Northern Arizona University moved up five spots in the most recent National Science Foundation’s (NSF) national research rankings, moving to No. 191 with a fiscal year 2019 performance of $58.91 million.
Year after year, NAU has risen in these rankings, which takes research expenditures into account. NAU also rose… Read more
NAU study indicates that U.S. cities underestimate their greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 20 percent on average
Cities have become critical players in reducing the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are causing global climate change. Urban areas produce almost 70 percent of those emissions, and city governments are proposing a variety of policy actions aimed at reducing them. Many cities also produce inventories that detail their greenhouse gas emissions.
Now, professor Kevin Gurney of Northern Arizona University’s School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems and colleagues… Read more
NAU doctoral student leads paleoclimate study of precipitation and sea ice in Arctic Alaska
Arctic sea ice is rapidly diminishing due to global warming, and scientists have found that sea ice dynamics have a big impact on circulation and precipitation patterns in Arctic Alaska, which lies at a climatological crossroads between the Arctic and North Pacific Oceans. Recent studies—most of which… Read more
Fuels, not fire weather, control carbon emissions in boreal forest, new study finds
As climate warming stokes longer fire seasons and more severe fires in the North American boreal forest, being able to calculate how much carbon each fire burns grows more urgent. New research led by Northern Arizona University and published this week in Nature Climate Change suggests that how much carbon burns depends… Read more
NAU researchers win $1.3M in NSF grants to study major shifts in carbon storage
Two researchers at the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society have won separate awards totaling $1.3M from the National Science Foundation to better understand where carbon is being stored and released in the terrestrial biosphere. Using different approaches, the two projects aim to better predict carbon storage by plants and soils in critical regions of the globe, and how that storage is being altered by changing climate patterns.… Read more
A tale of two understories: how mosses and climate are shaping the fate of nitrogen in the boreal
Mosses and their microbial partners are important players in fertilizing the boreal forests that make up nearly a third of all Earth’s forests. But climate may be changing mosses’ role in how these forests access nutrients, according to a new study led by the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society (Ecoss) at Northern Arizona University… Read more