Climate Impacts Group

CIG-OWSC Trends Tool Featured in GeekWire

The Climate Impacts Group recently partnered with the Office of the Washington State Climatologist and data visualization software company, Tableau, to develop a climate trends analysis tool for Washington, Idaho, Oregon and western Montana. CIG project lead, Heidi Roop, hopes this tool will help communities and organizations better communicate and understand regional trends in climate across the Northwest. 

Chasing Ice Film Screening and Panel on November 28th

Join EarthLab and the Simpson Center for the Humanities for a screening of Chasing Ice, as part of the Anthropocene Film Salon series. CIG’s Heidi Roop and the Simpson Center’s Jesse Oak Tayler will be on hand after the film for a panel discussion. The goal of this event is to foster mutual learning and catalyze new, cross-cutting collaborations to address the unique social-ecological challenges of the Anthropocene.

Details

What: Chasing Ice, a film by Jeff Orlowski

When: November 28th, 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Where: Fisheries Sciences lobby and auditorium (room 102), University of Washington, Seattle

Panelists:
Jesse Oak Tayler, Associate Professor of English and Co-director, Anthropocene Research Cluster (Simpson Center for the Humanities)
Heidi Roop, Lead Scientist for Science Communication, Climate Impacts Group (EarthLab) 

Webinar Recording: Tribal Vulnerability Assessment Resources for Northwest and Great Basin Tribes

Are you concerned about what climate change might mean for your tribe? The Climate Impacts Group, in partnership with the Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (NW CASC), hosted a webinar to introduce a new suite of Tribal Vulnerability Assessment Resources designed to support Northwest and Great Basin tribes’ efforts to assess climate risks to natural and cultural resources.

In this webinar, Dr. Meade Krosby, Senior Scientist at the Climate Impacts Group and University Deputy Director of the NW CASC, introduced the web-based resources, including: 

A Tribal Climate Tool, which provides interactive maps, graphs and reports summarizing projected changes in climate for the unique geographies and impacts of concern to Northwest and Great Basin tribes.

New resources support tribes in preparing for climate change

As the natural world responds to climate change, American Indian tribes across the country are grappling with how to plan for a future that balances inevitable change with protecting the resources vital to their cultural traditions. The Climate Impacts Group and regional tribal partners have developed a collection of resources that may be useful to tribes at any stage in the process of evaluating their vulnerability to climate change. The resources, mainly online, include a climate tool that provides interactive summaries of projected climate change on annual precipitation, stream temperatures, growing season, fire danger and other variables. 

Upcoming Workshop: Managing Western WA Wildfire Risk in a Changing Climate

The Puget Sound Climate Preparedness Collaborative, Tulalip Tribes, University of Washington Climate Impacts Group and the Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center are hosting a workshop, Managing Western Washington Wildfire Risk in a Changing Climate, on December 3rd, 2018, in Tulalip, WA.

Recent smoke events in western Washington, driven by large wildfires across the Northwest, British Columbia and California, have raised concerns among western Washington communities about climate change and the impacts of more wildfire in the region. How will climate change affect the potential for wildfire west of the Cascades and what can western Washington communities do to address that risk? 

Join Our Team! The Climate Impacts Group Seeks Deputy Director

 *We are still accepting applications.*

The Climate Impacts Group is seeking a full-time Deputy Director to support and advance our innovations in connecting science and practice to increase climate resilience.

The Deputy Director will play a leading role in and have oversight responsibilities for the Climate Impacts Group’s climate research and stakeholder engagement efforts, including internal operations (research coordination, fiscal planning and oversight, project management, employee supervision and strategic planning) and externally-facing activities (building and maintaining external relationships with diverse stakeholders and collaborators, grant-writing and public and private fund-raising, public speaking). The Deputy Director will lead and participate in applied interdisciplinary climate impacts and adaptation research. 

A New Tool for Farmers in a Changing Climate

In partnership with The Nature Conservancy, we have produced a new mapping tool that allows farmers to see modeled results of flood risk in Snohomish County during the 1980s, 2050s and 2080s. The mapped information is now available as a publicly available web app through the Coastal Resilience website. This simple tool lets farmers easily view the maps that interest them via a combination of the flood factors. You can also access the technical report by the Climate Impacts Group describing the flood modeling process. 

Q & A: HOW WILL SNOHOMISH FARMS ENDURE CLIMATE CHANGE?

The Snohomish Conservation District recently partnered with the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group and The Nature Conservancy to model and map various historic and future flood scenarios across the Snohomish and Stillaguamish watersheds. How will these data be used and why are they important? Read a great interview with Cindy Dittbrenner, Natural Resource Program Manager for the Snohomish Conservation District, about why these data and the project’s webmap are so important for farmers in Snohomish County. 

Art-Science Collaboration to Communicate the Impacts of Sea Level Rise

CIG researcher, Heidi Roop, has teamed up with local artist, Anna McKee, and UW glaciologist, Peter Neff, to create an art installation about the regional impacts of sea level rise for the 2018 Surge exhibition at the Museum of Northwest Art. The installation, called Evidence Wall, is a series of “maps” that explores the unique relationship between ice sheet decline in West Antarctica and rising sea levels in the Pacific Northwest.

CIG researcher, Guillaume Mauger, also served as an advisor to artists participating in this year’s Surge exhibit, through his participation in a art-science residency at PLAYA in July, 2018. 

New look for the NW Climate Adaptation Science Center website

The Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (NW CASC) recently launched a new website! The new site offers improved navigation and usability and more dedicated space for highlighting NW CASC’s science, research fellows and partners. Check out their new look and learn more about their work increasing climate resilience around the Northwest: https://nwcasc.uw.edu/