From The DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories: “Sandia switches to hydrogen weather balloons”

From The DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories

5.9.23
Mollie Rappe
mrappe@sandia.gov
505-228-6123

A hydrogen-filled weather balloon launches automatically from a Department of Energy atmospheric measurement facility in Utqiaġvik, formerly known as Barrow. About three years ago, Sandia National Laboratories switched from launching helium-filled balloons to launching hydrogen-filled balloons to reduce costs and carbon emissions. (Photo by Ben Bishop)

Hundreds of miles north of the Arctic Circle, Sandia National Laboratories researchers ensure the collection of important weather and climate data. By switching the gas used in their weather balloons, they have reduced their metaphorical footprint on the fragile Arctic ecosystem.

More than three years ago, the Sandia-operated atmospheric measurement facility in Alaska switched from launching helium-filled weather balloons to launching weather balloons filled with hydrogen produced on-site. Since then, they have launched nearly 5,000 hydrogen balloons with minimal issues.

This switch greatly reduces the transportation cost and emissions of shipping helium to Utqiaġvik, formerly known as Barrow, the northernmost city in the U.S. and site of the North Slope of Alaska atmospheric measurement facility.

The observatory, operated by Sandia for the Department of Energy Office of Science’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement user facility, has collected weather and climate data, including specialized data on Arctic clouds, for more than 25 years. ARM’s data are freely available to researchers at universities and national laboratories, and is vital for refining climate models, especially those of the rapidly warming Arctic.

The switch from non-renewable helium to hydrogen was made possible by a partnership between the National Weather Service and the DOE. The National Weather Service provided the electrolysis equipment, which uses electricity to turn water into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas, and provided regular maintenance of the equipment. In exchange, the ARM facility operated by Sandia launches two weather balloons a day for the weather service.

“Between Utqiaġvik and Oliktok Point, a long-term ARM mobile deployment that ended operations in 2021, we were the largest users of helium in the state of Alaska,” said Fred Helsel, the systems engineer who led the effort to ensure the switch was safe and smooth. “The National Weather Service has been great to work with.”

Ensuring a safe launch

Now, this switch from helium to hydrogen is not without safety concerns — hydrogen is famously flammable, and helium is not — but Helsel worked with the National Weather Service, his division’s environment, safety and health coordinator, Sandia fire protection and pressure safety, the ARM user facility and the automated balloon launcher manufacturer to reduce the risks.

“Hydrogen is gaining traction as a green energy resource and is a cleaner alternative to traditional fossil fuels for transportation,” said Andrew Glen, manager of Sandia’s atmospheric sciences research group. “This project uses hydrogen in a different manner, utilizing its lighter-than-air properties to launch balloons. It is in the interest of the nation and the world for us to reduce our dependence on a fossil fuel byproduct, helium, and reduce our carbon footprint by not transporting helium cylinders to the site.”

One of the safety measures the team put in place includes ensuring that the hydrogen storage tank is outside the building where the electrolysis equipment operates. This reduced the amount of flammable gas available inside the building to meet national safety codes and Sandia’s requirements, Helsel said. Some of the National Weather Service sites that had already switched to hydrogen stored the tanks separately from the generator, but Sandia’s safety analysis did encourage the service to tweak their design for subsequent site upgrades, he added.

Sandia has been using an automated balloon launcher for more than a decade, but it occasionally has technical issues. When this happens, Utqiaġvik-based observers fill the ARM weather balloons with a backup supply of helium and launch them by hand. The facility does not have safety approvals in place to manually fill and launch a balloon with hydrogen, Helsel added.

Safety is also inherent within the automated balloon launcher. The balloon is filled with gas inside a launch tube that keeps the hydrogen outside of the launch building, Helsel said. And the launch tube has fans that ensure hydrogen cannot build up inside it, even if a balloon leaks or bursts during the inflation process.

Saving money and the environment

The first official hydrogen balloon was launched from Utqiaġvik on December 16, 2019, at 2:01 p.m. local time, said Helsel, with nearly 5,000 launches since then with only minimal issues. The original automated balloon launcher was replaced last August with a newer model.

The Utqiaġvik site launches four weather balloons a day, two for the National Weather Service and two for ARM. Each weather balloon carries a special package of sensors tens of thousands of feet into the stratosphere to collect and transmit data on atmospheric pressure, temperature and humidity. The data from the National Weather Service balloons, which are launched every 12 hours, are used for weather forecasting. The data from the ARM balloons, which are launched six hours later, are used for atmospheric and climate research, Helsel said.

The facility in Utqiaġvik used to spend about $60,000 per year on helium and shipping costs for the ARM weather balloons, Helsel said. However, with the current helium shortage and inflation, the total saved in the past three and a half years due to the switch could easily be more than $200,000.

Much of the bulk material shipped to Utqiaġvik comes on a yearly barge from Anchorage, Glen said. “One ship, once a year,” he added. “If it’s not on that, it has to come on an aircraft.” And shipping large, compressed gas cylinders by air comes with a sizable carbon footprint on top of the emissions released from processing helium, he said.

Other ARM sites elsewhere in the U.S. are assessing whether it makes sense to also switch from helium — a byproduct of the oil and gas industry — to on-site or locally produced hydrogen, Glen said.

“The Arctic is a very tight-knit community, so keeping those relationships between the National Weather Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, ARM, Sandia and the Iñupiaq people of Utqiagvik together is critical for getting things done up there,” Glen said. “The Arctic is a tipping point for climate change. We’re seeing four times the increase in temperature in the Arctic than in the rest of the U.S. The data from the ARM site are important for the long-term record and for climate models to take those changes into account.”

See the full article here .

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Sandia Campus.

Sandia National Laboratories managed and operated by the National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia (a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International), is one of three National Nuclear Security Administration research and development laboratories in the United States. Their primary mission is to develop, engineer, and test the non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons and high technology. Headquartered in Central New Mexico near the Sandia Mountains, on Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, Sandia also has a campus in Livermore, California, next to DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and a test facility in Waimea, Kauai, Hawaii.

It is Sandia’s mission to maintain the reliability and surety of nuclear weapon systems, conduct research and development in arms control and nonproliferation technologies, and investigate methods for the disposal of the United States’ nuclear weapons program’s hazardous waste.

Other missions include research and development in energy and environmental programs, as well as the surety of critical national infrastructures. In addition, Sandia is home to a wide variety of research including computational biology; mathematics (through its Computer Science Research Institute); materials science; alternative energy; psychology; MEMS; and cognitive science initiatives.

Sandia formerly hosted ASCI Red, one of the world’s fastest supercomputers until its recent decommission, and now hosts ASCI Red Storm supercomputer, originally known as Thor’s Hammer.

ASCI Red Storm Cray superrcomputer at DOE’s Sandia National Laboratory.

Sandia is also home to the Z Machine.

Sandia Z machine

The Z Machine is the largest X-ray generator in the world and is designed to test materials in conditions of extreme temperature and pressure. It is operated by Sandia National Laboratories to gather data to aid in computer modeling of nuclear guns. In December 2016, it was announced that National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, under the direction of Honeywell International, would take over the management of Sandia National Laboratories starting on May 1, 2017.

From The University of California-Los Angeles: “Tibetan Plateau soil temperatures are found to affect climate regionally and globally”

From The University of California-Los Angeles

4.17.23
David Colgan
818-203-2858
dcolgan@ioes.ucla.edu

The Tibetan Plateau includes the Himalayas, home to 100 mountains over 23,600 feet high. Michel Royon/Wikimedia Commons.

Forecasting weather is tricky. Even with the most advanced technology, natural systems are so complex that meteorologists cannot accurately forecast beyond 10 days.

So predicting months and seasons into the future is challenging; yet that is the focus of a growing area of climate science that began in earnest in the 1980s. It started with the discovery of how weather patterns are affected by El Niño, a natural phenomenon that causes surface water temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean to rise for up to a year.

El Niño makes certain global weather conditions more likely: North and South America get more precipitation, while Australia gets less, and Japan is less likely to see an active cyclone season. Similarly, other ocean temperature conditions in the Atlantic and Pacific make regional and remote weather outcomes more likely, including rainfall in the tropics and the strength of major storms. Each new factor discovered improves researchers’ ability to forecast weather for months and seasons.

Over the past 20 years, UCLA professor Yongkang Xue has been learning how land temperature and moisture influences climate patterns. His latest paper, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society [below] and co-authored by a global group of elite scientists, found that soil temperature variations in the Tibetan Plateau affect major climate patterns, such as the East Asian monsoon — seasonal rains that help grow food, generate power and maintain ecosystems in lands populated by more than a billion people.

Fig. 1.
Observed differences between the five coldest and the five warmest Mays in the Tibetan Plateau. (a) The difference in May T2m (°C) and (b) the difference in June precipitation for the same years. Note that the stippling in both figures denote statistical significance at the p < 0.1 level. In this study, the Chinese Meteorological Administration (CMA) T2m data (Han et al. 2019), which consist in 80 stations over the TP and more than 2,400 stations over all of China, are used over China. The Climate Anomaly Monitoring System (CAMS) T2m data are used elsewhere. The Climate Research Unit (CRU) data are used for precipitation over globe.

Soil temperatures on the Tibetan Plateau alter the temperature gradient from the Himalayan mountaintops down to the Bay of Bengal, the source of the monsoon’s moisture. In turn, that affects the pattern of high- and low-pressure systems and the jet stream — a high-atmosphere air flow with a powerful influence over where storms dump their precipitation. A colder Tibetan Plateau makes a weak monsoon more likely, the study found, while warmer conditions make a strong one more likely, with increased tendency to flood in the Asian monsoon region.

The effect mirrors one that Xue’s research found in North America. When the Rocky Mountains are colder in spring, the southern plains are more likely to see dry weather or drought conditions in summer. Conversely, a warmer spring increases the chance of wet conditions— including extreme flooding, such as Houston’s catastrophic Memorial Day Flood of 2015.

This latest study also found that temperature fluctuations of these two mountain systems are related through a Tibetan Plateau–Rocky Mountain wave train — a pattern of high- and low-pressure systems that stretches across the Pacific Ocean. When the Tibetan Plateau is warm, the Rocky Mountains are cold, and vice versa.

“It’s not only that the Tibetan Plateau’s temperature influences the eastern part of the lowland plains in China and the Rocky Mountains influence precipitation in the southern plains — it’s global,” Xue said.

Even changes of one or two degrees Celsius in surface temperatures can make a major difference, he says. This is because of the vastness of geological features like the Tibetan Plateau, which is about a million square miles of land with an average elevation of nearly 15,000 feet above sea level. In some locations, the temperature changes account for up to 40% of precipitation anomalies.

To reach their findings, researchers combined satellite- and ground-based temperature and precipitation observations with global climate models. The models simulate climate outcomes based on data measurements, with and without the influence of soil temperature changes in the Tibetan Plateau.

The study is the first to discover the relationship between soil temperatures of the Tibetan Plateau and global climate and weather phenomena. Xue stressed that much more research is needed to flesh out the details.

The goal of the research, which was organized by the World Climate Research Program and funded by the National Science Foundation, is to improve the ability to predict weather conditions months and seasons ahead. More effectively doing so could save billions or even trillions of dollars by giving industries such as agriculture better guidance. Having advance knowledge of a light monsoon season, for example, could guide farmers to plant more drought-tolerant crops. Better predictions can also help protect human lives in extreme weather and flooding.

Understanding the Tibetan Plateau’s influence on climate improves meteorologists’ and climatologists’ ability to predict seasonal and sub-seasonal climatic conditions. And, though the predictions are far from certain, even knowing there’s a greater likelihood of a strong monsoon or a drought is valuable, said David Neelin, a UCLA professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and a co-author of the paper.

“If you’re a farmer deciding how much crop insurance to buy and you can use this prediction across multiple years, you’ll come out ahead in the long term,” Neelin said. “It’s the same with El Niño. It doesn’t guarantee, but it helps.”

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
See the science paper for instructive material with images.

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

For nearly 100 years, The University of California-Los Angeles has been a pioneer, persevering through impossibility, turning the futile into the attainable.

We doubt the critics, reject the status quo and see opportunity in dissatisfaction. Our campus, faculty and students are driven by optimism. It is not naïve; it is essential. And it has fueled every accomplishment, allowing us to redefine what’s possible, time after time.

This can-do perspective has brought us 12 Nobel Prizes, 12 Rhodes Scholarships, more NCAA titles than any university and more Olympic medals than most nations. Our faculty and alumni helped create the Internet and pioneered reverse osmosis. And more than 100 companies have been created based on technology developed at UCLA.

The University of California-Los Angeles is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. The University of California-Los Angeles traces its early origins back to 1882 as the southern branch of the California State Normal School (now San Jose State University). It became the Southern Branch of The University of California in 1919, making it the second-oldest (after University of California-Berkeley ) of the 10-campus University of California system.

The University of California-Los Angeles offers 337 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines, enrolling about 31,500 undergraduate and 12,800 graduate students. The University of California-Los Angeles had 168,000 applicants for Fall 2021, including transfer applicants, making the school the most applied-to of any American university.

The university is organized into six undergraduate colleges; seven professional schools; and four professional health science schools. The undergraduate colleges are the College of Letters and Science; Samueli School of Engineering; School of the Arts and Architecture; Herb Alpert School of Music; School of Theater, Film and Television; and School of Nursing.

The University of California-Los Angeles is called a “Public Ivy”, and is ranked among the best public universities in the United States by major college and university rankings. This includes one ranking that has The University of California-Los Angeles as the top public university in the United States in 2021. As of October 2020, 25 Nobel laureates; three Fields Medalists; five Turing Award winners; and two Chief Scientists of the U.S. Air Force have been affiliated with The University of California-Los Angeles as faculty, researchers or alumni. Among the current faculty members, 55 have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences; 28 to the National Academy of Engineering ; 39 to the Institute of Medicine; and 124 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

The university was elected to the Association of American Universities in 1974.

The University of California-Los Angeles student-athletes compete as the Bruins in the Pac-12 Conference. The Bruins have won 129 national championships, including 118 NCAA team championships- more than any other university except Stanford University, whose athletes have won 126. The University of California-Los Angeles students, coaches, and staff have won 251 Olympic medals: 126 gold; 65 silver; and 60 bronze. The University of California-Los Angeles student-athletes have competed in every Olympics since 1920 with one exception (1924) and have won a gold medal in every Olympics the U.S. participated in since 1932.

In 1914, the school moved to a new campus on Vermont Avenue (now the site of Los Angeles City College) in East Hollywood. In 1917, UC Regent Edward Augustus Dickson, the only regent representing the Southland at the time and Ernest Carroll Moore- Director of the Normal School, began to lobby the State Legislature to enable the school to become the second University of California campus, after University of California-Berkeley. They met resistance from University of California-Berkeley alumni, Northern California members of the state legislature, and Benjamin Ide Wheeler- President of the University of California from 1899 to 1919 who were all vigorously opposed to the idea of a southern campus. However, David Prescott Barrows the new President of the University of California did not share Wheeler’s objections.

