Professor Scott Goetz of Northern Arizona University’s School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems and associate professor Deborah Huntzinger of NAU’s School of Earth and Sustainability co-authored a paper published in Science finding that forests can be best deployed in the fight against climate change with a proper understanding of the risks to forests that climate change itself imposes. Given the tremendous ability of forests to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, some governments are counting… Read more
Publication
Debates series on Information Theory in Earth Science published in WRR
Water Resources Research has published a “debate” series on the role of information theory in Earth Science, led by Praveen Kumar and Hoshin Gupta. There are five papers in this collection, three of which were co-authored by SICCS’ Ben Ruddell. Serious information theory, modeling, and statistics geeks should consider diving in! Also,… Read moreFallowing cattle-feed farmland simplest way to alleviate western water shortage, FEWSION-based study finds
An important new study published this week in Nature Sustainability finds that irrigated crop production accounts for 86 percent of all water consumed in the western U.S.—and of all the water used on western farms, by far the largest portion goes to cattle-feed crops such as alfalfa and grass hay. To alleviate the severe shortage of water in the… Read more
ABOR names three new Regents’ Professors at NAU
April 9, 2019
Andrew Richardson
Richardson, who came to NAU from Harvard University, is a professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Security (SICCS) and the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society (Ecoss). He studies forest science and ecophysiology, with his research incorporating plant biology, earth system science, computer science, remote sensing, applied mathematics, engineering, atmospheric science and micrometeorology. He is a world-renowned expert in phenology, the study of seasonal… Read more
Ecosystem warming extends vegetation activity but heightens vulnerability to cold temperatures
Dr. Andrew Richardson’s latest research was featured in the journal Nature, this research provides some of the first evidence that a warmer world will significantly shift ecosystem-wide growing seasons, putting plants at higher risks during extreme temperature swings. Using digital repeat photography—in which conventional digital cameras are programmed to take multiple images of a specific frame each day—researchers measured green-up and green-down. Simulating five levels of warming in different chambers, ranging from zero to 16.2 degrees F (zero to 9 degrees… Read more