Antarctica? So Good, Let's Go Twice! 

By Zach Scheel    

Antarctica may very well be the last 'virgin' continent, yet in a cruel irony it's also one of the most affected by humanity's impact on the climate.  This past

 December, Zach Scheel (Joint MBA-MS 2013) and twenty students from the Graduate School of Business accompanied Dean Garth Saloner and  a group of business and environmental professionals as they traveled to the Ground Zero of climate change for a 360-degree exploration of the subject: how we got to our  current, precarious climate situation; what needs to be done moving forward; and how business leaders can work with governments and social sector organizations to tackle the challenges of transforming economies and energy systems around the world. The trip was organized with help through Stanford's Center for Social Innovation and Public Management Program.

Cassandra Brooks (PhD 1st) visited the annual CCAMLR meeting in Australia to witness firsthand how conservation and fishing organizations address Antarctic marine planning. She plans to study this  organization during her PhD and develop a  decision-making framework that can be applied to other Marine Protected Areas.  

Cassandra's interest in marine issues has led her to further immerse herself and is joining a research team in Antarctica. See below.   

By Cassandra Brooks 

I will be joining a team of scientists (including Rob Dunbar - Environmental Earth System Science) for a research cruise on the Nathaniel B. Palmer, one of the National Science Foundation's icebreakers, in the Ross Sea during February and March of 2013. We'll be studying the region's annual phytoplankton bloom, a biological event so immense that it can be seen from space (now that's scaling up!). The Ross Sea is the most productive stretch of the Southern Ocean, and the richness depends on phytoplankton. The Ross Sea's plankton bloom is well documented in the height of summer when weather conditions are favorable, but no one knows what happens to all the organic carbon - the very source of life - as the continent slips towards the long night. We will be the first to trace the path of this massive flux of carbon through the water column as summer turns to fall.

The E-IPER Hawai'i Connection  

This past Autumn Quarter, through the Stanford Earth Systems Wrigley Field Program in Hawaiʻi, two E-IPER PhD students, Noa Lincoln (PhD 5th) and Dan Reineman (PhD 3rd), spent the fall quarter teaching 16 Stanford undergraduates about Hawaiʻi, Science, and Life.

-words & pictures by Dan Reineman-

The class hikes over recent lava fields on their way to view the active flows from the Puʻu Oʻo vent on Kilauea volcano. As the lava cools, the topmost layer forms a sheen of volcanic glass that cracks and crinkles under every step. 

E-IPER Faculty Director, Peter Vitousek, lecturing on soil biogeochemistry in the forest at Volcano National Park. The typical "classroom" setting for the quarter usually involved getting very dirty, or very wet, or both.

 

E-IPER PhD Candidate, Noa Lincoln (PhD 5th), unwinds after another long day in the field. Teaching, working, and living with 16 Stanford undergraduates all day, every day, is a significant commitment-equal parts TA, life coach, and camp counselor. 

 

The class spent several weeks studying, among other things, the history and science of agriculture. These hills are home to Parker Ranch, one of the largest private cattle ranches in the United States. They also are the site of a traditional Hawaiian dry-land agricultural system only recently rediscovered, and not yet fully understood.

 

Sunset over Volcano National Park. The Kilauea Iki crater, hidden in the foreground, formed during a series of spectacular eruptions in the late 1950s; the summit and sloping flanks of Mauna Loa are in the distance-still active and more than 13,600 feet in elevation.

 

Aiga Stokenberga (PhD 2nd) and L. Schipper. (2012). "Trends in Transport Activity, Energy Use, and Carbon Footprint in Mexico City, Mexico," Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2287, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2012, pp. 105-112.

Justin Mankin (PhD 3rd) and Nicola Ulabarri (PhD 3rd) received a fellowship from the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation (SCICN)  

Rachael Garrett (PhD 5th) and Justin Mankin PhD 3rd) were selected as Rising Environmental Leaders Program (RELP) participants   

Justin Mankin was interviewed by China Radio International along with Jean-Luc Lemahieu, a senior UN official