Department of Atmospheric and Climate Science

Former graduate student Aodhan Sweeney and Prof. Qiang Fu’s research paper, “Recent Warming of the Southern Hemisphere Subtropical Lower Stratosphere and Antarctic Ozone Healing,” is featured on EOS Editor’s Highlight. Less than 2% of all AGU papers are selected to be featured this way! 

As Dr. Joel Thornton takes on the role of interim dean for the College of the Environment, Dr. Becky Alexander will serve as the Department’s interim/acting chair. Welcome aboard, Dr. Alexander! 

Professor Cecilia Bitz was interviewed for a recent New York Times article about global warming. In the article, Professor Bitz said that “modeling the Earth is complex, and that there are an innumerable amount of small factors that could be taken into account. 

A new study led by Professor Ed Blanchard-Wrigglesworth, Professor Dargan Frierson, and Patricia DeRepentigny of Université Catholique de Louvain has shown that the increasing boreal fires will slow down global warming. 

A new study by Postdoc David Bonan, Prof. Kyle Armour, and co-authors finds that although the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation will weaken under global warming, it is likely to do so to a much lesser extent than current projections suggest. 

Dawgcast members were interviewed and featured in a recent article by The Daily UW. Members shared their experiences and behind the scenes of this unique course, read more about it here. 

Graduate student Ursula Jongebloed’s paper, published in Geophysical Research Letters, is ranked within the top 10% of the journal’s most-viewed papers in 2023!
Read the paper here: Underestimated Passive Volcanic Sulfur Degassing Implies Overestimated Anthropogenic Aerosol Forcing
Co-Authors: Andy Schauer, Jihong Cole-Dai, Carleigh Larrick, Robert Wood, Tobias Fischer, Simon Carn, Sara Salimi, Shana Edouard, Shuting Zhai, Lei Geng, Becky Alexander 

Congratulations to graduate students Vince Cooper, Alton Daley, and Eric Mei for being selected to receive the AGU24 Outstanding Student Presentation Award (OSPA)! 2024 recipients and past recipients are listed here. 

Grad student Chris Wright published a piece in The Conversation on his work related to lightning over the shipping lane. A recent publication, from Chris and his colleagues, has shown that lightning frequency over shipping lanes has dropped by half after international regulations cut ships’ sulfur emissions in 2020. 

Graduate Student Trent Vonich was awarded Best Student 24AI Oral Presentation with his presentation “Pushing the Atmospheric Predictability Limit: Nonlinear Sensitivity Analysis for Optimized Initial Conditions” at the AMS 2025 conference!