News From and About Earth System Science

In addition to frequent updates on facebook and twitter, ESS faculty, staff, grad students and alumni are often the subject of more in-depth stories.

  • Rignot, Eric

    UCI professor awarded $2.2 million for continued research
    Dr. Eric Rignot will expand his aerial glacier research mapping with funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

    UCI Earth System Science department professor Eric Rignot has been awarded $2.2 million by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, which helps advance conservation and scientific research worldwide, to expand his aerial glacier mapping to the Patagonian Ice Fields of Chile and the frozen fjords of West Greenland.

    Nov 29, 2011
  • Ice floes in Baffin Bay

    Global warming? Yes, but hold the extremes

    Rising global temperatures in the decades ahead might be unlikely to reach the most extreme forecasts seen in previous estimates,  including those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a new study of ice-age climate data shows.

    Nov 28, 2011
  • Extreme Weather

    Earth headed for climate extremes
    More hot days? "Virtually certain." Heat waves? "Ninety to 100 percent probability." And as the 21st century unfolds, more heavy precipitation and more intense hurricanes are "likely."

    The forecast comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a global body of scientists who make periodic pronouncements on global warming and its likely effects.

    The panel released a special report Friday on climate extremes and how to deal with them, and while some conclusions are more certain than others, the big picture is sobering: we'll be living on a far warmer world, with dangerous heat waves that were once rare becoming more frequent.

    It will perhaps become a stormier planet as well.

    Nov 18, 2011
  • Edge of a Glacier

    Chile, Greenland glacier study: $2 million
    A UC Irvine scientist will receive a $2.2 million grant to study glaciers in Chile and Greenland, potentially shedding further light on the links among vanishing glaciers, rising sea levels and a warming planet.

    A UC Irvine scientist will receive a $2.2 million grant to study glaciers in Chile and Greenland, potentially shedding further light on the links among vanishing glaciers, rising sea levels and a warming planet.

    Eric Rignot, a researcher at UC Irvine and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena who specializes in polar ice, will measure subtle changes in gravity during helicopter flights over the glaciers and ice fields of Patagonia.

    He'll also measure the ice using ground-penetrating radar.

    Nov 17, 2011
  • Rignot Research Group on Reuters

    Rignot awarded $2.2 million by Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

    UCI Earth system science professor Eric Rignot has been awarded $2.2 million by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to expand his aerial glacier mapping to the Patagonian Ice Fields of Chile and the frozen fjords of West Greenland.

    Nov 16, 2011
  • Sea Surface Temperature Used to Predict Fires

    Ocean Temperatures Can Predict Amazon Fire Season Severity

    GREENBELT, Md. -- By analyzing nearly a decade of satellite data, a team of scientists led by researchers from the University of California, Irvine and funded by NASA has created a model that can successfully predict the severity and geographic distribution of fires in the Amazon rain forest and the rest of South America months in advance.

    Nov 11, 2011
  • Amazon fire

    Amazon fire season 'linked to ocean temperature'
    Sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies can help predict the severity of Amazon fire seasons, a study has suggested.

    A team of US scientists found there was a correlation between El Nino patterns in the Pacific and fire activity in the eastern Amazon.

    Writing in the journal Science, they say they also found a link between Atlantic SST changes and fires in southern areas of South America.

    They said the data could help produce forecasts of forthcoming fire seasons.

    Nov 11, 2011
  • Paradise on fire: How forest fire in tropical Asia is changing our climate

    Sea change can forecast South American wildfires, UCI-led study finds
    Prediction method could help protect rainforests around the globe

    Tiny temperature changes on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans provide an excellent way to forecast wildfires in South American rainforests, according to UC Irvine and other researchers funded by NASA.

    “It enables us three to five months in advance to predict the severity of the fire season,” said UCI assistant project scientist Yang Chen, lead author of a paper that will be published Friday, Nov. 11, in the journal Science.

    Nov 10, 2011
  • Brazil Fire

    Soothsaying the Amazon's fires

    The last decade has been a tumultuous one for the Amazon rainforest, the green lung of the planet. On the one hand, the hand that wields the ax has been stayed somewhat - with the rates of deforestation last year at their slowest pace in 20 years. On the other, fierce 'once-a-century' droughts have gripped the lush basin not once, but twice.

    Nov 10, 2011
  • Fire Smoke

    UCI: Warmer oceans, more South American fires
    Rainforest burning in South America can be predicted months in advance using small shifts in ocean temperatures, UC Irvine scientists say in a study to be published Friday.

    Rainforest burning in South America can be predicted months in advance using small shifts in ocean temperatures, UC Irvine scientists say in a study to be published Friday.

    The findings could one day lead to similar predictions for wildfires in the western United States.

    Nov 10, 2011