On May 23, 1919, the Southern Californians’ efforts were rewarded when Governor William D. Stephens signed Assembly Bill 626 into law which acquired the land and buildings and transformed the Los Angeles Normal School into the Southern Branch of the University of California. The same legislation added its general undergraduate program- the Junior College. The Southern Branch campus opened on September 15 of that year offering two-year undergraduate programs to 250 Junior College students and 1,250 students in the Teachers College under Moore’s continued direction. Southern Californians were furious that their so-called “branch” provided only an inferior junior college program (mocked at the time by The University of Southern California students as “the twig”) and continued to fight Northern Californians (specifically, Berkeley) for the right to three and then four years of instruction culminating in bachelor’s degrees. On December 11, 1923 the Board of Regents authorized a fourth year of instruction and transformed the Junior College into the College of Letters and Science which awarded its first bachelor’s degrees on June 12, 1925.

Under University of California President William Wallace Campbell, enrollment at the Southern Branch expanded so rapidly that by the mid-1920s the institution was outgrowing the 25-acre Vermont Avenue location. The Regents searched for a new location and announced their selection of the so-called “Beverly Site”—just west of Beverly Hills—on March 21, 1925 edging out the panoramic hills of the still-empty Palos Verdes Peninsula. After the athletic teams entered the Pacific Coast conference in 1926 the Southern Branch student council adopted the nickname “Bruins”, a name offered by the student council at The University of California-Berkeley. In 1927, the Regents renamed the Southern Branch the University of California at Los Angeles (the word “at” was officially replaced by a comma in 1958 in line with other UC campuses). In the same year the state broke ground in Westwood on land sold for $1 million- less than one-third its value- by real estate developers Edwin and Harold Janss for whom the Janss Steps are named. The campus in Westwood opened to students in 1929.

The original four buildings were the College Library (now Powell Library); Royce Hall; the Physics-Biology Building (which became the Humanities Building and is now the Renee and David Kaplan Hall); and the Chemistry Building (now Haines Hall) arrayed around a quadrangular courtyard on the 400-acre (1.6 km^2) campus. The first undergraduate classes on the new campus were held in 1929 with 5,500 students. After lobbying by alumni; faculty; administration and community leaders University of California-Los Angeles was permitted to award the master’s degree in 1933 and the doctorate in 1936 against continued resistance from The University of California-Berkeley.

Maturity as a university

During its first 32 years University of California-Los Angeles was treated as an off-site department of The University of California. As such its presiding officer was called a “provost” and reported to the main campus in Berkeley. In 1951 University of California-Los Angeles was formally elevated to co-equal status with The University of California-Berkeley, and its presiding officer Raymond B. Allen was the first chief executive to be granted the title of chancellor. The appointment of Franklin David Murphy to the position of Chancellor in 1960 helped spark an era of tremendous growth of facilities and faculty honors. By the end of the decade The University of California-Los Angeles had achieved distinction in a wide range of subjects. This era also secured University of California-Los Angeles’s position as a proper university and not simply a branch of the University of California system. This change is exemplified by an incident involving Chancellor Murphy, which was described by him:

“I picked up the telephone and called in from somewhere and the phone operator said, “University of California.” And I said, “Is this Berkeley?” She said, “No.” I said, “Well who have I gotten to?” ” University of California-Los Angeles.” I said, “Why didn’t you say University of California-Los Angeles?” “Oh”, she said, “we’re instructed to say University of California.” So, the next morning I went to the office and wrote a memo; I said, “Will you please instruct the operators, as of noon today, when they answer the phone to say, ‘ University of California-Los Angeles.'” And they said, “You know they won’t like it at Berkeley.” And I said, “Well, let’s just see. There are a few things maybe we can do around here without getting their permission.”

Recent history

On June 1, 2016 two men were killed in a murder-suicide at an engineering building in the university. School officials put the campus on lockdown as Los Angeles Police Department officers including SWAT cleared the campus.

In 2018, a student-led community coalition known as “Westwood Forward” successfully led an effort to break The University of California-Los Angeles and Westwood Village away from the existing Westwood Neighborhood Council and form a new North Westwood Neighborhood Council with over 2,000 out of 3,521 stakeholders voting in favor of the split. Westwood Forward’s campaign focused on making housing more affordable and encouraging nightlife in Westwood by opposing many of the restrictions on housing developments and restaurants the Westwood Neighborhood Council had promoted.

Academics

Divisions

Undergraduate

College of Letters and Science
Social Sciences Division
Humanities Division
Physical Sciences Division
Life Sciences Division
School of the Arts and Architecture
Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science (HSSEAS)
Herb Alpert School of Music
School of Theater, Film and Television
School of Nursing
Luskin School of Public Affairs

Graduate

Graduate School of Education & Information Studies (GSEIS)
School of Law
Anderson School of Management
Luskin School of Public Affairs
David Geffen School of Medicine
School of Dentistry
Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health
Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior
School of Nursing

Research

The University of California-Los Angeles is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity” and had $1.32 billion in research expenditures in FY 2018.

From State of the Planet At Columbia University: “Digital Innovation Harnesses Power of Real-time Weather Data”

From State of the Planet

At

Columbia University

2.6.23 [Just today in social media.]
Amanda Grossi
Francesco Fiondella

National meteorological services play a central role in their country’s efforts to anticipate and manage climate-related risks, and to develop effective policies for resilience and adaptation.

Automatic weather stations such as this one in Togo make important measurements of rainfall, temperature, and other parameters in near real-time. But national meteorological services need to be able to efficiently integrate this flood of information into their database in order to be of use to decision makers.

The real-time monitoring of floods, droughts and other climate hazards—as well the various climate and weather forecasts the national meteorological services provide—help agencies make critical decisions about agriculture, public health, energy, transportation, and other fundamental components of society.

However, these operations require vast amounts of reliable and timely climate and weather data. This is something that, historically, many African countries have lacked.

Recent initiatives backed by the UN Development Program, the World Bank and other international partners have worked to increase the availability and quality of climate data on the continent, particularly by investing in networks of automated weather stations. These stations demand far less human involvement than traditional ones, which require staff visits to collect data — multiple times a day in some cases. Automated stations can take measurements every 15 minutes and automatically transmit the data to a meteorological office. They can also be set up in places where continuous weather data has been more difficult to collect, such as in remote rural communities.

This higher-resolution data creates more robust historical climate datasets that ultimately lead to improved climate predictions and forecasts for a country.

When it comes to responding to—and mitigating—climate emergencies, having these real-time data networks can make all the difference.

A new data challenge

The rapid expansion of automated weather-monitoring networks is addressing critical data gaps across Africa. But they’ve also created a new problem, one caused by a lack of coordination among the various initiatives, programs, and donors who have funded the building of these networks.

The result is that a given country may have many types of automated networks, each built by a different company, and each requiring different parts and processes to maintain and repair.

Also, these companies don’t format and store their automated weather station data in the same way — some use proprietary formats. So while automated stations do provide national meteorological services with a lot of critical weather data (good), the different networks can’t ‘talk’ to each other. If a national meteorological service cannot efficiently combine, synchronize, and analyze its datasets, then a significant amount of data will be left out of decision making.

Scaling a transformative solution

Scientists at Columbia Climate School’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) saw this challenge and the frustration it was causing among its many national met service partners. In response, they developed the Automatic Weather Station Data Tool (ADT). And thanks to support from the projects Accelerating Impact of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) and Adapting Agriculture to Climate Today, for Tomorrow (ACToday), which held technical trainings and workshops, use of the new tool has increased significantly among African national meteorological services.

The Automatic Weather Station Data Tool is a free web-based application with an easy-to-use graphic interface that enables users from national meteorological services to access, process, perform quality control, and visualize data from different automated networks in one place. It also enables real-time monitoring of stations to see which ones are working and which ones are offline to more easily understand where the data is coming from and address any interruptions in transmission sooner. ADT emerged from the broader climate services delivered under the Enhancing National Climate Services (ENACTS) initiative, which recognized that the availability of high-quality climate data does not automatically translate to ease of access or effective use.

The ADT web interface for Kenya, showing seven different networks of automatic weather stations.

In less than a year, IRI has trained dozens of staff from the national meteorological services in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, and Zambia to use ADT to help synchronize their data streams. Mali’s meteorological service is hoping to receive similar trainings in the near future.

In Kenya, where the national meteorological department has faced considerable challenges trying to manage seven different automatic weather station networks, the tool has greatly simplified the analysis and viewing of weather data.

“The data visualization capabilities of ADT will go a long way in supporting our mandate of providing quality and timely climate information to the users. Its ability to aggregate different data types is a game changer,” said Onesmus Ruirie, principal meteorologist at the Kenya Meteorological Department.

The functionality to aggregate data at hourly, daily, 10-day, and monthly intervals has many meteorological staff excited, especially when complemented by the ability to display and download maps, graphs, and tables of this data for reports or advisories for decision makers.

IRI is a key partner in the AICCRA project, whose theory of change states that if national meteorological agencies can efficiently aggregate, analyze, and visualize climate data using state-of-the-art practices and tools, then relevant national institutions and stakeholders can better monitor, prepare and respond to climate-driven disasters in more timely and effective fashion. These same stakeholders can also inform long-term national strategies for adapting to climate change with more robust evidence.

Regional climate centers such as East Africa’s IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC) have also recognized the role ADT can play in helping the met services develop improved climate services. ICPAC is enthusiastic about raising awareness about the tool and building capacity for its use in the region. In addition to Ethiopia and Kenya, IGAD member states include Djibouti, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda.

“[ADT’s] capability to process data from automatic weather stations, its visualization functionalities, and its provision of a unified database for the different networks makes it a powerful tool for managing data for East Africa,” said Herbert Misiani, a data management expert at ICPAC.

ICPAC, another important AICCRA partner, has also helped the project scale other critical and in-demand IRI innovations in climate services to support the agricultural sector.

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Earth Institute is a research institute at Columbia University that was established in 1995. Its stated mission is to address complex issues facing the planet and its inhabitants, with a focus on sustainable development. With an interdisciplinary approach, this includes research in climate change, geology, global health, economics, management, agriculture, ecosystems, urbanization, energy, hazards, and water. The Earth Institute’s activities are guided by the idea that science and technological tools that already exist could be applied to greatly improve conditions for the world’s poor, while preserving the natural systems that support life on Earth.

The Earth Institute supports pioneering projects in the biological, engineering, social, and health sciences, while actively encouraging interdisciplinary projects—often combining natural and social sciences—in pursuit of solutions to real world problems and a sustainable planet. In its work, the Earth Institute remains mindful of the staggering disparities between rich and poor nations, and the tremendous impact that global-scale problems—such as the HIV/AIDS pandemic, climate change and extreme poverty—have on all nations.

Columbia University was founded in 1754 as King’s College by royal charter of King George II of England. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York and the fifth oldest in the United States.

University Mission Statement

Columbia University is one of the world’s most important centers of research and at the same time a distinctive and distinguished learning environment for undergraduates and graduate students in many scholarly and professional fields. The University recognizes the importance of its location in New York City and seeks to link its research and teaching to the vast resources of a great metropolis. It seeks to attract a diverse and international faculty and student body, to support research and teaching on global issues, and to create academic relationships with many countries and regions. It expects all areas of the University to advance knowledge and learning at the highest level and to convey the products of its efforts to the world.

Columbia University is a private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan Columbia is the oldest institution of higher education in New York and the fifth-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. It is one of nine colonial colleges founded prior to the Declaration of Independence, seven of which belong to the Ivy League. Columbia is ranked among the top universities in the world by major education publications.

Columbia was established as King’s College by royal charter from King George II of Great Britain in reaction to the founding of Princeton College. It was renamed Columbia College in 1784 following the American Revolution, and in 1787 was placed under a private board of trustees headed by former students Alexander Hamilton and John Jay. In 1896, the campus was moved to its current location in Morningside Heights and renamed Columbia University.

Columbia scientists and scholars have played an important role in scientific breakthroughs including brain-computer interface; the laser and maser; nuclear magnetic resonance; the first nuclear pile; the first nuclear fission reaction in the Americas; the first evidence for plate tectonics and continental drift; and much of the initial research and planning for the Manhattan Project during World War II. Columbia is organized into twenty schools, including four undergraduate schools and 15 graduate schools. The university’s research efforts include the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and accelerator laboratories with major technology firms such as IBM. Columbia is a founding member of the Association of American Universities and was the first school in the United States to grant the M.D. degree. With over 14 million volumes, Columbia University Library is the third largest private research library in the United States.

The university’s endowment stands at $11.26 billion in 2020, among the largest of any academic institution. As of October 2020, Columbia’s alumni, faculty, and staff have included: five Founding Fathers of the United States—among them a co-author of the United States Constitution and a co-author of the Declaration of Independence; three U.S. presidents; 29 foreign heads of state; ten justices of the United States Supreme Court, one of whom currently serves; 96 Nobel laureates; five Fields Medalists; 122 National Academy of Sciencesmembers; 53 living billionaires; eleven Olympic medalists; 33 Academy Award winners; and 125 Pulitzer Prize recipients.

From “Earth Matters” In The School of Earth & Energy & Environmental Sciences At Stanford University : “Whiplash weather – What we can learn from California’s deadly storms”

From “Earth Matters”

In

The School of Earth & Energy & Environmental Sciences

at

Stanford University

1.25.23
Madison Pobis

Media Contacts
Noah Diffenbaugh
Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability
diffenbaugh@stanford.edu
(650) 223-9425

Rosemary Knight
Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability
rknight@stanford.edu
(650) 736-1487

Jenny Suckale
Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability
jsuckale@stanford.edu
(650) 497-6456

“It would be really exciting to think a little bit more creatively about how we can as a community get ready for that kind of whiplash of different challenges and different extremes that we might not be anticipating in detail,” said Jenny Suckale, an assistant professor of geophysics in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, during a Jan. 18 webinar. (Image credit: Getty Images)

Stanford and local experts discuss ways to mitigate risk to communities and infrastructure amid dramatic swings between flood and drought.

A barrage of storms starting in late December 2022 highlighted the dangers of “whiplash weather,” a pattern of swings between heavy winter rainfall and severe summer drought in the western U.S.

Stanford scholars and the public information manager for Sacramento County – an area that saw some of the heaviest damage from recent state-wide flooding – discussed the science behind the storms, implications for drought recovery, and tools to help communities mitigate future risk. The Jan. 18 event was the latest in a series of webinars hosted by the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment to explore the connections between climate science, extreme weather events, and inequitable impacts across communities.

Expect the unexpected

Much of the precipitation in the western U.S. each year falls from atmospheric rivers – narrow bands in the atmosphere that act like highways for transporting moisture from the tropics to higher latitudes. But the rapid succession of this year’s atmospheric rivers was highly unusual, according to Noah Diffenbaugh, a professor of Earth system science in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. The back-to-back rains triggered landslides, filled up stormwater drains, and flooded communities as infrastructure and the natural landscape were quickly saturated.

Even with advances in artificial intelligence and computing power for short-term precipitation forecasting, “there are real limits to our abilities to know the future,” said Diffenbaugh. “Where we can really take action is on our systems and practices and implementation for being prepared.”

Jenny Suckale, an assistant professor of geophysics in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, emphasized that a problem-solving mindset is essential as climate change increases uncertainty and pushes existing infrastructure toward risk.

