Spring 2024 GES Seminar Series

Mon, 19 Feb 2024 09:09:56 -0500

The Spring 2024 GES Seminar Series will be updated here throughout the semester, so please check back for details. Events are also posted on CS3's calendar and upcoming events page.

Wednesday, February 21st | noon | ITE 229 |

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Maryland's Climate Pollution Reduction Plan: new policies to achieve Maryland's nation-leading climate goals

Mark Stewart, Program Manager, Climate Change Program, Maryland Department of the Environment

Mark Stewart leads the Climate Change Program at the Maryland Department of the Environment, where he and his team are responsible for developing and implementing policies to achieve the most ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals of any state in the nation. His team recently released Maryland's Climate Pollution Reduction Plan to reduce statewide greenhouse gas emissions 60% by 2031 and set the state on a path to achieve net-zero emissions by 2045. Mark's team is also responsible for developing new regulations, conducting Maryland's official greenhouse gas emissions inventory, staffing the Maryland Commission on Climate Change, and running other stakeholder processes.

Wednesday, March 6th | noon | ITE 229

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Do existing Maryland stormwater regulations protect channel stability? Understanding the origin, history, and effects of stormwater regulations on the physical integrity of headwater streams

Dr. Tess Thompson, Department of Biological Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech

The State of Maryland is a national leader in stormwater management. Current stormwater regulations seek to minimize the impacts of urbanization on stream systems by conserving natural features, minimizing the use of impervious surfaces, and slowing runoff to reduce runoff volumes and rates by increasing evapotranspiration and infiltration. While there are numerous studies documenting improvements at the level of individual stormwater control measures, fewer studies have evaluated benefits at the watershed level. This seminar will describe the origin and history of the Maryland stormwater regulations and present results from a case study that compared the impacts of different types of stormwater management on watershed hydrology and channel stability.

Wednesday, March 13th | noon | ITE 229 | Webex

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What Harriet left behind: rural redlining and rising seas on Maryland's eastern shore

Rona Kobell, Environmental Justice Journalism Initiative

Eroding History tells the story of two Black communities on the Deal Island Peninsula that are losing their land and their history due to the intersection of historical racism and modern climate changes. It is s among the few Chesapeake Bay films that center Black communities at the forefront of climate change. Black people are often on the lowest land, because that was the only land that was available to them. On the Eastern Shore, where everything is low, the lowest spot is a dangerous place. Rising water, saltwater intrusion, and marsh migration are endangering Black lands at a rapid pace. That Black filmmakers are telling these stories is important, and EJJI is proud to provide a platform for telling and disseminating these films.

Wednesday, April 3rd| noon | ITE 229 | Webex

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Ecological Diversity in Human Landscapes

Dr. Karin Burghardt, Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology, University of Maryland College Park

Humans modify vast swaths of the earth for food, material, shelter, and recreation. What are the implications of these modifications for the ecology of plants and animals living in these spaces with humans? In this seminar, I will explore this question through vignettes of ongoing research projects in the lab: 1) the effect of historic redlining housing policy on current street tree communities in Baltimore, MD; 2) how tree planting diversity in restorations or managed forests alters insect food webs; and (time permitting) 3) the impact of yard landscaping decisions such as autumn leaf removal on the biodiversity and overwintering success of beneficial insect species. Throughout I will highlight how basic ecological principles can help us understand the potential feedbacks between ecology and policy in humandominated spaces.

Wednesday, April 17th| noon | Webex

Domestic water demands of socially vulnerable communities in response to drought

Dr. Alisha Chan, Interdisciplinary Data Scientist, MD-DE-DC Water Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey

Extensive water usage in socially vulnerable communities that face drought may worsen resource depletion, perpetuating a cycle of persistent water scarcity in already vulnerable areas. This work studies how public and self-supplied domestic water use by socially vulnerable communities varies spatially and with differences in drought severity. Domestic water use per capita data is combined with social vulnerability and drought severity indices through multivariate log-transformed regression models at the county level. Results were stratified by regions with varying water availability conditions (i.e., severe drought, moderate drought, normal, unusually moist, and very moist). Results reveal the paradoxical relationship between the water demands of socially vulnerable communities and the environmental justice challenges in areas with water scarcity.

