The June heat wave triggered warnings of a flash drought and caused a surge in ER visits. Many other countries have been facing extreme heat at the same time.
A trio of professors from the Climate Change Initiative will research how communities of various socioeconomic statuses are able to respond to severe weather events.
The devastating floods in Leominster and other regions serve as a sobering reminder of the link between climate change and extreme weather events. This Boston Globe article, written by Climate Change Initiative professors Mathew Barlow and Juliette Rooney-Varga, emphasizes that these events are not an anomaly but a consequence of human-induced climate change, fueled by the emission of greenhouse gases.
Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Asst. Prof. Joy Winbourne is researching how trees respond to urban environments and climate change by deploying sap flow sensors throughout Lowell.
The New England Consortium at UMass Lowell partnered with the Lowell Community Health Center for the first time to provide disaster preparedness training sessions to the public.
Students taking the newly launched Climate Crisis and Society course worked in partnership with the city of Lowell on a climate resilience project. The work inspired them to develop their own climate projects.
Three students and three faculty members traveled to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, for COP27, the United Nations climate summit, where they were the only delegation from a public university in Massachusetts.
Do net-zero pledges mean the world is on track to protect the climate? So far, the answer is no, because if, when, and how net zero is reached matters.
When Hurricane Ian hit Florida, it was one of the United States’ most powerful hurricanes on record, and it followed a two-week string of massive, devastating storms around the world. Prof. Mathew Barlow wrote a piece for The Conversation about what’s known about how climate change fuels tropical cyclones.
The Rist Institute for Sustainability and Energy awarded fellowships to plastics engineering major Abby Mastromonaco, entrepreneurship Ph.D. student William Zhou and Chemistry Asst. Prof. Juan Artes Vivancos.
The National Science Foundation-funded project Cool Science hosted its 10th annual Extreme Weather Art Competition for students in grades kindergarten through 12th. The winning posters are now displayed on transit buses in the Merrimack Valley and Worcester areas.
Human-caused climate change is fueling rising temperatures and worsening droughts across the nation. Does this mean Massachusetts will look more like the West?
Art & Design Associate Teaching Professor Yuko Oda has a thought-provoking art exhibit that explores themes surrounding climate change, environmentalism and social justice.
Environmental, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences Prof. Mathew Barlow led the Storms, Precipitation, Flooding and Groundwater section of a new report that assesses likely climate changes for the Greater Boston area.
Prof. Juliette Rooney-Varga and a team of researchers are looking at ways to empower students to address climate change by advancing their climate literacy and STEM efficacy.
Governments and organizations around the world claim that wood bioenergy is carbon neutral. New research by UMass Lowell's Climate Change Initiative, the MIT Sustainability Initiative, Climate Interactive, and Tufts University uses a dynamic model to determine the carbon - and climate - impact of wood bioenergy.
A new study published in Simulation and Gaming describes the Climate Action Simulation: a game to give people the know-how and a sense of empowerment needed for effective climate action.
New research from the UMass Lowell Climate Change Initiative, which spearheads impact research for the MIT Climate Pathways Project, shows that group deliberation guided by interaction with the C-ROADS model can positively influence high school and college students’ climate change knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors.
The Climate Impacts & Solutions with En-ROADS module is a new, free, multidisciplinary collaboration between The Climate Initiative (TCI) and the UMass Lowell Climate Change Initiative (CCI).
Asst. Prof. Christopher Skinner recent work published in Nature Climate Change shows that continued use of fossil fuels will increase the risk that multiple regions across the globe experience drought simultaneously.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Asst. Prof. James Heiss a $680,000 faculty early-career development award to understand water and chemical exchanges between groundwater and surface water along the land-sea transition zone.
Asst. Prof. Christopher Skinner, who researches atmospheric rivers, explains why the weather phenomenon has been making headlines recently — and why it’s important to understand them.
An interdisciplinary group of faculty members from UMass Lowell’s Climate Change Initiative attended the recent United Nations global climate summit, aka COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland, where they observed progress being made — but also missed opportunities.
Science education can help slow the pace of global warming, because people who understand climate science can make informed decisions, says Education Assoc. Prof. Jill Hendrickson Lohmeier. Lohmeier does research on using artwork in informal settings to educate the public about climate science.
Four Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences faculty members and graduate students from the Kennedy College of Sciences presented research at the virtual AGU Fall Meeting, the largest gathering of Earth and space scientists from around the world.
Drought and heat waves both have a range of severe societal and ecosystem impacts. Our research seeks to understand the causes of droughts and heat waves and how they interact with one another to better predict their occurrence and help manage their impacts in the Northeast U.S.
Supported by a three-year, $784,000 National Science Foundation grant, a team of researchers led by James Heiss in the Department of Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (EEAS) are studying the impact of extreme multi-hazard coastal storms on groundwater flow and saltwater-freshwater mixing in beach aquifers.
The Rist Institute for Sustainability and Energy has awarded its inaugural fellowships to Asst. Prof. of Economics Kelly Hellman, plastics engineering major Kerry Candlen and chemical engineering major Maria Fonseca-Guzman.
Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Asst. Prof. James Heiss and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution were awarded a three-year, $784,000 National Science Foundation grant to study how powerful coastal storms affect the fresh water flowing below the ground along the seashore.
Profs. Mathew Barlow and Christopher Skinner of the Department of Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences will study the cause of heat waves and droughts in the Northeast and how they interact with each other under a three-year, $478,000 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Three student projects proposing ways to reduce the university community’s carbon dioxide emissions by 10,000 pounds in 10 weeks received the first-ever Rist Institute for Sustainability and Energy (RISE) Student Innovation Awards and a share of $1,000 in prize money.
Climate change was the central issue at the 100th annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in Boston, where students, faculty and alumni from the Kennedy College of Sciences shared their environmental and atmospheric science research and networked with meteorologists, climate scientists and academics from around the country.
The National Science Foundation recently recognized Asst. Prof. Hsi-Wu Wong of the Department of Chemical Engineering with a prestigious faculty early career development grant, called the “CAREER” award. This highly competitive annual program selects the nation’s best young university faculty-scholars “who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization.”
Climate models are used to study how and why atmospheric rivers change as the climate changes. This is the research topic of Chris Skinner’s recent NSF grant: “Elucidating the drivers and consequences of changes in atmospheric rivers from the last glacial maximum to the present day.”
Professor Robert Gamache’s current work aids satellite programs of NASA’s Earth Observing System, missions to Mars and Venus, several satellite programs of ESA, EUMETSAT and CNES, and the study of the atmospheres of exoplanets.
The university’s Climate Change Initiative hosted members of the state’s House Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change for a roundtable discussion on climate science and policy at which faculty members shared scientific research and expertise to help inform policy decisions.
The university marked two major milestones at its Earth Day celebration: the completion of its $23.1 million Accelerated Energy Program and its latest STARS Gold rating, which moves UML into the top 10 nationally.
Six of the 12 projects to receive a share of the $50,000 Sustainability Encouragement & Enrichment Development (S.E.E.D.) Fund this year were led by students, the most in the fund’s three-year history.
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