Climate Research

Cool lessons from Utqiaġvik, Alaska

Rena Malai — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 17:21:32 +0000

Cool lessons from Utqiaġvik, Alaska Rena Malai Wed, 08/23/2023 - 13:21

This summer, computer modeling and the Arctic ecosystem converged at the top of the world. Professor Elise Miller-Hooks and a team of National Science Foundation (NSF) researchers convened at the Barrow Arctic Research Center. These NSF Navigating the New Arctic researchers traveled to the remote location to attend the Permafrost and Infrastructure Symposium in Utqiaġvik, Alaska, some 320 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

The symposium brought together scientists, regional planners, village leaders, project managers, and federal and local policy makers. The team attended to learn and grow their research–and to share. Miller-Hooks described what she learned as massive.

“It was nothing like I expected. When I entered Utqiaġvik, I found myself in a tough environment with mostly dirt roads. The other researchers told me these roadways are built on permafrost,” she said. “Later on, they convinced me to lower myself into a cave underground to see 16,000-year-old permafrost.”

Elise Miller-Hooks analyzes permafrost in Utqiaġvik.

The people of Utqiaġvik live on the permafrost and they still fish and whale in the surrounding seas, as they have for centuries. Whaling is not a hobby, or for profit. They whale to survive. It is their food supply and more.

“It [whaling] is their culture. It is what they raise their kids to do. It's what their songs and dances are about. It's truly everything. They say that if you take that away from them, it's like killing them,” said Miller-Hooks. All of this could be threatened by more shipping traffic as the polar ice caps shrink and Arctic sea ice diminishes.

Most of the researchers at the symposium were there to study the permafrost which is thawing because of human-made climate change; when the permafrost thaws, the land under the structures that have been built on it sinks. Miller-Hooks described the situation as the base falling out from under them and said that they need to find solutions now, not tomorrow. With very limited access to materials, finding a solution is especially challenging.

Miller-Hooks’ research focuses on forecasting and modeling shipping and maritime transportation changes that will come as the permafrost thaws and the sea-level rises. She said she doesn’t get out in the field much in her line of work but found the experience life changing.

“What I learned from the community and tribal leaders was invaluable. I learned that they really want co-production. They want to be heard. They want us to understand what they know and bring it into our research. We must not ignore their experience and try to push research findings on them, but instead, learn together and jointly develop solutions.”

This idea crystalized after Miller-Hooks presented her research at the symposium. After her presentation, one of the village leaders expressed concern and skepticism about the math.

He said he thought she was looking at the wrong thing. He told her that more shipping in the Arctic would harm the whales and could harm whaling.

Miller-Hooks explained that her research creates the tools that can help forecast changing Arctic traffic, and how these projections and analyses can be used to help make cases to mitigate the impact on the whales and their breeding, other marine life, whale hunting, and indigenous people’s subsistence way of life.

“Now I have a much better understanding of the power of the results that we will get, and how they can be used from many new angles that I hadn't thought of,” she said. Miller-Hooks hopes to collaborate with the communities and work with them to uncover how increased maritime traffic and related industrial activity in the region will impact their way of life, and how the U.S. and other Arctic nations can prepare to do the right thing.

Research Sponsors: Funding for the symposium came from the NSF Arctic Sciences program, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Center for Safety Equity in Transportation, and UIC Science, a subsidiary of the Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation providing logistical support to scientists and researchers working in Alaska's Arctic.

In This Story

Elise Miller-Hooks

Delve deeper into Mason's research in the Arctic

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Mason hosts workshop for researchers addressing global warming from aircraft clouds

Tama Moni — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 20:13:49 +0000

Mason hosts workshop for researchers addressing global warming from aircraft clouds Tama Moni Fri, 09/23/2022 - 16:13

In This Story

Lance Sherry

John Shortle

More than 220 researchers from three continents participated in a virtual workshop hosted by ��AV and NASA Langley Research Center on Wednesday September 7, 2022.

The workshop was the first time that airlines, air traffic controllers, climate scientists, aircraft and jet engine engineers, and policymakers gathered to share the science and understand the practical operational constraints for contrail mitigation. ��AV was the natural host of the meeting given its previous work and its reputation in the field.

