climate change

FSU researchers: Urban growth leads to shorter, more intense wet seasons in Florida peninsula

Published: April 9, 2018 | 2:31 pm | Posted in: Science & Technology

A summer storm gathers over Miami. Misra found that large urban areas are experiencing shorter, more intense wet seasons than rural or less developed areas.

New research from Florida State University scientists has found that urban areas throughout the Florida peninsula are experiencing shorter, increasingly intense wet seasons relative to underdeveloped or rural areas. The study, published in the Nature Partner Journal Climate and Atmospheric Science, provides new insight into the question of land development’s effect on seasonal climate processes. […]

FSU researchers: Florida’s climate is changing, and we should all take notice

Published: February 6, 2018 | 4:28 pm | Posted in: Science & Technology

In their book “Florida’s Climate: Changes, Variations & Impacts,” Chassignet and Misra offer a thorough review of the current state of research on Florida’s changing climate.

Climate change is often understood as a global problem with broad effects that are difficult to detect on more narrow local scales. However, Florida State University Professor Eric Chassignet and Associate Professor Vasu Misra, both from the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science, believe that more attention should be paid to state-level effects of […]

Climate change linked to more flowery tropical forests, FSU study shows

Published: January 19, 2018 | 1:21 pm | Posted in: Science & Technology

Pau conducted her research on the remote Barro Colorado Island, located in the middle of the Panama Canal.

New research from a Florida State University scientist has revealed a surprising relationship between surging atmospheric carbon dioxide and flower blooms in a remote tropical forest. FSU researchers studying the rich tropical forests of Panama’s Barro Colorado Island found that climbing rates of carbon dioxide have set the stage for a multidecade increase in overall […]

New Policy Pub sessions focus on climate, health and economic equality

Published: January 10, 2018 | 12:21 pm | Posted in: Education & Society

Policy Pub, the popular public forum series at Backwoods Bistro, returns for three new sessions this semester with topics that address key issues affecting everyone’s lives. The monthly sessions include brief, plain-language talks by faculty of the Florida State University College of Social Sciences and Public Policy followed by questions and discussion from the public. […]

FSU researcher: Ocean acidification means major changes for California mussels

Published: January 5, 2018 | 1:56 pm | Posted in: Science & Technology

McCoy and her team found that increased ocean acidification is affecting California mussel shells on a fundamental structural level. (Photo: Sophie McCoy.)

Accelerating ocean acidification could be transforming the fundamental structure of California mussel shells, according to a new report from a Florida State University-led team of scientists. For thousands of years, California mussel shells have shared a relatively uniform mineralogical makeup — long, cylindrical calcite crystals ordered in neat vertical rows with crisp, geometric regularity. But […]

A stinging report: FSU research shows climate change a major threat to bumble bees

Published: September 29, 2017 | 9:06 am | Posted in: Science & Technology

Bombus bifarius, one of the three species of bumble bees studied by researcher Jane Ogilvie and her team.

New research from a team of Florida State University scientists and their collaborators is helping to explain the link between a changing global climate and a dramatic decline in bumble bee populations worldwide. In a study published Friday, Sept. 29, in the journal Ecology Letters, researchers examining three subalpine bumble bee species in Colorado’s Rocky […]

FSU Research: Ancient ocean deoxygenation provides an urgent warning

Published: August 9, 2017 | 2:39 pm | Posted in: Science & Technology

Jeremy Owens is an assistant professor of geology in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (Photo: Stephen Bilenky)

A 94-million-year-old climate change event that severely imperiled marine organisms may provide some unnerving insights into long-term trends in our modern oceans, according to a Florida State University researcher. In a study published today in the journal Science Advances, Assistant Professor of Geology Jeremy Owens traces a 50,000-year period of ocean deoxygenation preceding an ancient […]

FSU Research: Chemical weathering could alleviate some climate change effects

Published: August 1, 2017 | 3:12 pm | Posted in: News

There could be some good news on the horizon as scientists try to understand the effects and processes related to climate change. A team of Florida State University scientists has discovered that chemical weathering, a process in which carbon dioxide breaks down rocks and then gets trapped in sediment, can happen at a much faster […]

Rising carbon dioxide levels, ocean acidity may change crucial marine process

Published: April 27, 2017 | 4:30 pm | Posted in: News, Science & Technology

A type of cyanobacteria called Trichodesmium

Climate change may be putting cyanobacteria that are crucial to the functioning of the ocean at risk as the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases and the acidity of ocean water changes. In a paper published Thursday in Science, a team of researchers from Florida State University, Xiamen University in China and Princeton […]

Acclaimed climate scientist named 2017-2018 Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor

Published: April 5, 2017 | 10:55 am | Posted in: Science & Technology, University News

Jeff Chanton is the John Widmer Winchester Professor of Oceanography in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science.

Jeffrey Chanton, an acclaimed climate scientist who has also done extensive work investigating the effects of the BP oil spill, has been named the 2017-2018 Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor, the highest honor given by the Florida State University faculty to one of its own. “Jeff is a tremendous researcher and an asset to the […]