[DIALOGnews] DISCCRS News 3/2/2007
Ruth Ladderud
ladderra at whitman.edu
Fri Mar 2 13:26:16 CST 2007
DISCCRS News
3/2/2007
************************************
TABLE OF CONTENTS
RESOURCES and FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
PolarPower.org - Remote Power Systems for Polar Environments - New
Website
http://polarpower.org/
US National Research Council's Committee on Human Dimensions of
Global Change. Since the mid-1980s they have issued a series of
reports that are highly interdisciplinary and deal with a variety of
topics related to global change.
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/hdgc/
The DIALOG/DISCCRS website has resources for early career
development, as does The Cutting Edge website
http://marcus.whitman.edu/~weilercs/resources/
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/index.html
(see RESOURCES 1 below)
SCIENCE NEWS
United States Launches New International Polar Year – NSF press
release 07-017 – February 28, 2007
http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=pr07017
An Early Environmentalist, Embracing New 'Heresies'
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/science/earth/27tier.html?
ref=environment
(see NEWS 1 below)
Global Climate Change: Taking the Battle to the Campus
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=8822
(see NEWS 2 below)
Huge Polar Study About to Begin
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6389857.stm Or: http://
tinyurl.com/2dscwh
(see NEWS 3 below)
Global Warming: Enough to Make You Sick
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-
disease25feb25,1,1099294.story Or: http://tinyurl.com/324oof
(see NEWS 4 below)
Conservation May Limit Global Warming
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-
warming28feb28,1,5415497.story Or: http://tinyurl.com/2cffsx
(see NEWS 5 below)
Ice Shelf Collapses Reveal New Species, Ecosystem Changes
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070227-polar-
species.html Or: http://tinyurl.com/2t26hg
(see NEWS 6 below)
SUMMER PROGRAMS, COURSES, INTERNSHIPS, MEETINGS, OPPORTUNITIES
Workshop: “Climate Change in South-Eastern European countries:
Causes, Impacts, Solutions” - Joanneum Research - March 26-27, 2007 -
Graz, (Austria)
The workshop’s objectives are: 1)-To strengthen and improve the
multidisciplinary approach to climate change related issues 2) -To
generate ideas for research projects 3) -To meet potential research
partners
http://www.joanneum.at/climate/Workshop_Draft%20programme.html
Three On the Cutting Edge Workshops: 1) Early Career Geoscience
Faculty: Teaching, Research, and Managing Your Career; 2) Designing
Innovative and Effective Courses; and 3) Preparing for an Academic
Career in the Geosciences (for grad students and post-docs)
(see WORKSHOPS 1 below)
JOBS
PhD Position - Arctic Water Source Dynamics, Stream Habitat and
Biodiversity In a Changing Climate: A Field-based Investigation In
Swedish Lappland - Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES)
- University of Birmingham - Birmingham (UK)
http://www.gees.bham.ac.uk/research/postgradresearch/physical -
linked under "Fluvial and Ecological Processes" on the GEES website
(see JOB 1 below)
Research Scholar - Atmospheric Pollution and Economic Development
(APD) Program - International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
(IIASA) - Austria
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Admin/PE/Jobs/2007-01-apd-rs-mod.html
(see JOB 2 below)
***************************************************
Science News
(NEWS 1) An Early Environmentalist, Embracing New 'Heresies'
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/science/earth/27tier.html?
ref=environment
Stewart Brand has become a heretic to environmentalism, a
movement he helped found, but he doesn't plan to be isolated for
long. He expects that environmentalists will soon share his affection
for nuclear power. They'll lose their fear of population growth and
start appreciating sprawling megacities. They'll stop worrying about
"frankenfoods" and embrace genetic engineering.
He predicts that all this will happen in the next decade, which
sounds rather improbable — or at least it would if anyone else had
made the prediction. But when it comes to anticipating the zeitgeist,
never underestimate Stewart Brand.
He divides environmentalists into romantics and scientists, the
two cultures he's been straddling and blending since the 1960s. He
was with the Merry Pranksters and the Grateful Dead at their famous
Trips Festival in San Francisco, directing a multimedia show called
"America Needs Indians." That's somewhere in the neighborhood of
romantic....
********************
(NEWS 2) Global Climate Change: Taking the Battle to the Campus
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=8822
We are at last awakening to the reality of global climate change.