“A lot of planning efforts choose one design event and then try to mitigate the risks for that particular event,” said Suckale. “The drawbacks of that is that two floods don’t tend to be alike.”

Suckale’s research group is working with San Francisco Bay Area stakeholders and community members to plan for a wide spectrum of possible flood events by improving risk assessment and understanding community needs in the context of existing inequity.

Recognize a shifting landscape

“The one factor that has changed isn’t where the water is coming from; it’s where the water is hitting,” said Matt Robinson, public information manager for Sacramento County. Neighborhoods have been constructed in areas that were previously farmland, which changes how floodwaters move and increases the number of people and homes at risk from flooding.

Robinson spends a large part of his time explaining to people in the Sacramento region that they live in a floodplain, despite what they might observe from all-too-familiar dry conditions. Although the recent rains have downgraded much of California from “extreme” to “severe” drought status, maintaining those levels will depend on how much precipitation falls in the remainder of the year.

Look to natural infrastructure

Climate change is increasing demands on engineered infrastructure like dams, canals, and reservoirs that perform multiple functions throughout the year, such as moving and storing surface water supplies and managing flood water.

Rosemary Knight, a professor of geophysics at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, noted that we could be taking advantage of the vast natural infrastructure just below ground.

There are roughly 140 million acre-feet of available space in California’s groundwater aquifers – roughly equal to the capacity of 30 Lake Shastas. Surface water reservoir capacity is modest by comparison, with a combined available capacity of about nine Lake Shastas, Knight said. Agricultural fields and orchards with sandy channels could be strategically flooded during rainfall events to allow water to trickle through an intricate subsurface network, refilling the aquifers below.

No one knows the exact amount of water that can be stored within California’s 515 groundwater basins. California’s Department of Water Resources estimates the total storage capacity at somewhere between 850 million and 1.3 billion acre-feet. In comparison, surface storage from all the major reservoirs in California is less than 50 million acre-feet. Source: Stanford Water in the West.

Knight’s group has developed a geophysical system that maps these underground structures with magnetic imaging to help identify areas primed for groundwater recharge. “Growers are really starting to say, ‘Hey, we want to be part of the solution,’ ..because they clearly see an opportunity there to use their land during the wet season to give more water availability during the growing season,” said Knight.

As climate change increases the likelihood of extreme winter weather, California water managers will need to employ the full range of tools – from natural and built infrastructure to policy and regulatory frameworks – to manage flood risk and supply water during drought periods.

“It would be really exciting to think a little bit more creatively about how we can as a community get ready for that kind of whiplash of different challenges and different extremes that we might not be anticipating in detail,” said Suckale.

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“Earth Matters”

Published by the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, Stanford Earth Matters provides sustainability research news and insights for the public, decision-makers, and educators.

Our website and monthly newsletter feature the work of Stanford University scholars who are focused on deepening knowledge of Earth, climate, and society, and creating solutions to sustainability challenges.

We also link to essays and opinions published elsewhere by Stanford experts, and to stories, podcasts, videos, events, and more from our colleagues at Stanford News, Stanford Engineering Magazine, Stanford Law School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, and Precourt Institute for Energy, among other groups across campus.

For its first seven years, Stanford Earth Matters was published by Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth), which became part of the Doerr School of Sustainability in September 2022. Watch for changes to our website and newsletter as the new school takes shape.

Let Stanford Earth Matters come to you: Subscribe to our newsletter to have original research stories and curated links delivered to your inbox once a month.

Have questions, comments, or ideas? Send an email to managing editor Josie Garthwaite at josieg@stanford.edu.

We are scientists! Undergraduates, graduate students, professors, educational staff, and alumni working professionals. We build community in our field trips, classes, and cocurriculars. We care about the Earth and making its resources available to people across the globe now and in the future.

The School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences (formerly the School of Earth Sciences) lists courses under the subject code EARTH on the Stanford Bulletin’s ExploreCourses web site. Courses offered by the School’s departments and inter-departmental programs are linked on their separate sections, and are available at the ExploreCourses web site.

The School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences includes the departments of Geological Sciences, Geophysics, Energy Resources Engineering, and Earth System Science; and three interdisciplinary programs: the Earth Systems undergraduate B.S. and coterminal M.A. and M.S. programs, the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER) with Ph.D. and joint M.S, and the Sustainability and Science Practice Program with coterminal M.A. and M.S. programs.

The aims of the school and its programs are:

to prepare students for careers in the fields of agricultural science and policy, biogeochemistry, climate science, energy resource engineering, environmental science and policy, environmental communications, geology, geobiology, geochemistry, geomechanics, geophysics, geostatistics, sustainability science, hydrogeology, land science, oceanography, paleontology, petroleum engineering, and petroleum geology;

to conduct disciplinary and interdisciplinary research on a range of questions related to Earth, its resources and its environment;

to provide opportunities for Stanford undergraduate and graduate students to learn about the planet’s history, to understand the energy and resource bases that support humanity, to address the geological and geophysical, and human-caused hazards that affect human societies, and to understand the challenges and develop solutions related to environment and sustainability.

To accomplish these objectives, the school offers a variety of programs adaptable to the needs of the individual student:

four-year undergraduate programs leading to the degree of Bachelor of Science (B.S.)

five-year programs leading to the coterminal Bachelor of Science and Master of Science (M.S.)

five-year programs leading to the coterminal Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts (M.A.)

graduate programs offering the degrees of Master of Science, Engineer, and Doctor of Philosophy.

Details of individual degree programs are found in the section for each department or program.
Undergraduate Programs in the School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences

Any undergraduate admitted to the University may declare a major in one of the school’s departments or the Earth Systems Program by contacting the appropriate department or program office.

Requirements for the B.S. degree are listed in each department or program section. Departmental academic advisers work with students to define a career or academic goal and assure that the student’s curricular choices are appropriate to the pursuit of that goal. Advisers can help devise a sensible and enjoyable course of study that meets degree requirements and provides the student with opportunities to experience advanced courses, seminars, and research projects. To maximize such opportunities, students are encouraged to complete basic science and mathematics courses in high school or during their freshman year.
Coterminal Master’s Degrees in the School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences

The Stanford coterminal degree program enables an undergraduate to embark on an integrated program of study leading to the master’s degree before requirements for the bachelor’s degree have been completed. This may result in more expeditious progress towards the advanced degree than would otherwise be possible, making the program especially important to Earth scientists because the master’s degree provides an excellent basis for entry into the profession. The coterminal plan permits students to apply for admission to a master’s program after earning 120 units, completion of six non-summer quarters, and declaration of an undergraduate major, but no later than the quarter prior to the expected completion of the undergraduate degree.

The student may meet the degree requirements in the more advantageous of the following two ways: by first completing the 180 units required for the B.S. degree and then completing the three quarters required for the M.S. or the M.A. degree; or by completing a total of 15 quarters during which the requirements for the two degrees are completed concurrently. In either case, the student has the option of receiving the B.S. degree upon meeting all the B.S. requirements or of receiving both degrees at the end of the coterminal program.

Students earn degrees in the same department or program, in two different departments, or even in different schools; for example, a B.S. in Physics and an M.S. in Geological Sciences. Students are encouraged to discuss the coterminal program with their advisers during their junior year. Additional information is available in the individual department offices.

University requirements for the coterminal master’s degree are described in the “Coterminal Master’s Program” section. University requirements for the master’s degree are described in the “Graduate Degrees” section of this bulletin.
Graduate Programs in the School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences

Admission to the Graduate Program

A student who wishes to enroll for graduate work in the school must be qualified for graduate standing in the University and also must be accepted by one of the school’s four departments or the E-IPER Ph.D. program. One requirement for admission is submission of scores on the verbal and quantitative sections of the Graduate Record Exam. Admission to one department of the school does not guarantee admission to other departments.

Faculty Adviser

Upon entering a graduate program, the student should report to the head of the department or program who arranges with a member of the faculty to act as the student’s adviser. Alternatively, in several of the departments, advisers are established through student-faculty discussions prior to admission. The student, in consultation with the adviser(s), then arranges a course of study for the first quarter and ultimately develops a complete plan of study for the degree sought.

Financial Aid
Detailed information on scholarships, fellowships, and research grants is available from the school’s individual departments and programs.

Stanford University campus

Leland and Jane Stanford founded Stanford University to “promote the public welfare by exercising an influence on behalf of humanity and civilization.” Stanford opened its doors in 1891, and more than a century later, it remains dedicated to finding solutions to the great challenges of the day and to preparing our students for leadership in today’s complex world. Stanford, is an American private research university located in Stanford, California on an 8,180-acre (3,310 ha) campus near Palo Alto. Since 1952, more than 54 Stanford faculty, staff, and alumni have won the Nobel Prize, including 19 current faculty members.

Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university located in Stanford, California. Stanford was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford in memory of their only child, Leland Stanford Jr., who had died of typhoid fever at age 15 the previous year. Stanford is consistently ranked as among the most prestigious and top universities in the world by major education publications. It is also one of the top fundraising institutions in the country, becoming the first school to raise more than a billion dollars in a year.

Leland Stanford was a U.S. senator and former governor of California who made his fortune as a railroad tycoon. The school admitted its first students on October 1, 1891, as a coeducational and non-denominational institution. Stanford University struggled financially after the death of Leland Stanford in 1893 and again after much of the campus was damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Following World War II, provost Frederick Terman supported faculty and graduates’ entrepreneurialism to build self-sufficient local industry in what would later be known as Silicon Valley.

The university is organized around seven schools: three schools consisting of 40 academic departments at the undergraduate level as well as four professional schools that focus on graduate programs in law, medicine, education, and business. All schools are on the same campus. Students compete in 36 varsity sports, and the university is one of two private institutions in the Division I FBS Pac-12 Conference. It has gained 126 NCAA team championships, and Stanford has won the NACDA Directors’ Cup for 24 consecutive years, beginning in 1994–1995. In addition, Stanford students and alumni have won 270 Olympic medals including 139 gold medals.

As of October 2020, 84 Nobel laureates, 28 Turing Award laureates, and eight Fields Medalists have been affiliated with Stanford as students, alumni, faculty, or staff. In addition, Stanford is particularly noted for its entrepreneurship and is one of the most successful universities in attracting funding for start-ups. Stanford alumni have founded numerous companies, which combined produce more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue, roughly equivalent to the 7th largest economy in the world (as of 2020). Stanford is the alma mater of one president of the United States (Herbert Hoover), 74 living billionaires, and 17 astronauts. It is also one of the leading producers of Fulbright Scholars, Marshall Scholars, Rhodes Scholars, and members of the United States Congress.

Stanford University was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford, dedicated to Leland Stanford Jr, their only child. The institution opened in 1891 on Stanford’s previous Palo Alto farm.

Jane and Leland Stanford modeled their university after the great eastern universities, most specifically Cornell University. Stanford opened being called the “Cornell of the West” in 1891 due to faculty being former Cornell affiliates (either professors, alumni, or both) including its first president, David Starr Jordan, and second president, John Casper Branner. Both Cornell and Stanford were among the first to have higher education be accessible, nonsectarian, and open to women as well as to men. Cornell is credited as one of the first American universities to adopt this radical departure from traditional education, and Stanford became an early adopter as well.

Despite being impacted by earthquakes in both 1906 and 1989, the campus was rebuilt each time. In 1919, The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace was started by Herbert Hoover to preserve artifacts related to World War I. The Stanford Medical Center, completed in 1959, is a teaching hospital with over 800 beds. The DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), established in 1962, performs research in particle physics.

Land

Most of Stanford is on an 8,180-acre (12.8 sq mi; 33.1 km^2) campus, one of the largest in the United States. It is located on the San Francisco Peninsula, in the northwest part of the Santa Clara Valley (Silicon Valley) approximately 37 miles (60 km) southeast of San Francisco and approximately 20 miles (30 km) northwest of San Jose. In 2008, 60% of this land remained undeveloped.

Stanford’s main campus includes a census-designated place within unincorporated Santa Clara County, although some of the university land (such as the Stanford Shopping Center and the Stanford Research Park) is within the city limits of Palo Alto. The campus also includes much land in unincorporated San Mateo County (including the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve), as well as in the city limits of Menlo Park (Stanford Hills neighborhood), Woodside, and Portola Valley.

Non-central campus

Stanford currently operates in various locations outside of its central campus.

On the founding grant:

Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve is a 1,200-acre (490 ha) natural reserve south of the central campus owned by the university and used by wildlife biologists for research.
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is a facility west of the central campus operated by the university for the Department of Energy. It contains the longest linear particle accelerator in the world, 2 miles (3.2 km) on 426 acres (172 ha) of land.

DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory campus with world’s first x-ray laser- the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) unveiled in 2009.

Golf course and a seasonal lake: The university also has its own golf course and a seasonal lake (Lake Lagunita, actually an irrigation reservoir), both home to the vulnerable California tiger salamander. As of 2012 Lake Lagunita was often dry and the university had no plans to artificially fill it.

Off the founding grant:

Hopkins Marine Station, in Pacific Grove, California, is a marine biology research center owned by the university since 1892.
Study abroad locations: unlike typical study abroad programs, Stanford itself operates in several locations around the world; thus, each location has Stanford faculty-in-residence and staff in addition to students, creating a “mini-Stanford”.

Redwood City campus for many of the university’s administrative offices located in Redwood City, California, a few miles north of the main campus. In 2005, the university purchased a small, 35-acre (14 ha) campus in Midpoint Technology Park intended for staff offices; development was delayed by The Great Recession. In 2015 the university announced a development plan and the Redwood City campus opened in March 2019.

The Bass Center in Washington, DC provides a base, including housing, for the Stanford in Washington program for undergraduates. It includes a small art gallery open to the public.

China: Stanford Center at Peking University, housed in the Lee Jung Sen Building, is a small center for researchers and students in collaboration with Beijing University [北京大学](CN) (Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University (CN) (KIAA-PKU).

Administration and organization

Stanford is a private, non-profit university that is administered as a corporate trust governed by a privately appointed board of trustees with a maximum membership of 38. Trustees serve five-year terms (not more than two consecutive terms) and meet five times annually.[83] A new trustee is chosen by the current trustees by ballot. The Stanford trustees also oversee the Stanford Research Park, the Stanford Shopping Center, the Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University Medical Center, and many associated medical facilities (including the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital).

The board appoints a president to serve as the chief executive officer of the university, to prescribe the duties of professors and course of study, to manage financial and business affairs, and to appoint nine vice presidents. The provost is the chief academic and budget officer, to whom the deans of each of the seven schools report. Persis Drell became the 13th provost in February 2017.

As of 2018, the university was organized into seven academic schools. The schools of Humanities and Sciences (27 departments), Engineering (nine departments), and Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (four departments) have both graduate and undergraduate programs while the Schools of Law, Medicine, Education and Business have graduate programs only. The powers and authority of the faculty are vested in the Academic Council, which is made up of tenure and non-tenure line faculty, research faculty, senior fellows in some policy centers and institutes, the president of the university, and some other academic administrators, but most matters are handled by the Faculty Senate, made up of 55 elected representatives of the faculty.

The Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) is the student government for Stanford and all registered students are members. Its elected leadership consists of the Undergraduate Senate elected by the undergraduate students, the Graduate Student Council elected by the graduate students, and the President and Vice President elected as a ticket by the entire student body.

Stanford is the beneficiary of a special clause in the California Constitution, which explicitly exempts Stanford property from taxation so long as the property is used for educational purposes.

Endowment and donations

The university’s endowment, managed by the Stanford Management Company, was valued at $27.7 billion as of August 31, 2019. Payouts from the Stanford endowment covered approximately 21.8% of university expenses in the 2019 fiscal year. In the 2018 NACUBO-TIAA survey of colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, only Harvard University, the University of Texas System, and Yale University had larger endowments than Stanford.

In 2006, President John L. Hennessy launched a five-year campaign called the Stanford Challenge, which reached its $4.3 billion fundraising goal in 2009, two years ahead of time, but continued fundraising for the duration of the campaign. It concluded on December 31, 2011, having raised a total of $6.23 billion and breaking the previous campaign fundraising record of $3.88 billion held by Yale. Specifically, the campaign raised $253.7 million for undergraduate financial aid, as well as $2.33 billion for its initiative in “Seeking Solutions” to global problems, $1.61 billion for “Educating Leaders” by improving K-12 education, and $2.11 billion for “Foundation of Excellence” aimed at providing academic support for Stanford students and faculty. Funds supported 366 new fellowships for graduate students, 139 new endowed chairs for faculty, and 38 new or renovated buildings. The new funding also enabled the construction of a facility for stem cell research; a new campus for the business school; an expansion of the law school; a new Engineering Quad; a new art and art history building; an on-campus concert hall; a new art museum; and a planned expansion of the medical school, among other things. In 2012, the university raised $1.035 billion, becoming the first school to raise more than a billion dollars in a year.

Research centers and institutes

DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Stanford Research Institute, a center of innovation to support economic development in the region.
Hoover Institution, a conservative American public policy institution and research institution that promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, and limited government.
Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, a multidisciplinary design school in cooperation with the Hasso Plattner Institute of University of Potsdam [Universität Potsdam](DE) that integrates product design, engineering, and business management education).
Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute, which grew out of and still contains the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project.
John S. Knight Fellowship for Professional Journalists
Center for Ocean Solutions
Together with University of California-Berkeley and University of California-San Francisco, Stanford is part of the Biohub, a new medical science research center founded in 2016 by a $600 million commitment from Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg and pediatrician Priscilla Chan.

Discoveries and innovation

Natural sciences

Biological synthesis of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) – Arthur Kornberg synthesized DNA material and won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1959 for his work at Stanford.
First Transgenic organism – Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer were the first scientists to transplant genes from one living organism to another, a fundamental discovery for genetic engineering. Thousands of products have been developed on the basis of their work, including human growth hormone and hepatitis B vaccine.
Laser – Arthur Leonard Schawlow shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics with Nicolaas Bloembergen and Kai Siegbahn for his work on lasers.
Nuclear magnetic resonance – Felix Bloch developed new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements, which are the underlying principles of the MRI.

Computer and applied sciences

ARPANET – Stanford Research Institute, formerly part of Stanford but on a separate campus, was the site of one of the four original ARPANET nodes.

Internet—Stanford was the site where the original design of the Internet was undertaken. Vint Cerf led a research group to elaborate the design of the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP/IP) that he originally co-created with Robert E. Kahn (Bob Kahn) in 1973 and which formed the basis for the architecture of the Internet.

Frequency modulation synthesis – John Chowning of the Music department invented the FM music synthesis algorithm in 1967, and Stanford later licensed it to Yamaha Corporation.

Google – Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford. They were working on the Stanford Digital Library Project (SDLP). The SDLP’s goal was “to develop the enabling technologies for a single, integrated and universal digital library” and it was funded through the National Science Foundation, among other federal agencies.

Klystron tube – invented by the brothers Russell and Sigurd Varian at Stanford. Their prototype was completed and demonstrated successfully on August 30, 1937. Upon publication in 1939, news of the klystron immediately influenced the work of U.S. and UK researchers working on radar equipment.

RISC – ARPA funded VLSI project of microprocessor design. Stanford and University of California- Berkeley are most associated with the popularization of this concept. The Stanford MIPS would go on to be commercialized as the successful MIPS architecture, while Berkeley RISC gave its name to the entire concept, commercialized as the SPARC. Another success from this era were IBM’s efforts that eventually led to the IBM POWER instruction set architecture, PowerPC, and Power ISA. As these projects matured, a wide variety of similar designs flourished in the late 1980s and especially the early 1990s, representing a major force in the Unix workstation market as well as embedded processors in laser printers, routers and similar products.
SUN workstation – Andy Bechtolsheim designed the SUN workstation for the Stanford University Network communications project as a personal CAD workstation, which led to Sun Microsystems.

Businesses and entrepreneurship

Stanford is one of the most successful universities in creating companies and licensing its inventions to existing companies; it is often held up as a model for technology transfer. Stanford’s Office of Technology Licensing is responsible for commercializing university research, intellectual property, and university-developed projects.

The university is described as having a strong venture culture in which students are encouraged, and often funded, to launch their own companies.

Companies founded by Stanford alumni generate more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue, equivalent to the 10th-largest economy in the world.

Some companies closely associated with Stanford and their connections include:

Hewlett-Packard, 1939, co-founders William R. Hewlett (B.S, PhD) and David Packard (M.S).
Silicon Graphics, 1981, co-founders James H. Clark (Associate Professor) and several of his grad students.
Sun Microsystems, 1982, co-founders Vinod Khosla (M.B.A), Andy Bechtolsheim (PhD) and Scott McNealy (M.B.A).
Cisco, 1984, founders Leonard Bosack (M.S) and Sandy Lerner (M.S) who were in charge of Stanford Computer Science and Graduate School of Business computer operations groups respectively when the hardware was developed.[163]
Yahoo!, 1994, co-founders Jerry Yang (B.S, M.S) and David Filo (M.S).
Google, 1998, co-founders Larry Page (M.S) and Sergey Brin (M.S).
LinkedIn, 2002, co-founders Reid Hoffman (B.S), Konstantin Guericke (B.S, M.S), Eric Lee (B.S), and Alan Liu (B.S).
Instagram, 2010, co-founders Kevin Systrom (B.S) and Mike Krieger (B.S).
Snapchat, 2011, co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy (B.S).
Coursera, 2012, co-founders Andrew Ng (Associate Professor) and Daphne Koller (Professor, PhD).

Student body

Stanford enrolled 6,996 undergraduate and 10,253 graduate students as of the 2019–2020 school year. Women comprised 50.4% of undergraduates and 41.5% of graduate students. In the same academic year, the freshman retention rate was 99%.

Stanford awarded 1,819 undergraduate degrees, 2,393 master’s degrees, 770 doctoral degrees, and 3270 professional degrees in the 2018–2019 school year. The four-year graduation rate for the class of 2017 cohort was 72.9%, and the six-year rate was 94.4%. The relatively low four-year graduation rate is a function of the university’s coterminal degree (or “coterm”) program, which allows students to earn a master’s degree as a 1-to-2-year extension of their undergraduate program.

As of 2010, fifteen percent of undergraduates were first-generation students.

Athletics

As of 2016 Stanford had 16 male varsity sports and 20 female varsity sports, 19 club sports and about 27 intramural sports. In 1930, following a unanimous vote by the Executive Committee for the Associated Students, the athletic department adopted the mascot “Indian.” The Indian symbol and name were dropped by President Richard Lyman in 1972, after objections from Native American students and a vote by the student senate. The sports teams are now officially referred to as the “Stanford Cardinal,” referring to the deep red color, not the cardinal bird. Stanford is a member of the Pac-12 Conference in most sports, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation in several other sports, and the America East Conference in field hockey with the participation in the inter-collegiate NCAA’s Division I FBS.

Its traditional sports rival is the University of California, Berkeley, the neighbor to the north in the East Bay. The winner of the annual “Big Game” between the Cal and Cardinal football teams gains custody of the Stanford Axe.

Stanford has had at least one NCAA team champion every year since the 1976–77 school year and has earned 126 NCAA national team titles since its establishment, the most among universities, and Stanford has won 522 individual national championships, the most by any university. Stanford has won the award for the top-ranked Division 1 athletic program—the NACDA Directors’ Cup, formerly known as the Sears Cup—annually for the past twenty-four straight years. Stanford athletes have won medals in every Olympic Games since 1912, winning 270 Olympic medals total, 139 of them gold. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, and 2016 Summer Olympics, Stanford won more Olympic medals than any other university in the United States. Stanford athletes won 16 medals at the 2012 Summer Olympics (12 gold, two silver and two bronze), and 27 medals at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Traditions

The unofficial motto of Stanford, selected by President Jordan, is Die Luft der Freiheit weht. Translated from the German language, this quotation from Ulrich von Hutten means, “The wind of freedom blows.” The motto was controversial during World War I, when anything in German was suspect; at that time the university disavowed that this motto was official.
Hail, Stanford, Hail! is the Stanford Hymn sometimes sung at ceremonies or adapted by the various University singing groups. It was written in 1892 by mechanical engineering professor Albert W. Smith and his wife, Mary Roberts Smith (in 1896 she earned the first Stanford doctorate in Economics and later became associate professor of Sociology), but was not officially adopted until after a performance on campus in March 1902 by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
“Uncommon Man/Uncommon Woman”: Stanford does not award honorary degrees, but in 1953 the degree of “Uncommon Man/Uncommon Woman” was created to recognize individuals who give rare and extraordinary service to the University. Technically, this degree is awarded by the Stanford Associates, a voluntary group that is part of the university’s alumni association. As Stanford’s highest honor, it is not conferred at prescribed intervals, but only when appropriate to recognize extraordinary service. Recipients include Herbert Hoover, Bill Hewlett, Dave Packard, Lucile Packard, and John Gardner.
Big Game events: The events in the week leading up to the Big Game vs. UC Berkeley, including Gaieties (a musical written, composed, produced, and performed by the students of Ram’s Head Theatrical Society).
“Viennese Ball”: a formal ball with waltzes that was initially started in the 1970s by students returning from the now-closed Stanford in Vienna overseas program. It is now open to all students.
“Full Moon on the Quad”: An annual event at Main Quad, where students gather to kiss one another starting at midnight. Typically organized by the Junior class cabinet, the festivities include live entertainment, such as music and dance performances.
“Band Run”: An annual festivity at the beginning of the school year, where the band picks up freshmen from dorms across campus while stopping to perform at each location, culminating in a finale performance at Main Quad.
“Mausoleum Party”: An annual Halloween Party at the Stanford Mausoleum, the final resting place of Leland Stanford Jr. and his parents. A 20-year tradition, the “Mausoleum Party” was on hiatus from 2002 to 2005 due to a lack of funding, but was revived in 2006. In 2008, it was hosted in Old Union rather than at the actual Mausoleum, because rain prohibited generators from being rented. In 2009, after fundraising efforts by the Junior Class Presidents and the ASSU Executive, the event was able to return to the Mausoleum despite facing budget cuts earlier in the year.
Former campus traditions include the “Big Game bonfire” on Lake Lagunita (a seasonal lake usually dry in the fall), which was formally ended in 1997 because of the presence of endangered salamanders in the lake bed.

Award laureates and scholars

Stanford’s current community of scholars includes:

19 Nobel Prize laureates (as of October 2020, 85 affiliates in total)
171 members of the National Academy of Sciences
109 members of National Academy of Engineering
76 members of National Academy of Medicine
288 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
19 recipients of the National Medal of Science
1 recipient of the National Medal of Technology
4 recipients of the National Humanities Medal
49 members of American Philosophical Society
56 fellows of the American Physics Society (since 1995)
4 Pulitzer Prize winners
31 MacArthur Fellows
4 Wolf Foundation Prize winners
2 ACL Lifetime Achievement Award winners
14 AAAI fellows
2 Presidential Medal of Freedom winners

From Griffith University (AU): “Half-century of cyclone data puts researchers on track to explore future risks”

From Griffith University (AU)

1.19.23
Carley Rosengreen

Griffith University researchers have analyzed 50 years of tropical cyclone tracks to better understand their behaviour in the hopes it could develop some level of prediction for future cyclones in light of our changing climate.

Researchers from Griffith’s Coastal and Marine Research Centre used data from the Bureau of Meteorology to investigate the characteristics and trends of tropical cyclones that originated in the Coral Sea off the Queensland coast from 1970-2020.

PhD Candidate John Miller said the historical study aimed to understand trends in the frequency, direction and curvature (how much the cyclone moved around) of these tropical cyclones within well-defined groups; and to examine location trends relating to maximum intensities within these three defined groups, or ‘clusters’.

Cluster 1 was centred in the Coral Sea, it was the most south easterly located group and the TCs in this group often track predominantly south-east, occasionally making landfall. It is this cluster that is most likely to impact the South East Queensland coast due to its location and predominant tracking direction. TC Zelia (2011) is an example.
Cluster 2 was centred in the Coral Sea closer to the coast than group 1, and the TCs in this group track predominantly laterally from east to west, occasionally making landfall. TC Yasi (2011) is an example.
Cluster 3, although having TCs with genesis in the Coral Sea, was centred on the western edge of the Gulf of Carpentaria, with the TCs tracking predominantly overland in a west-south-west direction, usually making landfall. This cluster is interesting in that the cyclones often travel long distances overland over the northwest of Australia. TC Abigail (2001) is an example.

Fig. 1

TC tracks with genesis in the Coral Sea, 1970–2020, showing the exposure of the east coast of Australia to these TCs.

Fig. 2

TC tracks with centroids clustered by first moment (track centroids). TC tracks with maximum wind speed indicated by graduated colour scale and positions of individual track centroids, as indicated with crosses, with associated track cluster groups indicated by centroid point colour. Cluster variance ellipses also indicated by colour—illustrates mean area transgressed, mean orientation and mean shape for each cluster.

“Cluster 3 is quite an interesting one, because it is a group of cyclones that traveled long distances in a westerly then south-west direction.”

“A previous study into why that could have been happening suggested that they regained energy from the moisture in the soil, over Northwest of Australia, and then they had that energy then to propagate long distances.”

The team found that all three Clusters had different characteristics not only in their direction but also their frequency and curvature, or movement pattern during their lifetime.

Clusters 2 and 3 showed a high degree of lateral movement.
Clusters 2 and 3 often tracked in a westerly direction and had their ellipse centres much closer to land;
Cluster 3, the cluster of most westerly position, had the highest median of power dissipated per track but Cluster 2 has shown a marked increase in power and curvature since 2004.

“Although there was a statistically significant downward trend overall for frequency of tropical cyclones in the Coral Sea, this trend was only evident in one of the three Clusters: Cluster 1, and could be considered to have a reduced risk potential in future out of the three, however the tracks in this cluster are also the closest to the highly populated and growing SE Qld region,” Miller said.

“It also provides insight to the analysis of tropical cyclone risk based on geo-location and cyclone track evolution that can be applied on a wide range of temporal and spatial scales.

“After this analysis, what we have is the behaviour analysis of the cyclones from the Coral Sea in the past 50 years, but we haven’t really got the detail on what’s driving this behaviour yet, which will be the next paper we publish.”

