News Archive

1/3/2022: How will climate change impact Earth’s ice sheets in the 21st century? And how much will sea levels rise as a result? It depends on how quickly we act, says UB geology researcher Sophie Nowicki.

11/3/2021: They’re born. They live once, erupting for a period that might last for days, years or decades. Then, they go dark and die. This narrative describes the life of a monogenetic volcano, a type of volcanic hazard that can pose important dangers despite an ephemeral existence. The landscape of the southwestern U.S. is heavily scarred by past eruptions of such volcanoes, and a new study marks a step toward understanding future risks for the region.

10/11/2021: Glaciologists have teamed up with computer scientists to build an online portal for ice sheet science. The new science gateway is called GHub, short for “Glaciology Hub,” and it houses datasets, computational tools and educational materials about the science of ice sheets and sea level rise. The site seeks to centralize these resources. It also provides a space for collaboration.

10/6/2021: For decades, scientists had debated whether P. kükenthali was its own species, or the same species as another coral called Plexaura homomalla. Because P. homomalla was known to send sperm and eggs into the water — not fully formed larvae — the 2016 sighting added a new dimension to the conversation.

9/7/21: For a decade, glaciologist Sophie Nowicki has played a lead role in coordinating international efforts to answer these and other questions about the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The resulting research, conducted by a global community of scientists, is now helping to inform decision-making worldwide on issues relating to climate change.

7/26/21: Courtney Shafer, who will join the UB Department of Geology this fall as a PhD student, has been awarded a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Computational Science Graduate Fellowship.

6/22/2021: Thousands of years ago, at different points in time, clouds of ash, rock and hot gas rushed across the Mojave and Sonoran deserts as two volcanoes erupted. These destructive events are long over. But their history is written in the lonely landscapes they ravaged. Volcanic dunes and other deposits hold debris from the ancient eruptions, as do craters marking the sites of the blasts — Ubehebe in Death Valley in the Mojave Desert in the U.S., and El Elegante in the Gran Desierto de Altar in the Sonoran Desert in Mexico.

5/13/2021: A new UB study uses these deposits to learn about ancient climate in southern Greenland, focusing on summer temperature during periods of relative warmth on Earth, called interglacials, over the past 600,000 years.

6/17/2021: Dr. Elizabeth Thomas and five other UB researchers awarded 3.5 million in grants to further climate action research. Assistant Professor of Geology Dr. Thomas, will be analyzing the ancient climate history of Western New York by observing sediments, rain patterns and lake effect snowfall of the Great Lakes Region. She is also a co-instructor of the Carbon Reduction Challenge where students partner with local businesses to develop ways to reduce their climate impact

5/4/2021: New research from a large international community of scientists including Sophie Nowicki from UB, predicts that sea level rise from the melting of ice could be halved this century if the world meets the Paris Agreement target of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. That’s relative to projections based on countries’ current pledges to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases.