Elizabeth Carter

, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at ���ϲ�����’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, and her research team have received a water resource grant from the U.S. Geological Survey to develop a sensor network that measures flooding. This sensor network will help predict different types of flooding caused by natural disasters, particularly flooding in areas where people live, which is referred to as urban flooding. This project is known as the Urban Flood Observing Network, and you can learn more about it here.

Related to Hurricane Milton specifically, she writes: “We design flood control infrastructure, like storm sewers, reservoirs, floodwalls, and levees, to handle a storm that we think has a 1% chance of happening every year. The primary physical driver of these 1% flood events in the eastern and central United States are tropical cyclones (tropical depressions, storms, and hurricanes). More hurricanes directly translates to more frequent infrastructure failure. More intense hurricanes means more catastrophic infrastructure failure. In 1970, the most intense storm we’d see in an average year was a category 3. In 2010, it was a category 4. If these trends continue into 2050, we could expect at least one category 5 storm annually. We are not prepared.��Flood control infrastructure upgrades in the eastern United States are urgently required, and a critical public health and equity issue.”

Sarah Pralle

, associate professor of political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at ���ϲ�����, specializes in environmental politics and policy, climate change and energy, flood mapping, flood insurance, and more. Pralle also serves as a senior research associate for the Campbell Public Affairs Institute. She was recently quoted in The Atlantic story ““:

“Many people assume that they face little risk if they aren’t living in an area included in high-risk zones on FEMA’s flood maps, Sarah Pralle, a political-science professor at the Maxwell School at ���ϲ�����, told me. But FEMA’s maps don’t capture the full picture of flood risk. They are drawn ‘based on the assumption that the past will help us predict the future. In a rapidly changing climate, that’s not the case.’ The maps can quickly become outdated as climate risks evolve, she noted, and don’t take into account pluvial flooding, or flooding from heavy-rain events, which is what North Carolina saw last week. Even people who have personally experienced flooding sometimes drop their policies, Pralle said, adding that ‘if people have lived in a place where it hasn’t flooded in decades, they lose that memory of what can happen and what kind of losses they might suffer. Those who do buy flood insurance usually live in areas prone to flooding. The result is a system in which the risk is not evenly spread out, making flood-insurance premiums hugely pricey—Pralle likened it to a health-insurance system in which only the sick buy coverage.'”

And then: “So much of the response following disasters can feel piecemeal and reactive, Pralle said. Insurance is important—but not the full story. ‘Every dollar we put into prevention is going to be a lot more efficiently spent,’ she explained. In a world reshaped by climate change, ‘this idea that there’s safe places you can go hide is unrealistic.’”

Robert Wilson

, associate professor at ���ϲ�����’s Maxwell School, studies animals and society, climate change, geography, and more. He can speak to human-pet relationships and the need to prepare for your pets ahead of natural disasters.

Wilson writes: “As Hurricane Milton barrels ashore in Florida, we’re reminded of how owning pets can complicate evacuations during natural disasters. When asked, most pet owners say they consider their cats and dogs to be like family. This affection for pets can complicate evacuation decisions during emergencies.

Pet owners often face a difficult choice. They can evacuate to a hotel or shelter that doesn’t accept pets, potentially leaving their animals behind. Or they can remain in place, facing the worst of a hurricane to stay with their pets. This dilemma underscores the need for emergency planning that considers the needs of pets as well as people.

In areas prone to hurricanes, wildfires, or other natural disasters, pet owners should develop evacuation plans that include their animals. This could involve plans that identify hotels and shelters that accept pets, preparing an emergency kit with supplies for people and animals, and making sure pets have proper identification. Being prepared can help save the lives of people and the pets they love.”

Patrick Penfield

, professor of supply chain practice at ���ϲ����� Univeristy’s Whitman School of Management, can speak to supply chain issues related to Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.

Penfield writes: “Hurricane Helene and Milton will adversely impact US supply chains. Unfortunately, we have a high concentration of critical manufacturing facilities in the South such as IV plants (North Carolina and Florida) and quartz factories (used in the electronics industry) which could be shut down for several months because of the hurricanes. In addition to southern manufacturing plant and distribution centers being closed, we will see a significant loss of vegetable and fruits which will impact availability and drive-up prices. Penfield further stated that significant infrastructure will need to also be rebuilt such as roads, bridges and ports which could further impact the ability of other companies in the South to function.”

Derek Seward

is an associate professor at ���ϲ�����’s School of Education. Dr. Seward’s scholarly interests focus primarily on the multicultural and social justice development of mental health professionals, with a particular interest in professionals of color.

Seward writes: “Repeated exposure to hurricane disasters can be devasting as the opportunity for hurricane survivors to have sustained psychological recovery time is disrupted. Hurricane survivors can experience a range of short-term psychological struggles including immense anxiety as their lives are threatened, intense feelings of helplessness as they deal with uncertainty regarding potential loss of life (i.e., family, friends, pets) and belongings, and increased stress from physical displacement. The impact on families can be particularly profound as children may lack psychological preparedness and resilience to handle acute unexpected adversities. Physical clinginess, refusal to be separated from parents or guardians, and nightmares or other sleep disruptions are behavioral responses children may display. During disasters, children struggle with experiencing that their world is not stable, secure, and safe. To protect their children, parents may withhold expressing their fears and anxieties which can be problematic as they are not attending to their own mental health needs. Parents and guardians should reassure their children they are being protected. Limiting children’s exposure to media coverage of hurricanes can help to avoid elevating their anxiety. Parents should consider seeking mental health support to deal with any symptoms of stress and anxiety they experience. Longer-term psychological struggles for hurricane survivors include increased substance use and post-traumatic stress symptoms such as having intrusive and distressing thoughts that interfere with concentration mood, irritability, avoidant behavior, and depression.”

Jennifer Genovese

is an assistant teaching professor in the School of Social Work at ���ϲ�����’s Falk College. She can speak to mental health and trauma related to natural disasters; and, specifically in this case, back-to-back hurricanes. She was recently interviewed for the ABC News story “

Farhana Sultana

is a professor in ���ϲ�����’s Maxwell School. Her areas of expertise include environmental justice, sustainability and political ecology. Professor Sultana co-wrote this about the Cop28 climate conference. She comments below on the sustainability measures around the upcoming Paris games and is available for interview.

Professor Sultana says:

“The Paris Summer Olympics has created a buzz around sustainability, with the goal to half the emissions of prior games. Planners stated goals to reduce carbon footprint and emissions across sectors such as transportation, construction, and operations. Historical lack of transparency, accountability, greenwashing, and tweaking at the margins of sustainability have plagued such massive events.

“What’s often overlooked are justice implications locally and globally, in terms of local social and environmental impacts long-term, as well as global climate injustices via rise in greenhouse emissions, problematic carbon offset programs, resource extraction issues, waste dumping, and ecosystems impacts. Whether Paris offers significant changes remain to be seen.”

To request interviews or get more information:

Daryl Lovell
Associate Director of Media Relations
Division of Communications

M��315.380.0206
dalovell@syr.edu |
news.syr.edu |

���ϲ�����

Severe flooding followed heavy rains in Cranford, New Jersey.

Widespread climate change from global warming has devastating and lasting effects on human health, infrastructure and food production. As temperatures rise, certain areas are dealing with intense droughts and water scarcity, while other regions are experiencing catastrophic rainfall and flooding. The eastern United States is one area that has seen a marked rise in torrential storms in recent years. A byproduct of this was the East Kentucky flood of 2022, which occurred when a storm swept through, dropping four inches of rain per hour, resulting in the tragic loss of 44 lives and the declaration of 13 counties as federal disaster areas.

As the eastern U.S. comes to grips with the changing climate, local and state governments depend on accurate rainfall predictions to help save lives and minimize property damage. But human-caused climate change makes it difficult to isolate processes in the atmosphere and ocean responsible for long-term trends in rainfall. This makes it especially challenging to predict rainfall changes on a local scale. A team of researchers from the University’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) has been awarded a $547,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate ancient climate data to help improve the accuracy of climate modeling and future rainfall predictions.

Tripti Bhattacharya (left) and David Fastovich

The project is led by principal investigator (PI) , Thonis Family Professor in EES, and co-PI , a postdoctoral researcher in Bhattacharya’s Paleoclimate Dynamics Lab. Bhattacharya is a leading expert in organic geochemistry and climatology, which involves studying how atmospheric conditions have changed over time. Fastovich, who joined Bhattacharya’s lab at ���ϲ����� in 2022, has particular interest in using the geologic record to better understand future global change.

“This project really brings together David’s and my expertise to tackle a climate question of strong relevance to the northeast U.S., including the Central New York region,” says Bhattacharya.

According to Fastovich, extreme rainfall in the eastern and central U.S. results from a “perfect storm” of conditions in the atmosphere, Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean.

“When oceanic and atmospheric conditions are just right, air laden with moisture from the Gulf of Mexico is directed towards the central and eastern U.S. This air is then quickly lifted by atmospheric processes creating pockets of intense rainfall,” he explains. “We hypothesize that the relative importance of oceanic and atmospheric processes needed to create extreme rainfall are poorly approximated in climate models that are used to make predictions of the future.”

Answers Embedded in Leaf Wax

The team will take measurements of leaf waxes from lake sediments preserved in the last ice age and compare those results to climate models to identify why predictions of rainfall in the central and eastern U.S. are uncertain.

Their research will focus on the period from the Last Glacial Maximum (~20,000 years ago) to the Holocene (last ~12,000 years of Earth’s history). During this time, there was an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide which led to ice sheet retreat and ocean heat transport variability—which refers to the fluctuations in the movement of heat within the ocean.

The leaf waxes that the team will study originate from five lakes across Ohio, Missouri and Florida. Bhattacharya and Fastovich will be applying lab methods that extract, identify and measure leaf waxes stored within the sediments.

Bhattacharya works with a gas chromatograph, a key piece of lab equipment that allows her to quantify the concentrations of leaf waxes in ancient sediments.

“My lab measures leaf waxes, but David’s unique expertise is helping us apply this technique in a new setting,” says Bhattacharya. “This grant is a great example of how postdoctoral scholars enrich the depth and breadth of research expertise here at ���ϲ�����.”

According to Fastovich, being able to engage in this type of hands-on research with field-leading instrumentation was one of the reasons he chose ���ϲ�����.

“I was really drawn to the expertise and analytical capabilities here in Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences,” he says. “Through this project, we’re using sophisticated equipment to study leaf waxes, which make up the shiny layer that can be seen on plants that prevent them from drying out. They are very robust compounds that are stored in lake sediments and hold a wealth of information about climate.”

Improving Climate Models

The team will measure the different proportions of hydrogen atoms in the compounds from these sediment cores to better understand how rainfall in the central and eastern U.S. changed over the last 18,000 years. With the data collected from the leaf wax biomarkers, the team will develop a network of hydroclimate reconstructions to reveal physical processes like atmospheric circulation, evaporation and condensation. These enable researchers to understand changes in atmospheric circulation and hydroclimate.

“Climate models struggle to capture the historic hydroclimate in the eastern United States, as they overestimate precipitation along the Atlantic coast and underestimate precipitation in the Great Plains,” Bhattacharya says. “With precipitation amount and intensity predicted to robustly increase throughout these regions in the coming century, accurate climate models will be an essential tool for policymakers to make informed decisions about adaption strategies and infrastructure planning.”

Fastovich notes that it will be difficult to alter the rainfall trajectory short of stopping carbon dioxide emissions altogether. It is therefore critical to engage in research efforts that improve climate modeling accuracy to prepare for the future.

“The less carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere, the less rainfall will differ from historical trends to which we are accustomed,” he says. “But it’s important to note that the eastern U.S. is locked in for some rainfall changes because of today’s high carbon dioxide levels, and as extreme rainfall becomes more common, preparing infrastructure for this new normal is imperative.”

The Importance of Postdocs

According to , vice president for research, Fastovich’s contribution to this project exemplifies the significance of postdoctoral scholars to the research mission at ���ϲ�����. In fall 2023, the University established an to provide centralized resources and dedicated staff to serve the interests and well-being of postdoctoral scholars.

“Professor Bhattacharya and Dr. Fastovich’s award demonstrates the important role that postdoctoral scholars play in pursuing funding, as well as working on research and creative projects,” says Brown.

To help more postdocs win research funding, the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs will be running a series of research development sessions targeted at postdocs starting next academic year.

, professor of geography and the environment at ���ϲ�����’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, shared his thoughts below. If you’d like to schedule an interview with him, please reach out to Vanessa Marquette, media relations specialist, at vrmarque@syr.edu.

Huber writes: “As long as well-meaning ‘green’ policies continue to foreground taking away modern comforts, they will generate angry backlash (and in this case the opposite effect of more emissions as countries inefficiently seek to keep their athletes cool in a uncoordinated fashion). This is not unrelated to the electoral losses Greens endured in the recent EU elections (and could hit France itself soon).”

, a professor at ���ϲ�����’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, specializes in energy and capitalism, climate politics, and resource geography. He writes: “Our political leaders continue to say we can trust the green transition to the private sector, and time and time again they prove they’re not up to the task. Tesla should be expanding employment and investment in more affordable EVs and they’re doing the opposite because they prioritize their stock price and profits over responding to climate change.”

, associate professor at ���ϲ�����’s Whitman School of Management, studies industrial and labor relations and organizational behavior. She writes: “Given the changes in the electric vehicle market and the increased viability of competitors, the strain that Tesla is feeling is not surprising. Tesla might have been an early mover in the electric vehicle market, but they are not the only mover now. Other organizations are on their tail now. Tesla is facing external threats from competitors and internal challenges such as Rohan Patel, senior global director of public policy and business development, and Andrew Baglino, senior vice president of powertrain and energy engineering, leaving the organization. Tesla will have to make some choices about how to manage these changes and support their remaining workforce. The remaining employees will be experiencing significant anxiety and concern right now regarding their futures at the organization and how their work processes will be changing. Replacing Baglino and Patel also will be challenging. If Tesla is lucky, their exits were planned, and Tesla has a leadership succession plan in place.”

Goode teamed up with staff at the�� and students across campus to explore the ways in which objects and artworks in the museum’s collection could be utilized as teaching resources. Over the past year, the transdisciplinary team has conducted countless hours of research to develop a collection of electronic museums (e-museums) called the��. The following section of questions and answers provide details and information about the curators, the extensive research that went into this effort and how teachers can utilize these resources.

Their three-year research project, , offers new insights, recommendations and data supporting the practice of “retrofitting” older buildings. The team has demonstrated how updating interior and exterior building systems for increased energy efficiency and improved air quality can achieve “” energy use—where the energy a building harnesses is equal to or greater than the energy the building consumes. Retrofitting is an integral part of energy-use and carbon footprint reductions as well as lowering demolition waste and the building sector’s overall carbon impact, says , assistant professor at the and the project’s principal investigator.

Nina Wilson

“We expect to see wide application of our findings as the state and nation move forward in their efforts to fight climate change. Given the energy and carbon impact exerted by many thousands of retrofit-ready buildings just in New York state, it is important to keep delivering physical demonstration projects and data that enable the industry to better model and predict performance outcomes of retrofit approaches,” Wilson says.

New York State has set to combat climate change, committing $6.8 billion for projects to cut on-site energy consumption by 185 trillion BTUs by 2025, reach 70% renewably sourced electricity by 2030 and achieve a zero-emission electric grid by 2040.

The Net Zero project received a from the (NYSERDA), with an additional $200,000 from ���ϲ����� as part of a commitment to its Climate Action Plan.

Two-Building Approach

Two identical residential apartment buildings built in 1972 on�� Winding Ridge Road on the University’s South Campus were used for the study. One was chosen for retrofitting and the other served as a “control” to provide near-identical, non-retrofitted building data throughout the project.

Research began in 2021 with a building assessment to diagnose conditions like poor insulation, building envelope leakage and a lack of active ventilation and cooling systems. At the same time, sensor data, digital modeling, cost criteria and performance goals drove the design process. Construction of the retrofit was completed in the summer of 2022, followed by a year of post-occupancy energy and environmental data collection. That analysis compared the retrofitted building’s energy use to the non-retrofitted building to gauge the impact of the adjustments.

More Systems, Less Energy

The retrofit plan was initially modified due to cost issues during COVID-19, but because indoor thermal comfort and improved air quality remained as priorities, high-efficiency heat pumps and heat recovery ventilation systems were installed.

So far, Wilson says, the construction modifications have exceeded expectations, producing up to 80% reduction in energy use for heating and cooling, even with the addition of fresh air and cooling systems in place of the original electric baseboard heating. Data also shows significant improvements in indoor air quality through reductions in volatile organic compounds (VOCs), chemicals commonly found in indoor environments that can have long-lasting health effects.

Using holistic and interdisciplinary approaches have been important, given the research team’s expectation that this type of work will continue for decades, Wilson says. “We pushed beyond the simple energy-use reduction goal to include occupant well-being and environmental quality considerations. That we were able to do that and still meet the energy target was an outcome that provided valuable lessons.”

Interdisciplinary, Academic-Industrial Alliance

Faculty, staff and students from three University schools and colleges, the and the Office of Campus Planning, Design and Construction, plus industry experts and community business partners, participated in the project.

Bing Dong

, associate professor at the and a co-principal investigator, designed and managed building data-collection systems to measure indoor air quality, energy efficiency of the spaces and various ways occupant behavior (such as opening windows) affected energy use and indoor comfort levels. He used behavior models, building energy simulation and machine learning approaches in taking those measurements.

Bess Krietemeyer

associate professor and project co-principal investigator, led the design of an interactive, 3D exhibit showing how the ���ϲ����� community would benefit from the energy savings and improved environmental quality, health and well-being advantages that deep-energy retrofits can provide. The exhibit demonstrates how retrofitting can improve thermal comfort for occupants while realizing cost savings on monthly energy bills and provide fresher air to breathe inside and out. Through interactive, dynamic features, the exhibit also locates residential buildings of all types—from multifamily to single-family homes—to show where and how retrofits can support the health and vibrancy of all ���ϲ����� neighborhoods.

Jason Dedrick

faculty members and , also co-principal��investigators, created a website that broadcasts live project data and summarizes research methods, plus an app that streams energy performance data directly to building occupants’ personal devices.

Jeff Hemsley

Students have been involved in hands-on learning opportunities during all project phases. They have evaluated data, created modeling, analyzed innovative technologies and materials, reviewed life cycle analysis tools that measure carbon impact, assessed energy-saving technologies and documented all aspects of the work.

Website, MOST Exhibit

The website illustrates all phases of the project’s three-year path, from the start of building identification in 2021 through data collection, design origination and development and construction phases.

Bess Krietemeyer, center, project co-principal investigator, discusses aspects of the 3-D exhibit she developed showing how retrofitted buildings throughout ���ϲ����� could provide energy benefits. (Photo by Shengxuan Hector Yu.)

Through the interactive exhibit designed by Krietemeyer and Wilson, visitors can explore the impacts of deep-energy retrofits across residential communities in the ���ϲ����� area. The exhibit was developed in collaboration with interactive artists and students in the School of Architecture.

The display uses 3D depth-sensing technologies, tracking and gesture-directed software and projection mapping onto a 3D-printed model of the to display the environmental, health and economic benefits that retrofits offer. It will be on display at the in ���ϲ����� through the end of January.

, professor of geography and the environment at ���ϲ�����’s Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs, shared his thoughts below. If you’d like to schedule an interview with Professor Huber, please contact Vanessa Marquette, media relations specialist, at vrmarque@syr.edu.

He writes: “President Biden promised a ‘whole of government’ approach to the climate crisis upon taking office. But his absence at the COP 28 summit signals a dangerous lack of interest in the unfolding climate crisis. Given the United States is the world’s largest historic emitter this should be an international scandal.”

• , professor of geography and the environment at ���ϲ�����’s Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs
• , assistant professor of management at ���ϲ�����’s Whitman School of Management
• , professor of geography and the environment at ���ϲ�����’s Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs

Matthew Huber

He wrote this ahead of the strike: “The UAW potential strike action is ultimately trying to realize one of the Biden Administration’s core policy goals and political selling points: you can have good, family-sustaining union jobs alongside climate action. The problem is the automakers see EV production as a way to trim labor costs and shift production to non-union plants. The UAW’s ultimate proposal is that if it takes less labor to produce EVs, why not shorten working hours and maintain pay with the cost of living? This would certainly lend credence to the Biden Administration’s claim that climate action can improve working and middle class lives.”

If you’d like to schedule an interview with Professor Huber, please reach out to Vanessa Marquette, media relations specialist, at vrmarque@syr.edu.

Lynne Vincent

Professor Vincent, recently spoke with and about the auto industry strikes.

Professor Vincent, who specializes in industrial and labor relations, wrote this ahead of the strike: “What I appreciate about their issues is the clear communication of their values and interests. Their concerns are represented well in the range of issues, and, as an outsider, it appears that they are open to achieving their goals in different ways. Underlying their requests is the need for job security, financial security, and work/life balance. Employees working more hours does not always mean more productivity or more efficiency. Organizations should think analytically and creatively about what work arrangements best support all of the stakeholders.”

Tod Rutherford

Professor Rutherford specializes in the area of economic restructuring and labor and the automobile industry. He spoke with on Sept. 18, 2023 about the ongoing labor struggle between the UAW and automakers and remains available for interviews.��

If you’d like to schedule an interview with Professors Vincent or Rutherford, please reach out to Daryl Lovell, assistant director of media relations at dalovell@syr.edu.

Tripti Bhattacharya

Thonis Family Professor in ���ϲ�����’s�� focuses her research on understanding the sensitivity of regional rainfall to global climate change. In 2022 published , she led a team that used ancient climate data to predict how the summer monsoon may change in the North American southwest.

Bhattacharya says:

“This summer has seen a number of high impact weather events that highlight the impact of extremes on infrastructure.

“Tropical Storm Hilary represents an unprecedented event in the historical record. Few storms tend to propagate north over Baja into California, typically because ocean temperatures off the coast of southern California are relatively cool. These cool temperatures lower the amount of fuel available for tropical storms, causing them to dissipate rapidly if they do travel north. However, this year we are seeing record warmth over much of the global ocean, including the northeast Pacific. An El Nino event in the equatorial Pacific likely plays some role in this record warmth, but further work is needed to disentangle the potential role of climate change vs. other factors.

“Because this type of event is unprecedented in the historical record, it is hard to study a one-off event. But we know from climate models and theoretical predictions that rainfall is likely to increase in intensity in a warmer world. And we can study past warm climate states, when ocean temperatures off California were much warmer than during the pre-industrial interval, to understand how the statistics of rainfall and tropical storms might change in the future. As a paleoclimatologist, I use molecules in ancient rocks as well as climate models to understand these past warm climate states.”

To request interviews or get more information:

Daryl Lovell
Media Relations
M��315.380.0206
dalovell@syr.edu |
���ϲ�����

Ethan Coffel

Ethan Coffel, assistant professor of geography and the environment in the , has received a $582,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in support of his research on agriculture as a driver of climate extremes. Coffel is the principal investigator for the three-year project, titled “Quantifying Agriculture as a Driver of Regional Climate Extremes.” With co-investigator Justin Mankin from Dartmouth College, he will study how agriculture plays a role in regional climate changes and climate extremes. Specifically, he is researching the increase in crop yields, globally, and how they’ve enhanced or decreased extreme weather events.

The project builds on Coffel’s previous research on crops’ role in cooling temperatures while raising humidity. He seeks to answer how this cooling and heating dynamic impacts different regions and how agriculture and global warming are connected. “Improvements in agriculture like fertilizer use, pest control, genetic modification and general mechanization have dramatically increased crop yields, meaning more crops are growing in a given area,” Coffel says. “As plants grow, they transpire—water is pulled from the soil and evaporates into the air from their leaves. This transpiration is a major source of moisture to the atmosphere and can change the humidity and temperature.”

Carol Faulkner, associate dean for academic affairs and professor of history, says Coffel’s research will no doubt inform decisions related to climate change and will benefit his current and future students. “We share in the excitement for this latest NSF funding,” she says, “It underscores his excellent work and growing reputation in this pressing and important research.”

This is Coffel’s second NSF award. In 2021, he was awarded $360,000 for a three-year project studying agriculture’s role in climate change across the upper midwestern United States, eastern Europe, northern China, and southern Africa and Asia. “In our 2021 grant, we are quantifying the impact that agriculture has on the climate around them—especially how crop growth affects temperature. We’ve found that increases in crop growth have generally reduced temperatures in the U.S. Midwest, and that these cooler temperatures have buffered some of the negative impacts of global warming on crops,” Coffel says. “In our 2024 grant, we will build on this work, focusing specifically on how crop growth affects climate extremes like heat waves and droughts.”

Story by Sophia Moore

If you’ve been on the market for a new home, properties with a natural gas-powered stove were probably promoted as especially valuable. How Americans heat and cook in their homes is facing a major potential energy shift as more states explore natural gas and other fossil fuel bans.

Ian Shapiro

Ian M. Shapiro, an award-winning engineer and author, is the new associate director of Building Science and Community Programs with . He will serve as the leader for the new ���ϲ�����CoE Building Assessment Center, and will also begin teaching in the fall semester as professor of practice at the ��in its Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

Shapiro, who is a leading expert on building electrification, recently spoke with about the building industry’s readiness to electrify.

He answers six questions below about the future of fossil-fuel-free buildings, and is available for interview.

Q: For years, the gas-powered stove was often featured as an attractive selling point for homeowners. Break it down for us – is my gas-powered cooktop, oven or furnace making my home unhealthy?�� �� ��

A: Yes, in several different ways. Many people die each year from carbon monoxide poisoning, and many more are hospitalized, per the��.��This is not hypothetical, I have served as an expert witness for a family that was hospitalized with extreme symptoms of illness, due to a malfunctioning gas furnace.�� Many of us will remember the tennis champion Vitas Gerulaitis who was killed by carbon monoxide poisoning. There are other risks, including gas explosions, fires, and more, contributing to many more deaths, per the�� (NFPA).�� A variety of other pollutants also come from the combustion of fossil fuels, including particulates, oxides of nitrogen, and more, contributing to variety of other health problems.�� There are also burn safety risks, especially for children, seniors, and the disabled.

Q: New York state has become the first state to ban natural gas stoves and furnaces in new buildings starting in 2026. What is your take on this development?����

A: This is a great development and shows New York to be a leader in the fight for safety, protecting people from unnecessary fire/explosion/carbon-monoxide/burn accidents and deaths, and eliminating the carbon emissions that place our planet at such great risk.

Q: Can you talk about the larger environmental impact of gas-powered appliances, especially in residential buildings?������

A: The carbon emissions from these fossil fuels are a leading cause of climate change, and the existential risk it poses to all of us.����

Q: What are some of the best alternatives to gas powered stoves and furnaces?����

A: Chefs are increasingly being won over by high-efficiency electric induction cookstoves, according to the��NY Times.�� These cook extremely quickly and are very safe (cool to the touch). Standard electric stoves are another well-proven option. If a homeowner wants to keep the option of gas-cooked food, and does not care about the environment, gas grills are always an option.

Q: If I already have this sort of appliance in my home, are there steps I can take to improve the indoor air quality?

A: An exhaust fan or hood above a stove will reduce indoor pollutants but will not eliminate risk from explosion or fires.

Q: As a building scientist, what are you paying most attention to or think is not being discussed enough in the conversation about gas-powered items in our homes?��

A: The risk of accidents (fires, burns, explosions, carbon monoxide poisoning, and other fatal risks), quite aside from the existential risk to the planet.��These risks of accidents are getting very little coverage. The focus of the debate has mistakenly been cooking convenience versus the environment.��There is much more to the issue than just that.��And we need to be talking about how to get these fossil fuels out of existing buildings, not just not having them in new buildings.��Separately, the role of the fossil fuel industry in the debate is not getting enough coverage. Most of the debate on the “keep gas” side is being financed by the fossil fuel industry.��We have seen ads on the little TVs at gas stations, we have seen full page ads even in local papers, and I believe virtually all of these are traceable to the fossil fuel industry.��

To request interviews or get more information:

Daryl Lovell
Associate Director of Media Relations
Division of Communications

M��315.380.0206
dalovell@syr.edu |

���ϲ�����

Elizabeth Carter, assistant professor

, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, is a leading expert on disaster mitigation and climate risk management. She is passionate about finding solutions that will help communities become more resilient to climate change and views the climate crisis from both an environmental and societal aspect.

“I study natural disasters that happen at the intersection of where bad weather meets the water cycle,” Carter says. “Any event that results in a flood or a drought would be the impacts that we’re trying to ameliorate.”

Floods and droughts have increased in the last 10 years, according to the and a recently published study in the journal . Scientists have found that the number of flood and drought events has increased by 50% since 2010, and the intensity of these events has also increased.

Recent findings attribute the increase in floods and droughts to climate change. Rising global temperatures are causing more extreme weather events, including heavier rains and longer dry spells. These extreme weather events are having a devastating impact on people and communities around the world.

Carter, like many climate scientists, is working to help communities become more resilient to climate change by developing tools and strategies that can help them prepare for and respond to extreme weather events.

On this climate-focused “’Cuse Conversation,” Professor Carter discusses why the work around disaster prevention, mitigation and prediction is a necessary focus for the global health of our world. A transcript [PDF]��is also available.

A student completes work outside on campus.

The student survey was created with a Sustainability Management student intern, while the faculty and staff survey was created by staff in Sustainability Management. On both versions, questions seek to assess respondents’ general understanding of sustainability and environmental problems. Some questions are opinion-based while others gauge interest in becoming more involved in sustainable initiatives or programs.

Responses will help inform Sustainability Management where to focus efforts and evaluate the campus community’s sustainability related concerns. These surveys will ultimately help the University gain points toward the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS). STARS is a self-reporting assessment to measure higher education institutions’ sustainability performance. Colleges and universities can earn points toward different level ratings: Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum. ���ϲ����� is currently rated Silver with goals to reach Gold and eventually, Platinum.

There are plans to re-survey the same respondents in the future to measure if there have been any changes in responses. The more data received over time, the more helpful it will be. Surveys are sent randomly to selected students, faculty and staff via their syr.edu email address. Each survey should only take a few minutes and upon completion, respondents can submit their name for an Amazon gift card.

Keep an eye on your inbox and take the time to include your valuable feedback so the University can continue to improve and enhance its sustainability initiatives. With a heightened awareness of climate change and environmental issues, there is greater demand for action from students as well as faculty and staff.

This survey will provide vital information and help Sustainability Management prioritize certain areas. If you have any questions, email sustain@syr.edu. To stay up-to-date with Sustainability Management, follow them on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @SustainableSU.

By taking a holistic approach to leadership, sustainability leaders consider the long-term impacts of their decisions on the environment, society and the economy. They are committed to promoting sustainable practices in their organizations and communities, and they encourage others to do the same.

In partnership with , ���ϲ����� announces a three-phase . Phase I of the program is a two-part virtual session engaging participants in discussions facilitated by instructors Karin Botto, senior human resources business partner at ���ϲ����� and Hilary McManus, professor of biological and environmental sciences at Le Moyne College. Phase II is an in-person, on-site retreat hosted at ���ϲ�����’s Conference Center in Blue Mountain Lake, New York, from June 3-6, 2023. Phase III is an additional virtual session to solidify the key learnings from the program.

Throughout the Sustainability Leadership Program, participants will:

• Learn about climate change issues by connecting the dots between personal, organizational and planetary thriving.
• Deepen self-awareness, personal well-being and resilience through learning a variety of contemplative practices aimed at mitigating eco-anxiety.
• Develop and present SMART leadership goals for yourself, your community and/or your organization.
• Engage with change management practices to support your leadership goals.
• Experience a variety of peer coaching methods and professional mentoring.
• Expand network of change-makers to enhance community engagement.

Upon successful completion of phases I-III of the program, participants will earn a foundations microcredential. Additionally, participants can continue to earn an impact microcredential by completing a portfolio review.

The registration deadline for the Sustainability Leadership Program is Friday, May 5, 2023. Interested participants can .

About the Instructors

Karin Botto, senior human resources business partner at ���ϲ�����

Karin Botto has worked in higher education for more than three decades in areas such as leadership development, human resources, enrollment management, strategic planning, mission integration and faculty development. She currently serves as senior HR business partner at ���ϲ����� where she partners with senior leaders to shape, develop and deliver plans and strategy in line with the needs and priorities of the organization including organizational development, performance management, talent management, professional development, workforce planning and employee relations. She also teaches Individual and Collective Discernment in the Master of Business Administration program at Le Moyne College.

Botto holds a Master of Science in Training and Organizational Development from Saint Joseph’s University and earned a Doctorate of Education from Creighton University in Interdisciplinary Leadership. Her dissertation research focused on developing the ecological self for sustainability leadership. She was recently interviewed by Jesuit Schools Network about her research for the Ignatian Inquiry Podcast.

In 2015, Botto co-developed a leadership model published in the Journal of Jesuit Business Education (2015). She co-authored a chapter of Success After Tenure (2019) by Stylus Publishing and wrote a chapter of Women Courageous: Leading through the Labyrinth (2021) by Emerald Publishing.

Botto’s specialties include sustainability leadership, group dynamics and decision-making, leadership development, coaching and mentoring, management training, and integrating contemplative practices into one’s life and leadership. Her most important role is mother to Jack, Gwyn and Gavin.

Hilary McManus, professor of biological and environmental sciences at Le Moyne College

Hilary McManus is a professor of Biological and Environmental Sciences at Le Moyne College in ���ϲ�����. She teaches about the science of the climate crisis in the classroom and local community and aims to nurture the current and next generations of environmental stewards through hands-on experiences connecting with nature. McManus co-chairs Le Moyne’s Environmental Sustainability Steering Committee, developing a comprehensive campus-wide framework for a greener campus, and is also a certified executive leadership and career coach.

In 2018, McManus was selected as a participant in Homeward Bound, a global leadership development initiative for women in STEMM, which culminated in a three-week voyage to Antarctica with 78 other women from around the world. Currently, with over 700 women strong, the network continues to grow as an international collaboration of women scientists aiming to lead and influence decision-making as it shapes our planet. McManus is also a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps founded and led by Al Gore. She delivers presentations with interactive components that offer audience members an opportunity to brainstorm climate action items on the individual, community and policy levels.

McManus’s time away from Le Moyne is spent with her two sons, hiking, camping, gardening and sitting zazen.

