September 2024 News and Press from SoMAS

Oct 1, 2024

Stony Brook Football Stadium

Photo above: Join us on Saturday October 5, 2024 at LaValle Stadium as the Stony Brook Football team on Villanova. Tickets are free, just stop by our parking lot tailgate between 1-3 to pick them up! If you already have tickets, stop by section 108 and say hello!

Congratulations to Ellen Pikitch, who has been named a 2024 Lowell Thomas Awardee, from the Explorers Club. Founded in 1904, the Explorers Club is a multidisciplinary, professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research, scientific exploration and resource conservation. Headquartered in NYC with a community of chapters and members around the world, it has been supporting scientific expeditions of all disciplines, uniting its members in the bonds of good fellowship for more than a century. Among countless notable achievements in exploration, five firsts achieved by Club Members define the legacy of our institution: first to the North Pole, South Pole, Summit of Everest, Bottom of the Mariana Trench, and first to walk on the surface of the Moon. The Lowell Thomas Award recognizes accomplishments in field science communication, and has previously been awarded to Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Kathy Sullivan, Sir Edmund Hillary, Kris Thompkins, E.O. Wilson, and many more. Ellen was actually personally nominated for this honor by legendary explorer Sylvia Earle herself.

Congratulations to Christopher Paparo, who is a finalist for the 2024 Stony Awards. The selection committee received hundreds of nominations for awards in the five categories this year and selecting finalists from such a stellar lineup was no small feat. The finalists have been invited to the annual Stony Awards on November 20.

Carl Safina was interviewed for HBO’s shocking series about people who try to keep pet chimpanzees, “Chimp Crazy” was on the podcast accompanying the series.

 

Dr. Edmund Chang has received a new award from NSF in support of the project “Collaborative Research: Local and Global Perspectives of Storm Track Dynamics”, in the amount $424,952, for the project period 9/1/2024-8/31/2027.

Extratropical storms are responsible for transporting much of the moisture, heat, and momentum across the mid-latitudes. As such, storm tracks are important for the maintenance of the global circulation. Thus, it is imperative that we understand the dynamics governing storm track variability and change. Nevertheless, some important questions remain unanswered. One example is the mid-winter minimum of the Pacific storm track that confounded the storm-track research community for the past three decades. Cyclones and anticyclones that populate the storm tracks derive their energy mainly from background potential energy which is proportional to the temperature difference between the tropics and high latitudes. This temperature gradient is maximum during mid-winter, yet Pacific storm track strength exhibits a local minimum during mid-winter. Most previous studies have focused on physical processes that occur locally over the Pacific or in its immediate upstream region. Recent findings, including results by the PIs, indicated that global scale planetary waves, excited by tropical heating, play an important role in modulating local storm track activity by depleting the energy available for storm development, and thus significantly contribute to the mid-winter minimum. Preliminary results indicate that these global and local interactions are not just limited to the midwinter minimum, but also contribute to subseasonal variability in storm track activity. Another example is horizontal structure of the Atlantic storm track. Most climate models struggle to simulate the southwest-northeast tilt of the Atlantic storm track. Our preliminary results show that this tilt is more pronounced when the climatological stationary wave and tropical heating contrasts are stronger. Here, we propose to perform diagnostic analyses of observational data and numerical experiments using a hierarchy of models to explore the interactions between tropical heating, global-scale planetary waves, and local storm track dynamics. Lead-lag relationships amongst tropical heating, planetary waves, and storm track activity will be examined first, and modeling experiments will then be conducted to explore and illuminate the underlying physical mechanisms suggested by the diagnostic analyses. Next, how these mechanisms might help understand the cause of the storm track bias in climate models will be explored.

On October 28, 4-6:00 pm at the Staller Recital Hall, the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and the Collaborative for the Earth present Science on Stage. The event will open with the debut of an original composition for youth chamber music by Margaret Schedel, music professor, entitled “Carnival of the Endangered Animals.” The piece will be performed by Long Island high school musicians assembled specifically to perform this new piece. Following the musical performance, professional actors will perform short (~10 min), one-act plays inspired by climate research and climate researchers at Stony Brook University. The event will end with a panel discussion involving the researchers and playwrights.

SBU News Features

Latest Videos

Latest Job Postings

Latest Publications

Wing, A. A., Silvers, L. G., & Reed, K. A. (2024). RCEMIP-II: mock-Walker simulations as phase II of the radiative–convective equilibrium model intercomparison project. Geoscientific Model Development, 17(16), 6195-6225.

Zheng, C., Domeisen, D. I., Garfinkel, C. I., Jenney, A. M., Kim, H., Wang, J., … & Stan, C. (2024). The impact of vertical model levels on the prediction of MJO teleconnections: Part I—The tropospheric pathways in the UFS global coupled model. Climate Dynamics, 1-26.