This research is part one of three planned by the team – the next will examine possible reasons behind their direction, track, intensity and the changes that could be impacting these; the final will look at the waves and swell generated by cyclones.

The findings were publish in Natural Hazards.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11069-022-05780-3
See the science paper for instructive material with images.

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

In 1971, Griffith University (AU) was created to be a new kind of university—one that offered new degrees in progressive fields such as Asian studies and environmental science. At the time, these study areas were revolutionary—today, they’re more important than ever.

Since then, we’ve grown into a comprehensive, research-intensive university, ranking in the top 5% of universities worldwide. Our teaching and research spans five campuses in South East Queensland and all disciplines, while our network of more than 120,000 graduates extends around the world.

Griffith continues the progressive traditions of its namesake, Sir Samuel Walker Griffith, who was twice the Premier of Queensland, the first Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, and the principal author of the Australian Constitution.

Research

Griffith researchers work in 38 centres and institutes, investigating areas such as water science, climate change adaptation, criminology and crime prevention, sustainable tourism and health and chronic disease.

The University’s major research institutes include:

Advanced Design and Prototyping Technologies Institute (ADaPT)
Australian Rivers Institute
Cities Research Institute
Environmental Futures Research Institute
Griffith Asia Institute
Griffith Criminology Institute
Griffith Institute for Educational Research
Griffith Institute for Tourism
Institute for Glycomics
Institute for Integrated and Intelligent Systems
Menzies Health Institute Queensland (formerly the Griffith Health Institute)
Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery (GRIDD)

Additionally, Griffith hosts several externally supported centres and facilities, including:

Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention
National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility
Smart Water Research Centre
NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Nursing

Research commercialization

Griffith offers research commercialization and services for business, industry and government through Griffith Enterprise.

Other centres

As well as research centres and institutes, Griffith has a number of cultural and community focused organisations. These include the EcoCentre, which provides a space for environmental education activities, exhibitions, seminars and workshops; and the Centre for Interfaith & Cultural Dialogue (formerly the Multi-Faith Centre).

From The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: “Research reveals new links behind climate change in Australia”

From The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

1.11.23

Cape Range cave in Northwestern Australia. Changes in the isotopic composition of the stalagmites in Cape Range and the Kimberley region in northern Australia reflect rainfall over Australia from tropical cyclones and the monsoon. (Photo by Darren Brooks /Australian Speleological Federation, Perth, Australia)

A team of scientists, including those from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), have combined stalagmites and climate model simulations to reveal links between monsoon rains and tropical cyclones in Australia.

This work, which was supported by the National Science Foundation, was published today in the journal Science Advances [below].

WHOI Assoc. Scientist Caroline Ummenhofer and MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Theo Carr co-authored the study, along with lead author Rhawn Denniston, professor of Geology at Cornell College and WHOI adjunct scientist, and colleagues from Iowa State University and the University of New Mexico.

The team reconstructed changes in monsoon rainfall over the last 1,500 years using the chemistry of stalagmites from a cave in the Australian tropics. The stalagmites were dated using the small amounts of radioactive isotopes they contain, and variations in monsoon rainfall were determined from changes in the stalagmites’ isotopes of oxygen.

The resulting record turned out to be strikingly similar to a previously published record of tropical cyclone activity from much further south in the Australian subtropics: when the tropics got more rainfall from the monsoon, the subtropics got more rainfall from tropical cyclones.

“That didn’t make any sense to me at first because what happens in the tropics with the monsoon should be distinct from what happens with cyclone activity in the subtropics,” Denniston said. “The only thing I could think of that would connect the two is the ITCZ.”

The “ITCZ”, or Intertropical Convergence Zone, is a belt of rising air that forms the center of monsoon rainfall in tropical regions around the world. The ITCZ roughly parallels the equator and migrates back and forth between the northern and southern hemispheres tracking summer heating of the Earth’s surface.

“We compared the tropical cyclone tracks during years that had the ITCZ in a more southerly position with those years when it was located further north,” Ummenhofer added. “We were struck by how different both surface ocean temperatures and actual hurricane tracks over the Indian Ocean were during these two sets of years. A more southerly ITCZ position meant warmer ocean temperatures and more cyclones near the cave site in northwestern Australia–and hence making landfall further south in Western Australia.”

“There’s a lot of atmospheric disturbance in the ITCZ and as a result a lot of tropical cyclones form there,” Denniston continued. “The connection we made was that while the ITCZ moves into the southern hemispheres at the start of the austral summer each December, it doesn’t always park itself in the exact same place. When you look at it over hundreds and thousands of years, like we did using our stalagmite records, larger scale patterns are evident; some years the ITCZ stays closer to the equator and when it does the Australian tropics receive less monsoon rainfall. Other times the ITCZ migrates much further south, increasing monsoon rainfall across tropical regions. We wondered if in those years when the ITCZ was further south if cyclones were forming further south as well, causing more of them to pass over the subtropics, delivering more rain there.”

To test this hypothesis, the team partnered with experts in the study of the ITCZ–Dr. Francesco Pausata and his graduate student, Roberto Ingrosso, of the University of Quebec. They examined climate data based both on observations and a climate model simulation of the last millennium to identify years when the southern hemisphere ITCZ was positioned either particularly far north or south. Next, Dr. Caroline Ummenhofer of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution compared tropical cyclone tracks over Australia during recent years.

And finally, MIT Professor Kerry Emanuel applied a cutting-edge simulation of hurricanes to the observational and climate model data to test how changes in the location of the ITCZ impacted tropical cyclone rainfall over the Australian subtropics.

“The stalagmites and modern cyclone tracks and climate model simulations agreed beautifully,” Denniston said. “When the ITCZ was further south, the tropics got more rainfall from the monsoon and the subtropics got more rainfall from tropical cyclones.”

How is your research different?

“Our study is unique in its ability to demonstrate how closely tied monsoons and tropical cyclones are to the ITCZ over long periods of time. The whole system is so noisy that we can’t make a lot of sense of it over the short record (about 40 years) of direct observations and measurements,” Denniston said. “However, by combining stalagmite records and climate model simulations, we can see how things operate over much longer time periods. What is revealed is that cyclones and monsoons varied in tandem at a really fine scale.”

What does this mean for climate change?

“A really important question in climate science involves the so-called ‘widening of the tropics,’ in which dry air is expanding toward higher latitudes across the subtropics. The southern portions of Australia, where most Australians live and where most of their farmland is located, appear to be particularly at risk of suffering increased droughts due to this phenomenon,” Denniston said. “One possible conclusion of our work is that the same shifts in climate that are causing central and southern Australia to become drier may also lead to more frequent rainfall events from cyclones. Australia is a drought-sensitive country and has suffered massive and extended droughts numerous times over the last 120 years. As this region’s climate is already teetering on the edge, continued drying could spell major problems for agriculture, society, and the environment. However, more regular big rainfall events from tropical cyclones could potentially help offset some of the long-term drying.”

What does this mean for the future?

“This work is an illustration of how the climate system is composed of lots of interlocking pieces. Changes in the ocean and atmospheric temperatures can influence the location of the ITCZ, which in turn influences the monsoon rains in the Australian tropics and the rains derived from tropical cyclones in the much drier regions further south,” Denniston said. “Our study also shows the power of combining geologic records of past climate with climate model simulations. We really need to understand all the pieces of the puzzle to prepare for the climate changes that are coming, and this approach is a great way to do it.”

In addition to the National Science Foundation, funding for this study was provided by the WHOI Independent Research & Development Program and the James E. and Barbara V. Moltz Fellowship.

Science Advances
See the science paper for instructive material with images.

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

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Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Mission Statement

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is dedicated to advancing knowledge of the ocean and its connection with the Earth system through a sustained commitment to excellence in science, engineering, and education, and to the application of this knowledge to problems facing society.

Vision & Mission

The ocean is a defining feature of our planet and crucial to life on Earth, yet it remains one of the planet’s last unexplored frontiers. For this reason, WHOI scientists and engineers are committed to understanding all facets of the ocean as well as its complex connections with Earth’s atmosphere, land, ice, seafloor, and life—including humanity. This is essential not only to advance knowledge about our planet, but also to ensure society’s long-term welfare and to help guide human stewardship of the environment. WHOI researchers are also dedicated to training future generations of ocean science leaders, to providing unbiased information that informs public policy and decision-making, and to expanding public awareness about the importance of the global ocean and its resources.

The Institution is organized into six departments, the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Ocean Research, and a marine policy center. Its shore-based facilities are located in the village of Woods Hole, Massachusetts and a mile and a half away on the Quissett Campus. The bulk of the Institution’s funding comes from grants and contracts from the National Science Foundation and other government agencies, augmented by foundations and private donations.

WHOI scientists, engineers, and students collaborate to develop theories, test ideas, build seagoing instruments, and collect data in diverse marine environments. Ships operated by WHOI carry research scientists throughout the world’s oceans. The WHOI fleet includes two large research vessels (R/V Atlantis and R/V Neil Armstrong); the coastal craft Tioga; small research craft such as the dive-operation work boat Echo; the deep-diving human-occupied submersible Alvin; the tethered, remotely operated vehicle Jason/Medea; and autonomous underwater vehicles such as the REMUS and SeaBED.
WHOI offers graduate and post-doctoral studies in marine science. There are several fellowship and training programs, and graduate degrees are awarded through a joint program with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. WHOI is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges . WHOI also offers public outreach programs and informal education through its Exhibit Center and summer tours. The Institution has a volunteer program and a membership program, WHOI Associate.

On October 1, 2020, Peter B. de Menocal became the institution’s eleventh president and director.

History

In 1927, a National Academy of Sciences committee concluded that it was time to “consider the share of the United States of America in a worldwide program of oceanographic research.” The committee’s recommendation for establishing a permanent independent research laboratory on the East Coast to “prosecute oceanography in all its branches” led to the founding in 1930 of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

A $2.5 million grant from the Rockefeller Foundation supported the summer work of a dozen scientists, construction of a laboratory building and commissioning of a research vessel, the 142-foot (43 m) ketch R/V Atlantis, whose profile still forms the Institution’s logo.

WHOI grew substantially to support significant defense-related research during World War II, and later began a steady growth in staff, research fleet, and scientific stature. From 1950 to 1956, the director was Dr. Edward “Iceberg” Smith, an Arctic explorer, oceanographer and retired Coast Guard rear admiral.

In 1977 the institution appointed the influential oceanographer John Steele as director, and he served until his retirement in 1989.

On 1 September 1985, a joint French-American expedition led by Jean-Louis Michel of IFREMER and Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution identified the location of the wreck of the RMS Titanic which sank off the coast of Newfoundland 15 April 1912.

On 3 April 2011, within a week of resuming of the search operation for Air France Flight 447, a team led by WHOI, operating full ocean depth autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) owned by the Waitt Institute discovered, by means of sidescan sonar, a large portion of debris field from flight AF447.

In March 2017 the institution effected an open-access policy to make its research publicly accessible online.

The Institution has maintained a long and controversial business collaboration with the treasure hunter company Odyssey Marine. Likewise, WHOI has participated in the location of the San José galleon in Colombia for the commercial exploitation of the shipwreck by the Government of President Santos and a private company.

In 2019, iDefense reported that China’s hackers had launched cyberattacks on dozens of academic institutions in an attempt to gain information on technology being developed for the United States Navy. Some of the targets included the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The attacks have been underway since at least April 2017.

From Rutgers University Via “The Washington Post” : “Warm weather pushes Northern Hemisphere snow cover to near record lows”

Our Great Seal.

From Rutgers University

Via

The Washington Post

1.6.23
Ian Livingston

There are no clear signs that the pattern will support a near-term change to colder weather and more snow.

A man Nordic skis Thursday despite a lack of snow in La Féclaz, near Chambéry, in the French Alps. (Laurent Cipriani/AP)

Following a spike in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in November, many long-range forecasters sounded the alarm that it could foreshadow a cold and snow-filled winter. But pulses of record warmth in North America and Europe have thwarted snow accumulation and, in some cases, depleted what’s on the ground.

Now, Northern Hemisphere snow cover is near historical lows for midwinter.

The lack of snow has forced some ski resorts in Europe to close, while many areas in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic United States have far less terrain open than they typically do at this time of year.

Snow cover isn’t down everywhere. California and the intermountain West are having one of their best snow seasons in memory because of a parade of storms from the Pacific Ocean. But, overall, the snow situation is more famine than feast.

What the data shows

Data from various snow cover trackers have highlighted the rapid decline in Northern Hemisphere snow in recent weeks following a mid-December peak.

A multi-sensor system that has tracked snow cover for nearly two decades shows current levels at a record low:

Automated Northern Hemisphere snow cover analysis. (NOAA/NESDIS)

A separate weekly snow cover analysis from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Rutgers University — with 57 years of data — also shows a sharp decline in the past several weeks. Early in the winter, levels were well above the long-term average but have dropped well below:

(NOAA/Rutgers)

Much of the recent dip is because of recent melting in Europe from the record-breaking warm spell to start 2023.

The Northeast United States has also lost much of the snow during a similar spell of record warmth earlier this week. As one example, the snow depth in Buffalo fell from 28 inches on Dec. 27 to zero inches on Wednesday.

Normal swings in weather take a big toll in a warming world.

Some of these snow cover swings are a normal part of winter, but climate change is making them more significant.

“Snow cover is pretty volatile … and large swings occur all the time,” Judah Cohen, visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and forecaster with Atmospheric and Environmental Research, wrote in a text message to The Washington Post.

Where snow cover is below (red) and above (blue) average. (Rutgers)

But a warming climate makes it harder for places that are losing snow because of natural swings in the weather to bounce back from such thaws, Cohen said.

That’s the case in parts of the French Alps. Take the small ski resort of Le Praz de Lys-Sommand. It’s a lower-elevation resort where temperatures are frequently only marginally cold enough for snow. Warm spells like the present are devastating.

Christine Harrison, a vacationer to Le Praz de Lys-Sommand for the past 25 years, told PRX’s “The World” she’s never seen it like this. “You can’t ski. Literally there is no snow,” she said. “There’s just grass.”

The managing director for the national body representing ski resorts in France said half of the 7,500 ski slopes in the country were closed, according to CNN.

At the moment, it’s a similar story across large portions of Europe. Mountainous countries like Austria and Switzerland have been among those seeing record warmth and not enough snow. While the highest elevation resorts still have snow, and in some cases a good deal, people residing in areas that rely on winter tourism are concerned, as are those watching for snowmelt to keep rivers like the Rhine in Germany and Po in Italy running during spring and summer.

Not doom and gloom everywhere

The situation is dire in places, but it is not doom and gloom across the entire hemisphere.

The western half of the United States has seen round after round of stormy conditions that have delivered an abundance of mountain snow. Following a survey early this week, California officials stated that the “snowpack is actually off to one of its best starts in the past 40 years.”

Snow water equivalents — a measure of the water contained in the snowpack — were as high as 203 percent of normal in the southern Sierra Nevada.

Most of the Western United States is seeing above-normal snowfall this winter so far. (USDA/NRCS)

Snow cover is also quite healthy in the Rockies and surrounding ranges. Other than parts of southern New Mexico, snow water equivalents are above average across the entire Intermountain West.