The report this month by the worldwide team of scientists of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated that global warming
is unequivocal and that most of the warming over the last half
century is likely due to greenhouse gas emissions from human
activity. No previous report of the respected panel, which was formed
in 1988, has been so conclusive. There is less certitude about what
to do and who will take the initiative.
Governments and corporations are obvious candidates for
leadership in confronting the threat of global climate change. But
there is also need to take the battle to university campuses, where
the world's future leaders should join the fight by taking measures
that communities at large will be asked to adopt. ********************
(NEWS 3) Huge Polar Study About to Begin
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6389857.stm Or: http://
tinyurl.com/2dscwh
BBC News Online - The largest polar research programme for 50
years gets under way this week. International Polar Year (IPY) will
see thousands of scientists, from more than 60 nations, working
together on 220 projects at high latitudes. Scientists hope to
improve their understanding of how changes to the polar regions
affect the planet.
IPY will be officially launched in Paris on 1 March, but the UK's
programme, involving 65 institutions, was unveiled on Monday in
London. IPY actually runs for two years in order to allow equal
coverage of both the Arctic and the Antarctic. It is organised by the
International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological
Organization (WMO).
There have been three previous IPYs - held in 1882-83, 1932-33
and 1957-58 - each of which led to scientists gaining a much better
knowledge of the remote regions. The UK research programme was
unveiled at a ceremony, attended by the Princess Royal, at the Royal
Society in central London.
********************
(NEWS 4) Global Warming: Enough to Make You Sick
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-
disease25feb25,1,1099294.story Or: http://tinyurl.com/324oof
Los Angeles Times (registration required) - CORDOVA, ALASKA -
Rising temperatures are redistributing bacteria, insects and plants,
exposing people to diseases they'd never encountered before.
Oysterman Jim Aguiar had never had to deal with the bacterium Vibrio
parahaemolyticus in his 25 years working the frigid waters of Prince
William Sound. The dangerous microbe infected seafood in warmer
waters like the Gulf of Mexico. Alaska was way too cold.
But the sound was gradually warming. By summer 2004, the
temperature had risen just enough to poke above the crucial 59-degree
mark. Cruise ship passengers who had eaten local oysters were soon
coming down with diarrhea, cramping and vomiting - the first cases of
Vibrio food poisoning in Alaska that anyone could remember...As
scientists later determined, the culprit was not just the bacterium,
but the warming that allowed it to proliferate.
"This was probably the best example to date of how global climate
change is changing the importation of infectious diseases," said Dr.
Joe McLaughlin, acting chief of epidemiology at the Alaska Division
of Public Health, who published a study on the outbreak.
********************
(NEWS 5) Conservation May Limit Global Warming
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-
warming28feb28,1,5415497.story Or: http://tinyurl.com/2cffsx
Los Angeles Times (Registration Required) - UNITED NATIONS -
Dramatic worldwide climate changes can no longer be avoided, but
there is still time to stave off the worst consequences of global
warming, an international research team said Tuesday.
The scientists from 11 countries urged sweeping conservation
measures to hold the expected increase in temperatures to no more
than an average of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit - less than half the
expected increase if emissions of greenhouse gas and soot continue
unabated.
Based on two years of study, the scientists called for bold
actions, including carbon taxes, a ban on conventional coal-fired
power plants and an end to beachfront construction worldwide. The
researchers were financed by the nonprofit United Nations Foundation
and the 60,000-member research society Sigma Xi.
"Unlike many reports from scientists, this report gives very
clear recommendations for what the international community and
nations themselves must do to mitigate and adapt to climate change,"
said biodiversity expert Peter Raven, director of the Missouri
Botanical Garden, who helped prepare a Sigma Xi study.
********************
(NEWS 6) Ice Shelf Collapses Reveal New Species, Ecosystem Changes
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070227-polar-
species.html Or: http://tinyurl.com/2t26hg
National Geographic News - Even before the global launch of
International Polar Year this Thursday, scientists are announcing
some unusual discoveries from the cold waters off the Antarctic
Peninsula. The collapse of two massive ice shelves in the past 12
years has opened a window onto a pristine - but rapidly changing -
underwater world, an expedition team reported on Sunday.
In the first comprehensive survey of the region, 52 explorers
aboard the research vessel Polarstern captured a glimpse of about a
thousand rarely seen species of marine wildlife. Several of the
creatures may prove to be new to science, including a 1-inch-long
(2.5-centimeter-long) shrimplike crustacean and a giant Antarctic
barnacle...
