Photo above: The Friends of Flax Pond Walk, led by Steve Abrams, took place on Sunday May 1st.
Congratulations to Kim Knoll, who has been awarded the Chancellor’s Award in Professional Service for 2022. Everyone who works with Kim knows how deserving she is of this recognition!
On Friday April 29, the 2022 Okubo Scholar Jonathan Grabowski gave his presentation. Prior to the talk, Malcolm Bowman gave a brief account of the life and work of Akira Okubo.
Many thanks to everyone who made Vax to Flax a memorable race this year! From the cold and rainy weather, to a bloody chin and a pulled calf muscle, to the response of 6 emergency vehicles after the race–the tradition of this race between students and faculty and staff lives on! Despite the rain, there was a solid number of runners, with faculty/staff edging out the victory over the students this year! Before Vax to Flax, several SoMAS faculty and students participated in the Run for the Ridley in Riverhead, an annual event by one of our partners, the NY Marine Rescue Center. Photos available on Instagram.
Congratulations to Alyssa Stansfield, who is the 2022 recipient of the Nuria Protopopescu Memorial Teaching Award. This award is presented annually to a SoMAS graduate student based on demonstrated excellence in teaching, innovation and creativity in instructional plans and materials, and engagement with and dedication to their students.
In Spring 2021, Melanie Formosa, Dana Franz, and Wendy Arias Guanga, a created a survey using Survey123 technology. Over the summer, Melanie was awarded a Stony Brook URECA grant to develop a marketing plan to pass along the survey to agencies, groups and individuals interested in the Hudson River. The survey resulted in 584 participants and created substantive data about values and perceptions of the Hudson River. Later, Andrew Wong partnered with Melanie to create the final story map, Public Perceptions of the Hudson River: A Story Map of Aesthetics and Values.
Kevin Reed has received a new contract from Argonne National Lab, in the amount $58,988, in support of the project: “Assistance in Preparing a Harm Document Report for the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management”, for the project period 04/07/2022 – 10/06/2022. A goal of the project is to identify and quantify the harm caused by GHG emissions/climate change to the U.S. OCS and coastal areas, and to identify an approach and analytic need so that natural resources conservation is not undermined by GHG emissions.
Stony Brook University will assist Argonne in drafting the link between the effects of the above-stated GHG impacts and the resulting changes on the U.S. OCS and coastal areas. This will include drafting the chapters on effects of sea level rise, including shoreline degradation and erosion, damage caused from increased severe weather effects, ocean acidification effects, and extent of GHG emissions impact on formation of hypoxic zones. This will include helping to summarize the state of the work for these individual chapters with data from previously published work in the field and from Stony Brook University’s participation in an upcoming BOEM workshop on the topic. We will collaborate with Argonne to identify the structure of the chapter and will have periodic status updates via video conferencing and email correspondence throughout the project. Stony Brook University will also be involved in the revising of the full final document.
We continue to celebrate the graduates from the Class of 2022! Have a great summer!
Press Highlights
Newsday: Wind farm’s fish monitors irk fishermen
- “It is an accident waiting to happen and Stony Brook and Orsted will be liable if someone gets hurt,” she said. Stony Brook University officials said they were “always looking to improve our acoustic monitoring research,” noting the work was “in response to requests from the local community” to see if “fish migration and behavior” are impacted by the cable. Also ran in the National Wind Watch.
USA News: Punishing heat wave in India reaches 115 degrees, part of a ‘hotter and more dangerous world’
- These heat waves are one of the clearest indicators that climate change is happening and global weather is changing, said Kevin Reed, a professor of marine and atmospheric science at Stony Brook University in Long Island, New York. Also ran in Yahoo News
Times Beacon Record: SBU News: Modeling study projects 21st century droughts will increase human migration (press release)
- Stony Brook-led research combined social science and climate models in a paper published in International Migration Review.
Times Beacon Record: Legislator Sarah Anker and New York Sea Grant announce a new Marine Debris School Curriculum
- Suffolk County Legislator Sarah Anker and Stony Brook University students join Coastal Steward for a beach clean. Photo from Leg. Sarah Anker’s office.
Aviation Today: Raytheon Partners with Universities to Develop Skyler Radar
- Raytheon Intelligence & Space is involved in partnerships with the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Virginia Tech, Stony Brook University, and Hampton University to encourage innovations that will facilitate drone integration into the national airspace
East Hampton Star: New York: Wind Farm Study Moorings Anger Fishermen
- Researchers with Stony Brook University who are conducting the five-year study required of the wind farm’s developers are at present on a regular visit to the sensor array to collect data, replace batteries, and deploy new, smaller, and retrievable moorings alongside the existing 500-pound blocks. Also ran on Saving Seafood.
Chemistry World: The human health observatory in our sewers
- While virus and drug level analyses have become routine, scientists are starting to make more complex deductions from wastewater data. ‘I was involved in the study that showed the first application that looked at dietary trends in communities,’ says environmental chemist Arjun Venkatesan from Stony Brook University, US. Together with Halden, he identified phytoestrogens as diet biomarkers.
East Hampton Star: Beach Chair Birding Talk on Tuesday
- Chris Paparo, the manager of Stony Brook Southampton’s Marine Science Center, is also a birder. On Tuesday at 5, he’ll share some of his avian expertise at a virtual Accabonac Protection Committee forum titled “Birding From Your Beach Chair.”
National Science Foundation: Ice shards in Antarctic clouds let more solar energy reach Earth’s surface
- Southern Ocean low clouds shouldn’t be treated as liquid clouds, according to lead author Rachel Atlas of UW. “Ice formation in Southern Ocean low clouds has a substantial effect on cloud properties and needs to be accounted for in global models,” she said. Co-authors of the study are Chris Bretherton at the Allen Institute for AI in Seattle; Marat Khairoutdinov at Stony Brook University in New York; and Peter Blossey at UW. Also ran in Mirage News.
