UW News

Department of Atmospheric Sciences


January 26, 2016

Mathematical model explains huge recurring rainstorms in the tropical Indian and Pacific oceans

person with weather balloon

A new model explains the fundamental features of the Madden-Julian Oscillation, which some scientists predict will be the “next El Nino.”


January 20, 2016

UW-designed climate change games honored this week in Washington, D.C.

people playing a board game

Two University of Washington teams claimed top prizes in a national competition to design a game about climate adaptation.


January 11, 2016

Northwest winter weather: El Niño, coastal effects, no more ‘blob’

Map showing precipitation forecasts

What some have called the “Godzilla El Niño” is now lumbering ashore, right on schedule. El Niño tends to influence North American weather after the first of January, and indeed, we’re seeing warm temperatures in Alaska and much-needed rain in California. University of Washington researchers are tracking what the season will deliver to the Pacific…


January 6, 2016

UW climate scientists to give free talks at Mt. Baker Ski Area

poster with mountains and speakers' photos

UW scientists will give free talks on climate change for three consecutive Saturdays at Mt. Baker Ski Area.


December 9, 2015

Iceland volcano’s eruption shows how sulfur particles influence clouds

lava and big emission plume

The long, slow 2014 eruption of Iceland’s Bardarbunga volcano offers a testbed to show how sulfur emissions, from volcanoes or humans, act to brighten clouds and reflect more sunlight.


November 23, 2015

AAAS names four UW researchers as fellows

Four University of Washington researchers are among 347 new fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for 2015.


November 11, 2015

UW, NASA measure rain and snowfall to gauge new precipitation satellite

clouds on water

With high-tech weather radars, weather balloons, ground instruments and NASA’s DC-8 flying laboratory, scientists will be watching rain and snow storms on Washington’s famously wet Olympic Peninsula.


July 17, 2015

Marine plankton brighten clouds over Southern Ocean

an image showing clouds and sun.

New research led by the University of Washington and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory suggests tiny ocean life in vast stretches of the Southern Ocean plays a significant role in generating brighter clouds overhead.


April 9, 2015

‘Warm blob’ in Pacific Ocean linked to weird weather across the U.S.

colored map

A patch of warm water off the West Coast, nicknamed “the blob” by a UW scientist, is part of a larger shift in the Pacific Ocean that may be responsible for widespread weather changes.


April 2, 2015

UW, NASA prepare for effort to measure rain, snow on Olympic Peninsula

The University of Washington and NASA are preparing for an effort next winter to measure rain in America’s rainiest place: Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. As part of the current gear-up phase, they are looking for volunteers to help track rain.


February 20, 2015

Winter air campaign tracking how pollution handles the cold

view of city lights out cockpit window

A UW atmospheric scientist is leading a six-week survey of eastern U.S. skies to see how winter conditions affect air quality.


January 8, 2015

Epic survey finds regional patterns of soot and dirt on North American snow

person cutting snow

University of Washington scientists published the first large-scale survey of impurities in North American snow. An almost 10,000-mile road trip showed that disturbed soil often mattered as much as air pollution for the whiteness of the snow.


November 10, 2014

Global warming not just a blanket – in the long run, it’s more like tanning oil

sun and earth

Instead of carbon dioxide, or CO2, creating a blanket that slowly warms the planet, long-term warming happens because a darker surface and more moist air can absorb more of the incoming rays.


August 28, 2014

David Battisti, Qiang Fu elected AGU fellows

UW atmospheric scientists David Battisti and Qiang Fu have been elected fellows of the American Geophysical Union.


August 21, 2014

Cause of global warming hiatus found deep in the Atlantic Ocean

graph of global temperatures and ocean heat

Observations show that the heat absent from the Earth’s surface is plunging deep in the north and south Atlantic Ocean, and is part of a slow, naturally recurring cycle.


May 7, 2014

Greenland melting due equally to global warming, natural variations

Up to half of the recent warming in Greenland and surrounding areas may be due to climate variations that originate in the tropical Pacific and are not connected with the overall warming of the planet. Still, at least half the warming remains attributable to global warming caused by rising carbon dioxide emissions.


April 11, 2014

Greenland ice cores show industrial record of acid rain, success of U.S. Clean Air Act

person with ice core

Detailed ice core measurements show smog-related ratios leveling off in 1970, and suggests these deposits are sensitive to the same chemicals that cause acid rain.


February 26, 2014

Pine forest particles appear out of thin air, influence climate

Trees in snow

German, Finnish and U.S. scientists have discovered how gas wafting from coniferous trees creates particles that can reflect sunlight or promote formation of clouds.


