UW News

Dargan Frierson


July 31, 2017

Earth likely to warm more than 2 degrees this century

bar chart

A new UW statistical study shows only 5 percent chance that Earth will warm less than 2 degrees, what many see as a “tipping point” for climate, by the end of this century.


January 18, 2017

Listen to the Earth smash another global temperature record

upward-sloping line

The year 2016 was officially the hottest in recent history, beating previous records in 2014 and 2015. UW scientists let you hear the data speak for itself.


September 30, 2016

CO2 record at Mauna Loa, the music video: The sounds of climate change

smokestacks and smoke

University of Washington scientists have put world’s longest-running measure of atmospheric carbon dioxide to music. The result is a 90-second rendition of human-induced climate change: The video project was done by Judy Twedt, a UW doctoral student in atmospheric sciences, and Dargan Frierson, a UW associate professor of atmospheric sciences and amateur musician. Their techno…


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.


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.


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.