When it comes to climate change, one big question is how are ecosystems adapting to shifting weather patterns, heavier precipitation events, and hotter temperatures for longer periods of time? Are some plants better equipped to withstand these changes than others? And if yes, then why and how? Jacob Levine is a Wilkes Center Postdoctoral scholar […]
Read MoreThe Wilkes Center recently hosted its 3rd annual climate solutions hackathon at the end of January. This year the focus was water resources. The “hackathon” as we’ve come to call it – borrowing the term from the computer coding world – is an intense problem-solving competition where we challenge U of U undergraduate and graduate […]
Read MorePerovskites are crystal structures that can be manufactured in labs for making solar panels. They are relatively cost-effective, and efficient, and could provide a reliable thin-film alternative to the more common silicon-based solar panels. However, perovskite solar cells face a few challenges that must be addressed before they can become a competitive commercial PV technology. […]
Read MoreThere are an estimated 54,000 glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayas. These glaciers cover 60,000 square kilometers and serve as a major source of the water in the region’s rivers, including as much as 40 percent in the Indus River system – the backbone of agriculture and food production in Pakistan, for example. But in […]
Read MoreIt’s true the Earth has experienced periods of global warming in its past. The largest such warming event in the past 90 million years – since the time dinosaurs roamed Earth – was the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, about 56 million years ago. Average global temperatures increased by 4–5°C over a period of 3,000–10,000 years. Human […]
Read More“Eco-anxiety” or “Climate grief” are increasingly part of our lexicon when it comes to describing the heavy feelings of concern people are feeling about the state of our natural environment and global climate change. This past year, Jennifer Follstad Shah, associate professor in the School of the Environment, Society and Sustainability, along with her colleague […]
Read MoreDr. Jon Wang, an Assistant Professor in the School of Biological Sciences here at the U, manages the Dynamic Carbon and Ecosystems Lab, or DYCE Lab. He has access to high-resolution airborne laser scanning data to map forests across the world to measure to set benchmarks for that data and monitor for changes. Wang is […]
Read MoreIn September this year, the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy awarded Applied Carbon, the climate tech company based in Houston, Texas, the $500,000 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize. Applied Carbon, formerly Climate Robotics, is a technology company designing automated biochar production machines that convert in-field agricultural crop waste into biochar. Jason Aramburu, who is […]
Read MoreAustin Green is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biology with the College of Science’s Science Research Initiative, or SRI program. His specialty is using camera traps to monitor and capture image data of wildlife in wilderness areas. His research involves gathering data to study wild animal behavior, their movement patterns, and how human […]
Read MoreIf you’ve taken a hike or a drive through northern Utah’s forests recently, you may have noticed that some areas of the forests are changing and looking a little sick. Northern Utah’s forests are increasingly experiencing an infestation of a tiny non-native insect called balsam woolly adelgid (or BWA), that’s slowly attacking subalpine fir which are […]
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