Climate Change

Wildfire Disasters Surged in the Past 10 Years, Study Shows

October 2, 2025

Photo depicts a firefighter battling a blaze at a Southern California home during the Palisades fire in January 2025.

Nearly half of the world’s worst wildfire disasters have occurred in just the past decade, new research from UC Merced’s Fire Resilience Center shows. A study published Thursday in the journal Science reveals that 43 percent of catastrophic wildfire disasters struck in the past 10...

UC Merced Experts Part of New UC Climate Report

The University of California aims to lead the way to a sustainable future in the face of global warming, and UC Merced professors have contributed to a report that offers practical steps to help get ...

Super-Calculations Could Provide Clearer View of the Future

Applied mathematics Professor Noemi Petra develops algorithms and uses complicated computations to examine some of the world’s biggest problems — the ones that can’t be seen. They are called inverse...

UC President’s Whirlwind Visit Covers Many Bases

University of California President Janet Napolitano learned about UC Merced’s outreach to local high school students and efforts to support the UC system’s Global Food and Carbon Neutrality...

Researchers Win CITRIS Grants for Four New Technology Projects

UC Merced researchers won four of only 11 seed grants given out by the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) for the year. CITRIS received 24 highly...

Climate Scientist Aims to Change National Dialogue, One Story at a Time

Climate scientist Emmanuel Vincent noticed climate change discussions in Europe had become somewhat politically polarized before he left France a few years ago, and found the same situation on a...

Floodplain Management Can Increase Groundwater Supply

California’s groundwater is being rapidly depleted because cities and farms extract more than is replenished naturally, compacting local aquifers and decreasing supply in some places in the Central ...

Professor to Serve with New Water Policy Center

UC Merced Professor Joshua Viers has been named a member of the new Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) Water Policy Center, established to help meet the state's urgent need for timely...

Sierra Nevada Research Institute Names New Executive Director

Armando Quintero has been chosen as the new executive director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute (SNRI) at the University of California, Merced. Quintero has served as director of development...

Professors Share in UC Effort to Study Effects of Climate Change

Several UC Merced faculty members will play important roles in a new UC systemwide effort to study the ecological effects of climate change across varied ecosystems. Funded by a $1.9 million...