T h e D y n a m i c e a r T h

D e p a r t m e n t o f e a r t h S y s t e m S c i e n c e University of california, irvine

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l a n d . o c e a n . a t m o s p h e r e

1 chair’s welcomea message from the department Chair, Gudrun Magnusdottir

2 awards & honorsselected highlights of awards earned by ESS students and faculty

3 front page newsselected news coverage and highlights

4 eventsdetails of the 2015 Faculty Networking Luncheon and 2014 Reeburgh Lecture

5 Undergraduate spotlightan undergraduate student discusses her research and plans for the furture

6 intern profilethe internship experience of an undergraduate student

7, 8 graduate student storiesgraduate students discuss their unique research experiences

Images

cover: Joshua tree national park | mariah carbonechair’s Welcome: Joshua tree national park | mariah carboneFront page news: president obama at commencement | UcI communications Jay Famiglietti on 60 minutes | cBsIntern Profile: Photos by Thanushka FernandoGraduate student stories: photos by ashley payne and mindy nicewongerBack cover: croul hall | hrishi chandanpurkar

Content & Design: callie Brazil9 alumni,

cicerone chairhow to connect or re-connect with ESS

hi-res image of desert

Read on to learn more about how ESS students applied classroom learning to real-world situations through undergraduate student internships, field-work, and research.

Gudrun MagnusdottirChair & Professor of Earth System Science

w e l c o m eIn the Department of Earth System Science (ESS) at the University of California, Irvine we focus on the science of the Earth as a system and how the atmosphere, land and oceans interact and manifest variability and change approximately over the human lifetime. We envision a society that understands both the impact of human activities on the global environment and the interactions within the Earth system that preserve the habitability of the planet.

ESS faculty, students and researchers continue groundbreaking work in key areas of climate science as acknowledged by President Obama in his June 2014 Commencement Address to UC Irvine.

In this issue of The Dynamic Earth, we share news and stories of our department’s latest research and achievements.

awards & honorsalLison moreno, a graduate student in the Department of Earth System Science, has been awarded a National Science Foundation fellowship. The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.

Dawn Woodard, a graduate student in ESS, was awarded the Fall 2014 Cicerone Fellowship. The Ralph J. & Carol M. Cicerone Fellowship is awarded to one exceptional incoming graduate student each year. The candidate is selected based on academic record as well as potential to influence the field of Earth system science.

The Department of Earth System Science congratulates the Fall 2014 Jenkins Fellows: yara mohajerani, Daun Jeong, anna Lopresti, christopher Wood, morgan Gorris, and Gregory Britten. Jenkins Fellows are selected based on academic record and compelling research interest. Fellows are supported for one quarter thanks to the generous support of the Jenkins family.

Professor mike pritchard received an Early Career Research Program award from the Department of Energy for his outstanding work with next generation climate simulation. The Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program recognizes exceptional researchers and provides support during their crucial first years.

Professors Jim randerson and eric rignot have been named among the world’s most influential researchers by Thomas Reuters. The 2014 Highly Cited Researchers list includes preeminent researchers in 21 fields of the sciences and social sciences who have demonstrated exceptional impact in their field as measured by citations to their work.

Congratulations to our graduates! The following Ph.D. students successfully defended their dissertations in the Fall 2014 and Winter 2015 quarters:

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George azzari

ann Bardin

colene haffke

collin Lawrence

Seneca Lindsey

Zhao Liu

Staryl mccabe-Glynn

alexandra noronha

alys Thomas

Kristal Verhulst

yuhao ZoU

front page newsESS in the headlines

ESS Professor Jay Famiglietti appeared on 60 Minutes on CBS in November 2014 to discuss evidence of groundwater depletion in California as detected through his work with Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites and the policy and environmental implications of water storage.

In his commencement speech at UC Irvine in June 2014, President Obama highlighted the achievements and impact of the Department of Earth System Science, acknowledging groundbreaking research efforts in key areas of climate science, atmospheric chemistry, water science, weather patterns and fire season severity prediction.

ESS graduate student Tyler Sutterly’s research on the rapid decline of West Antarctic Ice Sheets caught the attention of the Washington Post, making it to the front page of the Dec. 5th issue in the article “Pace of Antarctic melt sets off alarm.”

Nature Geoscience published research on marine nutrient cycling by ESS Professors Francois Primeau, adam martiny and Keith moore. The study, “Global-scale variations in the carbon to phosphorus ratio of exported marine organic matter,” provides new insight into the link between carbon and nutrient cycles. It will likely serve as reference for many regional to global modeling studies and impact understanding of how both the oceans and the global carbon cycles respond to climate change.

Environmental Research Letters published a study by a team of researchers including ESS professor Steve Davis and graduate student anna LoPresti. The paper, “CH4 and N2O emissions embodied in international trade of meat,” discusses the non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions embodied in meat production.

