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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, MERCED

Climate Change

One Key to Climate Change Could Be Stuck in a Shark’s Tooth

May 2, 2019

Professor Sora Kim examines a fossilized shark's tooth.
Most people wouldn’t think sharks can teach researchers about the planet’s distant past and its more immediate future. UC Merced paleoecologist Professor Sora Kim isn’t most people. There’s a connection between data in fossilized shark teeth and climate change, and...

Study: Critical Sierra Meadows Being Overtaken by Forest

Subalpine meadows are among the Sierra Nevada’s most enchantingly picturesque landscapes. These sparsely wooded, grassy expanses are home to plants and animals found nowhere else, and they play an important role in regulating the flow of water from the...

Study: Wildfires, Climate Change Could Make Sierra a Polluter

What if nature were to become a polluter, discharging millions of tons of planet-warming carbon into the atmosphere in much the same way as diesel-fueled trucks or coal-fired power plants? This nature-as-polluter scenario might seem far-fetched, but it’s...

‘Water in the Balance’ Highlights UC Merced Research

Water is a delicate balancing act in California. When the scales tip in the wrong direction, the consequences can have national effects. Nobody knows this better than UC Water Co-Director Joshua Viers. “More than half of the nation’s fruits, nuts and...

Research Shows Global Photosynthesis on the Rise

Plant photosynthesis was stable for hundreds of years before the industrial revolution, but grew rapidly in the 20th century, according to new research published today in Nature. “Virtually all life on our planet depends on photosynthesis,” said UC...

Paleorecord Critical to Future Conservation Efforts, Scientists Say

The rapid pace of global change has large impacts on nature, and on the work conservation biologists will have before them, too. From here on out, experts say, the fossil record is going to be critical to guide nature into the future. A new paper in the...

Study: Warming Could Slow Upslope Migration of Trees

By Dan Krotz, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Scientists expect subalpine trees to advance upslope as global temperatures increase, following their climate up the mountains. But new research published Dec. 15 in the journal Global Change Biology...

Winston Feted for Golden Anniversary of Landmark Discovery

Fifty years ago this year, while a freshman faculty member in the University of Chicago Physics Department, Roland Winston published a paper introducing a new field he called nonimaging optics. In it, he described the compound parabolic concentrator (CPC...

Researchers Eye Foggy Link Between Redwoods, Climate Change

Most Americans have probably seen gorgeous photos of fog winding its way through California’s coastal redwoods. The trees are one of the state’s most prominent icons, drawing more than 2 million visitors a year. But at a time when rising sea levels,...

Researcher’s Solar-Powered Water Heaters Could Save Energy and Money

UC Merced Professor Gerardo Diaz is developing solar-powered water heating technology that could reduce the demand for natural gas in businesses and homes and lower the costs for business and homeowners. Soon he’ll be putting that technology to the test...

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