“The Northeast is a fast-warming region, and our winters are warming faster than summers. In coming decades, winter—as most people understand it—will get shorter and warmer, with less snow and more rain. This poses a serious threat to winter recreation: snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, and downhill skiing. Ski resorts have adapted to warming thus far by making more artificial snow. But resorts still need cold nighttime temperatures to make it, and as the region warms, the window for snowmaking will dwindle. The long-term survival of skiing and other winter recreation will depend on nations lowering their carbon emissions to avoid the more dire consequences and severe warming in the future.”

Wilson can also speak to other disasters that cause an issue with climate, such as wildfires. If you’d like to schedule an interview with him, please reach out to Vanessa Marquette, media relations specialist, at .

Tripti Bhattacharya, Thonis Family Professor and a member of the Earth and environmental sciences faculty, and Alison Patteson, assistant professor of physics, have been presented with the prestigious honor.

The fellowships recognize “extraordinary U.S. and Canadian researchers whose creativity, innovation and research accomplishments make them stand out as the next generation of leaders,” according to the . More than 1,000 researchers are nominated each year for 126 Sloan Fellowship slots. Winners receive a two-year, $75,000 fellowship to help advance their research.

’s research focuses on and how cells navigate and respond to the physical features of their environment. Through a five-year from the National Institutes of Health, Patteson and her team are currently investigating how the structural protein vimentin affects cell migration. They are also exploring the properties that control the growth of biofilms, which are slimy clusters of microorganisms, including bacteria and fungi, that can adhere to wet surfaces.

uses evidence from the geological past to understand how rainfall will change in the future as a result of global warming. The Sloan Fellowship will support her work using past instances of climate change as natural experiments to explore the fundamental dynamics that shape the response of rainfall to climate change. Using isotopic analyses of plant biomarkers and climate model experiments, her research team seeks to understand how ocean warming patterns are likely to shape rainfall changes in the future.

“I congratulate Professors Patteson and Bhattacharya on being named Sloan Fellows,” says Arts and Sciences Interim Dean Lois Agnew. “In the five years since they joined the College of Arts and Sciences, they have done incredible work in advancing our understanding of the fields of cellular behavior and paleoclimate dynamics. This distinction is a rightful recognition of their innovation and vision in research and teaching.”

Tripti Bhattacharya uses a gas chromatograph, equipment that quantifies concentrations of leaf waxes in ancient sediments.

Rainfall Studies

The Sloan Fellowship comes at a crucial time for her research team, says Bhattacharya. “We are currently working in settings as diverse as western North America, southern Africa and the tropical Andes, and are hopeful that the results of our studies will provide valuable insights that are directly relevant to understanding changes in extreme drought and extreme flooding in the future.”

Since joining ���ϲ����� in 2018, Bhattacharya has been awarded over $2 million in research funding. Among many distinctions, she was recognized with the University’s Meredith Teaching Recognition Award in 2021 and has been an invited presenter at the American Geophysical Union Annual meeting in 2019, 2020 and 2022. She also served as one of eight leading climate scholars at a workshop organized by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

Cell Migration, Biofilms

“From identifying and developing therapeutic treatments for cancers and infectious diseases to developing a framework to understand what promotes or hinders the growth of biofilm, this fellowship will help our group be at the forefront of these emerging fields,” says Patteson. The Sloan Fellowship will support Patteson’s research in all these areas, creating new knowledge that will lead to new societal impacts.

The fellowship comes on the heels of a 2023 Cottrell Scholar award for Patteson, which was presented by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. She also has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Rapid Response Research grant to study cellular uptake of SARS2; an NSF EAGER (Early-Concept Grant for Exploratory Research) award to examine emergent collective behavior of bacteria; and an NSF Collaborative Research grant for her work with biofilms. She has been a faculty member in the Department of Physics since 2018.

Alison Patteson prepares a petri dish as part of her study of biofilms and biophysics. (Photo by Marilyn Hesler)

Leaders of Great Promise

According to the Sloan Foundation, “the fellowships are one of the most prestigious awards available to young researchers, in part because so many past fellows have gone on to become towering figures in science.”

Past recipients include numerous Nobel prize winners and other renowned researchers and scientists. Candidates are nominated by fellow scientists. The winners are selected by independent panels of senior scholars on the basis of research accomplishments, creativity and potential to become a leader in their field. The fellowships are open to scholars in the fields of chemistry, computer science, Earth system science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience and physics.

“Professors Bhattacharya and Patteson are stars in their fields and superb leaders and mentors to their students. Their work in climate science and biophysics is highly regarded and well-recognized,” says University Vice President for Research . “These Sloan fellowships confirm the impact that their research has on the world and shows outstanding promise for future careers. The University and its students are very fortunate that ���ϲ����� is their research and teaching home.”

No researcher is an island.

While scientists and academics certainly find themselves toiling alone in laboratories and behind computers at times, it is collaboration—consulting, borrowing from and building upon the research of others—that really drives discovery.

And in the field of low-temperature geochemistry—which studies geochemical processes that occur just at or beneath the Earth’s land surface and examines time-sensitive questions related to climate change—the process of gathering available data can be frustratingly slow.

This is due to the fact that datasets from different sub-disciplines are deposited in multiple databases and can vary significantly from each other in format. The datasets must be brought into alignment with each other so that “apples to apples” analyses can happen. What’s more, these datasets are not always published in searchable or discoverable form. And widely used search engines aren’t useful in these scenarios because of the highly specialized nature of the research.

EES Professor Tao Wen is part of an NSF-funded project to create efficient scientific search engines.

This is the problem��, assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’��, and colleagues are working to address with the Democratized Cyberinfrastructure for Open Discovery to Enable Research (DeCODER) project—a joint effort of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), the San Diego Supercomputer Center, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, ���ϲ�����, Virginia Tech, Texas A&M and the University of California, Berkeley.

The combined team of software cyberinfrastructure scientists and geoscientists began their four-year project on Oct. 1 and will endeavor to standardize and unify the descriptions of data and tools, facilitating the creation of efficient scientific search engines.

Wen was awarded a for his part in the project. He will lead the low-temperature geochemistry team, working in tandem with Professor Shuang Zhang of Texas A&M and graduate and undergraduate students from both schools.

Wen’s team studies low-temperature geochemistry – chemical processes that occur in the Earth’s surface environments. The above diagram depicts how carbon atoms ‘flow’ between various ‘reservoirs’ in the Earth system. (Courtesy: UCAR)

The initial work of the project will be expanding on the already successful����framework, enabling the geoscience community to adopt science-on-schema—an established, agreed-upon vocabulary for scientific datasets—to share data and codes.

“Ultimately, we are further developing and deploying DeCODER in three additional Earth and environmental science disciplines: ecological modeling, low-temperature geochemistry and deep-sea observation,” Wen says. “These three scientific disciplines very well cover the scientific questions related to climate change and global warming.”

After the data set and search engines are in place, Wen’s team will move into a “test-run” phase, applying the tool to specific low-temperature geochemistry questions, and reaching out to the scientific community for feedback.

“This grant will put ���ϲ����� on the frontier of both low-temperature geochemistry and cyberinfrastructure development,” Wen predicts. “���ϲ����� students will be able to work on not only the DeCODER development in low-temperature (geochemistry) but also the subsequent application of DeCODER in low-temperature geochemistry-related scientific questions. DeCODER will facilitate and push forward the study of scientific questions in the future for earth scientists and beyond.”

Story by Laura Wallis

Charles Driscoll

, University Professor of Environmental Systems and Distinguished Professor in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, is one of the leading researchers behind the work.

Details of the research, highlighted in the paper’s abstract, are pasted below:

Scientists used long-term research to gain insights into ecosystem response to climate change. At 28 LTER sites, from the Arctic to Antarctica, changes in air temperature and moisture variability and their effects on disturbance frequency and severity, novel disturbances, altered primary production, enhanced cycling of organic and inorganic matter, and changes in populations and communities are examined.

The findings explore the impact of climate change in four main types of ecosystems:

• In forest and freshwaters, climate change is affecting species composition and ecosystem function. This is occurring through complex interactions, cascading effects and feedbacks to the climate system resulting from altered streamflow and changes in ecosystem processes such as primary production, carbon storage, water and nutrient cycling, and community dynamics.
• At drylands, warming combined with multi-decadal drought cycles have enhanced floods and wildfires, altered resource availability, plant community structure, and primary production, while severe regional droughts, wildfire and dust events exacerbated air pollution.
• In coastal regions, sea levels rise, and extreme heat and storm events are associated with trends and abrupt changes in primary production, organic matter cycling, and plant and animal communities. Coastal ecosystems display dynamic adjustments and illustrate various forms of resilience to climate change.
• At marine sites, climate modes influence and interact with atmospheric and ocean currents and anthropogenic climate change to affect primary production, organic and inorganic matter cycling, and populations and community structure.

Although some responses to climate change are shared among diverse ecosystems, most are unique, involving region-specific drivers of change, interactions among multiple climate change drivers, and interactions with other human activities.

About ���ϲ�����

���ϲ����� is a private, international research university with distinctive academics, diversely unique offerings and an undeniable spirit. Located in the geographic heart of New York State, with a global footprint and nearly 150 years of history, ���ϲ����� offers a quintessential college experience, as well as innovative online learning environments. The scope of ���ϲ����� is a testament to its strengths. At ���ϲ�����, we offer a choice of more than 200 majors and 100 minors offered through 13 schools and colleges and 18 online degree programs. We have more than 15,000 undergraduates and 7,500 graduate students, more than a quarter of a million alumni in 160 countries and a student population from all 50 U.S. states and 123 countries. For more information, please visit .

As temperatures and carbon dioxide (CO2) levels on Earth continue to increase in response to rising , researchers are looking to a mystery millions of years in the past to answer questions about what our climate may look like in the future. Their findings show how changes in the Arctic driven by climate change can have an impact as far away as the tropics.

A team of international researchers, including first author��, professor in the University of Connecticut’s Department of Geosciences, and second-author , Thonis Family Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) at ���ϲ�����, has been exploring an over 3-million-year paradox from the Pliocene Epoch to help determine the long-term effects of global warming.

Aerial view of a retreating glacier near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. According to NASA, five trillion tons of ice have melted in Greenland over approximately the past 15 years, enough to increase global sea level by nearly an inch. (Photo by Vadim Nefedoff)

The team zeroed in on the climate during the Pliocene, which was the last time Earth has seen CO2 concentrations above 400 parts per million. While researchers would usually expect higher atmospheric CO2 to result in higher global temperatures, and in turn, drier subtropical regions, this surprisingly wasn’t the case. Geologic evidence suggested that this interval featured wetter and greener conditions in today’s dry areas like the Sahel region of Africa and Northern China.

The research team wanted to know the root cause of this apparent discrepancy and determine if there are processes that can account for wetter Pliocene subtropics. The results of their study were recently published in��.

The team used proxy data, which are measurements from natural recorders of past climate variability gathered from sources like sediment, ice cores and tree rings, as well as a suite of model simulations of the Pliocene to identify the factors responsible for subtropical rainfall changes.

Tripti Bhattacharya

“Our study focused on Eurasia and North Africa, and we looked at whether the latest, state-of-the-art climate models could actually capture a pattern of hydroclimate that was consistent with available geologic evidence of wet conditions,” says Bhattacharya. To their surprise, the researchers found that current generation models perform well at simulating wet conditions on Pliocene subtropical continents, but only when interactions between ice sheets, vegetation and the atmosphere were included in models.