Steamboat Springs in Colorado has seen more than 200 inches of snow and just had its snowiest December in a decade. Western cities such as Reno, Nev., and Flagstaff, Ariz., are also running a surplus.

Swaths of the central United States, including the northern Plains and Great Lakes region, have also had a banner winter for snowfall because of multiple blizzards.

Seasonal snowfall through Friday morning. (Pivotal Weather)

Behind the lack of snow: Missing cold air

Snow, of course, requires cold air. Outside of a few brief outbreaks of Arctic air, the cold has been seriously lacking.

Forecasters attribute the absence of sustained cold to the polar vortex, which has been very stable. For cold air outbreaks in the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, the vortex needs to be disturbed and weakened.

Looking ahead, a phenomenon that could destabilize the vortex is known as a sudden stratospheric warming event. It can lead to disruption and weakening of the vortex, allowing cold air that resides near the North Pole to shift southward.

Without a sudden stratospheric warming event, Cohen said, this will be a “pretty forgettable winter” in the eastern United States.

Once in a while, however, cold can manage to escape the Arctic even without such an event. This was the case with the recent Arctic outbreak that blasted much of the contiguous United States in the lead-up to Christmas. It brought some of the coldest December weather in decades and was not in response to sudden stratospheric warming (SSW).

“It is always worth remembering a month like December 2010 in the UK (coldest since records began in 1884) and a winter like 2013-14 in the U.S. occurred in the absence of SSWs,” Simon Lee, an atmospheric scientist at Columbia University, wrote in a text message.

Lee pointed out that, while data is limited, it appears that these events are more common in El Niño compared with La Niña. This winter’s La Niña may then mean odds for such an event are lower than normal.

Super-long-range models are hinting at cold weather for February, but that’s too far out for it to mean much. (weatherbell.com)

Lee says signals for a sudden stratospheric warming are still too distant to have much confidence in any forecast. Some computer models hint that the polar vortex could weaken a bit by February, allowing more cold air to spill south.

But for now, Lee said, no sudden stratospheric warming event “is expected yet in a reliable time frame.”

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national research university and the state’s preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Rutgers is dedicated to teaching that meets the highest standards of excellence; to conducting research that breaks new ground; and to providing services, solutions, and clinical care that help individuals and the local, national, and global communities where they live.

Founded in 1766, Rutgers teaches across the full educational spectrum: preschool to precollege; undergraduate to graduate; postdoctoral fellowships to residencies; and continuing education for professional and personal advancement.

Rutgers University is a public land-grant research university based in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen’s College, and today it is the eighth-oldest college in the United States, the second-oldest in New Jersey (after Princeton University), and one of the nine U.S. colonial colleges that were chartered before the American War of Independence. In 1825, Queen’s College was renamed Rutgers College in honor of Colonel Henry Rutgers, whose substantial gift to the school had stabilized its finances during a period of uncertainty. For most of its existence, Rutgers was a private liberal arts college but it has evolved into a coeducational public research university after being designated The State University of New Jersey by the New Jersey Legislature via laws enacted in 1945 and 1956.

Rutgers today has three distinct campuses, located in New Brunswick (including grounds in adjacent Piscataway), Newark, and Camden. The university has additional facilities elsewhere in the state, including oceanographic research facilities at the New Jersey shore. Rutgers is also a land-grant university, a sea-grant university, and the largest university in the state. Instruction is offered by 9,000 faculty members in 175 academic departments to over 45,000 undergraduate students and more than 20,000 graduate and professional students. The university is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, the Association of American Universities and the Universities Research Association. Over the years, Rutgers has been considered a Public Ivy.

Research

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science, also known as RUCCS. This research center hosts researchers in psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, electrical engineering, and anthropology.

It was at Rutgers that Selman Waksman (1888–1973) discovered several antibiotics, including actinomycin, clavacin, streptothricin, grisein, neomycin, fradicin, candicidin, candidin, and others. Waksman, along with graduate student Albert Schatz (1920–2005), discovered streptomycin—a versatile antibiotic that was to be the first applied to cure tuberculosis. For this discovery, Waksman received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1952.

Rutgers developed water-soluble sustained release polymers, tetraploids, robotic hands, artificial bovine insemination, and the ceramic tiles for the heat shield on the Space Shuttle. In health related field, Rutgers has the Environmental & Occupational Health Science Institute (EOHSI).

Rutgers is also home to the RCSB Protein Data bank, “…an information portal to Biological Macromolecular Structures’ cohosted with the San Diego Supercomputer Center. This database is the authoritative research tool for bioinformaticists using protein primary, secondary and tertiary structures worldwide….”

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers Cooperative Research & Extension office, which is run by the Agricultural and Experiment Station with the support of local government. The institution provides research & education to the local farming and agro industrial community in 19 of the 21 counties of the state and educational outreach programs offered through the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station Office of Continuing Professional Education.

Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository (RUCDR) is the largest university based repository in the world and has received awards worth more than $57.8 million from the National Institutes of Health. One will fund genetic studies of mental disorders and the other will support investigations into the causes of digestive, liver and kidney diseases, and diabetes. RUCDR activities will enable gene discovery leading to diagnoses, treatments and, eventually, cures for these diseases. RUCDR assists researchers throughout the world by providing the highest quality biomaterials, technical consultation, and logistical support.

Rutgers–Camden is home to the nation’s PhD granting Department of Childhood Studies. This department, in conjunction with the Center for Children and Childhood Studies, also on the Camden campus, conducts interdisciplinary research which combines methodologies and research practices of sociology, psychology, literature, anthropology and other disciplines into the study of childhoods internationally.

Rutgers is home to several National Science Foundation IGERT fellowships that support interdisciplinary scientific research at the graduate-level. Highly selective fellowships are available in the following areas: Perceptual Science, Stem Cell Science and Engineering, Nanotechnology for Clean Energy, Renewable and Sustainable Fuels Solutions, and Nanopharmaceutical Engineering.

Rutgers also maintains the Office of Research Alliances that focuses on working with companies to increase engagement with the university’s faculty members, staff and extensive resources on the four campuses.

As a ’67 graduate of University College, second in my class, I am proud to be a member of

Alpha Sigma Lamda, National Honor Society of non-tradional students.

From The University of Washington : “Strongest Arctic cyclone on record led to surprising loss of sea ice”

From The University of Washington

11.29.22
Hannah Hickey

A ship-based view of the Arctic Ocean in October 2015, when the ocean’s surface is beginning to freeze. In January, when the massive 2022 cyclone occurred, large sections of the Arctic Ocean would be covered in a layer of sea ice. Credit: Ed Blanchard-Wrigglesworth/University of Washington.

A warming climate is causing a decline in sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, where loss of sea ice has important ecological, economic and climate impacts. On top of this long-term shift due to climate change are weather events that affect the sea ice from week to week.

The strongest Arctic cyclone ever observed poleward of 70 degrees north latitude struck in January 2022 northeast of Greenland. A new analysis led by the University of Washington shows that while weather forecasts accurately predicted the storm, ice models seriously underestimated its impact on the region’s sea ice.

The study, published in October in the Journal of Geophysical Research–Atmospheres [below], suggests that existing models underestimate the impact of big waves on ice floes in the Arctic Ocean.

“The loss of sea ice in six days was the biggest change we could find in the historical observations since 1979, and the area of ice lost was 30% greater than the previous record,” said lead author Ed Blanchard-Wrigglesworth, a research assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at the UW. “The ice models did predict some loss, but only about half of what we saw in the real world.”

Accurate sea ice forecasts are important safety tools for Northern communities, mariners and others operating in Arctic waters. The accuracy of forecasts in the Arctic Ocean also has broader effects.

“The skill of a weather forecast in the Arctic affects the skill of weather forecasts in other places,” Blanchard-Wrigglesworth said.

The January 2022 cyclone had the lowest pressure center estimated since satellite records began in 1979 above 70 degrees north. It was an extreme version of a typical winter storm. Climate change doesn’t appear responsible for the cyclone: The researchers didn’t find a trend in the strength of intense Arctic cyclones since 1979, and sea ice area was close to the historical normal for that region before the storm hit.

Arctic waves.
Waves travel through sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, as seen from a ship in October 2015. Credit: Ed Blanchard-Wrigglesworth/University of Washington.

During the storm, record winds howled over the Arctic Ocean. The waves grew to 8 meters (26 feet) tall in open water and remained surprisingly strong as they traveled through the sea ice. The ice heaved 2 meters (6 feet) up and down near the edge of the pack, and NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite shows that the waves reached as far as 100 kilometers (60 miles) toward the center of the ice pack.

NASA ICEsat-2 launched in 2018.

Six days after the storm struck, the sea ice had thinned significantly in the affected waters north of Norway and Russia, in places losing more than half a meter (about 1.5 feet) of thickness.

“It was a monster storm, and the sea ice got pummeled. And the sea ice models didn’t predict that loss, which suggests there are ways we could improve the model physics,” said second author Melinda Webster, a research assistant professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She begins a research position at the University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory in the new year.

The new analysis shows that the atmospheric heat from the storm had a small effect, meaning some other mechanism was to blame for the ice loss. Possibilities, Blanchard-Wrigglesworth suggests, include sea ice that was thinner before the storm hit than models had estimated; that the storm’s waves broke up ice floes more forcefully than models predicted as they penetrated deep into the ice pack; or that waves churned up deeper, warmer water and brought it into contact with the sea ice, melting the ice from below.

The unexpected ice loss, despite an accurate storm forecast, suggests that this is an area where models could improve. The researchers hope to monitor future storms to pinpoint exactly what led to the dramatic sea ice loss, potentially by placing sensors in the path of a future approaching storm.

While this storm doesn’t appear to be linked to climate change, the increase of open water as sea ice melts is allowing for larger waves that are eroding Arctic coastlines. Those waves, researchers said, could also affect the remaining sea ice pack.

“Going into the future, this is something to keep in mind, that these extreme events might produce these episodes of huge sea ice loss,” Blanchard-Wrigglesworth said.

Other co-authors are Linette Boisvert at NASA, Chelsea Parker at NASA and the University of Maryland and Christopher Horvat at the University of Auckland and Brown University. The research was funded by NASA, the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research and Schmidt Futures.

Science paper:
Journal of Geophysical Research–Atmospheres
See the science paper for instructive material with images.

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.
Stem Education Coalition

The University of Washington is one of the world’s preeminent public universities. Our impact on individuals, on our region, and on the world is profound — whether we are launching young people into a boundless future or confronting the grand challenges of our time through undaunted research and scholarship. Ranked number 10 in the world in Shanghai Jiao Tong University rankings and educating more than 54,000 students annually, our students and faculty work together to turn ideas into impact and in the process transform lives and our world. For more about our impact on the world, every day.

So what defines us —the students, faculty and community members at the University of Washington? Above all, it’s our belief in possibility and our unshakable optimism. It’s a connection to others, both near and far. It’s a hunger that pushes us to tackle challenges and pursue progress. It’s the conviction that together we can create a world of good. Join us on the journey.

The University of Washington is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in downtown Seattle approximately a decade after the city’s founding to aid its economic development. Today, the university’s 703-acre main Seattle campus is in the University District above the Montlake Cut, within the urban Puget Sound region of the Pacific Northwest. The university has additional campuses in Tacoma and Bothell. Overall, University of Washington encompasses over 500 buildings and over 20 million gross square footage of space, including one of the largest library systems in the world with more than 26 university libraries, as well as the UW Tower, lecture halls, art centers, museums, laboratories, stadiums, and conference centers. The university offers bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees through 140 departments in various colleges and schools, sees a total student enrollment of roughly 46,000 annually, and functions on a quarter system.

University of Washington is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”. According to the National Science Foundation, UW spent $1.41 billion on research and development in 2018, ranking it 5th in the nation. As the flagship institution of the six public universities in Washington state, it is known for its medical, engineering and scientific research as well as its highly competitive computer science and engineering programs. Additionally, University of Washington continues to benefit from its deep historic ties and major collaborations with numerous technology giants in the region, such as Amazon, Boeing, Nintendo, and particularly Microsoft. Paul G. Allen, Bill Gates and others spent significant time at Washington computer labs for a startup venture before founding Microsoft and other ventures. The University of Washington’s 22 varsity sports teams are also highly competitive, competing as the Huskies in the Pac-12 Conference of the NCAA Division I, representing the United States at the Olympic Games, and other major competitions.

The university has been affiliated with many notable alumni and faculty, including 21 Nobel Prize laureates and numerous Pulitzer Prize winners, Fulbright Scholars, Rhodes Scholars and Marshall Scholars.

In 1854, territorial governor Isaac Stevens recommended the establishment of a university in the Washington Territory. Prominent Seattle-area residents, including Methodist preacher Daniel Bagley, saw this as a chance to add to the city’s potential and prestige. Bagley learned of a law that allowed United States territories to sell land to raise money in support of public schools. At the time, Arthur A. Denny, one of the founders of Seattle and a member of the territorial legislature, aimed to increase the city’s importance by moving the territory’s capital from Olympia to Seattle. However, Bagley eventually convinced Denny that the establishment of a university would assist more in the development of Seattle’s economy. Two universities were initially chartered, but later the decision was repealed in favor of a single university in Lewis County provided that locally donated land was available. When no site emerged, Denny successfully petitioned the legislature to reconsider Seattle as a location in 1858.

In 1861, scouting began for an appropriate 10 acres (4 ha) site in Seattle to serve as a new university campus. Arthur and Mary Denny donated eight acres, while fellow pioneers Edward Lander, and Charlie and Mary Terry, donated two acres on Denny’s Knoll in downtown Seattle. More specifically, this tract was bounded by 4th Avenue to the west, 6th Avenue to the east, Union Street to the north, and Seneca Streets to the south.

John Pike, for whom Pike Street is named, was the university’s architect and builder. It was opened on November 4, 1861, as the Territorial University of Washington. The legislature passed articles incorporating the University, and establishing its Board of Regents in 1862. The school initially struggled, closing three times: in 1863 for low enrollment, and again in 1867 and 1876 due to funds shortage. University of Washington awarded its first graduate Clara Antoinette McCarty Wilt in 1876, with a bachelor’s degree in science.

19th century relocation

By the time Washington state entered the Union in 1889, both Seattle and the University had grown substantially. University of Washington’s total undergraduate enrollment increased from 30 to nearly 300 students, and the campus’s relative isolation in downtown Seattle faced encroaching development. A special legislative committee, headed by University of Washington graduate Edmond Meany, was created to find a new campus to better serve the growing student population and faculty. The committee eventually selected a site on the northeast of downtown Seattle called Union Bay, which was the land of the Duwamish, and the legislature appropriated funds for its purchase and construction. In 1895, the University relocated to the new campus by moving into the newly built Denny Hall. The University Regents tried and failed to sell the old campus, eventually settling with leasing the area. This would later become one of the University’s most valuable pieces of real estate in modern-day Seattle, generating millions in annual revenue with what is now called the Metropolitan Tract. The original Territorial University building was torn down in 1908, and its former site now houses the Fairmont Olympic Hotel.