Twiss KC, Bogaard A, Haddow S, Milella M, Taylor JS, Veropoulidou R, Kay K, Knüsel CJ, Tsoraki C, Vasić M, Pearson J, Busacca G, Mazzucato C, Pochron S. (2024) “But some were more equal than others:” Exploring inequality at Neolithic Çatalhöyük. PLoS ONE 19(9): e0307067. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307067

Yanchilina, A. G., L. E. Rodriguez, R. Price, L. M. Barge, and P. Sobron (2024), Sensing remote realms of the deep ocean on Earth—and beyond, Eos, 105, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EO240375.

Shipley, O. N., Dabrowski, A. J., Bowen, G. J., Hayden, B., Pauli, J. N., Jordan, C., … & Newsome, S. D. (2024). Design, development, and implementation of IsoBank: a centralized repository for isotopic data. PloS one, 19(9), e0295662.

MacPherson, J., Shipley, O. N., Weinrauch, A. M., Busquets-Vass, G., Newsome, S. D., & Anderson, W. G. (2024). Absence of a functional gut microbiome impairs host amino acid metabolism in the Pacific spiny dogfish (Squalus suckleyi). Journal of Experimental Biology, 227(16).

Lee, C. (2024). Why dissolved organics matter: Take 3—The messiness of nature. In Biogeochemistry of Marine Dissolved Organic Matter (pp. 1-12). Academic Press.

Smolinski, R., Clyde, P., Asato, C., Brownawell, B., Gobler, C., & McDonough, C. (2024). Removal of Organic Contaminants in On-Site Wastewater Treatment Systems: The Role of Sorption and Transformation. ACS ES&T Water.

Niu, S., Qiu, M., Li, L., Qu, C., & Zhang, D. (2024). Climate Actions, Persistent Pollutants, and Human Health: A Call for Integrated Assessments. Environmental Science & Technology.

McBride, K., MacKinnon, J., Franks, P. J., McSweeney, J. M., Waterhouse, A. F., Palóczy, A., … & MacMahan, J. (2024). A juvenile journey: Using a highly resolved 3D mooring array to investigate the roles of wind and internal tide forcing in across‐shore larval transport. Limnology and Oceanography.

Aubrecht, K. B. (2024). What We Can Learn from Environmental Educators about Teaching for Climate Action. Journal of Chemical Education.

Chang, Kar, “Data for GRL paper “Using the Curvature of the Local Wind to Separate Energetics Contributions from Cyclones and Anticyclones is not Physically Meaningful“” (2024). SoMAS Research Data. 21.
https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/somasdata/21

Grouzdev, D., Farhat, S., Guo, X., Espinosa, E. P., Reece, K., McDowell, J., … & Allam, B. (2024). Development and validation of a 66K SNP array for the hard clam (Mercenaria mercenaria). BMC genomics, 25(1), 847.

Brianik, C. J., Espinosa, E. P., Liu, M., Topping, P., Rivara, G., Guo, X., … & Allam, B. (2024). Triploid eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) display high susceptibility to microbial infections but only during early ontogenetic stages. Aquaculture, 741613.

Carman, N. A., Hausrath, E. M., Celestian, A., Chavez, J., Hermis, N., LaRowe, D. E., … Price, R.E., & Barge, L. M. (2024). Fe/Mg-Silicate Chemical Gardens as Analogs to Silicate-Rich Hydrothermal Chimneys on Early Earth and Mars. ACS Earth and Space Chemistry.

Perisic, N., Hickerson, L., Helwitt, D., Norwood, D., Shipley, O. N., Bervoets, T., & Gallagher, A. J. (2024). Reef fish biodiversity and occurrence of endangered sharks within a small marine protected area off Sint Maarten, Dutch Caribbean. Environmental Biology of Fishes, 1-12.

Şen, B., Che‐Castaldo, C., Lynch, H. J., Ventura, F., LaRue, M. A., & Jenouvrier, S. (2024). Detecting stochasticity in population time series using a non‐parametric test of intrinsic predictability. Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

 

Latest Press Headlines

Newsday: Concerned Citizens of Montauk monitors East End water quality for bacteria and harmful algal blooms

  • The data is published on its website. Tyler said that the Town of East Hampton uses this data as well, to monitor the health of local waters and post signs where needed. The nonprofit also shares samples with the Gobler Lab at Stony Brook Southampton, which then shares bloom occurrences with the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Public News Service: NY Indigenous women use seaweed to conserve shellfish

  • Although Price was studying the co-raising of kelp with mussels to offset acidification, there was no scientific evidence yet to show how kelp could help shellfish during algal blooms. Gobler, working out of Long Island’s Stony Brook University laboratory, thought that kelp might benefit oysters. Aided by Michael Doall, a former commercial oyster grower-turned scientist who’d devised a way of growing kelp in shallow waters, Gobler launched a three-year study in 2019, hoping to find a solution for Long Island’s troubled waters that could be applied on both coasts.

