Headline News Archive
The University of Florida’s new AmeriCorps program, GatorCorps, is recruiting the first cohort of national service members!
The program will open up opportunities (20+ funded positions per year f/t or p/t) for UF students and graduates to gain experience with Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience partners in the field. GatorCorps members will extend and apply the resilience and risk reduction knowledge that has matured in UF in practical and service-oriented ways, furthering our research and education missions in front-line communities. We will be hiring student members to serve in Gainesville for 10-20 hours per week, with f/t graduate opportunities in Gainesville, Cedar Key, and Jacksonville.
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the program is full.
Are you a university-based, tenure-track researcher interested in and/or currently doing science communication? We invite you to participate in an exciting research study aimed at understanding how scientists construct identity and engage in public outreach. Your valuable insights will ultimately contribute to the development and support of scientist communicators nationwide.
Questions?
Contact Brenda Guerrero (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or Remy Dou (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
The full scope of Hurricane Idalia’s destruction is still coming into focus, but experts say one thing is clear: It could have been more like the damage wrought by Hurricane Ian had it hit anywhere else on the Florida coast. Professors Jeff Carney and Kathryn Frank spoke with CNN.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) just published an excellent piece of work, “The Climate Dictionary: Speak Climate Fluently", defining 40 frequently used climate terms in a simple way, addressing the need for accurate, easy-to-understand information about climate change.
The dictionary defines important basic terminologies such as the distinction between weather and climate:
𝑾𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 “…refers to atmospheric conditions at a particular time in a particular location, including temperature, humidity, precipitation, cloudiness, wind, and visibility. Weather conditions do not happen in isolation, they have a ripple effect. The weather in one region will eventually affect the weather hundreds or thousands of kilometers away.”
𝑪𝒍𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆 “…is the average of weather patterns in a specific area over a longer period of time, usually 30 or more years, that represents the overall state of the climate system.”
The dictionary goes beyond strictly climate change-related items, and also covers such terminologies like "blue economy" and "greenwashing".
Florida researchers have received $1.5 million from the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to map climate change health burdens.
Florida State University is partnering with Colorado University Boulder and Tulane University to identify climate change and health disparities along the Gulf Coast.
Record-setting warm overnight temperatures in Florida and Puerto Rico were made at least five times more likely by climate change, according to a new attribution analysis by Climate Central.
The climate-fueled heat exposed millions of people to potential heat-related health impacts as well as the economic burden of increased energy costs.
Read the full analysis here.
By Megan Mascheri (FAU Center for Environmental Studies)
A Q&A with Jeff Berardelli, chief meteorologist and climate specialist at WFLA News Channel 8 in Tampa.
Read the full discussion here.
By Mary Anna Mancuso (RepublicEn.org)
The warming planet and marine waters are bringing the topic of climate change and solutions to the forefront of conversations.
Read Mancuso's full article here.
North Carolina State University has been awarded a new cooperative agreement from the U.S. Geological Survey to continue to host the Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center (SE CASC) for the next five years. The award caps over 12 years of success as the host organization for the Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center.
Read the full news release here.
Will Charouhis was inspired to create a youth-led group to combat climate change by flooding in Miami from Hurricane Irma in 2017. At just 13 years old, Charouhis founded the nonprofit We Are Forces of Nature. Now 17, his continuing work on climate issues includes a project aimed at helping 1 million mangroves thrive.
Will Charouhis leads the project “A Million Mangroves: Halting Climate Change One Root at a Time”. Invading Sea readers might know Charouhis from the opinion pieces that he’s written for this website, including a piece on a speech by Jane Goodall in Miami. He serves on the Jane Goodall Institute’s USA Roots & Shoots National Youth Leadership Council.
He leads the project “A Million Mangroves: Halting Climate Change One Root at a Time” for the organization. The project is intended to regenerate mangrove forests that absorb greenhouse gas emissions, protect against coastal erosion and provide habitat for marine life.
At the beginning of the pandemic lockdown in 2020, Charouhis purchased a used kayak and started cleaning up mangroves near his home. When restrictions loosened, he began conducting monthly cleanups with his friends, cleaning up six miles of mangroves stretching down to the Florida Keys.
He also started planting mangroves, experimenting with ways to help ensure the plants survive. Young people around Miami have joined Forces of Nature in the planting effort, including a large planting on Virginia Key.
