Our Changing Climate: Greenland ice still melting ... just a bit slower

By Seth Preston, Communications Manager, Air Quality Program



Researchers at the University of Washington’s Polar Science Center say Greenland’s ice continues to melt away at a brisk pace. It’s just melting a little slower than some feared it might.

These reports from the Seattle Times and KPLU Radio detail the researchers' findings.

How much and how fast Greenland’s ice melts is relevant to

Let’s Talk Science! Gravity, the moon, and all this talk of King Tides

By Brook Beeler, Environmental Educator, Office of Communication and EducationHere at Ecology we are dedicated to understanding the effects of climate change in Washington. One of the ways to visualize what sea level rise could look like is to document high tides. Spring tides occur naturally when the sun and the moon align, causing an increased gravitational pull on the Earth’s oceans. Note that

Our Changing Climate: Shifting zones and NASA's treasure trove

By Seth Preston, Communications Manager, Air Quality ProgramCatching up on some recent interesting climate change news...Shifting climate zonesFirst, here are a couple of articles on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s updated plant hardiness map – one from USA TODAY, the other from the Associated Press.The new map uses 30 years of weather data gathered from 1976 to 2005 and is more precise than

Our Changing Climate: More about WA's shrinking glaciers

By Seth Preston, Communications Manager, Air Quality ProgramThe Peninsula Daily News recently published this article on melting glaciers in Olympic National Park.(Coincidentally, it was published right before last week’s big snow and ice storm.)You can find more here about the study and see some striking photos that show how much specific glaciers have melted off over the decades. The web page

Our Changing Climate: Mapping greenhouse gas emitters

By Seth Preston, Communications Manager, Air Quality ProgramThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released a map showing the largest single-source emitters of greenhouse gases in each state.The New York Times published this story about the map and what it shows.Check it out. Pretty interesting.For more information about greenhouse gas emissions in Washington, see the offerings on this

Capture the King and share with Ecology

By Suzanna Stoike and Johanna Ofner, Department of Ecology



Public invited to share photos of high tide
Did you know some of the year’s highest tides occur in the winter?

These tides — often called “King Tides” — occur naturally when the sun and the moon align, causing an increased gravitational pull on the Earth’s oceans.

This year Washington’s king tides occur in December and January.

The

Our Changing Climate: More floods, drought on the way?

By Seth Preston, Communications Manager, Air Quality ProgramThe U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released a new report that concludes climate change will cause more flooding and drought conditions.This Washington Post story notes:“The report — the culmination of a two-year process involving 100 scientists and policy experts — suggests that researchers are far more confident

Our Changing Climate: Pine beetles and other news

By Seth Preston, Communications Manager, Air Quality ProgramHere are some links to some recent news articles related to climate change: The Seattle Times reports on the continuing advance of the pine beetle and the threats it poses to Northwest trees. The Seattle Times also published this guest column on how ocean acidification threatens marine conservation and resource management. This piece

Our Changing Climate: Melting ice means more Arctic ship traffic?

By Seth Preston, Communications Manager, Air Quality ProgramThe Seattle Times has this interesting story about how less ice in the Arctic is expected to mean more ship traffic in the region.Melting, thinning ice would open up more navigable waters for increased shipping of goods, more scientific exploration and more tourism activity.The catch is the United States is in danger of lagging behind in

Our Changing Climate: Walking our talk (part 2)

By Seth Preston, Communications Manager, Air Quality ProgramI’ve written previously about Ecology’s Carbon Smart initiative. The effort aims to reduce our own climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions and also help other state agencies, businesses and individuals.Here are two more ways that we are working to “walk the talk”:See this recent blog post on electric vehicle charging stations now in

Electric vehicles hit the road

By Eli Levitt and Johanna Ofner, Climate Policy GroupThanks to a federal grant from the Department of Energy, Ecology recently installed an electric vehicle charging station at our Lacey Headquarters. If you’ve visited our facility, you might have noticed some rather unusual vehicles parked in front of it.Have you seen the brand new Nissan Leaf? How about the yellow Volkswagen Plugbug? Or the

Our Changing Climate: Policy, politics and what people actually see

By Seth Preston, Communications Manager, Air Quality ProgramHere are recent, interesting articles and newspaper editorials on climate change policy and politics: Syndicated columnist Neal Peirce writes about how more and more business leaders are realizing that addressing climate change makes business sense. The Associated Press offers this special report about climate change denial in the United

Our Changing Climate: Resources for students

Our Changing Climate: Resources for students | ECOconnect blog | Washington State Department of EcologyBy Seth Preston, Communications Manager, Air Quality Programfrom the EPA website A Student's Guide to Global Climate ChangeDepending on where you live, the K-12 school year either is under way or preparing to start. So it makes sense to offer some kid-friendly climate change resources.First,

Our Changing Climate: Walking our talk

By Seth Preston, Communications Manager, Air Quality Program

In late 2009, Gov. Chris Gregoire challenged Ecology to take the lead in finding ways that state agencies, businesses and individuals could reduce their climate-changing emissions.

In response, Ecology launched a “Carbon Smart” initiative. We define being “Carbon Smart” as making choices that:Reduce climate-changing emissions.

Save

Our Changing Climate: How about that weather?

By Seth Preston, Communications Manager, Air Quality Program



ABC News led its evening newscast last night (Monday, Aug. 15) with a report about the extreme weather that we’re seeing around the world. Click here to watch the report.

Note the comments about how weather conditions are hurting farmers and the agricultural industry. Yesterday here in Washington, Gov. Gregoire asked U.S. Secretary

Our Changing Climate: Mapping Climate Change

By Seth Preston, Communications Manager, Air Quality Program

A friend sent a link to an interesting website, Climate Hot Map, offered by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

It includes a clickable map that shows how climate change is impacting and could impact places all over the world, including in Washington. (The photo, which is not on the website, shows the receding South Cascade Glacier in

Air Time: New car standards drive fuel savings, jobs, cleaner air

By Seth Preston, Communications Manager, Air Quality ProgramAs this Forbes columnist points out, some major news for Americans and the U.S. economy may have gone without much notice last week because of all the debt drama.President Obama announced new fuel efficiency standards for cars and light-duty trucks. These standards follow up on earlier increases in fuel efficiency that are required

Our Changing Climate: A new blog series

By Seth Preston, Communications Manager, Air Quality ProgramWelcome to the first installment of “Our Changing Climate,” an ongoing series of posts that will focus on climate change in Washington and elsewhere.I’ll start by pointing you to Ecology’s climate change web portal — you will find a wide range of information here on Ecology and what others in Washington have done and are doing about

Polluted waters listings will not fix the problem of declining pH on marine waters

By Sandy Howard, Communication Manager, Water Quality programYou might be hearing about the problem of declining pH in our ocean’s waters, also called “ocean acidification.” The Center for Biological Diversity is bringing this topic up once again today.What is the cause?What causes declining pH and why is it a problem?It’s a fact that our earth’s oceans are becoming more and more acidic as they