The workshop aimed to foster information exchange and discuss opportunities to address the global warming from clouds generated by aircraft. Lance Sherry, associate professor of system engineering, leads an inter-disciplinary team of researchers and students at George Mason who conduct pioneering research in this area.

“Contrails are the thin white clouds you see trailing behind aircraft,” explains Mason PhD student Amy Tal Rose. “Water and soot emitted from jet engines form ice crystals at high altitudes that lead to the formation of high clouds. These ice-clouds are like a blanket that traps ‘thermal radiation’ emitted by the Earth and leads to global heating.”

“The thing that surprised me most about the global heating effect of contrails,” says Brian Romero Lopez a system engineering student working on the research team, “is that contrails account for two percent of the total human made global heating. Green-house gases account for 98 percent of global warming, and contrails make up the remaining two percent. No one talks about this.”

“Mitigating the effects of contrails is considered a Wicked Problem,” explained co-host of the workshop, Chief Technologist for Future Airspace Operations at NASA Andy Lacher. “There are multiple stakeholders with complex interactions that require delicate tradeoffs. The science and practical operational constraints must be fully understood before any mitigation steps can be taken.”

“The time to act is now!” said Ulrich Schumann, from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the German Aerospace Center at the workshop. A sentiment echoed by other participants in attendance.

“Wicked Problems are the bailiwick of System Engineering,” adds System Engineering Department Chair John Shortle. “The complex climate related opportunities cannot be solved by politicians or economists alone. It requires system engineers to fully understand the science and the needs of all the stakeholders involved. Sherry and the team have been applying the latest sophisticated System Engineering methods and techniques to these climate opportunities.”

Sherry and Lacher are optimistic that the workshop will be the first of a series of workshops that will lead to a roadmap of evidence-based activities to take this opportunity to contribute to reduce global warming.

“The time to act is now!” said Ulrich Schumann, from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the German Aerospace Center at the workshop. A sentiment echoed by others who attended the conference.

For more information on System Engineering and climate adaptation research contact John Shortle, chair of the Systems Engineering & Operations Research Department.

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Two Mason climate experts share a conversation about the fight against global climate change and the loss of biodiversity

John Hollis — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 19:38:35 +0000

Two Mason climate experts share a conversation about the fight against global climate change and the loss of biodiversity John Hollis Thu, 09/23/2021 - 15:38

Distinguished University Professor Ed Maibach. Photo by Shelby Burgess/Strategic Communications

��AV’s Ed Maibach likened the intricate challenges facing the planet in stemming global climate change and the loss of biodiversity to a Gordian knot, but both he and fellow Distinguished University Professor Tom Lovejoy remain optimistic that both goals can be accomplished.

The two global icons in their field spoke frankly during Wednesday’s Mason Science Series appearance at the Country Club of Fairfax called “Sustaining the Planet for Our Children and Grandchildren.” Their unscripted 40-minute conversation included their views of what must happen globally if the world is to prevent a “cascading series of public health catastrophes that will be a pox on humanity for generations to come.”

The two Mason scientists, who spoke before roughly 40 people before opening the floor up for questions, were lauded by Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm, the event’s moderator and the dean of the College of Science, as “two of the highest caliber individuals any university could have.”

Both Maibach and Lovejoy acknowledged the inherent challenges ahead, but said they remain confident that humanity would meet those challenges when presented with indisputable facts.

“Layer on top of layer on top of layer of human decisions went into creating those problems,” said Maibach, a communication scientist who is a University Professor of Communication and the director of Mason’s Center for Climate Change Communication within the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. “We’re looking for opportunities to slice through the Gordian knot, or at least start to unwind it. It’s hard because the problems have so many levels, and they’re so intertwined, but that’s the work that must be done to start to create a different path.”

Distinguished University Professor Tom Lovejoy. Photo by Shelby Burgess/Strategic Communications

Lovejoy, a renowned conservation biologist who is a University Professor of Environmental Science and Policy within the College of Science and the science director of Mason’s Institute for a Sustainable Earth, is often referred to as the “godfather of biodiversity” and first coined the phrase biological diversity in 1980.