North Shore Leader: Op-Ed: Support a 6-Month Shell Fishing Moratorium for Oyster Bay

  • The Town of Oyster Bay has responsibly taken actions to address the long-term health of the bays. It applied for and received a nearly half-million-dollar grant to have Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences develop a plan for restoring the shellfish populations. (This is the same team that successfully restored Shinnecock Bay’s population.)

Newsday – LIRR, airports, busy roads no longer put off homebuyers, experts say

  • Homebuyers should also be mindful of the types of pollution that can occur in neighborhoods near these hubs, said Sara Hamideh, an associate professor in the school of marine and atmospheric sciences at Stony Brook University. “The irregularity of the noise is maybe the biggest concern for putting residential developments next to these facilities,” said Hamideh. “Certain age groups — people who are older, families with younger kids and babies — would suffer more with these irregular and consistent patterns of extra noise in their lives.”

University of New Hampshire: Harnessing the Power of the Sea for Renewable Energy

  • The Atlantic Marine Energy Center (AMEC), led by the University of New Hampshire, is working to develop the technology and skills that will help unlock the power of the sea as a renewable source of energy. A $12 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will advance those efforts by funding research, facilities and workforce development for the marine energy industry…The five-year DOE award — funded largely through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — will fund projects at UNH as well as at AMEC consortium institutions Stony Brook University, Lehigh University and the Coastal Studies Institute.

Newsday: Stony Brook launches remote-controlled craft to study marine biodiversity

  • A team of scientists launched a sleek new vessel this week on an inlet off Shinnecock Bay: a remote-controlled, solar-powered craft that can roam solo for months at a time, collecting data on biodiversity in the bay. The 12-foot-long craft can survey all the creatures that are floating, swimming or crawling in the ocean by collecting the DNA they naturally shed — without harming or even touching them, or their delicate marine habitat.

British Antarctic Survey: Antarctica’s sea ice could impact seabirds’ food supply

  • The research partners include BirdLife International, the University of Barcelona, the University of Helsinki, Stony Brook University and the University of Coimbra. The study was funded by the Leverhulme Trust, the European Research Council H2020, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Darwin Plus, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (GSGSSI).

BBC: Sea ice melt impacts birds’ feeding trips – study

  • The academics said further study was needed on what exactly the birds were eating, how they actually “interacted” with sea ice and the impact during the beginning and end of the breeding season. The research also included BirdLife International, the University of Barcelona, the University of Helsinki, Stony Brook University and the University of Coimbra. (Also in Yahoo and MSN)

Times Beacon Record: SBU’s Minghao Qiu studies intersection between air pollution, climate change and public health

  • When Minghao Qiu woke up in Beijing on Jan. 12, 2013  during his freshman year in college, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing or, more appropriately, not seeing. The worst air pollution day in the history of the city mostly blocked out the sun, making it appear to be closer to 8 p.m. than a typical morning.

Newsday: Long Island roads ill-equipped for heavy rains, experts say

  • Kevin Reed, associate provost for climate and sustainability programming at Stony Brook University, said New York State has made strides in recent years to address climate change, including through the 2019 passage of the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act, which he said helps “communities that are impacted the most become more resilient and adapt to a changing climate.”

East Hampton Star: In Montauk, What If, and What Then?

  • Kevin Reed and Brian Colle, Stony Brook University professors who are experts on extreme weather events amid climate change, emphasized the low probability of a Category 5 hurricane hitting here — because of Long Island’s relatively cold water temperatures — but highlighted the very real risk of a Category 3.

The Statesman: Stony Brook scientists launch solar-powered eDNA vessel for eco-friendly marine monitoring

  • This past week, a team of scientists and Stony Brook University researchers deployed a new environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling vessel into Shinnecock Bay, Long Island.

Retrofuturista “The scientific, ethical, and cultural aspects of our links with the environment”

  • Carl Safina is the founding president of The Safina Center and the inaugural holder of the Carl Safina Endowed Chair for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University.

Waste360: Long Island’s Waste Future Uncertain as Landfill Closure Looms

  • The Waste Reduction and Management Institute (WRMI) at Stony Brook University has been called in to help shape a regional waste management plan to address these multilayered issues, with feedback from municipalities, the counties, and local industry.

Newsday: Brookhaven OKs zone change for retail, housing at Port Jefferson Station shopping center

  • Richard Murdocco, a Stony Brook University public policy professor and author of “The Foggiest Idea,” a local planning blog, said the new zoning category “makes sense” and could spur similar redevelopment across the Island. “You are going to see more of this,” he told Newsday. “Brookhaven is putting its foot forward and it’s going to set a precedent for other municipalities to follow.”

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School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, SoMAS, at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-5000, USA
Phone: 631-632-8700
somas@stonybrook.edu