February 18, 2014

Embarking on geoengineering, then stopping, would speed up global warming

Sun rays

Carrying out geoengineering for several decades and then stopping would cause warming at a rate more than double that expected due to global warming.


December 17, 2013

Hack the planet? Geoengineering research, ethics, governance explored

ship that sprays clouds

A special interdisciplinary issue of the journal Climatic Change includes the most detailed description yet of the proposed Oxford Principles to govern geoengineering research, and surveys the technical hurdles, ethics and regulatory issues related to deliberately manipulating the planet’s climate.


November 4, 2013

UW Bothell prof, students present crowd-funded study of coal train emissions

Atmospheric scientist Dan Jaffe tonight will present the first results of a crowd-funded study of train emissions, conducted with four undergraduates from the Seattle and Bothell campuses and funded by public donations.


October 20, 2013

Global ocean currents explain why Northern Hemisphere is the soggier one

World precipitation map

A new study in Nature Geoscience explains a major feature of global precipitation, and shows how a current originating from the poles influences tropical rainfall in Africa and southern India.


September 30, 2013

UW researchers helped draft international assessment of climate change

Graphic of IPCC report depicts temperatures at the end of the 21st century.

UW faculty members were among international researchers who compiled the fifth climate-change assessment report. The UW will host a seminar Tuesday, Oct. 1 with some of the Seattle-area authors.


August 1, 2013

Scientists review the ecological effects of sea ice loss

caribou

A UW atmospheric scientist is co-author of a review paper, published this week in the journal Science, looking at the ecological consequences of sea ice decline.


July 9, 2013

Hazy days of summer: Southeast U.S. field work measures mercury, smog

airplane

Dozens of atmospheric scientists, including three University of Washington faculty members, are taking part in what’s being described as one of the largest atmospheric field campaigns in decades.


June 6, 2013

Pollution in Northern Hemisphere helped cause 1980s African drought

smokestacks

Air pollution in the Northern Hemisphere in the mid-20th century cooled the upper half of the planet and pushed rain bands south, contributing to the prolonged and worsening drought in Africa’s Sahel region. Clean air legislation in the 1980s reversed the trend and the drought lessened.


April 25, 2013

Keeping beverages cool in summer: It’s not just the heat, it’s the humidity

Sweat on a can of Miller beer.

Drops forming on the outside of your drink don’t just make the can slippery. Experiments show that in hot, humid weather, condensation heats a drink more than the surrounding air.


March 11, 2013

Remote clouds responsible for climate models’ glitch in tropical rainfall

photo of cloudy sea

One of the most persistent biases in global climate models is due to poor simulation of cloud cover thousands of miles to the south.


February 28, 2013

Changes in cloud distribution explain some weather patterns

A cumulonimbus cloud formation.

Regional cloud changes may be as important for climate change as the overall amount of cloud cover.


February 6, 2013

Smartphones, tablets help UW researchers improve storm forecasts

pressurenet_barometer

Atmospheric scientists are using pressure readings from some new smartphones and tablet computers to improve short-term thunderstorm forecasts. A weather station in every pocket would offer an unprecedented wealth of data.


January 15, 2013

International study: Where there’s smoke or smog, there’s climate change

Scientists taking snow samples in Greenland.

A new international assessment found that soot, or black carbon, is a major contributor to global warming — second only to carbon dioxide.


December 31, 2012

In rain and snow at home, Seahawks much more likely to win

The Seahawks win four times as many home games as they lose when the weather is inclement, compared to less than two to one when it’s not.


December 17, 2012

Plumes across the Pacific deliver thousands of microbial species to West Coast

Mount Bachelor observatory.

Microorganisms – 99 percent more kinds than had been reported in findings published just four months ago – are hitching rides in the upper troposphere from Asia.


October 2, 2012

UW scientists team with Coast Guard to explore ice-free Arctic Ocean

UW scientists are teaming with the U.S. Coast Guard to study the new frontier in the Arctic Ocean opened up with the melting ice.


August 20, 2012

Experiment would test cloud geoengineering as way to slow warming

unusual water craft with three large sprayers shooting water into the sky

A University of Washington scientist has proposed an experiment to test cloud brightening, a geoengineering concept that alters clouds in an effort to counter global warming.


September 22, 2011

Model provides successful seasonal forecast for the fate of Arctic sea ice

Relatively accurate predictions for summer sea ice extent in the Arctic can be made the previous autumn, but forecasting more than five years into the future requires understanding of the impact of climate trends on the ice pack.



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