He said it was imperative that everybody do what they can in moving forward and not obsess over the past.

“When you look at the mix at what we’ve done to the planet, you could spend a lot of time getting really down and really gloomy,” said Lovejoy, who received science’s top honor earlier this year when he was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences. “There’s no point in spending a lot of time wallowing and despairing about that. The really important thing to do is find ways to make it come out better.”

Both Maibach and Lovejoy agreed that scientists must do a better job of explaining without scientific jargon what dangers lie ahead and the roles all people can potentially play in help to avert future climate disasters.

“The reality is that all life is built on carbon,” Lovejoy said, “and when it’s destroyed, that carbon goes up into the atmosphere and raises the level of greenhouse gases. It’s really very, very simple.”

Change has historically begun one person at a time, and both scientists still believe it can happen again. But that change must start now, they added.

The College of Science hosted the event in partnership with the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

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Mason’s Ed Maibach recognized for efforts to combat climate change

John Hollis — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 18:22:23 +0000

Mason’s Ed Maibach recognized for efforts to combat climate change John Hollis Mon, 01/11/2021 - 13:22

��AV's Ed Maibach is a co-recipient of the 10th annual Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication. Photo provided.

��AV’s Edward Maibach has been a busy man as of late, and his efforts in the fight against global climate change haven’t gone unnoticed.

Maibach, a University Professor in Communication and the director of Mason’s Center for Climate Change Communication, recently received a $250,000 grant from the Kresge Foundation for the Medical Society Consortium on Climate Health to organize, empower and amplify the voices of America’s doctors to best convey how climate change is harming our health and how climate solutions will improve it. The consortium includes 30 medical society members and 55 partner health organizations.

“For the past five years, we’ve worked to mobilize the voice of America’s doctors to clearly articulate that climate change isn’t about plants, penguins, and polar bears,” Maibach said. “It’s about people, too. It’s about our health. In a very real sense, we have skin in the game of climate change—our own skin. Who better to explain that to anybody who will listen than America’s doctors?”

Mason’s Mona Sarfaty, the director of the Program on Climate and Health within the Center for Climate Change Communication, serves as the executive director for the consortium.

The grant is just the latest accolade for Maibach, who had previously been announced as a co-recipient for the 10th annual Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication. Maibach will share the honor with Yale University’s Anthony Leiserowitz when the two men are formally recognized during a virtual ceremony on Jan. 13.

The $15,000 award, which was established in honor of Stephen Henry Schneider, one of the founding fathers of climatology, is given to a natural or social scientist “who has made extraordinary scientific contributions and communicated that knowledge to a broad public in a clear and compelling fashion,” according to the press release.

The award’s jurors decided that Maibach and Leiserowitz exemplified the rare ability to simultaneously be both superb scientists and powerful communicators in the mold of Schneider.

“No one has done more to help us understand how the American people understand climate change than Tony Leiserowitz and Ed Maibach,” said juror Naomi Oreskes. “Their work has set the standard for social scientific investigations of what Americans think about climate change and why they think it.”

Maibach has focused exclusively on climate change as the world’s most pressing threat to public health and well-being since 2007. He played a critical role in the formation of the Yale/Mason Climate Change in the American Mind survey project that has consistently been featured in numerous major media outlets throughout the country for more than a decade.

“It’s a thrill in every way,” he said of the honor. “It’s particularly a thrill to be winning this award with Tony Leiserowitz, whom I’ve been working with so closely since day one of creating our center here at Mason. So the work I have done is really the work we have done and, thus, winning this award is a double thrill.”

The Stephen H. Schneider Award is presented by Climate One, a project of the Commonwealth Club of California, a nonprofit and nonpartisan public forum founded in San Francisco in 1903.

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Mason team receives NSF grant to study Arctic industrialization effects

Colleen Rich — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 09:00:00 +0000

Mason team receives NSF grant to study Arctic industrialization effects Colleen Rich Fri, 10/18/2019 - 05:00