Sierra Nevada Research Institute

Climate Speaker Series at UC Merced Kicks Off with Warnings … and Hope

December 16, 2025

Photo depicts climate scientist Michael Mann speaking at a podium at UC Merced.

The global climate crisis was entirely predictable and impacts nearly every facet of life. But we still can slow its progress and mitigate the effects we already see. That was the message delivered earlier this month by climate scientist Michael Mann, who spoke at the first in a series of...

Professor and Environmental Champion Bales Retires, But Research and Advocacy Continue

Professors Roger Bales and Martha Conklin arrived in Merced in 2003, the first non-administrative faculty members at UC Merced. They came with a vision: to create a research university that would...

Photo depicts trees that survived a fire, surrounded by ash on the ground.

Thinning, Burning Forests Provide Multiple Benefits, Some of Them Surprising

Wildfires are growing more frequent and severe across the western United States, and California's Sierra Nevada is ground zero. Decades of fire suppression have left these forests overstocked and...

From Soil to Climate Solutions: Berhe Leads Sierra Nevada Research Institute into its Next Chapter

When Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe arrived at UC Merced in 2009, she and her husband, Professor Teamrat Ghezzehei, were leaving major research institutions to join a brand-new campus in California...

Photo depicts a silhouette of California firefighters battling a lightning-caused fire in 2020.

Damaging Lightning-Caused Wildfires Likely to Increase in a Few Years, Researchers Find

Lightning from thunderstorms rolling through Central California on Sept. 2 ignited numerous wildfires, including several large fires in the Sierra Nevada foothills that had burned more than 19 square...

A sign posted on a tree in Eastern Europe warns of active land mines.

UC Merced’s Berhe Joins Scientists in Warning of Global Land Mine Crisis

More than 100 million land mines remain buried around the world, posing a threat in approximately 70 countries and territories, and killing or injuring about 5,000 people, most of them civilians,...

Instructor Kristen Hogue works with a class of high school students in New York City.

UC Merced Brings Climate Justice Course to Title I High School Students Across the Nation

Recently, more than 150 students at 10 high schools in Los Angeles, New York City and Washington, D.C. completed Climate Justice, a UC Merced course , through a unique partnership between the...

Flames, the beach and the ocean are depicted in a scene from the January 2025 Palisades fire.

Researchers Look Ahead to Fire Season 2025

Pictures accompanying Professor John Abatzoglou's presentation on the 2025 fire season were blurry. That was intentional, he said, because so much about wildfire is unpredictable. "There...

A fluorescence microscope image of one kind of active matter being studied. Image courtesy of Amanda Tan, UC Merced

UC Awards Support Tackling Big Questions in Health, Physics, Agriculture and Climate

Faculty members at UC Merced are taking the lead on four Multicampus Research Program Initiatives (MRPI), working with colleagues around the University of California system to address challenges...

Study: Climate Change Extends Drought Recovery by at Least Three Months

A group of researchers at UC Merced has found that climate change means it takes about three months longer for California to recover from drought, and probably longer. “Climate change has...