Climate Impacts Group

Upcoming Webinar to Feature New CIG Research | November 16th 1-2 PM PDT

This week’s North Pacific Landscape Conservation Cooperative Science Management Webinar will feature recent research from CIG’s Se-Yeun Lee and NOAA’s Aimee Fullerton. Join Aimee & Se-Yeun to learn more about their recent study which analyzed water temperature for 6,106 km of rivers and evaluated the characteristics of cold-water habitat for Pacific salmon and steelhead.

Title: Incorporating Spatial Heterogeneity in Temperature into Climate Vulnerability Assessments for Coastal Pacific Stream
When: November 16th, 2017 at 1:00-2:00 PM PDT
Register here

Water temperature, a key driver of ecological processes in aquatic environments, is expected to warm as a result of climate change, stressing stream biota. 

CIG involved in new NSF-funded flood and landslide risk research

A team of University of Washington researchers, including the Climate Impacts Group’s Guillaume Mauger, recently started a new four year project aimed at improving our ability to forecast floods and to better understand the role of sediments in increasing flood risk. The funding is part of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Prediction of and Resilience Against Extreme Events (PREEVENTS) program, which recently awarded 15 new grants totaling $18.7 million.

Read the full press release here. 

New CIG Report: Integrating Climate Resilience in Flood Risk Management

Sea level rise, more extreme rainfall, and melting snowpack. These are just a few of the reasons why we want to be sure to have climate-smart flood risk management across the Northwest—now and in the future.

CIG researcher Guillaume Mauger and recent UW graduate Haley Kennard (now at the Makah Tribe’s Office of Marine Affairs)  recently embarked on a project to understand what is needed to help agencies plan for changing flood risk. Working with the Washington State Silver Jackets team—an interagency group that includes FEMA, the Army Corps, and several state and federal agencies charged with managing flood risk—they developed a work plan for making our state more resilient to flooding. 

Shrubs, grasses planted through federal program crucial for sage grouse survival in Eastern Washington

A new study by University of Washington Climate Impacts Group, state and federal researchers analyzed sage grouse in Eastern Washington and showed a surprisingly large benefit from a federal program that subsidizes farmers to plant year-round grasses and native shrubs instead of crops. Although the program was adopted for many different reasons, the study finds it is probably the reason that sage grouse still live in portions of Washington’s Columbia Basin.

“Without these lands, our models predict that we would lose about two thirds of the species’ habitat, and that the sage grouse would go extinct in two of three subpopulations,” said first author Andrew Shirk, a research scientist with the UW’s Climate Impacts Group. 

CIG Blog Post | Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot: How the Summer Heat Can Get You Down

CIG’s inaugural blog post “Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot: How the Summer Heat Can Get You Down” contains information on how hot summer temperatures can affect human health, an analysis of the summer heat in 2015, a temperature outlook for August through October, and some tips and guides for staying safe and healthy in the summer heat. This blog post was written by Maggie Beetstra (Climate Impacts Group) and Karin Bumbaco (Office of the Washington State Climatologist). 

Seattle Think & Drink | The Californians are Coming: Climate Migration & the PNW

History shows that climate change leads to massive movements of people, and we’ve now entered what might be the fastest period of climate change in earth’s history. How will it affect the human populations of North America? Who will move where? How will it affect human rights? And is the Northwest really the relatively safe haven it’s commonly thought to be? Join Lara Whitely Binder of the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group, and Jeni Krencicki Barcelos, co-founder of the Three Degrees Project at the UW School of Law. Moderated by KUOW environmental reporter Ashley Ahearn.

Date: Tuesday August 23, 2016

Time: 7-9:30 pm

Location: Naked City Brewery and Taphouse, 8564 Greenwood Ave N, Seattle