An ESS-led study found the declines of Greenland’s glaciers could be more significant than previously thought due to never-before-seen valleys. The study, published in Nature Geoscience, includes the most detailed map to date of Greenland’s toothy rim, or the mountains and canyons under the ice. “Greenland is much more vulnerable than we thought, but we can’t say by how much,” said lead author and ESS Assistant Professor mathieu morlighem.

eventsess club presents

Faculty networking luncheonThe Earth System Science Club kicked off the winter quarter with their third annual Faculty Networking Luncheon on Friday, January 23, 2015. The event, sponsored by the Department of Earth System Science, provided undergraduate students the opportunity to meet and speak with faculty and graduate students outside the classroom. The ESS Club works to support the education and career development of Earth System Science and Environmental Science students through a variety of meetings, workshops and events. Student registration for the club’s spring event, the Industry Networking Night on Thursday, May 7 opens in April. Learn more about ESS at http://www.ess.uci.edu. Please visit the ESS Club website at http://ess-club.wix.com/essc to learn more about club events and activities.

second annual reeburgh lectureOn Wednesday, December 10, 2014, Dr. David Victor of UC San Diego spoke as the 2014 Reeburgh Earth System Science Lecturer – a lecture series endowed by Carelyn Y. and William S. Reeburgh. A committee of ESS faculty, students and researchers chose Dr. Victor, Professor of International Relations and Director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at UC San Diego, as the speaker for the second annual Reeburgh Lecture. In his presentation, “Getting Serious About International Cooperation on Climate Change,” Dr. Victor spoke about the discrepancy between the international community’s commitment to climate discussions and actual emissions reduction. Video of the lecture can be found at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc_O2DusM9U.

The Department of Earth System Science thanks Dr. and Mrs. Reeburgh for their continued generosity, making this special event possible. We thank the speakers who have participated in this lecture series to date: Dr. James White, 2013; Dr. David Victor, 2014.

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Undergraduate Spotlight

environmental science. However, it was the Atmospheric Science class in ESS that really captured her attention for atmosphere dynamics and encouraged her to pursue atmospheric research. “Without a doubt, ESS has played a huge role in preparing me for more advanced study of the earth system,” Julia said of her ESS coursework.

Currently, Julia is continuing this line of study while working as an undergraduate researcher with Professor Gudrun Magnusdottir in the Department of Earth System Science. “This project continues the work I started at CMMAP and seeks to identify some relationship between a tropical atmospheric circulation pattern (the Madden-Julian Oscillation) and the mid-latitudinal BAM.” This undergraduate research experience has been especially helpful in preparing Julia to reach her future research and career goals. “Ultimately, I want to be a research professor” – a goal she’ll be prepared to meet head-on with the skills and knowledge she has developed in ESS.

Julia ShatesJulia Shates is a fourth year undergraduate student in the Earth System Science program with an infectious passion for research and learning.

Last year, as an intern for the Center for Multiscale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes (CMMAP), Julia worked on a research project under the supervision of Dr. Elizabeth Barnes, Assistant Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at Colorado State University. For ten weeks, she explored the Baroclinic Annular Mode (BAM)—a 20-30 day storm cycle in the southern hemisphere and mid-latitudes. For her project, she analyzed the turbulence in the upper atmosphere during this storm cycle. “Understanding the variability in the southern hemisphere will be useful for future work in prediction of weather and precipitation events,” she explained.

Julia’s interest in natural sciences began in high school, when she was first exposed to

“ESS has played a huge role in preparing me for more advanced study of the earth system.”

intern profile

Thanushka FernandoEnvironmental Compliance

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Written By: Thanushka Fernando

For the past year, I have been interning for the World Oil Corporation at a company called Demenno/Kerdoon. Demenno/Kerdoon is the largest waste oil, antifreeze, and wastewater recycling organization in the Western United States. We recycle hazardous wastes into quality products through processing systems and units - used oil and antifreeze become new products such as Marine Diesel Oil (used for ships) and antifreeze for cars. Since we handle hazardous wastes, we are required to constantly monitor waste from start to finish – from the time it arrives in railcars and trucks, to the time it is sent out to the refinery. We also recycle and treat wastewater and send it into cities for commercial use. As an environmental compliance intern, I work with agencies such as the Department of Toxic and Substance Control (DTSC) and the Air Quality Management District (AQMD) to continuously monitor and report our emissions. This ensures the company is abiding by permit conditions and meeting air quality standards.

I started interning at the refinery of Demenno/Kerdoon in Compton, CA in the summer of 2014. This facility houses the wastewater unit, ethylene glycol unit, and the units for recycled oil. Before diving in to my internship in compliance, I worked alongside the operators of each unit to familiarize myself with the various processes. The environmental compliance department showed me how all regulations are handled throughout the facility. The most interesting unit that I studied was the SOX (sulfur oxides) scrubber unit, which collects noxious vapors and gases throughout the facility – an important procedure for monitoring air emissions.