The team concluded that the key reason for wetter conditions over those regions was vegetation and ice sheet changes in the Pliocene, which created high latitude (Arctic) warming and a circulation pattern that allowed much more moisture to converge over the continents, intensifying the summer monsoon circulation. “The main takeaway is that including the interaction of ice, vegetation and the atmosphere is key to accurately simulating Pliocene hydroclimate,” Bhattacharya says.

These long-term adjustments of ice (the cryosphere) and the biosphere to higher greenhouse gases are key components of what climate scientists call Earth system feedbacks. Previous work has shown that these Earth system feedbacks can amplify warming in response to CO2 over long time scales, and Bhattacharya says this study demonstrates that these feedbacks also have an important impact on the hydrological cycle.

Bhattacharya notes that the results are an important indicator that what happens at high latitudes does not stay there. “There are consequences of Arctic climate change as far away as monsoon regions in the tropics and subtropics,” she says. “If we continue to warm the planet, raising greenhouse gases, over the long-term we are likely to see unanticipated changes as far away as the tropics.”

Feng explains that this work is providing a new perspective: when studying hydrological cycle responses to CO2 changes, it is important to consider long-term changes in terrestrial conditions like the shifting range of ice sheets and biomes (areas with distinct assemblies of plants and animals such as tropical forests, grasslands and boreal forests).

“Continental greening and ice sheet retreat have profound impacts on the surface temperature through lowering the surface albedo—the ability of the Earth’s surface to reflect sunlight back to space—and a profound effect on the hydrological cycle allowing for greater evaporation and altering paths of moisture transport. In the long run, there’s a much bigger change in the hydrological cycle, compared to what we are anticipating today,” says Feng.

The researchers say this is a cause for concern because changes in the hydrological cycle will mean places that are already receiving excessive amounts of summer rainfall such as Southeastern Asia, Northern India and West Africa, are going to see even more summer rainfall as continental greening increases and the ice sheets continue to recede.

“For us as a species, we need to have long-term plans, beyond the next several decades,” says Feng. “By looking back to past climates and learning what the world was like, we can better prepare for the future of our society.”

This work was funded by the��.

In the Daily Mail article, Junium discussed the extinction of the dinosaurs and climate change during that period. He said, “The initial effects of the impact were caused by rock dust, soot and wildfires, but the sulphur aerosols extended the time period over which life would have suffered from extreme cooling, reduced sunlight and acidification of the land surface and oceans. It was this extended duration of cooling that likely played a central role in the severity of the extinction.”

When reviewing the West Virginia case the court also frequently stated that the case was raising a “major question” that needed insight from Congress. “It’s a very scary move because it lends itself to ideological decision making. If you’re anti-regulatory, you’re going to imagine that the agency will be unreasonable in the future,” Driesen said.

“Climate Change and International Security: The Case of the Sahel” takes place in person on Thursday, March 24, at 5:30 p.m. in the Life Sciences Building, Room 001. The lecture also will be livestreamed. Details and Zoom registration can be found at .

Addressing the human impacts of a changing climate will be of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver; Ousseyni Kalilou, CEO and Founder of the Gum Arabic Institute of Poverty Alleviation; and of the College of Law.

This year’s lecture will make the critical connection between climate change and human and international security, says Julia M. White, an associate professor in the school’s Department of Teaching and Leadership and director of the Atrocity Studies and the Practices of Social Justice minor program.

“Syria experienced a severe drought and subsequent water crisis that spiked food prices, devastated agriculture and displaced over a million people, and although this alone was not the cause of its civil war, it was certainly an important factor driving the conflict,” explains White. “Climate change, increased migration, and struggles to control scarce resources will continue to destabilize governments and drive armed conflict and atrocities.”

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reports that temperatures in the Sahel ecoregion are rising 1.5 times higher than the global average, rainfall is decreasing, there is increased food scarcity, greater flooding, and rising sea levels in coastal regions—all pushing forced and sometimes dangerous displacement and migration, as well as armed conflict. “What is happening in the Sahel is a clarion call to work to mitigate the impacts of climate change and adapt to the current changed climate,” says White.

“During the lecture, Dr. Hendrix will address food insecurity and the risks of atrocities associated with climate change, while Professor Nevitt will focus on climate change’s legal issues and its role as a threat accelerant,” says White. “Ousseyni Kalilou will speak about the impacts of environmental degradation on the Sahel and how its inhabitants are using the environment and its natural resources as tools for peacebuilding.”

Supported by Lauri ’77 and Jeffrey Zell ’77, the annual spring lectures convene speakers from disciplines at the intersection of history, memory and international human rights. The lectures fundamentally ask how we can use the lessons of the past to inform and improve our world.

The 2022 lecture is co-sponsored by the following ���ϲ����� schools, colleges, departments, and programs: Campbell Public Affairs Institute; College of Arts and Sciences Department of African American Studies; College of Law Office of International Programs; Lender Center for Social Justice; Maxwell School programs of Citizenship and Civic Engagement, Social Sciences Ph.D., Master of Arts in International Relations, and Environment, Sustainability and Policy; Maxwell School departments of Economics, Geography and the Environment, History, and Political Science; Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs Maxwell African Scholars Union; the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration; and the School of Education.

David Driesen

���ϲ����� legal professor David Driesen, who specializes in environmental law, had this reaction to the news of the Supreme Court hearing the case:

“It’s unheard of for a court to review an abandoned rule. The Supreme Court has abandoned its role of “calling balls and strikes” in favor of asking for the pitcher who will tee up abstract issues appealing to conservative judicial ideology. And the timing of the decision, on the eve of a climate meeting in Glasgow where America’s credibility hinges, in part, on the government having adequate regulatory authority to meaningfully address the climate crisis, looks very suspicious. “

Driesen is a University Professor at the College of Law and focuses on constitutional law, environmental law, law and economics. He has written four books:����(Stanford University Press)��(Cambridge University Press), the textbook����(Aspen Kluwer with Robert Adler and Kirsten Engel) and����(MIT Press), which won the Lynton Keith Caldwell Award from the The American Political Science Association. He has also published two edited volumes,����(Cambridge University Press with Alyson Flournoy) and��(MIT Press).

Please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, director of media relations at ���ϲ�����, at ejmbuqe@syr.edu or 412-496-0551 to schedule an interview with Driesen for any upcoming coverage of this case.

David Van Slyke

Van Slyke is a leading international expert on public-private partnerships, public sector contracting, contract management, and policy implementation. He can offer insight on various aspects of the new infrastructure bill that was just passed by Congress and will be signed by President Biden soon.

“Our natural tendency is to invest in the infrastructure of yesteryear and to take a redistribution of wealth approach to spreading federal money around without investing in the highest priority areas, the existing facilities that are most at risk, and within communities that are quite dependent for transport and mobility,” said Van Slyke.

“There is too little money for automation and upgrades to systems. The bill’s language uses coded and opaque language around emissions to favor human staffing versus an infrastructure that integrates automated systems under human oversight and control.”

“Right now, there’s an opportunity to think carefully about equity and inclusion with respect to access and mobility in terms of future projects We need to look at the empirical evidence which suggests that high-speed rail is not an efficient or effective option for certain U.S. corridors with respect to emissions reductions,” said Van Slyke.

The bill has set aside $10 billion for rail lines and specifically high-speed rail, even though moving the country to a high-speed line would take much more additional investment.

“As the world faces climate change, what do��shovel-ready projects really mean? ��Right now we need project prioritization. That means using federal money to leverage state and local money and engage private participation through the use of public-private partnerships. We need to integrate projects within regions and across states in order to really improve the investments we need for tomorrow and the future,” said Van Slyke. “This means a fundamental rethinking about how to meet other goals of climate and security risks to infrastructure development and protection.”

But Van Slyke says, “Certain types of infrastructure investments require behavior change and currently lack political will.”

“Finally, we need to fairly pay for infrastructure investments. Too many projects are unfairly subsidized by the many for the few. The razor-thin passage of this bill means we need to consider a wholesale different approach to long-term public support, especially when the last federal gas tax increase was in 1993,” said Van Slyke.

The federal gas tax pays for the federal portion of highways and transit projects. However, the gas tax is the same 18.4 cents a gallon for unleaded when it was raised in 1993.�� Yet, the cost of building and maintaining roads, bridges, and transit has increased while less gas is used by more fuel-efficient cars.

To arrange an interview with Dean Van Slyke, please reach out to Ellen James Mbuqe at��ejmbuqe@syr.edu��or 412-496-0551.

Here are examples of Van Slyke’s commentary on infrastructure projects and public-private partnerships:

• ��discussing private/public partnerships
• “” Spectrum News
• “.” (commentary) U.S. News and World Report
• “��(commentary) Politico
• “” (commentary)��The Hill
• “.” Washington Post
• “” NPR
• “” (commentary) Politico
• “.” Seattle Times

In Gueorguiev’s opinion piece for the Washington Post, he discussed both China and the United States’ efforts to combat climate change and lower their emissions. He discussed his survey findings, stating, ‘While the Chinese public endorses climate action, my own surveys from the China Policy Barometer��suggest that citizens are less supportive when they are told about international pressure — or informed that the United States is taking stronger climate protection efforts. These findings suggest��international pressure, if done in public, could discourage rather than compel Chinese leaders into action.’

Sultana discusses the need to fight the climate crisis while highlighting the historical circumstances that led to this current crisis and who is most responsible. She stated, “You cannot keep having your luxury emissions, and then point fingers at the person who’s having emissions just to survive. That’s just absolutely unfair and unjust.”

In Nevitt’s commentary, he discusses new climate security reports and the current issues with the Paris Climate Accord. ‘The Paris climate agreement binds 190 nations to a process that relies heavily on voluntary reporting without a clear, legally enforceable mechanism. The agreement sets a goal of “limit[ing] the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels” and “holding the increase in global temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius.”’

Nevitt explained, “Indeed, the recent U.S.����with Australia highlights the importance of UNCLOS. As these����are built and delivered, they will serve as a counterweight to China’s��, and uphold maritime rule of law and freedom of navigation – as enshrined in the law of the sea.”

Can we expect to see more of this type of devastating weather as climate concerns grow?

is Thonis Family Professor: Paleoclimate Dynamics and assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences. Her research focuses on understanding the sensitivity of regional rainfall to global climate change. Her research was also cited in the recent landmark United Nations IPCC climate change .

Professor Bhattacharya says:

“The flooding in New York City and surrounding areas is shocking to see – and it comes on the heels of the devastation from Ida on the Gulf Coast, and massive fires in the western U.S.

“All these events are unfortunately exactly what we expect to see as a result of climate change. A warmer atmosphere that holds more moisture promotes greater extremes of droughts and flooding.”

To request interviews or get more information:

Daryl Lovell
Media Relations Manager
Division of Marketing and Communications

M��315.380.0206
dalovell@syr.edu |

The Nancy Cantor Warehouse, 350 W. Fayette St., 4^th Fl., ���ϲ�����, NY 13202
news.syr.edu |

���ϲ�����

Francesca Ortega

Francesca Ortega ’20, G’22 wants to help neighbors in her native Miami experience what their neighborhood will look like when it is under water. The city, surrounded by water and built on layers of porous limestone, is already experiencing the effects of rising sea levels due to global climate change. While Miami residents are accustomed to flooding during weather events and high tides, many—particularly in immigrant and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities—aren’t aware that entire neighborhoods may be underwater by 2050 and aren’t positioned to prepare for rising sea levels that will threaten homes and businesses.

When she was in first grade, Ortega learned about rising sea levels. In high school, she was appointed a Miami-Dade County Youth Commissioner, a position that allowed her to advocate for issues that affect her generation. She then was offered the opportunity to join Columbia University’s Learn+Do+Share lab, where she worked with high school students from across South Florida to create a documentary and accompanying ebook illustrating the reality of global climate change for their hometowns.