- Kevin Reed, of Stony Brook University, told the outlet: ‘The forecasts that are coming out are expecting about anywhere from kind of 17 to 18 to 19 storms.’ Also ran in TDPel Media, What’s New 2 Day,
Southampton Press: Westhampton Beach High School Teacher Earns Fellowship
- Dianna Gobler earned her Bachelor of Science in chemistry at Gettysburg College and her doctorate in molecular biology and biochemistry at Stony Brook University, and she worked as a researcher at Stony Brook University for a number of years before transitioning to teaching.
Science Magazine: United States’ ocean conservation efforts have major gaps, Oregon State University analysis shows
- In addition to Oregon State, taking part in the research were scientists from many universities including Stony Brook University. Also ran in Mirage News.
Coastal News Today: USA – US Must Ramp up Ocean Conservation to Meet Global MPA Standards
- The findings by a team of national scientists, including Ellen Pikitch, PhD, of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS), are published in Frontiers in Marine Science. Also ran in Deeper Blue.
Berkeley Lab: Computer Models Show Role of Climate Change in Intense 2020 Hurricane Season
- The research team — which included lead author Kevin Reed of Stony Brook University and co-author Colin Zarzycki of Pennsylvania State University — used data from the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble Community Project, which encompasses transient simulations from the year 1850 onward, to estimate the environmental changes caused by humans.
Innovate LI: No. 692: Endangered docks, freshman docs, Sadaharu Oh and Cher, with quiche for all – Innovate Long Island
- That’s the word from Ellen Pikitch, the Endowed Professor of Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, one of 31 researchers contributing to “A Scientific Synthesis of Marine Protected Areas in the United States: Status and Recommendations.”
Futurity: 0.3% of mid-Atlantic ocean off the US coast is protected
- “A lot of work needs to be done, and quickly, to significantly expand marine protection in vast areas of the US waters that have been largely neglected,” says coauthor Ellen Pikitch, professor of ocean conservation science at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. Also ran in Scribd.
Exeter Magazine: ‘Make or break’ year for protecting nature
- The event will also feature Melissa Wright (Bloomberg Philanthropies), Professor Ellen Pikitch (Stony Brook University) and Markus Müller (Deutsche Bank).
WSHU-FM/NPR: New maps could help Biden administration reach 2030 goal to protect oceans
- WSHU’s J.D. Allen spoke with Ellen Pikitch, endowed professor of ocean conservation science in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, about new maps her team has drawn that better preserve the waters off the coast of New York to Virginia.
Program Business: 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season to Show ‘Above Normal’ Activity, NOAA Predicts
- “One of the clear indicators of climate-change impact on hurricanes is really coming through changes in rainfall,” said Kevin Reed, associate dean for research at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, who studies climate and extreme weather events.
Coastal News Today: CA – Kelp Mitigates Ocean Acidification, a Key to the Health and Abundance of Important Shellfish
- A new study led by Christopher Gobler, PhD, and a team of scientists at the Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) shows that the presence of kelp significantly reduces ocean acidification, a result of climate change.
SoundCloud: Climate Action Council On Next Steps On Scoping Plan
- The NYS Climate Action Council met on May 26 to review the progress to develop a scoping plan to implement the state’s climate law enacted 3 years ago. We hear an update on the recent hearings, as well as comments from several of the council’s members: Prof. Paul Shepson of Stony Brook, Donna L. DeCarolis of National Fuel Gas Distribution Corp, Bob Howarth of Cornell, and Anne Reynolds of ACENY. With Mark Dunlea for Hudson Mohawk Magazine.
Newsday: Kelp may help shellfish growth in acidified waters, SBU study says
- Long Island’s burgeoning aquaculture industry may have more reasons than the prospect of increased revenue to add kelp to their oyster farms: a recent study by Stony Brook University found it can dramatically increase shellfish growth rates in waters impacted by ocean acidification.
WSHU-FM/NPR: Kelp could help save Long Island’s shellfish industry from ocean acidification, study finds
- A Stony Brook University study found the seaweed kelp may help reduce the effects of ocean acidifications on Long Island. This could help the region’s shellfish industry rebound from massive die-offs in recent years.
WSHU-FM’s “After All Things: Kelp Can Help!”:
- Professor Christopher Gobler speaks about a new study that finds kelp could reduce the effects of ocean acidification on Long Island.
Suffolk Times: Researchers say shellfish, kelp could be key to combat ocean acidification
- Researchers at Stony Brook University have discovered a way to combat ocean acidification with a culture of shellfish and kelp, potentially benefiting local marine ecosystems, shellfish farmers and economies as soon as this year. Also ran in Riverhead News-Review.
Sag Harbor Press: Algae Blooms Continue To Wreak Havoc, But Kelp And Shellfish Provide Potential Elixirs, Report Says
- A concerted effort by Stony Brook University scientists to boost clam populations in western Shinnecock Bay appears to have stanched chronic blooms of the infamous “brown tide,” and growing long fronds of kelp on the ropes of oyster growing racks can both soak up pollutants from water and reverse the harmful effects of ocean acidification on the growing shellfish, scientists found.
Washington Post: Opinion – Another monster hurricane season looms as we dawdle on climate change
- Researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University and Stony Brook University examined the entire 2020 season, during which human-caused warming increased average North Atlantic sea-surface temperatures by 0.6 degrees Celsius.
Latest Seminar Videos
- Climate Change What Does It Mean For Long Island Weather – Kevin Reed, May 4, 2022
- Mesoscale Convective Systems in Observations and a Hierarchy of Models – Ruby Leung, May 5, 2022