The sole-surviving remnants of Washington’s first building are four 24-foot (7.3 m), white, hand-fluted cedar, Ionic columns. They were salvaged by Edmond S. Meany, one of the University’s first graduates and former head of its history department. Meany and his colleague, Dean Herbert T. Condon, dubbed the columns as “Loyalty,” “Industry,” “Faith”, and “Efficiency”, or “LIFE.” The columns now stand in the Sylvan Grove Theater.

20th century expansion

Organizers of the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition eyed the still largely undeveloped campus as a prime setting for their world’s fair. They came to an agreement with Washington’s Board of Regents that allowed them to use the campus grounds for the exposition, surrounding today’s Drumheller Fountain facing towards Mount Rainier. In exchange, organizers agreed Washington would take over the campus and its development after the fair’s conclusion. This arrangement led to a detailed site plan and several new buildings, prepared in part by John Charles Olmsted. The plan was later incorporated into the overall University of Washington campus master plan, permanently affecting the campus layout.

Both World Wars brought the military to campus, with certain facilities temporarily lent to the federal government. In spite of this, subsequent post-war periods were times of dramatic growth for the University. The period between the wars saw a significant expansion of the upper campus. Construction of the Liberal Arts Quadrangle, known to students as “The Quad,” began in 1916 and continued to 1939. The University’s architectural centerpiece, Suzzallo Library, was built in 1926 and expanded in 1935.

After World War II, further growth came with the G.I. Bill. Among the most important developments of this period was the opening of the School of Medicine in 1946, which is now consistently ranked as the top medical school in the United States. It would eventually lead to the University of Washington Medical Center, ranked by U.S. News and World Report as one of the top ten hospitals in the nation.

In 1942, all persons of Japanese ancestry in the Seattle area were forced into inland internment camps as part of Executive Order 9066 following the attack on Pearl Harbor. During this difficult time, university president Lee Paul Sieg took an active and sympathetic leadership role in advocating for and facilitating the transfer of Japanese American students to universities and colleges away from the Pacific Coast to help them avoid the mass incarceration. Nevertheless, many Japanese American students and “soon-to-be” graduates were unable to transfer successfully in the short time window or receive diplomas before being incarcerated. It was only many years later that they would be recognized for their accomplishments during the University of Washington’s Long Journey Home ceremonial event that was held in May 2008.

From 1958 to 1973, the University of Washington saw a tremendous growth in student enrollment, its faculties and operating budget, and also its prestige under the leadership of Charles Odegaard. University of Washington student enrollment had more than doubled to 34,000 as the baby boom generation came of age. However, this era was also marked by high levels of student activism, as was the case at many American universities. Much of the unrest focused around civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam War. In response to anti-Vietnam War protests by the late 1960s, the University Safety and Security Division became the University of Washington Police Department.

Odegaard instituted a vision of building a “community of scholars”, convincing the Washington State legislatures to increase investment in the University. Washington senators, such as Henry M. Jackson and Warren G. Magnuson, also used their political clout to gather research funds for the University of Washington. The results included an increase in the operating budget from $37 million in 1958 to over $400 million in 1973, solidifying University of Washington as a top recipient of federal research funds in the United States. The establishment of technology giants such as Microsoft, Boeing and Amazon in the local area also proved to be highly influential in the University of Washington’s fortunes, not only improving graduate prospects but also helping to attract millions of dollars in university and research funding through its distinguished faculty and extensive alumni network.

21st century

In 1990, the University of Washington opened its additional campuses in Bothell and Tacoma. Although originally intended for students who have already completed two years of higher education, both schools have since become four-year universities with the authority to grant degrees. The first freshman classes at these campuses started in fall 2006. Today both Bothell and Tacoma also offer a selection of master’s degree programs.

In 2012, the University began exploring plans and governmental approval to expand the main Seattle campus, including significant increases in student housing, teaching facilities for the growing student body and faculty, as well as expanded public transit options. The University of Washington light rail station was completed in March 2015, connecting Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood to the University of Washington Husky Stadium within five minutes of rail travel time. It offers a previously unavailable option of transportation into and out of the campus, designed specifically to reduce dependence on private vehicles, bicycles and local King County buses.

University of Washington has been listed as a “Public Ivy” in Greene’s Guides since 2001, and is an elected member of the American Association of Universities. Among the faculty by 2012, there have been 151 members of American Association for the Advancement of Science, 68 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 67 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 53 members of the National Academy of Medicine, 29 winners of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, 21 members of the National Academy of Engineering, 15 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators, 15 MacArthur Fellows, 9 winners of the Gairdner Foundation International Award, 5 winners of the National Medal of Science, 7 Nobel Prize laureates, 5 winners of Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research, 4 members of the American Philosophical Society, 2 winners of the National Book Award, 2 winners of the National Medal of Arts, 2 Pulitzer Prize winners, 1 winner of the Fields Medal, and 1 member of the National Academy of Public Administration. Among UW students by 2012, there were 136 Fulbright Scholars, 35 Rhodes Scholars, 7 Marshall Scholars and 4 Gates Cambridge Scholars. UW is recognized as a top producer of Fulbright Scholars, ranking 2nd in the US in 2017.

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) has consistently ranked University of Washington as one of the top 20 universities worldwide every year since its first release. In 2019, University of Washington ranked 14th worldwide out of 500 by the ARWU, 26th worldwide out of 981 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and 28th worldwide out of 101 in the Times World Reputation Rankings. Meanwhile, QS World University Rankings ranked it 68th worldwide, out of over 900.

U.S. News & World Report ranked University of Washington 8th out of nearly 1,500 universities worldwide for 2021, with University of Washington’s undergraduate program tied for 58th among 389 national universities in the U.S. and tied for 19th among 209 public universities.

In 2019, it ranked 10th among the universities around the world by SCImago Institutions Rankings. In 2017, the Leiden Ranking, which focuses on science and the impact of scientific publications among the world’s 500 major universities, ranked University of Washington 12th globally and 5th in the U.S.

In 2019, Kiplinger Magazine’s review of “top college values” named University of Washington 5th for in-state students and 10th for out-of-state students among U.S. public colleges, and 84th overall out of 500 schools. In the Washington Monthly National University Rankings University of Washington was ranked 15th domestically in 2018, based on its contribution to the public good as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service.

From The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Via “EarthSky” : “Lake-effect snow – Buffalo poised to set records”

From The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Via

“EarthSky”

11.18.22

In winter, lake-effect snow is common around the Great Lakes region. Image via Shawn Dearn/ Unsplash.

The National Weather Service is now calling for up to 60 inches (152 cm) of snow – that’s 5 feet of snow – to hit Buffalo, New York, in a days-long snowstorm. The city, just east of Lake Erie, set an all-time record of 56.1 inches (142 cm) in a three-day snowstorm in 2001. This storm might top that. In Oswego, New York, east of Lake Ontario, there were already reports of thundersnow on the morning of November 17. Residents of this region will have to deal with the snowstorm through Sunday, November 20, 2022. The Buffalo Bills were supposed to play a home game against the Cleveland Browns at noon, but it’s now going to be at Ford Field in Detroit.

Cities in upstate New York near the Great Lakes are no strangers to lake-effect snow. This phenomenon is a common occurrence throughout the U.S. Great Lakes region during late fall through winter. Lake-effect snow happens when cold air moves over a warmer body of water (such as a Great Lake). Then, the warmth and moisture of the lake transfers to the lower atmosphere. Ultimately, clouds build and release snow downwind. Places on the downwind side of the Great Lakes can easily get 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 cm) of snow per hour.

Lake-effect snow: An interview with Tom Niziol

With this in mind, EarthSky interviewed Tom Niziol, a winter weather expert, a few years back. He said that accurate forecasting of lake-effect snow is a challenge because:

“… [Lake-effect snow] occurs on such a small scale, almost on the scale of a summertime thunderstorm. One portion of a neighborhood or city might be under heavy snow, where a few miles away you may be under sunny skies.”

He said Buffalo, New York, on the eastern shore of Lake Erie, is notorious for its lake-effect snowstorms. Niziol said cold air moving in from Canada triggers the snowfall.

“As that air moves across the warm water of the Great Lakes, heat and moisture from the lake rises up into that air mass. That moisture eventually condenses out into snowflakes. And when we get to the downwind shores, we end up with lake-effect snow.”

In addition, Niziol said similar snowstorms happen around the globe. The coasts of the United Kingdom, France, Japan and Korea, for example, get what’s called ocean-effect snow, from cold air moving across warm seas.

“So at a whole range of latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, right around the globe, we see the same activity.”

Lake-effect snow causes locally heavy snowstorms

Niziol also gave an earlier example of how dramatic lake-effect snow can be.

“In early December 2010, in the western New York area around the city of Buffalo, one of these snow bands set up off Lake Erie. The band was about 8 to 10 miles wide. The northern portion of Buffalo had green grass throughout most of this event. The southern portion of Buffalo, however, only about 10 to 12 miles away, picked up 40 inches of snowfall.”

The timing of seasonal snowfalls

He said that lake-effect snow can begin in early fall and continue throughout the winter months.

“Early in the fall, we see the same type of activity – cold air moving across a warm body of water – but it’s actually warm enough that we see lake-effect rain showers occur. As we get into November to early December, the air is cold enough to turn that into snow.”

But, if the lake freezes over, it can bring a halt to these seasonal snowstorms.

“Lake Erie is a very shallow lake. In January it develops a significant amount of ice cover. The ice cover acts as a cap, in a simple way, to limit the amount of heat and moisture that can come through that ice and then modify that air mass.”

Lake-effect snow forms when cold air moves over warm water. You can see this effect most clearly with the Great Lakes, because most are too big to freeze. Smaller lakes freeze over and cut off the supply of warmth needed to form clouds and lake-effect snow. Image via NOAA.

How to prepare for lake-effect snow

Most importantly, Niziol said that people who experience lake-effect snow should know how to be prepared for an unexpected snowstorm.

“Be prepared for winter weather conditions. Have extra clothes in your car, make sure your cellphone is charged, have a shovel in the car, some water, granola bars, extra food as well. Because you never know when you leave the house, even if you have a forecast with you, what it will be like when you drive through one of these snow bands.”

In the U.S., lake-effect snow belts may include portions of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, northern and western portions of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, northern Indiana, northeastern Ohio, northwestern Pennsylvania and western New York state.

See the full article here.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is an agency that enriches life through science. Our reach goes from the surface of the sun to the depths of the ocean floor as we work to keep the public informed of the changing environment around them.

From daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings, and climate monitoring to fisheries management, coastal restoration and supporting marine commerce, NOAA’s products and services support economic vitality and affect more than one-third of America’s gross domestic product. NOAA’s dedicated scientists use cutting-edge research and high-tech instrumentation to provide citizens, planners, emergency managers and other decision makers with reliable information they need when they need it.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA /ˈnoʊ.ə/ NOH-ə) is an American scientific agency within the United States Department of Commerce that focuses on the conditions of the oceans, major waterways, and the atmosphere.

NOAA warns of dangerous weather, charts seas, guides the use and protection of ocean and coastal resources and conducts research to provide the understanding and improve stewardship of the environment.

NOAA’s specific roles include:

Supplying Environmental Information Products. NOAA supplies to its customers and partners information pertaining to the state of the oceans and the atmosphere. This is clear through the production of weather warnings and forecasts via the National Weather Service, but NOAA’s information products extend to climate, ecosystems, and commerce as well.

Providing Environmental Stewardship Services. NOAA is a steward of U.S. coastal and marine environments. In coordination with federal, state, local, tribal and international authorities, NOAA manages the use of these environments, regulating fisheries and marine sanctuaries as well as protecting threatened and endangered marine species.

Conducting Applied Scientific Research. NOAA is intended to be a source of accurate and objective scientific information in the four particular areas of national and global importance identified above: ecosystems, climate, weather and water, and commerce and transportation.
The five “fundamental activities” are:
Monitoring and observing Earth systems with instruments and data collection networks.
Understanding and describing Earth systems through research and analysis of that data.
Assessing and predicting the changes in these systems over time.
Engaging, advising, and informing the public and partner organizations with important information.
Managing resources for the betterment of society, economy, and environment.

National Ocean Service
The National Ocean Service (NOS) focuses on ensuring that ocean and coastal areas are safe, healthy, and productive. NOS scientists, natural resource managers, and specialists serve America by ensuring safe and efficient marine transportation, promoting innovative solutions to protect coastal communities, and conserving marine and coastal places.

The National Ocean Service is composed of eight program offices: the Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services, the Coastal Services Center, the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, the Office of Coast Survey, the Office of National Geodetic Survey, the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries the Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management and the Office of Response and Restoration.

There are two NOS programs, namely the Mussel Watch Contaminant Monitoring Program and the NOAA Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) and two staff offices, the International Program Office and the Management and Budget Office.

National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service
The National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) was created by NOAA to operate and manage the US environmental satellite programs, and manage NWS data and those of other government agencies and departments. NESDIS’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) archives data collected by the NOAA, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, the Federal Aviation Administration, and meteorological services around the world and comprises the Center for Weather and Climate (previously NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center), National Coastal Data Development Center (NCDDC), National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC), and the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC)).

In 1960, TIROS-1, NASA’s first owned and operated geostationary satellite, was launched. Since 1966, NESDIS has managed polar orbiting satellites (POES) and since 1974 it has operated geosynchronous satellites (GOES). In 1979, NOAA’s first polar-orbiting environmental satellite was launched. Current operational satellites include NOAA-15, NOAA-18, NOAA-19, GOES 13, GOES 14, GOES 15, Jason-2 and DSCOVR. In 1983, NOAA assumed operational responsibility for Landsat satellite system.

NOAA GOES-16

NOAA Jason 3

NOAA/DSCOVR. Launched in 2015.

Since May 1998, NESDIS has operated the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites on behalf of the Air Force Weather Agency.

New generations of satellites are developed to succeed the current polar orbiting and geosynchronous satellites, the Joint Polar Satellite System) and GOES-R, which is scheduled for launch in March 2017.
NESDIS runs the Office of Projects, Planning, and Analysis (OPPA) formerly the Office of Systems Development, the Office of Satellite Ground Systems (formerly the Office of Satellite Operations) the Office of Satellite and Project Operations, the Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR)], the Joint Polar Satellite System Program Office the GOES-R Program Office, the International & Interagency Affairs Office, the Office of Space Commerce and the Office of System Architecture and Advanced Planning.

National Marine Fisheries Service

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), also known as NOAA Fisheries, was initiated in 1871 with a primary goal of the research, protection, management, and restoration of commercial and recreational fisheries and their habitat, and protected species. NMFS operates twelve headquarters offices, five regional offices, six fisheries science centers, and more than 20 laboratories throughout the United States and U.S. territories, which are the sites of research and management of marine resources. NMFS also operates the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement in Silver Spring, Maryland, which is the primary site of marine resource law enforcement.

From The Scripps Institution of Oceanography At The University of California-San Diego : “Study of Ocean Currents Reveals Intensification of Tropical Cyclones Around the World”

From The Scripps Institution of Oceanography

at

The University of California-San Diego

11.17.22
Robert Monroe
scrippsnews@ucsd.edu

Researchers use Scripps-developed ocean drifter data to spot 30-year trend.

