Climate Change

Global Environmental Change: Causes, Impacts, Solutions. The Department of Earth System Science (ESS) at the University of California, Irvine, focuses on how the atmosphere, land, and oceans interact as a system, and how the Earth will change over a human lifetime. With global change projected to accelerate through the 21st century, ESS has made a commitment to study the causes and impacts of climate change and more importantly the solutions. With top experts in fields ranging from atmospheric…

Nearly 50 years ago, three chemists named Mario Molina, Sherwood Rowland and Paul Crutzen found evidence that chlorofluorocarbons, chemicals known as CFCs and released from aerosol sprays, were weakening the ozone layer that functions as the earth’s natural sunscreen protecting humans, animals and plants from harmful radiation.

Irvine, Calif., Oct. 21, 2019 – The next time a river overflows its banks, don’t just blame the rain clouds. Earth system scientists from the University of California, Irvine have identified another culprit: leafy plants.

It’s kind of like predicting whether a social media post will go viral. Only in this case, the stakes could be much higher. A team of researchers at UC Irvine says it has developed a machine learning model based on a “decision tree” algorithm that — if given information on climate data, atmospheric conditions and the types of vegetation present — can help determine the final size of a wildfire, starting from the moment of ignition.

Irvine, Calif., Oct. 9, 2019 — Researchers at the University of California, Irvine are leading a new project with three other UC campuses to study the impact of coastal flooding on disadvantaged communities in California.

A new technique can predict the final size of wildfires from the moment of ignition, researchers report.

What if Paradise residents had received evacuation orders an hour before fast-moving flames reached their town? Could more people have escaped last November’s deadliest wildfire in California history?

An interdisciplinary team of scientists at the University of California, Irvine has developed a new technique for predicting the final size of a wildfire from the moment of ignition.

MANAUS, Brazil — This year’s unusually severe fires in the Amazon have not only attracted widespread international attention, but also illuminated the effects of mounting deforestation in the region, from evaporating rains to rising carbon dioxide emissions. Yet one effect of forest loss in the Amazon has largely been ignored: how it influences the river system and the fish living in it.

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — As the world has watched with fear and fascination the fires burning in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, satellite images show a far greater number of blazes on the African continent.

Alaska has seen the lowest levels of sea ice ever this summer as record temperatures and wildfires hit the region with some areas completely ice free — an event which has never occurred so early in the year and has ramifications for the arctic climate and the Earth as a whole.

On Friday, more temperature records are falling in Europe as the historic heat wave that brought the hottest weather ever recorded in Paris, London, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany shifts northward. In a few days, the weather system responsible for the heat wave will stretch all the way across the top of the globe.