University to lead new partnership on Great Lakes biodiversity
The University of Michigan is the lead institution on a new $1.75 million project that will explore biodiversity in the Great Lakes. A grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Integrated Ocean Observing System will establish a Great Lakes Biodiversity Observation Network to coordinate with and learn from biodiversity observation networks along the U.S. coasts and ocean waters and other BONs in ocean and freshwater habitats worldwide. U-M will partner with NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Oregon State University, the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission and the Great Lakes Observing System to assess habitat and biodiversity across a range of spatial and temporal scales. A key innovation of the new network will be integration across multiple technological approaches, from high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics to telemetry for fish populations and mapping large-scale biogeographic patterns measured by satellites. Read more about the project.
2024 Rackham Public Scholarship grant awardees named
The Rackham Graduate School has announced seven recipients of the 2024 Public Scholarship Grant awards for graduate students. These awards will enable students to apply their doctoral research to collaborative projects with community partner organizations to create a public good, making an impact in communities locally and globally. Recipients will complete their work in the United States, South America and Africa, from piloting mobile air conditioning systems for communities in California subjected to extreme heat due to climate change to training youth to identify and document cultural heritage sites in Nigeria. The successful student applicants demonstrated sustainable social, cultural and environmental impact beyond the academy. This year’s recipients are Noor Al-Samarrai, Timilehin Ayelagbe, Richard Bachmann, Caroline Beckman, Amelia Burke, Madeline Miller and Marcela Ortiz Guerrero. Read more about the graduate students.
U-M contributes to Ann Arbor’s Bicentennial Park improvement effort
As part of the Ann Arbor Bicentennial celebration and to highlight an ongoing partnership with the city of Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan donated $300,000 to fund a universally accessible playground at Bicentennial Park, formerly known as the Southeast Area Park, and an additional $125,000 for new playground equipment at Fuller Park. “By contributing to the universally accessible playground at Bicentennial Park and the new playground equipment at Fuller Park, we aim to create a sense of community, promote healthy lifestyles and celebrate the rich history and promising future of Ann Arbor,” said Chris Kolb, vice president for government relations. Geoff Chatas, executive vice president and chief financial officer, highlighted the importance of investing in community resources: “This partnership underscores our commitment to enhancing the quality of life for all residents and visitors, making Ann Arbor a more vibrant and welcoming place for everyone.”
Sea ice’s cooling power is waning faster than its area of extent
As sea ice disappears and grows less reflective, the Arctic has lost around a quarter of its cooling power since 1980, and the world has lost up to 15%, according to new research led by U-M scientists. Using satellite measurements of cloud cover and the solar radiation reflected by sea ice between 1980 and 2023, researchers found that the percent decrease in sea ice’s cooling power is about twice as high as the percent decrease in annual average sea ice area in both the Arctic and Antarctic. The added warming impact from this change to sea ice cooling power is toward the higher end of climate model estimates. The Arctic has seen the largest and most steady declines in sea ice cooling power since 1980, but until recently, the south pole had appeared more resilient to the changing climate. That view abruptly changed in 2016, when an area larger than Texas melted on one of the continent’s largest ice shelves. The Antarctic lost sea ice then too, and its cooling power hasn’t recovered, according to the new study. Read more about the study.
— Compiled by James Iseler, The University Record