Currently, I am working at D/K Environmental, a railcar and storage facility for Demenno/Kerdoon. Some of my responsibilities include reporting to AQMD, checking the concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), monitoring the incinerator and vapor combustor unit and monitoring the carbon absorbers. The knowledge I’ve gained from my Earth System Science coursework combined with my real-world experience, like monitoring air emissions at my internship, help me understand how crucial environmental compliance and regulation are for protecting the environment.

graduate student stories

Ashley PayneGFD Summer Fellowship

Mindy NicewongerSPICE Core

as a graduate student studying earth system science, I have the unique opportunity to use the earth as my laboratory – one of the seemingly countless reasons why I’ve chosen this field of study. as an ice core scientist, my research takes me to the far edge of the world – literally. While I write this, I’m sitting at the amundsen-scott south pole station waiting for brunch to start. For the past ten weeks I’ve been living at the south pole station as part of the science team for the newest nsF funded ice core project, the south pole Ice (spIce) core.

The scientific objective of the SPICE Core is to recover the first deep ice core from the South pole for atmospheric trace gas research – the main focus of my research in the saltzman/aydin lab. south pole is home to the cleanest air on the planet and has an ideal yearly snowfall rate that will provide a detailed atmospheric gas record dating back thousands of years to before the most recent glacial period. When complete, the spIce core will reach a depth of 1,500 meters and provide us with 40,000 years of atmospheric trace gas and climate records. this drilling season, which lasts only a few short months (november to the beginning of February) we are striving to reach a depth of 700 meters. at 700 meters, the ice is over 10,000 years old!

my job here at the spIce core drilling site is an ice core handler. each time the drill goes down into the ice sheet, it brings back to the surface a two-meter long ice core. once removed from the core barrel, the two-meter long ice core is laid out on the core processing table where I measure it’s overall length, make notes about any breaks in the core or abnormalities, and cut the two meter core into one meter long pieces.

I then pack each meter long ice core into tubes that are subsequently packed in insulated boxes. these boxes are shipped back to the national Ice core laboratory (nIcl) in denver, colorado. all of this takes place in a drill trench that is colder than -20°c…B-r-r! once at nIcl, the cores will be processed and cut into samples for various labs across the United states. By august 2015, we should be receiving our sample allocation of the spIce core and will immediately begin conducting our own trace gas research in our lab in croul hall.

This past summer, I attended the 2014 Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Summer Study Program at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI). For ten weeks, myself and nine other graduate student fellows attended lectures and seminars at Walsh Cottage – home to the GDF Summer Fellowship program since its founding in 1959. The program’s mission is to foster an environment of scientific inquiry on different themes within geophysical fluid dynamics for researchers and students from diverse backgrounds. For 2014, the main focus was climate physics and dynamics, with principal lectures given by MIT Professor of Mathematics Kerry Emmanuel, and Geoffery Vallis, Senior Scientist and Professor of Atmosphere and Ocean Sciences at Princeton University. During the first two weeks, we learned about the introductory concepts of radiative equilibrium and atmospheric and oceanic dynamics. After the second week, the focus for student fellows transitioned to individual research projects in collaboration with more senior researchers attending the program.

For my research project, I worked primarily with Malte Jansen, Assistant Professor of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago, studying the role of the lapse rate feedback in polar amplification of surface temperatures. While current polar amplification occurs primarily in the Arctic, evidence of polar amplification at both poles is apparent in climate data records and in idealized models. This implies an important mechanism for amplification operating in addition to the well-known surface albedo feedback. With this in mind, we sought out to investigate the role of the direct effect of temperature change on terrestrial longwave radiation (known as the longwave temperature feedback) on polar amplification using a hierarchy of idealized models. I approached the project first with a simple energy balance model and later with a more complex column model, developed within a Python modeling toolkit. With these very simple models, I looked at the relative effect of atmospheric heat transport on the lapse rate feedback in a polar and a tropical column. We found that the different response of the lapse rate feedback at high- and low-latitudes contributes to polar amplification, but only when the role of water vapor is excluded.

Initially, I felt intimidated by the unfamiliarity of the material and fast pace of the program. However, I soon realized that my fellow students were just as unfamiliar with the course material and equally eager to learn it. It was a unique experience to be completely immersed in research. And while learning new skills (such as Python programming, and even softball!) within such a short period of time was slightly stressful, the takeaway experience was amazing – WHOI left me with invaluable research experience and lasting friendships.

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Written By: Ashley Payne

Written By: Mindy Nicewonger

alumni

3200 Croul HallIrvine, CA 92697-3200(949) 824-8794ess.uci.edu | essinfo@ess.uci.edu

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ralph J. and carol m. cicerone endowed chair and Fellowship Fund in earth System Science

The primary funding priority for the Department of Earth System Science is to raise funds for an Endowed Chair and graduate student fellowship fund. With generous donations from Ralph J. and Carol M. Cicerone, Kingsley and John V. Croul and the Jenkins family, we are half way to our $2 million fundraising goal to create this Endowed Chair for our department’s founder.

Please join us in creating this enduring legacy, visit http://www.ess.uci.edu/about-give to contribute.

We want to know what you’re up to these days!Whether you were in our first graduating class or our fifteenth, now is the perfect time to reconnect with the Department of Earth System Science. Tell us what you’ve been up to so we can highlight your work and achievements on our website and in our newsletter. Want more hands-on experience? Spend some time on campus and help us better prepare the next generation of Earth system science students to work in industry jobs, earn higher degrees and make an impact.

Learn more! Give us a call at (949) 824-8794 or email essinfo@ess.uci.edu.