UW News

June 15, 2015

New magazine highlights Northwest climate research

UW News

Researchers at the UW and many federal, state, municipal and Tribal agencies are looking at what climate change may bring for our region. A new magazine brings together some of these stories, including many featuring UW climate scientists.

researcher in wetsuit holding fish

The inaugural edition of the annual Northwest Climate Magazine was published in May by three regional federal offices, including the Northwest Climate Science Center, of which the UW is one of three academic members. The new publication is intended to help share stories about federally-funded climate science and adaptation efforts that are under way in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.

The magazine is produced in collaboration with the NOAA-funded Pacific Northwest Climate Impacts Research Center and the Interior Department’s North Pacific Landscape Conservation Cooperative.

researchers in mountains

Researchers conduct fieldwork in high alpine wetlands below Mt. Rainier.Maureen Ryan / UW

The magazine’s opening article tells how Maureen Ryan, a research scientist in the UW School of Environmental and Forestry Sciences, went from leading mountaineering expeditions to studying how climate change may affect mountain frogs.

woman in hat on riverbank

Erika Sutherland studies the effects of climate-related stream warming on native salmon in Oregon’s John Day River.Erika Sutherland / UW

In “Shifting bass-lines,” read how Erika Sutherland, a master’s student in the UW’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, went from flying fighter jets to looking at how to manage invasive smallmouth bass in Pacific Northwest streams. A sidebar profiles David Lawrence, now at the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, whose UW doctoral research was one of the first looks at how warming streams could change the distribution of salmon and bass in the Northwest. UW affiliate professor of forestry David Peterson is also credited for his work launching adaptation partnerships in the Blue Mountains and the Northern Rocky Mountains that manage conservation and restoration efforts to prepare native fish habitats in those regions for climate change.

Finally, a story on predicted changes in precipitation over the Pacific Northwest region includes an interview with Bart Nijssen, a UW research associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, who studies water storage issues as more precipitation falls as rain rather than snow.

Eric SalathĂ©, an associate professor of climate science at UW Bothell and a research leaders of the Northwest Climate Science Center, is one of the magazine’s editors. The first issue was co-written by Lisa Hayward Watts, the center’s UW-based communications manager.

The new publication is part of the climate center’s efforts to improve coordination and collaboration among federal, state, Tribal, university and non-governmental groups across the Northwest. All the researchers featured in the magazine received funding from the center, which is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.