredibly heterogeneous and patchwork landscape of this data.”

Deniss Martinez and Karly Hampshire were honored as recipients of the 13th annual University of California President’s Award for Outstanding Student Leadership.