NE CASC News

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!

The Northeast Climate Science Center’s Strategic Science Agenda defines the context for climate impacts in the NE CSC region, describes the anticipated role and interactions of the NE CSC among its partners and stakeholders during the first five years (2013-2018) of our tenure, and establishes the seven science priorities (listed below) that the NE CSC will address through consortium and competitively funded research activities, as well as collaborations with regional partners.

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:

In the project, Developing Fish Trophic Interaction Indicators of Climate Change for the Great Lakes, Dr. Richard Kraus (USGS - Great Lakes Science Center) and his team are examining seasonal food web changes and analytical metrics that can serve as synoptic measures of the effect of climate forces on food web structure and fishery resources in the Great Lakes.

The NE CSC will be continuing our webinar series for the spring semester under the theme, "Extreme Events and Climate Change: Adapting to an Uncertain Future".  We'll be hosting