News | July 1, 2019
‘Regional climate modeling’ provides clearer picture of climate change impacts in PNW
KNKX weather expert and UW professor of Atmospheric Sciences Cliff Mass has been working with a group of researchers within the Department of Atmospheric Sciences hoping to get a better idea of the impact climate change will have on the Pacific Northwest. The group has been conducting “regional climate modeling.” “Many people know about global…
Course | ATM S 212
Air Pollution: From Urban Smog to the Ozone Hole
This course is an introduction to air pollution on local, regional, and global scales. We will focus on the sources, transformation, and dispersion of pollutants responsible for urban smog, acid rain, climate change and the stratospheric ozone hole. We will examine the health and environmental effects of air pollutants, as well as current (or potential) technological solutions and international policy regulations.News | February 15, 2022
An unexpected item is blocking cities’ climate change prep: obsolete rainfall records
American cities are poised to spend billions of dollars to improve their water systems under the federal infrastructure bill, the largest water investment in the nation’s history. Those new sewers and storm drains will need to withstand rainfall that’s becoming more intense in a changing climate. But as cities make plans to tear up streets and…
Course | ATM S 558
Atmospheric Chemistry
Photochemistry of urban, rural, and marine tropospheric air, and of the natural and perturbed ozone in the middle atmosphere. Unity of the chemistries in these apparently different regimes.Scholar
Cliff Mass
Visit scholar websiteScholar
Dan Jaffe
Visit scholar websiteNews | May 20, 2020
EarthLab announces Innovation Grant recipients for 2020
Research projects funded for 2020 by EarthLab’s Innovation Grants Program will study how vegetation might reduce pollution, help an Alaskan village achieve safety and resilience amid climate change, organize a California river’s restoration with tribal involvement, compare practices in self-managed indigenous immigrant communities and more. EarthLab is a University of Washington-wide institute connecting scholars with community…
News | June 13, 2018
Forest loss in one part of US can harm trees on the opposite coast
Large swaths of U.S. forests are vulnerable to drought, forest fires and disease. Many local impacts of forest loss are well known: drier soils, stronger winds, increased erosion, loss of shade and habitat. But if a whole forest disappears, new research shows, this has ricocheting effects in the atmosphere that can affect vegetation on the…
News | January 8, 2020
Is Seattle really the gloomiest city in America? Psychological data debunk finding
A recent study named Seattle the No. 1 “gloomiest place in America.” The website Bestplaces.net, which ranks locations on all kinds of qualities, created a “gloom index” for the largest cities in the nation, based on weather data during the darkest months of the year. The index ranked the cities by looking at percentage of cloud cover,…
News | May 18, 2023
It’s Not Just Climate Disasters. “Normal” Weather Is Getting Weirder, Too.
It’s been a strange few weeks for weather across the US. A dust storm in Illinois earlier this month led to a 72-vehicle pileup that killed seven people. In April, more than 25 inches of rain — 88 billion gallons — drenched Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Wisconsin declared an emergency as more than 80 wildfires ignited…
Scholar
Joel Thornton
Visit scholar websiteNews | September 2, 2016
Landscaping for Drought Could Make Warm Nights Cooler
As drought-stricken residents of Los Angeles’s hottest neighborhoods replace thirsty lawns with native plants, pavers and bare soil, new research has shown how their local climates could begin tipping back in the direction of their desert-like origins. Nighttime lows help people recover daily even as heat waves persist. In a region beset this year by…
News | February 27, 2020
Links Between Weather in Seattle and Bali
Seattle, along with the rest of the U.S. West Coast, has seen a decrease in rainfall between 1981-2018. UW scientists think a phenomenon called the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) might be to blame. A stormy disturbance that occurs several times a year in the tropics, the MJO is similar to the El Nino Southern Oscillation, which…
News | June 24, 2019
Seattle upgrades A/C at some community centers ahead of predicted wildfires
It wasn’t a picture postcard August last year in Seattle. Seattle icons, the Space Needle, ferries crossing the water, the Great Wheel spinning colorfully on the waterfront were barely visible because of smoke from Canadian wildfires. The Emerald City saw 24 days of moderately unhealthy levels of particulates in the air during the summer because…
News | September 29, 2016
September Recap – News, Big Data, and Monthly Hightlights
September is nearly gone, but this was not a very sleepy month. The University of Washington has started the new school year and the past month has seen some tremendous developments for urban thinking and the City of Seattle. KQED published a piece about urban heat islands and how changes in landcover from hard-scapes and…
News | July 11, 2019
Smoke from Alaska fires has reached the Northwest
Seattle is experiencing smoke from an estimated 120 wildfires burning in interior and south-central Alaska, as the 49th State goes through a late spring-early summer heat wave, according to University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor Cliff Mass. “Although there are no wildfires in the Pacific Northwest right now, there are many large fires burning over Alaska producing lots…
News | April 10, 2019
UW wins top team, individual prizes in national forecasting contest, now enters tournament round
The University of Washington has won a national competition in which colleges vie to deliver the most accurate daily forecast for cities across the country. A UW student also developed a machine-learning model that for the first time delivered a more accurate forecast than any human competitor. In results announced this week, the UW team…
News | December 31, 2021
Wildfire smoke may ramp up toxic ozone production in cities
Wildfire smoke and urban air pollution bring out the worst in each other. As wildfires rage, they transform their burned fuel into a complex chemical cocktail of smoke. Many of these airborne compounds, including ozone, cause air quality to plummet as wind carries the smoldering haze over cities. But exactly how — and to what…