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Joel Thornton selected as dean of the College of the Environment

University of Washington Provost Tricia R. Serio announced that Joel Thornton, a professor and chair of the College’s Department of Atmospheric and Climate Science, will serve as the next Maggie Walker Dean of the College of the Environment. Thornton has served as interim dean since last July, filling the position vacated by Maya Tolstoy. Thornton is an atmospheric chemist who studies the impacts of human activities on air quality and climate through changes to the atmosphere’s composition and chemistry.

Read more at UW News
A bare chunk of rock on the hillside adjacent to the water shows where the land slid into the fjord to generate the tsunami.
| Publications, In the News

Near miss tsunami in Alaska during tourist season last year highlights increasing environmental instability

A team of researchers published a Science paper describing the massive landslide generated tsunami in Alaska last August. ESS Professor Gerard Roe and Research Scientist Mira Berdahl made vital contributions to the study, described in more detail in the UW News release. Their analysis attributed the 481-meter wave to glacial retreat from global warming and in this region, they found that 100% of the industrial era warming was human caused.

Read more at UW News
| Publications, In the News

Seattle Fault gets 5,000 more years of sleep

Just over 1,100 years ago an earthquake on the Seattle fault rocked — and reshaped — the Puget Sound region. It lifted the sea floor and sent a powerful tsunami through the sound. Researchers have estimated that this fault, which runs east to west beneath the middle of the city, will produce a large earthquake every 5,000 years or so. However, a UW analysis, recently published in Geology, pushes that estimate back to 11,000 years. ESS Research Scientist Elizabeth Davis is lead author.

Read more on UW News April Research Highlights
| In the News

Can arid planets keep their cool?

The geologic carbon cycle has been an important tool for balancing carbon dioxide and stabilizing the climate of Earth over billions of years. The authors of today’s bite, ESS graduate student Haskelle White-Gianella and Assistant Professor Joshua Krissansen-Totton, explore why dry planets may be missing this critical climate-stabilizing thermostat.

Read more on Astrobites
| Publications, In the News

The PNW has many rivers, but no system for gauging landslide dam risk

Scientists have a new tool for estimating lesser known hazards in the Pacific Northwest: landslide dams and outburst floods. In a new study, published in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences and led by ESS Graduate Student Paul Morgan, UW researchers debut a mathematical approach to mapping landslide dam hazards based on valley width and projected slide size.

Read more on UW News April Research Highlights
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