After finishing an undergraduate degree in television, radio and film, she’s pursuing a master’s degree in media studies at the S.I. Newhouse School of Communication. Her research examines how three-dimensional and immersive interactions can work to persuade people about the realities of climate change and what it means for them in ways that two-dimensional documentaries and educational materials can’t convey. She is investigating how an immersive experience compares to traditional two-dimensional media in promoting pro-environmental behavior.

“Growing up, I saw firsthand how many adults had no idea how rising sea levels will affect their neighborhoods,” Ortega says. “Others felt that they didn’t have a voice in policy decisions that are crucial to the future of their communities.”

Program director Bradley Gorham says that Ortega was a great fit for the media studies master’s program because she already had a strong grasp of extended reality technologies, and her research interests are a great fit for the M.I.N.D. Lab, a technology and visualization space that enables augmented reality, 3D graphics and measures human-technology interactions.

“Her research is in a cutting-edge area that is going to be a big part of the future of our profession,” Gorham says. “We were able to give her the opportunity because our media studies program is unusual in that it’s a research-focused program at the master’s level. About half of our graduates go on to earn doctorates and the other half do media research in the marketing and advertising industry.”

Ortega says her desire to use new technologies to advance social justice is a direct result of her experience and what she observed in her hometown. Her family immigrated from Nicaragua and she grew up in a community where Miami’s extreme income inequality was evident. A first-generation student, she earned her undergraduate degree at Newhouse with the support of a POSSE Leadership Scholarship. She excelled at ���ϲ�����, becoming a Remembrance Scholar and taking part in the McNair Scholars Program.

“Francesca has an incredible work ethic and perseverance,” says Gorham. “I encouraged her to apply to the master’s program because she has what it takes to be a major contributor to the field.”

Ortega hopes to be accepted to a Ph.D. program with funding. “I want to use extended reality and artificial intelligence communications technologies to benefit first-generation immigrant communities,” she says. “I’m bilingual in Spanish and English and have seen firsthand how culture and language can be a barrier to inclusive, community-based research.”

Giving communities a voice, so they aren’t at the mercy of developers, of climate gentrification or of infrastructure development that prioritizes ocean views over flood risk, is one of her top priorities.

“I have been a financially independent student for my whole college and graduate school career and hope to be able to earn my Ph.D.,” Ortega says. “It will depend on funding, but I want the opportunity to be an influencer in the academy who also understands communities at the grass roots and can involve them in research. This is how to really create change in a way that includes communities.”

Ethan Coffel, Assistant Professor

, assistant professor of geography and the environment in the Maxwell School, explores this power and climate struggle in the research paper, “.” The work published this month in the scientific journal Environmental Research Letters. Professor Coffel answered five questions about the new findings and how warming temperatures will impact every part of our power infrastructure.

Q: Can you describe your research?

A: We show that the thermal power plants that currently generate most of our electricity are already having to reduce their electricity output on hot days due to cooling limitations. On the hottest days, power plant capacity can be reduced by more than 10 percent because the air and water that are used to cool the plants is too warm. This lost generation capacity is a problem because these hot days are when electricity is most needed to run air conditioners.

As global warming makes heat waves more frequent, intense and long, the negative effects of heat on power plants will become more pronounced. With 2 degrees Celsius of global warming–the upper target agreed to in the 2015 Paris Accord–power plant outages on hot days could nearly double from today’s level.

Q: In conducting your research, in what ways or specific examples did you find climate change impacting human systems?

A: Our work demonstrates a harmful interaction between human adaptation and infrastructure vulnerability in a warming world. As hot days become more frequent, more people will want air conditioners to protect themselves from unpleasant and dangerous heat. But, these air conditioners need electricity, which further increases the greenhouse gas emissions that drive global warming! And further, more A/C will increase electricity demand at the same time as heat is reducing the output of power plants, potentially straining the electricity grid in some places.

Q: What does your research reveal or uncover about future global electricity production?

A: We find that thermal power generation will be disadvantaged in a warmer world.��By the middle of the century, we find that 100-200 additional average-sized global power plants could be required to make up for the electricity generation capacity lost due to heat. Transitioning the electricity sector to renewables–especially wind and solar–will not only reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, but will also reduce the negative impacts of global warming on our power infrastructure.

Q: So much attention is put on governments, companies, cities, etc. and their contributions to global warming. Are there smaller things individuals and families can and should focus on?

A: While individual steps are no substitute for strong national policy action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there are many things individuals can do, both large��and small. Some big steps people can take are installing solar panels on their homes, replacing gas or oil furnaces with electric heat pumps, replacing an old vehicle with an electric car, or replacing a gas stove with an electric model. These infrastructure investments can significantly reduce someone’s individual emissions (and keep those emissions low for years to come).

Smaller steps include flying just a bit less, driving a bit less or eating a bit less meat. These individual actions are important because they encourage others around you to take climate-friendly steps to reduce their emissions too.

Q: What should policymakers be doing now to prepare for warming threats and its impact to our electricity supply? What options would you suggest?

A: To meet the Paris Accord target of 1.5-2 degrees Celsius of global warming, global greenhouse gas emissions need to reach net zero by mid-century. Achieving this goal would require extremely large investments in renewable energy, electric vehicles and changes to land management. These changes are starting to happen, but not nearly fast enough.

We are very fortunate that major progress has been made to reduce the cost of wind and solar power–these zero–carbon electricity sources are now often cheaper than fossil fuels. So making the transition away from coal, oil and gas not only makes climate sense, but also economic sense. However, we are already feeling the impacts of global warming. Governments should be preparing for the large increases in electricity demand that will come with increased temperatures and A/C use, and ensuring that electricity supplies are sufficient to meet this rising power demand, even after accounting for the reduced power output of thermal power plants on hot days.

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences Thonis Family Assistant Professor Tripti Bhattacharya (left) and Professor Linda Ivany.

Tiny bubbles of ancient air trapped deep beneath the ice in Antarctica contain important information about our atmosphere. By drilling into the ice, scientists have analyzed these bubbles and determined that carbon dioxide (CO2) levels on Earth today are higher now than at any point in the last three million years. As human activity like the burning of fossil fuels increase concentrations of greenhouse gases, the sun’s heat is trapped within our atmosphere, causing it to warm. To determine how atmospheric heating will affect Earth’s future climate, scientists are retracing the planet’s past—back to a time when temperatures and levels of CO2 were even higher than they are today.

Two faculty members from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) recently contributed to the review paper “,” by lead author Jessica Tierney of the University of Arizona’s Department of Geosciences. The article, published in the leading journal Science, suggests that researchers using numerical models to predict future climate change should include simulations of geological data from the Earth’s distant past in their evaluations. Included on the international team of scientists contributing to paper were EES’ Thonis Family Assistant Professor Tripti Bhattacharya and Professor Linda Ivany.

Past carbon dioxide concentrations compared to possible future emissions scenarios. If emissions continue unabated, carbon dioxide levels by the year 2300 could meet or exceed past warm climates. (Graphic courtesy of Jessica Tierney/University of Arizona)

Climate scientists often evaluate their models with data from historical weather records that date back one or two centuries, such as sea surface temperatures, wind speeds and other parameters. The model’s algorithms are then adjusted and tuned until their predictions mesh with the observed climate records. If a computer simulation produces a historically accurate climate based on the observations made during that time, it is considered fit to predict future climate with reasonable accuracy.

“We find that many models perform very well with historic climates (climate fluctuations recorded over the last few millennia), but not so well with climates from the Earth’s more distant geological past,” Tierney says. “If your model can simulate past climates accurately, it likely will do a much better job at getting future scenarios right.”

Paleoclimate research explores a vastly broader range of climatic conditions dating back millions of years. These periods in Earth’s past span a large range of temperatures and precipitation patterns and consequently can inform climate models in ways recent historic data cannot.

Research by Bhattacharya and Ivany specifically deals with determining how temperatures and regional patterns of rainfall responded to global climate change millions of years ago.

According to Bhattacharya, current climate models predict very different trajectories of warming and rainfall change in particular regions. This is because regional climate changes often depend on complex variables, including the way clouds respond to climate change, or the way the land surface or vegetation responds to warming. By using geological data from past climate states as a guide, Bhattacharya says scientists can enhance their understanding of how regional rainfall and temperature will respond to global climate change.

“New techniques for looking at the geologic record offer additional variables to examine, or better precision on climate modeling estimates,” she says. By using sophisticated geochemistry to examine organic matter in fossil leaf wax dating back millions of years, Bhattacharya can closely pinpoint regional precipitation at that time.

Growth banding in fossil mollusk shells can reveal the mean and seasonal range of temperature in a region tens of millions of years ago.

Similarly, Ivany uses high-resolution studies of the chemistry of growth banding in fossil mollusk shells to reveal the mean and seasonal range of temperature in a region tens of millions of years ago. “Geoscientists have a number of approaches for estimating mean temperature in the distant past, but seasonality is especially difficult to constrain because of the need for weekly to monthly resolution records,” says Ivany. “Very few archives allow for that in the deep-time record.”

Amazingly, weather data teased out from fossil leaf wax and ancient mollusk shells can help determine which climate models most accurately reproduce the past, and hence are most likely to accurately capture the future.

Regional patterns in rainfall and temperature seasonality are predicted by climate models and expected to change significantly with global warming. However, different models can yield surprisingly different predictions in a warming world. Choosing a model that best reproduces the geologic data, such as those produced by Bhattacharya and Ivany, helps scientists get that much closer to understanding what to expect in our future.

While there is no debate in the climate science community about human fossil fuel consumption pushing the Earth toward a warmer state for which there is no historical precedent, different models generate varying predictions. Some forecast an increase as large as six degrees Celsius (11 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. Tierney says that while Earth’s atmosphere has experienced carbon dioxide concentrations much higher than today’s level of about 400 parts per million, there is no time in the geological record that matches the speed at which humans are contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.

The authors discuss climate changes during the Cretaceous period, about 90 million years ago, when dinosaurs still ruled the Earth. That period shows that the climate can get even warmer, a scenario that Tierney described as “even scarier,” with carbon dioxide levels up to 2,000 parts per million and the oceans as warm as a bathtub.

“The key is CO2,” Tierney says. “Whenever we see evidence of warm climate in the geologic record, CO2 is high as well.”

To ensure future climate models provide accurate scenarios as policymakers, scientists and citizens at large plan for a warmer future, the authors urge the climate community to test models on paleoclimates early on, while the models are being developed, rather than afterward.

For a full list of authors and funding information, see the paper, “.”

Note: Excerpts of this story are adapted from a press release from the University of Arizona.

The program will explore the intersection of climate change, disability, literature and faith through the topic “‘Moby Dick,’ Faith and Ecology.” Led by guest co-facilitator Ralph Savarese, a professor at Grinnell College, and graduate student co-facilitator Sarah Nahar, the event will take place from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on .

Savarese teaches American literature, disability studies, medical humanities and creative writing at Grinnell College. He is the author of “”��(Duke University Press). He has also written books of prose and poetry, and has won numerous awards for his writing, research and scholarship. Learn more about Savarese on his��.

Sarah Nahar is a nonviolent action trainer and interspiritual theologian. She is a doctoral student in the College of Arts and Sciences, and her focus is on ecological regeneration, community cultivation and spiritual activism. Previously, Nahar was a 2019 Rotary Peace Fellow and worked at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in Atlanta.

Registration for this program is required and is available directly on the . Those who would like or prefer alternative registration are invited to contact Hendricks Chapel at��chapel@syr.edu��or 315.443.2901.

