NE CASC News

On April 17 and 18, 23 NE CSC Directors, Principal Investigators, staff, Postdoctoral Fellows, and Graduate Fellows came together to increase research cooperation; discuss future directions and collaborations;  brainstorm about enhancing stakeholder engagement and student development; and delineate goals for the NE CSC.

On Tuesday, April 22, 2014, Mary Ratnaswamy, Northeast Climate Science Center Federal Director, participated in a round table discussion with New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen to discuss climate change and its impacts on the state.

This all day meeting highlighting on-going stream temperature research in the Northeast is hosted by the FWS North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative, EPA Region 1 and USGS NE Climate Science Center and the USGS Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center.

NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project has awarded nearly $3 million in new cooperative agreements to four Tribal Colleges and Universities across the US to enhance learning through the use of the agency’s Earth science resources.

In his talk, the Senator will focus on Massachusetts’ status as a leader on green policies and clean energy practices, as well as plans for future climate legislation.

AMHERST, Mass. – In the largest regional study of its type to date, marine ecologist and NE CSC Science Coordinator Michelle Staudinger and colleagues offer better understanding of the feeding ecologies of two very rare sperm whale species in waters off the southeast U.S. coast, adding baseline data they say are important as climate change, fishing and pollution alters the animals’ environment and food sources.

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) is seeking two Postdoctoral Research Associates to work in the areas of in hydro-climatology, surface water hydrology, climate science, and the evaluation of climate change impacts in the Northeast Climate Science Center and/or the CEE Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. 

For millennia, Eastern Hemlock trees have held irreplaceable cultural value and created unique forest habitat across New England. Today, they are disappearing from our forests, falling by the tens of thousands as prey to an exotic insect foe. Drawing from a century of long-term studies at the Harvard Forest, the authors explore what hemlock's modern decline can tell us about the challenges facing nature and society in an era of habitat fragmentation, climate change, and shifting human priorities.

Dr. Alessandra Bottero will be starting in early March as a new postdoctoral fellow with the UMN Consortium. Dr. Bottero will be working with scientists from UMN, the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station (Brian Palik), USGS (John Bradford), and University of Maine (S. Fraver) on a project examining potential adaptation strategies for forests across the northeastern US.

On Monday March 10th, the Northeast Climate Science Center celebrated its 2nd Anniversary. NE CSC staff members and fellows mingled with University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty and students from the Geoscience, Environmental Conservation, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Biology Departments. Dean Goodwin of the College of Natural Resources and the Environment was also in attendance and spoke words of praise and future endeavors alongside Federal and University Directors Mary Ratnaswamy and Rick Palmer. Chocolate cake was enjoyed by all!

College of Menominee Nation Sustainable Development Institute will host a 3-day summit October 15th-17th 2014, focused on different levels of climate change adaptation training for Tribes. 

NE CSC Fellow, Ethan Coffel recently attended a workshop hosted by the South Central CSC on communication, policy, and outreach.  Ethan's research involves climate models and extreme weather events and human systems.  He also has a strong interest in communications and public outreach, and writes for Northwestern's Science in Society Blog.    Here's what Ethan says about his experience at the workshop: