ESPM professor Todd Dawson is featured in this UC Science Today audio segment on his work using drone technology to study drought effects on forests. Researchers can survey canopies of individual trees and entire forests, as drones fly over and take images with multi-spectral cameras. "That means we are basically keeping our finger on the pulse of the forest change, which we have never been able to do with any of our other tools before," noted Dawson.
Washington Post | January 10, 2017
ESPM professor emeritius William Libby is highlighted in this Washington Post article on trees falling across California as a result of winter storms combined with the effects of six years of drought. Libby noted that after a heavy rain, trees weakened by drought have been known to die suddenly instead of rebounding, likening it to giving a starving person too much food too fast.
Washington Post | January 04, 2017
ERG grad student Zeke Hausfather is featured in this Washington Post article on the confirmation of a 2015 paper that suggested that ocean temperatures were indeed warming at consistent rates. The recently published study confirms that NOAA scientists correctly adjusted their record of ocean temperatures in light of known biases in some observing systems.
News Deeply | December 16, 2016
ESPM alum Esther Conrad (Ph.D. '15) is interviewed in this NewsDeeply article on the implementation process of CA's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, passed in 2014. Conrad, who is now a postdoc at Stanford, recently authored a new report that looks at how the process of forming groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) is going so far and what lessons can be learned that will help those agencies still involved in the process.
Scientific American | December 15, 2016
ERG professor Dan Kammen was highlighted in this Scientific American article on the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting, which featured a talk by California Gov. Jerry Brown on the Trump administration's impending policy on climate science. Kammen noted that opportunities can be seen with some Trump nominees, who have supported renewable energy development and carbon emission pricing in the past.
BBC | December 15, 2016
ESPM grad student Marco Pfeiffer was featured in this BBC news article on his recent research that shows the remnants of freshwater plants and animals buried in Chile's Atacama Desert. Similar stories appeared in dozens of sources, including Phys.org, Yahoo, LiveScience, and Heritage Daily.
News Deeply | December 14, 2016
ARE professor David Sunding is highlighted as one of six experts on CA water economics, and is cited as an expert in environmental and resource economics, water resources, land use, regulation and law and economics. Sunding has been studying aspects of the California WaterFix related to economics as a consultant as a state, including the benefits and the costs to different groups and the financeability of the project.
East Bay Times | December 13, 2016
ESPM assistant CE specialist Jodi Axelson is featured in this East Bay Times article on the effects of bark beetles on the pine trees of Sierra Nevada, where hundreds of millions of trees have been decimated. If current forest management practices don’t change, the beetle invasion will continue, Axelson said. “But there’s an opportunity to change our behavior and create forests that are better adapted.”