All participants are welcome to bring their own meal to the “virtual table” during the conversation. Although this semester’s Interfaith Dialogue Dinner series will not permit the sharing of a traditionally provided, inclusive dinner, both virtual conversations being held during the Fall 2020 semester will allow participants to break bread in company with one another, providing secular and spiritual nourishment.

This program is free and open to the public. Live captioning, American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation and image descriptions will be provided. For requests for additional accommodations or questions, contact Hendricks Chapel at��chapel@syr.edu��or 315.443.2901.

The Fall 2020 “Common and Diverse Ground” series is co-sponsored by Hendricks Chapel, the Burton Blatt Institute’s Office of Interdisciplinary Programs and Outreach and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

is an associate professor of law and an expert in environmental and climate change law at ���ϲ�����’s College of Law. Professor Nevitt says the divide will be sharp between the two possible leaders.

Nevitt says:

“There is a sharp divide between the Biden administration and the Trump administration on climate and environmental policies. Under Trump’s current EPA Administrator, Andrew Wheeler, the administration has rolled back numerous environmental regulations. A second-term Trump administration would continue to roll back environmental regulations and fast-track major projects. Any discussion of climate change has been absent from the Trump presidency and campaign.

“In contrast, a Biden administration would likely seek to do two things on climate—one international and one domestic. Internationally, a Biden administration would most certainly re-join the Paris Climate Accord, an executive agreement that the Trump administration is in the process of withdrawing from (the Obama Administration negotiated this landmark international agreement in 2015). As a legal matter, re-joining the Paris Agreement does not require Senate advice and consent. As the world’s largest historic greenhouse gas emitter, having the U.S. integrated within the Paris Accord serves as a critical step for follow-on climate efforts.

“Domestically, the Biden Administration would certainly push to pass domestic climate legislation to better regulate greenhouse gas emissions with the goal of massively reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 (so-called ‘net zero emissions’).”

To request interviews or get more information:

Daryl Lovell
Media Relations Manager
Division of Marketing and Communications

T��315.443.1184 ����M��315.380.0206
dalovell@syr.edu |

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Charles Driscoll, University Professor and an air pollution and climate change expert at ���ϲ�����’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, says programs to promote energy efficiency in New York state are always needed.

Driscoll says:

“There are a host of environmental issues.�� The restoration of wetlands and funds for more natural land management would help deal with two of the most pressing problems in Upstate NY – harmful algal blooms and high-water levels in the Great Lakes.

“Programs to promote energy efficiency, use of renewables, a revitalization of our energy systems and public transportation would all be positive initiatives.”

To request interviews or get more information:

Daryl Lovell
Media Relations Manager
Division of Marketing and Communications

T��315.443.1184 ����M��315.380.0206
dalovell@syr.edu |

The Nancy Cantor Warehouse, 350 W. Fayette St., 2^nd Fl., ���ϲ�����, NY 13202
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is an associate professor of geography at ���ϲ�����’s Maxwell School, whose research specialties include climate politics and energy and capitalism. Prof. Huber says long-term planning and infrastructure transformation will need to be led by the public sector to truly transform the energy system.

Huber says:

“We are in the middle of a transformation of how we think about the response to climate change.

“For decades, we have assumed we could employ market-based policies that shift incentives and behaviors in ways that transform our energy system to solve the problem. Lately, however, it is becoming clear the severity of the crisis and the short timeframe in which to solve it, means we need to see it as a��public emergency��on the scale of the Great Depression or WWII (and probably worse than both of those).

“Seeing climate change as a public emergency inherently negates the assumption this can be solved by the market or the private sector. It requires massive, ambitious investments guided by the public sector to rapidly transform our energy system. Long-term planning and transformation of basic infrastructure are actually best handled by the public sector (think the interstate highway system or urban wastewater treatment infrastructure).

“The idea of allocating 25 percent of the EU budget to the climate emergency seems entirely reasonable, and perhaps too low, given the scale of the problem.”

To request interviews or get more information:

Daryl Lovell
Media Relations Manager
Division of Marketing and Communications

T��315.443.1184 ����M��315.380.0206
dalovell@syr.edu |

The Nancy Cantor Warehouse, 350 W. Fayette St., 2^nd Fl., ���ϲ�����, NY 13202
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“We’ve got pretty good climate records for Central New York. They date back well over 50 years. They’ve been pretty strong patterns of increase in temperature, particularly in the city, increase in nighttime temperatures and then increases in precipitation,” said Driscoll.

Charles Driscoll, whose research focus includes the health impacts of climate change, is University Professor of Environmental Systems at ���ϲ�����’s College of Engineering and Computer Science. With the U.S. already out of the Paris Climate Agreement, he says individual states, American citizens and market forces will have to take the effort to curb climate change into their own hands.

Driscoll says:

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on the challenges in combating climate change is an important message that was released at an appropriate time.��The pledges made by countries during the Paris Climate Accord in 2016 were a first attempt by the global community to reduce carbon dioxide emissions with the goal to limit the increase in global air temperature by 2^oC. Unfortunately, our current rate of carbon dioxide emissions and projections for future emissions suggest that unless we markedly change our path this goal will be difficult to achieve. The Trump Administration backed out of the U.S. commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions made in the Paris Agreement.

“This past August, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency backed off on Obama Administration plan for more aggressive fuel efficiency standards to decrease automobile emissions. Moreover, they propose to replace the Clean Power Plan, the Obama plan to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, with the Affordable Clean Energy plan that will do little to limit carbon releases from the electric utility sector.

“Given the lack of leadership by the U.S. government – states, citizens and market forces will need to act to control carbon dioxide emissions and limit global climate change and its associated effects.”

To request interviews or get more information:

Daryl Lovell
Media Relations Manager
Division of Marketing and Communications

T��315.443.1184 ����M��315.380.0206
dalovell@syr.edu |

820 Comstock Avenue, Suite 308, ���ϲ�����, NY 13244
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, professor of earth sciences at ���ϲ�����’s College of Arts & Sciences, researches marine paleoecology and paleoclimate. Ivany says funding to research and restore the Great Barrier Reef is critically important – but doesn’t get to the heart of the crisis.

Ivany says:

“I applaud the significant investment being made by the Australian government in an effort to combat the many challenges faced by the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem. But while funding for research and restoration is always critically important, the real issue at the heart of Great Barrier Reef troubles is climate change.

“The warmer it gets, the more severe will be the impact of natural variations like El Nino.��Heat waves are getting warmer, longer, and more frequent, causing ever-more reef coral to bleach and die. Nearly a third of the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem suffered catastrophic losses in the most recent El Nino. This problem won’t get better unless we can get warming in check.”

To request interviews or get more information:

Daryl Lovell
Media Relations Manager
Division of Communications and Marketing

T��315.443.1184 ����M��315.380.0206
dalovell@syr.edu |

820 Comstock Avenue, Suite 308, ���ϲ�����, NY 13244
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“The scientific evidence that the polar bear’s Arctic home is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet is overwhelming, supported by reports like the��National Climate Assessment, which was compiled by 13 federal agencies,” she wrote. “In some Arctic regions, scientists have documented declines in polar bear numbers and disturbing signs of physical deterioration linked to the loss of sea ice. And last year, the Obama administration called human-driven climate change��the biggest threat��to the bears’ continued existence.”

Kristina Gutchess

The interplay between surface-water salinity and climate change in Central New York is the subject of a recent paper by researchers in the College of Arts and Sciences.

, a Ph.D. candidate in Earth Sciences, is the lead author of an article in the prestigious journal (ACS Publications). Her co-authors at ���ϲ����� include Laura Lautz, the Jesse Page Heroy Professor and chair of Earth sciences, and Christa Kelleher, assistant professor of Earth sciences.

Another co-author is Gutchess’ Ph.D. supervisor, Associate Professor Zunli Lu.

Rounding out the group are Li Jin G’08, associate professor of geology at SUNY Cortland; José L. J. Ledesma, a postdoctoral researcher of aquatic sciences and assessment at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences; and Jill Crossman, assistant professor of Earth and environmental sciences at the University of Windsor (Ontario).

The paper draws on the group’s study of the impact of de-icing salt from Interstate 81 and other surrounding roads and highways on the Tioughnioga River watershed. Gutchess says their findings make her “cautiously optimistic” about the watershed’s future surface-water chloride concentrations.

“The long-term application of road salts has led to a rise in the river’s salinity level,” says Gutchess, who studies processes affecting the quality of surface water and groundwater. “While various models have been used to assess potential future impacts of continued de-icing practices, they have not incorporated different climate scenarios, which are projected to impact hydrogeology in the 21st century.”

Gutchess’ team combined various computational approaches with rigorous fieldwork and laboratory analysis to simulate surface-water chloride concentrations in the Tioughnioga—a large, deep, 34-mile tributary of the Chenango River, flowing through Cortland and Broome counties.

Central to their experiment was INCA (short for “INtegrated CAtchment”), a semi-distributed catchment-modeling platform that assesses environmental-change issues. Gutchess calibrated the model for a historical, or baseline, period (1961-90), and used the results to make projections for three 30-year intervals: 2010-39, 2040-69 and 2070-99.

Based on the model’s projections, the salinity of the Tioughnioga’s east and west branches will start decreasing in 20-30 years. “A gradual warming trend between 2040 and 2099 will lead to reductions in snowfall and associated salt applications, causing [the river’s] salinity to drop. By 2100, surface-water chloride concentrations should be below 1960s values,” Gutchess says.

This is potentially big news for a part of the country that has experienced rising surface-water chloride concentrations since the 1950s, when road salting began.

Salt, or sodium chloride, is the most commonly used de-icing chemical in the country, spread at a rate of more than 10 million tons a year.

In New York State, a typical wintertime event requires 90-450 pounds of salt per lane-mile. Vehicle traffic picks up about 10 percent of the residue; the rest enters adjacent water catchments in the form of runoff, jeopardizing terrestrial ecosystems and drinking water resources.

Gutchess’ hydrogeological study is one of only a few combining long-term climate variability and salinity management. The INCA model framework enabled her team to assess stream response under 16 different future scenarios, taking into account climate, land use and snow management.

“INCA originally was developed to assess sources of nitrogen in catchments in a single-stem main river,” Jin says. “Here, we modified the model to incorporate a new multi-branched structure, enabling us to simulate daily estimates of in-stream concentrations of chloride. We also allowed for differences in salting practices between rural and urban areas.”

According to INCA, road salt accounts for more than 87 percent of Tioughnioga’s salinity. Current de-icing practices, combined with increased urbanization, will likely add to its salinity, but only for a while, thanks in part to the changing climate.

According to Lu, the study suggests that climatic impacts are not always negative in a specific region: “It is important to understand the nuances of climate change at various time and geographic scales. Ultimately, this project will help us manage our resources more effectively, as we adapt to future changes.”

With a wink and a nod, he adds, “At the same time, we should not make blanket statements about climate change. No one is exempt from its effects, pro or con.”

Gutchess is a member of EMPOWER, a water-energy graduate-training program at ���ϲ����� that is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and directed by Lautz. Additional support for Gutchess’ research comes from the University’s new Campus as a Laboratory for Sustainability program. Upon graduation in May, she will begin postdoctoral research at Yale.

