AirUCI faculty Jane Baldwin is quoted in a September 5th Los Angeles Times article on record high temperatures and across the west. Temperatures as high as 124 degrees in some areas and more than 100 consecutive days of 100 degree heat in Phoenix have made this the hottest summer on record in several states. While California’s climate has always had year-to-year and month-to-month variability, the heat the state has experienced recently is consistent with climate change. “These are levels of heat that are extreme and are what we generally expect to see more of as the climate system warms,” Jane said, adding that more analysis is needed to determine whether this is going to be the new normal for California. Read the article
News
Here's the latest news from AirUCI — our events, our people, our science.
2024
Friday, August 30, 2024
Now Live and Going Strong... the AirUCI ZotFunder Project!
We've had many requests through the years from regular folks for opportunities to provide support for AirUCI's research, outreach, and mission. And now, that opportunity is at hand! On August 30th, 2024 we launched a new ZotFunder project that makes it easy to contribute as little or as much as you like. The funds will be directed toward specific projects, and the first one is the modernization of the AirUCI conference room. Visit our ZotFunder page at https://zotfunder.give.uci.edu/airuci
Thursday, August 29, 2024
AirUCI faculty Jun Wu and AirUCI grad students Anqi Jiao and Mengyi Li are among the co-authors on a new study that highlights the compounded effects of frequent wildfires and smoke exposure on physical and mental health, local economies, and community resilience in the eastern Coachella Valley. Their findings are among the few to contribute to the literature about how low-income, marginalized communities can respond to and protect themselves from wildfire threats. Read the article
Friday, August 23, 2024
AirUCI faculty Mike Kleinman is quoted in an August 23rd article on Undark about a new UC Riverside study of air quality at the Salton Sea. The new recommendation is that anyone visiting the lake wear an N95 mask. Something in the environment — in the water, the land, the air, or all three — appears to be making people in the region sick with a respiratory disease that presents like asthma. Mike says that the study may provide a glimpse of the future, as climate change begins to produce new and unexpected health challenges. “We are going to see novel things happening,” he said. “They may have just been the canary in the coal mine on this one.” Read the article
Thursday, August 8, 2024
The Finlayson-Pitts research group will have three undergraduate students — Katelyn Pacaud, Ellie Wingen, and Maryam Parvinian — presenting posters at the SoCal Undergraduate Research Symposium, which will be held on Thursday, August 8, 2024 from 9:30 to 2:30 in the ISEB lobby/atrium area. AirUCI team members can register to attend for free.
Monday, August 5, 2024
In an August 5th Mercury News article about people who start wildfires, a 2022 study published by AirUCI faculty Jim Randerson et al is cited which found that human-started fires, whether careless or intentional, expand more explosively than those started by lightning. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, 19 out of 20 wildfires in California are started by humans, and there is no one profile for these arsonists who range from a country singer to a college professor, even to firefighters. Read the article
Monday, July 29, 2024
In a July 29th article on SiliconValley.com, AirUCI faculty Jack Brouwer is interviewed about the massive “hydrogen hub” that California is building. “It’s the beginning of the investment that must be made if we are to meet our zero-emission policy goals,” said Jack, who helped write the state’s proposal to the U.S. Department of Energy. The hub’s 37 different projects will focus on long-haul trucking, heavy cargo shipping, power generation, and aviation and will be managed by the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems, a public-private partnership which includes the University of California. Read the article
Monday, July 29, 2024
AirUCI faculty Jane Baldwin is quoted in a CNN piece about extreme heat, how it kills, and how to improve survivability. Jane, an expert on high heat exacerbated by high humidity, notes that today’s hot summers will seem cool in the future, and the heat we are now experiencing is changing in dangerous ways as the planet warms. Extreme, humid heat is persisting at night time, depriving the body of vital time to recuperate. And we can expect more back-to-back heat waves, slamming entire regions with successive cycles of brutal heat. Read the article
Friday, July 26, 2024
AirUCI faculty Manabu Shiraiwa has won the American Geophysical Union's Ascent Award for "exceptional mid-career (academic, government, and private sector) scientists in the fields of atmospheric and climate sciences. The only criterion for the award is that the applicant demonstrates excellence in research and leadership in his or her field." (Previous winners include AirUCI faculty Annmarie Carlton and Sergey Nizkorodov. Congratulations, Manabu!
Thursday, July 18, 2024
Upon receiving approval today by the UC Board of Regents, UCI has transitioned its highly rated Program in Public Health to become the Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health. This is the first school of public health in Orange County and the fourth within the 10-campus UC system.
Several AirUCI faculty will be moving from the Program in Public Health to the new Wen School of Population & Public Health, department of Environmental and Occupational Health: Andrea de Vizcaya Ruiz, Michael Kleinman, Ulrike Luderer, and Jun Wu as well as one-time AirUCI faculty Robert Phalen. Building on the existing foundations of public health sciences, community engagement, and advancing health equity, the new school educates, conducts research, and partners with regional and national communities and organizations to address the wide range of public health problems facing the world. Read the article