New research, published in Nature Climate Change, shows more detailed role of salt marshes, fjords
Coastal ecosystems globally lock away more carbon dioxide than they release, but emissions of two other greenhouse gases – methane and nitrous oxide – counteract that to a degree, according to international researchers led by Australia’s Southern Cross University that include a University of Florida biogeochemist.
The new findings of the coastal greenhouse gas balance in 10 regions globally are outlined in the paper published in Nature Climate Change.
From tropical lagoons to polar fjords, from coastal mangrove forests to underwater seagrass communities, many coastlines around the world show high diversity in greenhouse gas sinks and emissions.
Read the full article featured in UF Liberal Arts and Sciences NEWS
The Envision Resilience Challenge kicks off third year with UF architecture team again participating
The 2023 Envision Resilience New Bedford and Fairhaven Challenge participating universities are the Rhode Island School of Design, Northeastern University, the University of Florida, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and the University of Virginia. The Envision Resilience Challenge, a semester-long design studio and community engagement initiative connects interdisciplinary teams from leading universities with coastal communities to imagine resilient pathways in the face of climate change through adaptive design. Since its inception three years ago, the program has worked with more than 200 students from nine universities to serve the six coastal communities of Nantucket, Wickford, Warren, Providence, Aquidneck Island and Barrington. Carolyn Cox of the FCI helps with the academic coordination of this initiative to give UF students the opportunity to work across universities, disciplines, and geographies.
Once the whaling capital of the world and now home to the highest-earning fishing port in the country, New Bedford and Fairhaven have long been defined by their connection to the water. Like coastal communities around the world, these seaport towns are facing rising sea levels, increasingly hotter temperatures and more frequent and intensifying storms. Envision Resilience students this year will once again be tasked with identifying threats, researching possible solutions and proposing innovative ways of living under future conditions that address issues of environment, housing, transportation, equity, local industry, ecology and resilience. A cohort of community advisors will serve as liaisons between the student teams and the communities so that outcomes reflect the values, cultures and needs of the people.
“The 2022 Envision Resilience Narragansett Bay Challenge opened up my thinking to what's possible,” said climate consultant Curt Spalding, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator under the Obama Administration and the former executive director of Save the Bay. “It raised the bar for developing a longer-term effort for planning across Rhode Island communities. There is no doubt of the impact this program will have on the New Bedford and Fairhaven communities.”
Each year, final designs of the Envision Resilience Challenge are presented to the community through a number of local events and a multi-month exhibition. To date, these designs have reimagined coastal edges and urban systems through nature-based solutions in vulnerable areas and regenerative systems in a post-carbon economy and explored new ways of living that embrace healthy, sustainable and equitable systems. From floating wharves and raised streetscapes to living, integrated shorelines and net-zero buildings that use hemp lime construction, the student work has inspired conversations on how local residents can work together to consider adaptive waterfronts and neighborhoods that benefit people, ecosystems, recreation and resilience.
Click here to see designs from previous challenges in Nantucket and Narragansett Bay.
Please join us in congratulating our 6 new FCI Student Climate Fellows!
Each submitted outstanding original ideas for exploring climate-related research projects AND plans to communicate their findings. This program will not only help prepare our next generation of climate leaders, but it will also help inform communities in Florida about these urgent issues.
Check out these new fellows and stay tuned for more FCI opportunities!
This interdisciplinary studio, led by the University of Florida, proposes a series of “suburban retrofits” to envision greater resilience, equity, and sustainability in Southwest Florida, which was recently devastated by Hurricane Ian. Multi-disciplinary teams focus on the city of Cape Coral, a poster child for Florida’s rampant post World War II suburban development, to explore design interventions systems at the scale of city and neighborhood.
Through a series of architectural designs, landscape infrastructures, planning/policy interventions, as well as multimedia tools to reimagine a transformed “civic core,” student teams visualize different possible futures for the study area. Design interventions culminate in the creation of an interactive “digital twin” using the Unreal Engine platform.
Funded by the National Academies of science (NAS) Gulf Research Program (GRP), the GulfSouth “super-studio” combines architecture, landscape architecture, urban and regional planning, as well as journalism and construction management students to explore the critical challenges facing the Gulf of Mexico’s coastline and communities. UF was one of five universities awarded funding for the creation of interdisciplinary architectural studio design courses that engage with the unique challenges and opportunities of the Gulf of Mexico region.
On Tuesday, April 25, professionals and academics from across the Gulf South joined students to discuss and evaluate the design studio proposals. The audience asked questions and provided ideas and considerations for future iterations of the students' designs, and students explained their thought and creation processes. Students also shared their experience and outputs working with the UnReal Engine platform to demonstrate how their projects would look and feel using the digital medium. Overall, the class accomplished its main goal: people came together across fields to imagine a more resilient, more innovative future for Cape Coral.