Dr. Alisha Yee Chan is a scientist in the Water Resources Mission Area at the U.S. Geological Survey. She obtained her Ph.D. from Yale University in 2022, specializing in health and socioeconomic effects of urban flooding. Alisha's current research at the U.S. Geological Survey aims to better understand the interacting relationship between human dimensions and water availability.

Wednesday, April 24th| noon | ITE 229 | Webex

Applications of isotope geochemistry for understanding living and non-living systems

Dr. Gabriella Weiss, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Center for Research and Exploration in Space Science & Technology II, UMBC/ NASA Goddard SPC

Reaction pathways for biological organisms are enzyme-driven. Biological organisms often compete for energy sources and constantly perform reactions that maintain homeostasis. Thus, enzymes help provide a competitive, life-sustaining advantage for organisms. On the other hand, abiotic reactions are not random but rather reflect the physiochemical conditions under which they occur. These reactions depend on available reactants and environmental conditions that facilitate chemical reactions, such as the temperature or pH in a solution. The pace of these reactions is driven by energy and substrate availability; thus, it is likely that abiotic reaction networks impart distinctly different molecular signals relative to enzyme-catalyzed biological reaction networks. Isotope values, the ratio of heavy (13C) to light (12C) versions of an element, represent such a molecular signal. Conveniently, isotope ratios vary because of chemical reactions and environmental factors, making them important tools for understanding the origins and characteristics of a system. My research focuses on measuring the isotopic variation within molecules to understand signals that may be unique to living and non-living systems, respectively.

Wednesday, May 10th| noon | Physics 401 | Webex

joint seminar with Physics and GESTAR II

Earth System Predictability Across Timescales for Climate Resilience

Dr. Jadwiga Yaya Richter, Special Projects Lead, National Center for Atmospheric Research

The escalating impacts of anthropogenic climate change underscore the critical importance of advancing our understanding of Earth system predictability. In recent decades, the frequency and severity of extreme weather events have surged, leading to profound societal consequences such as floods, droughts, heatwaves, and air-quality disruptions on shorter timescales. Simultaneously, shifts in global temperature, sea-level rise, and ecosystem changes are unfolding on longer timescales. To address these challenges, there is an urgent call for robust Earth system prediction and predictability research to provide trustworthy and actionable information for communities, governments, and organizations striving to enhance their resilience. Recognizing this imperative, the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR) has launched the Earth System Predictability Across Timescales (ESPAT) initiative. This initiative is committed to fostering collaborations with the academic and broader community, seeking to address societal needs through fundamental research, and bridging across disciplines. This presentation will describe the ESPAT efforts and how the broader community can partner with NSF NCAR to address these challenges. One focus of ESPAT is bridging critical research gaps in Earth system predictability, including subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) and seasonal-to-decadal (S2D) prediction. This talk will present recent tools and datasets designed for S2S and S2D prediction using the Community Earth System Model (CESM). In particular, it will discuss a unique suite of experiments with CESM’s subseasonal prediction system that quantify the roles of atmosphere, ocean, and land in subseasonal predictability. The results of this work challenge our current understanding of subseasonal predictability and call for more research especially in the area of land-atmosphere coupling.

Jadwiga (Yaga) Richter is a Special Projects Lead to the NCAR Director and leads NCAR's Earth System Predictability Across Timescales Initiative. Yaga received her PhD from the University of Washington in 2002 and has spent most of her career at NCAR. Yaga has broad scientific expertise, ranging from mesoscale to global modeling, with the focus on the middle atmosphere. During her 20+ years at NCAR, Yaga has been involved deeply in NCAR's Earth system model development, led climate intervention research in coordination with the broader community, and spearheaded the development of a subseasonal prediction system.