About ���ϲ�����

Founded��in 1870, ���ϲ����� is a private international research university��dedicated to advancing knowledge and fostering student success through teaching��excellence,��rigorous scholarship and interdisciplinary research. Comprising 11��academic schools and colleges, the University has a long legacy of excellence��in the liberal arts, sciences and��professional disciplines that prepares��students for the complex challenges and emerging opportunities of a rapidly��changing world. Students enjoy the resources of a 270-acre main��campus and��extended campus venues in major national metropolitan hubs and across three��continents. ���ϲ�����’s student body is among the most diverse for an��institution of its��kind across multiple dimensions, and students typically represent��all 50 states and more than 100 countries. ���ϲ����� also has a long legacy of��supporting veterans and is home to��the nationally recognized Institute for��Veterans and Military Families, the first university-based institute in the��U.S. focused on addressing the unique needs of veterans and their��families.

Emily Brown

The site not only encourages individuals to learn about climate change regulations and proposals, it facilitates interacting with them via the website ��and provides examples of comments both for and against new proposals. The comment period for the CPP repeal proposal ends on Jan. 16.

The CALS grant enabled Brown to work with three law student research assistants and four undergraduates from the to review climate change regulations and to distill proposed rules into accessible summaries on the website. These short, plain English policy analyses also are being shared via Twitter () and Facebook () in a social media campaign that aims to harness the potential of college student engagement in public policy debates surrounding climate change rule-making.

On the website, the law students and undergraduates have summarized pertinent information about critical climate change policies put forward by previous administrations and now under review by President Donald J. Trump. The CPP—developed by the Obama Administration—aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electrical power generation by 32 percent by 2030, but the current administration is proposing to repeal CPP in its entirety.

Another regulation under review is the Clean Air Act (CAA), one of the most comprehensive air quality laws in the world, which was first enacted in 1963 and which has been through several amendments. The Trump Administration proposes to return to an interpretation that limits emission-reduction measures applied to individual sources rather than whole industries. Also on the website is a summary of the 2009 EPA “Endangerment Finding,” which was a result of the��Massachusetts v. EPA��(2007) Supreme Court decision holding that greenhouse gases (GHGs) are pollutants under the CAA and that current and projected levels of six GHGs threaten the health and human welfare of current and future generations.

Brown’s project was one of five selected by the University during the latest round of CALS funding, which called for projects that address climate disruption and that offer an opportunity for communication and outreach to the campus and wider community. Funding for CALS grants comes from the ���ϲ����� Climate Action Plan. As energy efficiency efforts have been implemented on the ���ϲ����� campus in recent years, some of the savings have gone into this research fund.��The selection committee was drawn from an advisory group of faculty from all University schools and colleges.

About ���ϲ�����

Founded��in 1870, ���ϲ����� is a private international research university��dedicated to advancing knowledge and fostering student success through teaching��excellence,��rigorous scholarship and interdisciplinary research. Comprising 11��academic schools and colleges, the University has a long legacy of excellence��in the liberal arts, sciences and��professional disciplines that prepares��students for the complex challenges and emerging opportunities of a rapidly��changing world. Students enjoy the resources of a 270-acre main��campus and��extended campus venues in major national metropolitan hubs and across three��continents. ���ϲ�����’s student body is among the most diverse for an��institution of its��kind across multiple dimensions, and students typically represent��all 50 states and more than 100 countries. ���ϲ����� also has a long legacy of��supporting veterans and is home to��the nationally recognized Institute for��Veterans and Military Families, the first university-based institute in the��U.S. focused on addressing the unique needs of veterans and their��families.

“Climate change will continue to affect fire behavior,” she states. “According to an article published in PNAS, data from Western North America confirms that human-caused climate change will lead to widespread and more frequent fires.”

In an interview for Australia’s 2Ser radio station, ���ϲ����� College of Engineering Professor Charles Driscoll dove into this problem, and what we are doing that allows it to continue.

“And here’s the big lesson from Hurricane Harvey: The U.S. government’s flood zone designation, and the maps based on it, may not predict future flood risks accurately, particularly as climate change alters sea levels and weather patterns,” she wrote. She adds, “While the NFIP has protected lives and saved billions of dollars in damage since Congress enacted it close to 50 years ago, it has suffered from policy neglect and political interference. Moreover, the flood insurance mapping program is ill equipped to help us adapt to climate change.”

Charles Driscoll

The study, “Estimating Potential Productivity Co-Benefits for Crops and Trees From Reduced Ozone with U.S. Coal Power Plan Carbon Standards,” was recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres and authored by researchers from ���ϲ�����, Drexel University, Boston University and Harvard University, convened by the Science Policy Exchange. It is the first study to model the ecosystem impact of contrasting policies, one of which was similar to the Clean Power Plan.

“Our work shows the importance of considering the cobenefits of our nation’s energy policies going forward,” says Driscoll. “These benefits to people and plants are nearly immediate and occur in urban and rural communities across the U.S. We know from this and other studies that the economic value of the added benefits from power plant carbon standards are large and exceed the estimated cost of implementation.”

“In assessing the regulatory impact of the Clean Power Plan, the EPA estimated monetary benefits of reduced carbon dioxide emissions, as well as quantifying and monetizing certain public health benefits, such as reduction in premature mortality and morbidity due to particulate matter or ozone exposure,” the researchers write. “The EPA did not quantify the cobenefits to crops and trees, but treated these cobenefits qualitatively.”

According to the study, which included an option similar to the Clean Power Plan, the corresponding reduction in carbon, nitrogen and sulfur emissions from coal power plants would also mean a decrease in ground-level ozone—a known inhibitor of plant growth. And by modeling these reductions in the year 2020, the researchers found that they would provide a significant boost to the productivity of key indicator crops, such as corn, cotton, soybeans and potatoes, as well as several tree species.

“Our findings suggest that crops like corn, soybeans and cotton could benefit from substantial productivity gains under moderate carbon standards for power plants,” says Shannon Capps, an assistant professor in Drexel’s College of Engineering and a co-author of the study. “With policies similar to those in the Clean Power Plan, we’re projecting more than a 15 percent reduction in corn productivity losses due to ozone exposure, compared to business as usual, and about half of that for cotton and soybeans. Depending on market value fluctuations of these crops over the next few years, that could mean gains of tens of millions of dollars for farmers—especially in areas like the Ohio River Valley, where power plants currently contribute to ground-level ozone.”

The team used three policy scenarios that encompass a range of emissions targets and reductions measures, and they compared each policy scenario with a “business-as-usual” reference case that represents current clean air policies, as well as energy demand and market projections.

Then, using a computer model widely employed to help guide state-level decision making for compliance with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, the group generated a detailed projection of what the surface-layer ozone would look like across the country under each policy scenario through 2020.

The team looked at the consequences of lower ozone levels for five crops whose primary growing season is June through August, which is the period when ground-level ozone is known to be at its peak. They also evaluated the consequences for 11 tree species, including eastern cottonwood, black cherry, quaking aspen and several species of pine. These crops and trees have been used as standard indicators in environmental research. Based on previous research by crop and tree scientists, the team could relate their models’ ozone-exposure findings to the productivity of crop and tree species.

“The option most similar to the Clean Power Plan has the greatest estimated productivity gains for the crops and trees that we studied,” says Capps. “The improvement in crop yield and tree growth was strongly tied to the level of carbon dioxide emissions reductions and adoption of cleaner energy achieved by the policy.”

Under the business-as-usual scenario, the productivity of soybean, potatoes and cotton is reduced about 1.5 percent, with only slight impacts on corn. These levels of production only slightly improve under a policy scenario that includes only “inside the fenceline measures” such as improving the efficiency of coal-fired power plants.

A second scenario—which most closely resembles the Clean Power Plan and includes demand-side energy efficiency, substituting lower-emitting natural gas plants and zero-emitting solar and wind power into the energy mix—produces larger results. The potential corn production lost to ozone exposure in the reference scenario is reduced by 15.7 percent, soybean losses are reduced by 8.4 percent and cotton losses are diminished by 6.7 percent.

Under the third scenario, which reflects putting a price on carbon, and achieves similar emissions reductions as the second scenario, the researchers project slightly lower reductions in ozone-induced losses for corn (12.1 percent), soybeans (6.6 percent) and cotton (3.8 percent).

Productivity among tree species, as measured in biomass yield compared to the reference scenario, also suggests that the plants will benefit from ozone-reducing policies. The tree species with the greatest potential for productivity losses, black cherry and eastern cottonwood, show 7.6 and 8.4 percent reductions in the projected ozone-induced biomass reductions, respectively, under the scenario most like the Clean Power Plan.

Members of the team are also analyzing the cobenefits of power plant carbon standards for reducing regional haze and acid rain and conducting new research on the cobenefits of the final clean power plan as compared to different energy policy futures.

Results of the study are accessible at .

Extreme weather events will be more common as the effects of climate��change take hold. Our hottest days will get hotter; our coldest days will��get colder.��Winter and summer storms will be become more��intense. As these changes occur, experts are��seeking to learn the impact extreme weather��events will have on ecosystems and our lives.

Large ice storms can disrupt lives and damage infrastructure,��resulting in billions of dollars of damage. They also��literally reshape forests. Heavy ice loads break branches��and topple whole trees, resulting in reduced tree growth��in ensuing years, increased susceptibility to pests and��pathogens, changes in habitat for wildlife, and alterations in��how nutrients like carbon and nitrogen cycle in the forest.��This study will take an unprecedented look at these effects.

View a video about the research .

Jason Fridley works in the University’s Climate Change Garden.

Fridley explains that species have a couple of options to deal with stress associated with environmental change: they can pick up and move to more favorable areas, or they can stick it out and adapt to the new challenges. This ability to adapt to climate changes was the main focus of the researchers’ study

Ribwort plantain and sheep fescue, two plants common in the study site, show signs of being able to respond to induced climate challenges. “There is evidence of genetic differentiation with a long term climate treatment,” says Ravenscroft, explaining that genetic differences have built up between climate-treated versus untreated plants in the study site.

What’s more, the gene-level changes have happened remarkably fast. Because these grasses are perennial species, meaning they live and reproduce for multiple growing seasons, Fridley estimates there have only been around 10 generations of plants over the 15-year experiment. While that may sound like a lot of generations if you think back to your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent, genetic splits happen on an evolutionary timescale—think in terms of hundreds or thousands of years.

To identify how plants responded to environmental changes, the team looked for genetic differences in climate-treated versus untreated plants. Specifically, the researchers investigated random areas of the plant’s genomes to see how many of those locations differed in genetic makeup in the treated versus untreated plants.

“Do you have changes in genetic diversity with respect to treatment or do you have differentiation with respect to treatment?” says Ravenscroft, outlining the main questions of the study. “The answer in terms of these grasses is ‘yes’ and ‘yes’.”

Patterns of differentiation and the rapid genetic changes suggest that both species started with a pool of genetic variation. Standing genetic diversity offered the plant populations resilience to a rapidly changing world. This result illustrates that pre-existing genetic variation can benefit plants in light of imposed climate challenges. “It reinforces the idea that diversity supports resilience in the face of climate change,” Ravenscroft explains, but she is quick to point out that not all species may be so lucky.

The plants’ capacity to respond to challenges may point to their future persistence in the study’s ecosystem. “Eventually species are going to show up that are more drought adapted and push the system in a new direction, unless some species, like the plants used in the experiment, have drought-adapted physical traits,” Fridley explains, adding that this is a process that occurs across the globe in response to climate change.

This climate change research was conducted in the English countryside at a long-term ecological research site. More than 15 years ago, a group of British scientists set up the experiment to uncover the effects of climate change by artificially controlling temperature and water availability across many 3×3-foot plots of land. An international team has maintained the research area, located on a previous munitions storage site from World War II, since the experiment’s initiation.

Speaking to the unusually long length of the experimental site Fridley says, “there’s nothing else like it in the world.”

The original article was published in Global Change Biology and can be viewed .