May 2018 drifter buoy deployment. Photo: Ben Kates/Scripps Oceanography.

Climate scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and colleagues used ocean current data gathered over several decades to create a new way to infer cyclone intensity.

With that method, they observe that the intensity of tropical cyclones—known as hurricanes in the North Atlantic and central-eastern North Pacific— increased from 1991 to 2020. Key to the finding were the instruments developed at Scripps in NOAA’s Global Drifter Program that can record near-surface ocean conditions even through the most intense cyclones to understand how the top layers of the ocean move during storms.

Scientists have expected cyclones to intensify as a consequence of global warming, but, in many places in the world, collecting accurate field observations of them and predictions of their strength have been difficult. While Hurricane Hunter flight data significantly reduce uncertainty about North Atlantic storms, such observations are not uniformly available in tropical regions globally.

Co-author Shang-Ping Xie, a climate scientist at Scripps, said the study represents the first reliable documentation of increasing global cyclone intensity.

“High seas in hurricanes make it impossible to measure wind speed near the surface,” Xie said, “but it’s possible to infer the wind speed from ocean currents below the surface. This proves crucial for estimates of historical change in cyclone intensity.”

Cyclones are defined by sustained wind speeds, which satellite observations can measure with only limited accuracy. The instruments used in the Global Drifter Program, first developed by Scripps scientists in the 1980s, observe the motion of water and temperature in the top 15 meters (49 feet) of the ocean. The researchers took note of current speed and direction when cyclones formed in the tropics. From that, they created maps of current speeds relative to the eyes of the storms for every year during the study period.

The team then estimated what wind speeds must have been from the current speeds. They concluded that wind speeds have increased by 15-21 percent. The team focused on tropical storms and Category 1 hurricane and typhoons, limited by the number of drifter data. Over the Northwest Pacific Ocean where sufficient data exist, they reported that Category 2-5 typhoons strengthened by 10-15 percent during 1991-2020.

The study appears Nov. 17 in the journal Nature [below].

Guihua Wang from Fudan University in China, a former visiting scholar at Scripps Oceanography, led the research. Other researchers from Fudan and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill contributed to the study.

Science paper:
Nature

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

A department of The University of California-San Diego, The Scripps Institution of Oceanography is one of the oldest, largest, and most important centers for ocean, earth and atmospheric science research, education, and public service in the world.

Research at Scripps encompasses physical, chemical, biological, geological, and geophysical studies of the oceans, Earth, and planets. Scripps undergraduate and graduate programs provide transformative educational and research opportunities in ocean, earth, and atmospheric sciences, as well as degrees in climate science and policy and marine biodiversity and conservation.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography was founded in 1903 as the Marine Biological Association of San Diego, an independent biological research laboratory. It was proposed and incorporated by a committee of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, led by local activist and amateur malacologist Fred Baker, together with two colleagues. He recruited University of California Zoology professor William Emerson Ritter to head up the proposed marine biology institution, and obtained financial support from local philanthropists E. W. Scripps and his sister Ellen Browning Scripps. They fully funded the institution for its first decade. It began institutional life in the boathouse of the Hotel del Coronado located on San Diego Bay. It re-located in 1905 to the La Jolla area on the head above La Jolla Cove, and finally in 1907 to its present location.

In 1912 Scripps became incorporated into The University of California and was renamed the “Scripps Institution for Biological Research.” Since 1916, measurements have been taken daily at its pier. The name was changed to Scripps Institution of Oceanography in October 1925. During the 1960s, led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography director Roger Revelle, it formed the nucleus for the creation of The University of California-San Diego on a bluff overlooking Scripps Institution.

The Old Scripps Building, designed by Irving Gill, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1982. Architect Barton Myers designed the current Scripps Building for the Institution of Oceanography in 1998.
Research programs
The institution’s research programs encompass biological, physical, chemical, geological, and geophysical studies of the oceans and land. Scripps also studies the interaction of the oceans with both the atmospheric climate and environmental concerns on terra firma. Related to this research, Scripps offers undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Today, the Scripps staff of 1,300 includes approximately 235 faculty, 180 other scientists and some 350 graduate students, with an annual budget of more than $281 million. The institution operates a fleet of four oceanographic research vessels.

R/V Robert Gordon Sproul

R/V Roger Revelle

R/V Sally Ride

C/R/V Bob and Betty Beyster

The Integrated Research Themes encompassing the work done by Scripps researchers are Biodiversity and Conservation, California Environment, Earth and Planetary Chemistry, Earth Through Space and Time, Energy and the Environment, Environment and Human Health, Global Change, Global Environmental Monitoring, Hazards, Ice and Climate, Instruments and Innovation, Interfaces, Marine Life, Modeling Theory and Computing, Sound and Light and the Sea, and Waves and Circulation.

Organizational structure
Scripps Oceanography is divided into three research sections, each with its own subdivisions:
• Biology

• Center for Marine Biotechnology & Biomedicine (CMBB).
• Integrative Oceanography Division (IOD) Archived 2015-11-29 at the Wayback Machine.
• Marine Biology Research Division (MBRD).

• Earth

• Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP).
• Geosciences Research Division (GRD).

• Oceans & Atmosphere

• Climate, Atmospheric Science & Physical Oceanography (CASPO).
• Marine Physical Laboratory (MPL) Archived 2013-10-04 at the Wayback Machine.

The University of California-San Diego is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, The University of California-San Diego is the southernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California, and offers over 200 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, enrolling 33,343 undergraduate and 9,533 graduate students. The University of California-San Diego occupies 2,178 acres (881 ha) near the coast of the Pacific Ocean, with the main campus resting on approximately 1,152 acres (466 ha). The University of California-San Diego is ranked among the best universities in the world by major college and university rankings.

The University of California-San Diego consists of twelve undergraduate, graduate and professional schools as well as seven undergraduate residential colleges. It received over 140,000 applications for undergraduate admissions in Fall 2021, making it the second most applied-to university in the United States. The University of California-San Diego San Diego Health, the region’s only academic health system, provides patient care, conducts medical research and educates future health care professionals at The University of California-San Diego Medical Center, Hillcrest, Jacobs Medical Center, Moores Cancer Center, Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center, Shiley Eye Institute, Institute for Genomic Medicine, Koman Family Outpatient Pavilion and various express care and urgent care clinics throughout San Diego.

The University of California-San Diego operates 19 organized research units as well as eight School of Medicine research units, six research centers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and two multi-campus initiatives. The University of California-San Diego is also closely affiliated with several regional research centers, such as The Salk Institute, the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, and The Scripps Research Institute. It is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”. According to The National Science Foundation, The University of California-San Diego spent $1.354 billion on research and development in fiscal year 2019, ranking it 6th in the nation.

The University of California-San Diego is considered one of the country’s “Public Ivies”. The University of California-San Diego faculty, researchers, and alumni have won 27 Nobel Prizes as well as three Fields Medals, eight National Medals of Science, eight MacArthur Fellowships, and three Pulitzer Prizes. Additionally, of the current faculty, 29 have been elected to The National Academy of Engineering, 70 to The National Academy of Sciences, 45 to the Institute of Medicine and 110 to The American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

History

When the Regents of the University of California originally authorized The University of California-San Diego campus in 1956, it was planned to be a graduate and research institution, providing instruction in the sciences, mathematics, and engineering. Local citizens supported the idea, voting the same year to transfer to the university 59 acres (24 ha) of mesa land on the coast near the preexisting Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The Regents requested an additional gift of 550 acres (220 ha) of undeveloped mesa land northeast of Scripps, as well as 500 acres (200 ha) on the former site of Camp Matthews from the federal government, but Roger Revelle, then director of Scripps Institution and main advocate for establishing the new campus, jeopardized the site selection by exposing the La Jolla community’s exclusive real estate business practices, which were antagonistic to minority racial and religious groups. This outraged local conservatives, as well as Regent Edwin W. Pauley.

University of California President Clark Kerr satisfied San Diego city donors by changing the proposed name from University of California, La Jolla, to University of California-San Diego. The city voted in agreement to its part in 1958, and the University of California approved construction of the new campus in 1960. Because of the clash with Pauley, Revelle was not made chancellor. Herbert York, first director of The DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, was designated instead. York planned the main campus according to the “Oxbridge” model, relying on many of Revelle’s ideas.

According to Kerr, “San Diego always asked for the best,” though this created much friction throughout the University of California system, including with Kerr himself, because The University of California-San Diego often seemed to be “asking for too much and too fast.” Kerr attributed The University of California-San Diego’s “special personality” to Scripps, which for over five decades had been the most isolated University of California unit in every sense: geographically, financially, and institutionally. It was a great shock to the Scripps community to learn that Scripps was now expected to become the nucleus of a new University of California campus and would now be the object of far more attention from both the university administration in Berkeley and the state government in Sacramento.

The University of California-San Diego was the first general campus of the University of California to be designed “from the top down” in terms of research emphasis. Local leaders disagreed on whether the new school should be a technical research institute or a more broadly based school that included undergraduates as well. John Jay Hopkins of General Dynamics Corporation pledged one million dollars for the former while the City Council offered free land for the latter. The original authorization for The University of California-San Diego campus given by the University of California Regents in 1956 approved a “graduate program in science and technology” that included undergraduate programs, a compromise that won both the support of General Dynamics and the city voters’ approval.

Nobel laureate Harold Urey, a physicist from the University of Chicago, and Hans Suess, who had published the first paper on the greenhouse effect with Revelle in the previous year, were early recruits to the faculty in 1958. Maria Goeppert-Mayer, later the second female Nobel laureate in physics, was appointed professor of physics in 1960. The graduate division of the school opened in 1960 with 20 faculty in residence, with instruction offered in the fields of physics, biology, chemistry, and earth science. Before the main campus completed construction, classes were held in the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

By 1963, new facilities on the mesa had been finished for the School of Science and Engineering, and new buildings were under construction for Social Sciences and Humanities. Ten additional faculty in those disciplines were hired, and the whole site was designated the First College, later renamed after Roger Revelle, of the new campus. York resigned as chancellor that year and was replaced by John Semple Galbraith. The undergraduate program accepted its first class of 181 freshman at Revelle College in 1964. Second College was founded in 1964, on the land deeded by the federal government, and named after environmentalist John Muir two years later. The University of California-San Diego School of Medicine also accepted its first students in 1966.

Political theorist Herbert Marcuse joined the faculty in 1965. A champion of the New Left, he reportedly was the first protester to occupy the administration building in a demonstration organized by his student, political activist Angela Davis. The American Legion offered to buy out the remainder of Marcuse’s contract for $20,000; the Regents censured Chancellor William J. McGill for defending Marcuse on the basis of academic freedom, but further action was averted after local leaders expressed support for Marcuse. Further student unrest was felt at the university, as the United States increased its involvement in the Vietnam War during the mid-1960s, when a student raised a Viet Minh flag over the campus. Protests escalated as the war continued and were only exacerbated after the National Guard fired on student protesters at Kent State University in 1970. Over 200 students occupied Urey Hall, with one student setting himself on fire in protest of the war.

Early research activity and faculty quality, notably in the sciences, was integral to shaping the focus and culture of the university. Even before The University of California-San Diego had its own campus, faculty recruits had already made significant research breakthroughs, such as the Keeling Curve, a graph that plots rapidly increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and was the first significant evidence for global climate change; the Kohn–Sham equations, used to investigate particular atoms and molecules in quantum chemistry; and the Miller–Urey experiment, which gave birth to the field of prebiotic chemistry.

Engineering, particularly computer science, became an important part of the university’s academics as it matured. University researchers helped develop The University of California-San Diego Pascal, an early machine-independent programming language that later heavily influenced Java; the National Science Foundation Network, a precursor to the Internet; and the Network News Transfer Protocol during the late 1970s to 1980s. In economics, the methods for analyzing economic time series with time-varying volatility (ARCH), and with common trends (co-integration) were developed. The University of California-San Diego maintained its research intense character after its founding, racking up 25 Nobel Laureates affiliated within 50 years of history; a rate of five per decade.

Under Richard C. Atkinson’s leadership as chancellor from 1980 to 1995, The University of California-San Diego strengthened its ties with the city of San Diego by encouraging technology transfer with developing companies, transforming San Diego into a world leader in technology-based industries. He oversaw a rapid expansion of the School of Engineering, later renamed after Qualcomm founder Irwin M. Jacobs, with the construction of the San Diego Supercomputer Center and establishment of the computer science, electrical engineering, and bioengineering departments. Private donations increased from $15 million to nearly $50 million annually, faculty expanded by nearly 50%, and enrollment doubled to about 18,000 students during his administration. By the end of his chancellorship, the quality of The University of California-San Diego graduate programs was ranked 10th in the nation by The National Research Council.

The University of California-San Diego continued to undergo further expansion during the first decade of the new millennium with the establishment and construction of two new professional schools — the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Rady School of Management—and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, a research institute run jointly with University of California-Irvine. The University of California-San Diego also reached two financial milestones during this time, becoming the first university in the western region to raise over $1 billion in its eight-year fundraising campaign in 2007 and also obtaining an additional $1 billion through research contracts and grants in a single fiscal year for the first time in 2010. Despite this, due to the California budget crisis, the university loaned $40 million against its own assets in 2009 to offset a significant reduction in state educational appropriations. The salary of Pradeep Khosla, who became chancellor in 2012, has been the subject of controversy amidst continued budget cuts and tuition increases.

On November 27, 2017, The University of California-San Diego announced it would leave its longtime athletic home of the California Collegiate Athletic Association, an NCAA Division II league, to begin a transition to Division I in 2020. At that time, it would join the Big West Conference, already home to four other UC campuses (Davis, Irvine, Riverside, Santa Barbara). The transition period would run through the 2023–24 school year. The university prepared to transition to NCAA Division I competition on July 1, 2020.

Research

Applied Physics and Mathematics

The Nature Index lists The University of California-San Diego as 6th in the United States for research output by article count in 2019. In 2017, The University of California-San Diego spent $1.13 billion on research, the 7th highest expenditure among academic institutions in the U.S. The university operates several organized research units, including the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences (CASS), the Center for Drug Discovery Innovation, and the Institute for Neural Computation. The University of California-San Diego also maintains close ties to the nearby Scripps Research Institute and Salk Institute for Biological Studies. In 1977, The University of California-San Diego developed and released the University of California-San Diego Pascal programming language. The university was designated as one of the original national Alzheimer’s disease research centers in 1984 by the National Institute on Aging. In 2018, The University of California-San Diego received $10.5 million from The DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration to establish the Center for Matters under Extreme Pressure (CMEC).

The University of California-San Diego founded The San Diego Supercomputer Center in 1985, which provides high performance computing for research in various scientific disciplines. In 2000, The University of California-San Diego partnered with The University of California-Irvine to create the Qualcomm Institute, which integrates research in photonics, nanotechnology, and wireless telecommunication to develop solutions to problems in energy, health, and the environment.

The University of California-San Diego also operates the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, one of the largest centers of research in earth science in the world, which predates the university itself. Together, SDSC and SIO, along with funding partner universities California Institute of Technology, San Diego State University, and The University of California-Santa Barbara, manage the High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network.