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October 2012
   Cross-disciplinary climate research in service of society
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FAU brings new expertise to the FCI 

By Dr. Leonard Berry, FCI Florida Atlantic University Branch Director

 

 

This is the first newsletter of the expanded FCI which will bring the research and training strengths of six major universities (and hopefully others in time) to develop a better understanding of climate change issues in Florida and elsewhere and to address the problems and opportunities of dealing with the impacts of climate change in the State and globally.

Florida Atlantic University's focus on climate change began some six years ago with the realization that this was a current and future priority problem for South Florida. The University's decision to support this issue as an internally-funded research area linking all colleges led to our partnership with University of Florida and Florida State University in a statewide cluster grant one objective being to widen the membership of the FCI-- a goal achieved this month.
FAU brings a focus on Sea Level Rise issues bridging the natural and built environments, a partnership with USGS, SFWMD, and others on the impacts of climate change on Everglades restoration issues and a number of basic research areas. A June 2012 Sea Level Rise Summit highlighted the current and future impact of Sea Level rise on our economy and communities and triggered a new widespread attention to the issue. Our links with the Four County Compact and other local entities have resulted in broad outreach to the community.

In parallel, FAU is carrying out basic research on a range of topics including ocean acidification, carbon cycling, remotely-sensed monitoring of salinity changes and other parameters as well as work on community vulnerability, coastal adaptation, water and flood management, and needed changes in building and community design.

Florida is ground zero for climate change impact, we now have the potential to be ground zero for climate change research and adaptation.
Click here for an update on other FAU projects. 

FCI Events

 

Oct. 10, 2012 | 5:30pm | Marshall Shepherd "Multiple facets of climate change in the Southeast: A discussion of natural, greenhouse gas, and urban related changes" | UF Florida Gym Room 270.

The seminar will be streamed.     

 

Oct. 25, 2012 | 3:00pm-4:00pm | Katharine Wilkinson "Between God & Green: How Evangelicals Are Cultivating a Middle Ground on Climate Change" | UF Smathers Library 1A
The seminar will be streamed.

Nov. 4-7, 2012 | 10th International Conference on Hydroscience and Engineering | Orlando, FL  

Projects Updates         

     

* TampaBay Water's innovative use of climate science in utility operations decision-making is highlighted in the feature article of NOAA's ClimateWatch magazine: Florida's Fragile Oasis and brings out the value of the Public Water Supply Utilites-Climate Impacts Working Group, coordinated by the UF Water Institute.   Click on the videos to hear Alison Adams view of why a group like this is helpful and how the research is helping, and Vasu Misra explain the challenges, risks, and rewards of including climate forecasts in the process of making water management decisions.     

   

* A new UF study shows buyers may not understand risks in coastal purchases. A copy of the report and summary can be found here.  

Employment Opportunities

 

Upcoming Events

         

Oct. 10, 2012 | 12:15pm -12:45pm | 2012 Florida Seafood Sustainability Brown Bag Seminar Series: Hard Clams| Registration needed if this your first time attending one of the seafood webinars this year 

 

Oct. 13-20, 2012 | DISCCRS VII Interdisciplinary Climate Change Research Symposium | Colorado Springs, CO     

   

Oct. 19, 2012 | Learn Green: Florida's Green Schools Conference | Palm Beach, FL    

 

Oct. 21-24, 2012 | ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meetings | Cincinnati, OH  

 

Oct. 22-25, 2012 | NOAA's 37th Climate Diagnostics and Prediction Workshop | Fort Collins, CO   

    

Dec. 3-7, 2012 | American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting | San Francisco, CA 

 

Dec. 9-12, 2012 | Society for Risk Analysis Annual Meeting | San Francisco, CA     

 

Dec. 11-13, 2012 | Renewable Energy World Conference & Expo - North America | Orlando, FL   

 

More events....   

Sources of Information

     

* Climate change webinar:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in collaboration with the American Public Health Association, hosted a six-part Webinar Series - Climate Change: Mastering the Public Health Role - intended to be a useful tool to help prepare the public health community for the challenges of climate change

 

* Report:

National Research Council, 2012: A National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling 


* New website provides "101" on climate modeling:
The board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate has released Climate Modeling 101, a website designed to help the public learn more about the basics of climate modeling.

Publications    

FCI affiliates are in bold. 

 

Barr, J. G., Engel, V., Smith, T. J., & Fuentes, J. D. (2012). Hurricane disturbance and recovery of energy balance, CO2 fluxes and canopy structure in a mangrove forest of the Florida Everglades. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 153, 54-66.

  

Cammarano, D., Payero, J., Basso, B., Grace, P., & Stefanova L. (2012). Adapting wheat sowing dates to projected climate change in Australia sub-tropic: analysis of crop water use and yield. Crop and Pasture Science, (accepted).

 

Duckworth, A., West, L., Vansach, T., Stubler, A., & Hardt, M. (2012). Effects of water temperature and pH on growth and metabolite biosynthesis of coral reef sponges. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser., 462, 67-77.     

 

Florida Atlantic University, 2012: Summary Update/Information Packet    

 

Hernandez, J. L., S. Hwang, F. Escobedo, A. H. Davis, and J. W. Jones. 2012. Land Use Change in Central Florida and Sensitivity Analysis Based on Agriculture to Urban Extreme Conversion. Weather, Climate, and Society 4:200-211

   

Huang, B., Hu, Z. - Z., Schneider, E. K., Wu, Z., Xue, Y., & Klinger, B. (2012). Influences of tropical-extratropical interaction on the multidecadal AMOC variability in the NCEP climate forecast system. Clim Dyn, 39(3-4), 531-555.  

  

Markell, D., & Meazell, E. (2012). A Primer on Common Law & Related Causes of Action in Climate Change Litigation. In Global Climate Change and U.S. Law.    

  

Park, J., Seager, T. P., Rao, P. S. C., Convertino, M., & Linkov, I. (2012). Integrating Risk and Resilience Approaches to Catastrophe Management in Engineering Systems: Perspective. Risk Analysis, (early online release).    

Saha, A. K., Moses, C. S., Price, R. M., Engel, V., Smith, T. J., & Anderson, G. (2012). A Hydrological Budget (2002-2008) for a Large Subtropical Wetland Ecosystem Indicates Marine Groundwater Discharge Accompanies Diminished Freshwater Flow. Estuaries and Coasts, 35(2), 459-474.  

 

Schmidt, J. A., McCleery, R., Seavey, J. R., Cameron Devitt, S. E., & Schmidt, P. M. (2012). Impacts of a half century of sea-level rise and development on an endangered mammal. Glob Change Biol, (early online release).    

 

Solis, D., & Letson, D. (2012). Assessing the Value of Climate Information and Forecasts for the Agricultural Sector in the Southeastern United States: Multi-Output Stochastic Frontier Approach. Regional Environmental Change, (accepted).

 

Stefanova, L., Sura, P., & Griffin, M. (2012). Quantifying the non-Gaussianity of observed wintertime daily minimum and maximum temperatures in the Southeast United States. J. Climate, (accepted).

 

Wood, M. D., Bostrom, A., Convertino, M., Kovacs, D., & Linkov L. (2012). A moment of mental model clarity: response to Jones et al. 2011. Ecology and Society,(accepted).

 

Zhang, K., Liu, H., Li, Y., Xu, H., Shen, J., Rhome, J., & Smith, T.J. (2012). The role of mangroves in attenuating storm surges. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 102-103, 11-23.    

   

 

More Publications... 


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