The Coastal Flood Resilience Project recently provided Congress with a letter advocating increased funding for the National Science Foundation to expand research of glacier and ice sheet loss as needed to improve projections of sea level rise and support communities developing coastal flood resilience plans.
There are multiple, feasible and effective options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to human-caused climate change, and they are available now, said scientists in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released March 20.
The IPCC's latest synthesis report is over 8000 pages long. World Resources Institute did a fantastic job capturing the 10 key takeaways of this dire warning to humanity.
Main points:
1. Human-induced global warming of 1.1 degrees C has spurred changes to the Earth’s climate that are unprecedented in recent human history.
2. Climate impacts on people and ecosystems are more widespread and severe than expected, and future risks will escalate rapidly with every fraction of a degree of warming.
3. Adaptation measures can effectively build resilience, but more finance is needed to scale solutions.
4. Some climate impacts are already so severe they cannot be adapted to, leading to losses and damages.
5. Global GHG emissions peak before 2025 in 1.5 degrees C-aligned pathways.
6. The world must rapidly shift away from burning fossil fuels — the number one cause of the climate crisis.
7. We also need urgent, systemwide transformations to secure a net-zero, climate-resilient future.
8. Carbon removal is now essential to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C.
9. Climate finance for both mitigation and adaptation must increase dramatically this decade.
10. Climate change — as well as our collective efforts to adapt to and mitigate it — will exacerbate inequity should we fail to ensure a just transition.
More information available at https://www.ipcc.ch/2023/03/20/press-release-ar6-synthesis-report/
Read the full AR6 Synthesis Report
March 17, 2023 – Gainesville, Fla. – A fully-connected Florida Wildlife Corridor could roughly double the permanent protection of many water resources critical to the state’s ecology and economy, according to a first-of-its-kind study led by the University of Florida Water Institute.
The report, commissioned by Archbold Biological Station and the Live Wildly Foundation, found that protecting the remaining 46% of the Corridor would help conserve critical aquatic and coastal ecosystems. This includes freshwater wetlands, rivers, springs and estuaries, which serve as habitat to at-risk species like storks, heron and manatees, as well as fulfill crucial ecosystem functions.
“While the Florida Wildlife Corridor was not designed specifically as a water-protection plan, our findings show that, if fully connected, the Corridor will provide many water benefits,” said Wendy Graham, director of the UF Water Institute. “We were particularly impressed by the level of protection land conservation offered wetlands and rivers. This shows the potential to develop a healthy surface water ecosystem throughout our state, and thus protect wildlife habitat, store carbon and preserve Florida’s nature.”
Read the full press release
For the first time, the UF Water Institute is issuing an open call to the water science, technology, education, policy, management and stakeholder community to assist with developing our symposium agenda!
We invite you to propose a session related to your interests & expertise:
1. Water Quality Drivers & Impacts on Public, Wildlife & Ecosystem Health
2. Water Scarcity, Allocation & Reuse
3. Building Resilience to Climate Change & Sea Level Rise
4. AI/Machine Learning, Big Data & Convergent Science for Water Systems
5. Water Governance & Environmental Justice
6. Intersecting Science, Stakeholders & Decision-Making
7. Education, Technology & Decision Tools for Improved Water Management
8. Hydro-ecologic Connections Across the Land-Sea Continuum
*Sessions do not need to be limited to these areas.
The symposium seeks to capture all emerging issues and new ideas.
The deadline to submit a proposal is Monday, July 10, 2023.
Ever notice how it rains at the airport and sometimes not at your house? Rainfall can be quite variable, especially here in Florida. Join thousands of other Citizen Scientist’s who observer and report rainfall in their backyards using a simple plastic rain gauge. CoCoRaHS, the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow network, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, is looking for everyday folks to help measure rainfall at their locations. It’s easy and fun and only takes five minutes a day. Over 25,000 folks in six different countries are helping scientist’s, researchers and those at the National Weather Service fill in the gaps on the map with their measurements. The data is used daily and can make a real difference. To become a rainfall volunteer, visit www.cocorahs.org and sign up today. We can really use your help in Northern Florida!
The Florida Climate Institute (FCI) is a multi-disciplinary network of national and international research and public organizations, scientists, and individuals concerned with achieving a better understanding of climate variability and change.