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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, MERCED

Environment

Media Creates False Balance on Climate Science, Study Shows

August 13, 2019

a thermal map of the world
The American media lends too much weight to people who dismiss climate change, giving them legitimacy they haven’t earned, posing serious danger to efforts aimed at raising public awareness and motivating rapid action, a new study shows. While it is not uncommon for media outlets to...
Stands of brown, dead trees throughout Sierra Nevada forests

Multiyear Drought Caused Massive Forest Die-off in Sierra Nevada

The most extreme drought event in hundreds of years caused a catastrophic die-off of the Sierra Nevada’s mature trees in 2015-2016. A study published today in Nature Geoscience details how UC Merced Professor Roger Bales and his colleague...
pine tree seedlings in a greenhouse

Sierra Seedlings Illustrate Effects of Climate Change on Next Generation of Forests

Climate change is bad news for forests, and a new study by UC Merced Professor Emily Moran demonstrates one aspect of that news. Higher summer temperatures hurt tree seedlings’ growth and survival. But whether that is entirely bad depends...

Field Station Planned for UC Merced's Vernal Pools and Grassland Reserve

At the northern tip of the UC Merced campus, an unremarkable aluminum gate leads into a field that extends, seemingly, into infinity. Perpendicular to the gate, the LeGrand Canal, drawn from Lake Yosemite, snakes around campus into the emerald pastures,...
Researchers stand near a large solar collection panel.

UC Solar Projects Bringing Lower Costs, Renewable Energy to Industry, Commerce and Homes

Three big UC Solar projects are poised to be the next big breakthroughs in low-cost, accessible sustainable commercial and residential energy in California and far beyond. Researchers are building working models of one project developed through a...
A verdant forest floor

Lengthy Study Shows Value of Soil Health and Forest Restoration after Damaging Events

A nine-year experiment by a UC Merced Department of Life and Environmental Sciences professor and his colleagues is illuminating the importance of soil carbon in maintaining healthy and functioning ecosystems because of its influence on the microbial...
Professor Sora Kim examines a fossilized shark's tooth.

One Key to Climate Change Could Be Stuck in a 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...
Vicky Espinoza presents her story at a recent symposium.

Grad Student Represents Valley at Global Food Security Symposium

Graduate student Vicky Espinoza shared the plight of some San Joaquin Valley families with a wide audience this spring in her role as a Next Generation delegate to this year’s Chicago Council on Global Affairs Global Food Security Symposium,...
A picture of a soil chronosequence in Hawaii shows yellow sulfur-rich soil that has built up over millions of years.

UC Merced Researchers Help Uncover Soil Biodiversity

A rigorous, first-of-its-kind global study provides new insights into the natural history of soil biodiversity and shows that changes in soil pH during soil development is a major driver of most of that biodiversity. Published recently in the...
A child is surrounded by air pollution from traffic.

Air Pollution Impacts Childhood Development, New Study Shows

Children who live near major roads are at higher risk for developmental delays because of traffic-related pollutants. That’s the major finding of a new study authored by UC Merced environmental epidemiology Professor Sandie Ha and colleagues....

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