University of Washington researchers show that wildfire is increasingly impacting lands managed under the Northwest Forest Plan, a seminal measure enacted in 1994 to preserve habitat for endangered species.
Author: Gillian Dohrn
Rivers cover more than 4 million miles of the U.S., but protections for rivers are piecemeal, accounting for less than 20% of total river length and varying widely by region, shows a new study co-led by the University of Washington.
The American Geophysical Union honored five University of Washington faculty and researchers from the departments of Earth and space sciences and atmospheric and climate science this week for their valuable researcher contributions.
More than a decade ago, data from the Cassini mission to Saturn suggested that the planet’s largest moon, Titan, had a vast ocean of liquid water below its frozen surface. In a new study, UW researchers teamed up with NASA scientists to show that the interior is likely composed of slushy layers instead.
In a new study, University of Washington researchers collected salmon DNA in air filters near a stream, showing that eDNA can move between air and water, a possibility scientists hadn’t accounted for that opens new avenues for monitoring aquatic species.
“The Memory of Darkness, Light and Ice” — a documentary film featuring Eric Steig, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences — tells the story of a U.S. military and research base established in Greenland during the Cold War, and how the samples collected there are driving modern climate science. The film is now available on YouTube, Apple TV and Amazon Prime.
The Northeastern Pacific Ocean is becoming more acidic faster than other oceans as the water absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and natural processes feed carbon dioxide up from the deep. The rate of CO2 accumulation is outpacing atmospheric rises and driving acidity to new extremes.
A new University of Washington-led study shows that space dust sandwiched between layers of sediment tells scientists where and when ice covered the Arctic, and what happened to marine life when it disappeared.
New University of Washington-led research attributes accelerated warming to reduced cloud reflectivity. As efforts to improve air quality have reduced pollution, clouds became less mirror-like, letting more solar radiation reach Earth and revealing the true impact of greenhouse gases.
In the wake of One Ocean Week Seattle, participating University of Washington researchers share highlights, connecting the week’s events to ongoing efforts to understand and protect marine ecosystems and coastal communities.
University of Washington researchers analyzed data collected in the decade following the Paris Agreement, an international treaty signed in 2015 to limit warming by cutting emissions. The treaty has helped nations reduce the amount of carbon released per dollar, but emissions are still too high due to global economic growth.
A new collaborative study led by scientists at the University of Washington and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science proposes that a tsunami struck the Caribbean island of Anegada between 1381 and 1391, carrying huge coral boulders inland and leaving behind a valuable record of geologic and climatic history.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Tuesday awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis, “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling and energy quantization in an electric circuit.” Clarke, a professor emeritus of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, collaborates with the Axion Dark Matter Experiment at the University of Washington.
University of Washington researchers found, in historical whaling data, that longer baleen whale mothers were more likely to birth female calves than males. These results run contrary to a leading evolutionary theory that suggests that fit mothers will benefit more from male offspring.
Antarctic ice is melting at a startling pace, and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of the greatest sources of uncertainty in climate projections. Researchers thought westerly winds were accelerating ice loss, but a new study from UW flips the narrative by 90 degrees, pointing instead to winds from the north.
Prochlorococcus, the most abundant photosynthesizing organism in the ocean, might be more vulnerable to climate change than researchers thought. Population decline could weaken the foundation of subtropical and tropical ecosystems as ocean temperatures continue to rise.
New findings call into question one of the core assumptions about teeth. Adult male spotted ratfish, a shark-like species native to the eastern Pacific Ocean, have rows of teeth on top of their heads, lining a cartilaginous appendage called the tenaculum, in addition to those in their jaws. They used their tenaculum teeth to grip females while mating in water.
New research shows that deep-ocean oxygenation occurred 100 million years later than previously thought, aligning with the growth and spread of land plants. Once oxygenated, the ocean hosted rapid animal evolution, leading to the rise of modern vertebrates.
University of Washington researchers use AI to simulate the Earth’s current climate and interannual variability for up to 1,000 years. The model runs on a single processor and takes just 12 hours to generate a forecast.
A UW-led team of researchers used a fiber-optic cable to capture calving dynamics across the fjord of the Eqalorutsit Kangilliit Sermiat glacier in South Greenland. This allowed them to document — without getting too close — one of the key processes that is accelerating the rate of glacial mass loss and in turn, threatening the stability of ice sheets, with consequences for global ocean currents and local ecosystems.
University of Washington researchers showed that they can monitor seismic activity at the ocean floor using fiber optic cables without disrupting telecommunications. They developed this technique in Alaska and then tested it off the coast of Oregon.
Kendall Valentine, an assistant professor of oceanography at University of Washington, along with collaborators from the University of Rhode Island and the Desert Research Institute are traveling to Anchorage and the Copper River Delta to study marshes that formed in the years following the 1964 earthquake.