The team also found a potentially new sea anemone that lives on
the back of a snail. The venomous anemone, the scientists said, helps
protect the snail from predators while the snail transports the
anemone to new food sources.
***************************************************
Summer Programs, Courses, Internships, Meetings, Opportunities
(WORKSHOPS 1) Three On the Cutting Edge Workshops: 1) Early Career
Geoscience Faculty: Teaching, Research, and Managing Your Career; 2)
Designing Innovative and Effective Courses; and 3) Preparing for an
Academic Career in the Geosciences (for grad students and post-docs)
Many of the on-site workshop expenses including food and lodging
are covered for the workshops. Participants or their departments pay
for their travel to the workshop and, for some workshops, a
registration fee. We also have a workshop stipend award program for
those who have limited resources. The website provides more
information about the various workshops. These workshops are part of
the professional development program, On the Cutting Edge, which is
funded by a grant from the NSF Division of Undergraduate Education.
WORKSHOPS FOR FACULTY:
Early Career Faculty Workshop: Teaching, Research, and Managing
Your Career - June 13-17, 2007 College of William and Mary - Co-
conveners: Heather Macdonald, Richelle Allen-King, and Richard Yuretich
Application Deadline: March 15, 2007
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/earlycareer07/index.html
Designing Effective and Innovative Courses in the Geosciences -
July 30-August 3, 2007 (on-line, virtual workshop) - July 8-12, 2007
(face-to-face workshop) Hamilton College, Clinton, NY - Co-conveners:
Barbara Tewksbury and Charlotte Mehrtens
Application Deadline: March 15, 2007
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/coursedesign07/index.html
WORKSHOP FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS AND POST-DOCS
Preparing for an Academic Career in the Geosciences: A Workshop
for Graduate Students and Post-doctoral Fellows - August 2-5, 2007,
University of Wisconsin, Madison - Co-conveners: Heather Macdonald
and Robyn Wright Dunbar
Application Deadline: March 15, 2007
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/careerprep07/index.html
***************************************************
Jobs
Planktonnet: Great listserv for aquatic-science jobs
To subscribe to the list, send an empty email to:
planktonnet-subscribe at yahoogroups.com
Or, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/planktonnet/ and click on
'Join this group'
********************
(JOB 1) PhD Position - Arctic Water Source Dynamics, Stream Habitat
and Biodiversity In a Changing Climate: A Field-based Investigation
In Swedish Lappland - Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
(GEES) - University of Birmingham - Birmingham (UK)
http://www.gees.bham.ac.uk/research/postgradresearch/physical -
linked under "Fluvial and Ecological Processes" on the GEES website
Application Deadline: Friday, 16 March 2007
The School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES)
at University of Birmingham invites applications for a PhD position
as part of the project "Arctic water source dynamics, stream habitat
and biodiversity in a changing climate: a field-based investigation
in Swedish Lappland."
The PhD position involves linking changes in water source
contributions to physico-chemical habitat and stream biodiversity,
thereby providing a tool for assessing the vulnerability of arctic
ecosystems to climate change.
Arctic stream ecosystems are influenced significantly by
cryospheric and hydrological processes due to strong links between
atmospheric forcing, snow packs/glacier mass-balance, stream flow,
water quality, hydrogeomorphology (physico-chemical habitat), and
river ecology. Given anticipated climate change and potentially
increased climatic variability, it is important to understand the
impacts of altered snowmelt, glacier, permafrost, and groundwater
contributions to arctic stream flow and their influence on benthic
communities. Moreover, high climatic sensitivity and low human
perturbation makes arctic river basins vital indicator systems for
identifying early signals of, and subtle shifts in, hydrological and
ecological response to climate change/variability.
Fieldwork will be conducted over two field seasons in the
Karsavagge, a tributary to the Abisko River, Swedish Lappland. The
field program will include (1) measurement of river discharge,
electrical conductivity and turbidity, meteorological variables, and
water column and streambed temperature (to investigate hydrological
variability and habitat conditions); (2) collection of water samples
for hydrochemical and water stable isotope analyses (to identify
conceptual water sources and their dynamics); and (3) sampling of
benthic communities. Monitoring sites will be located at key nodes
along the river system to assess the potential hydroecological
influences of decreasing glacial meltwater contribution/glacierized
area, extra-glacial tributary inflows, and lakes and riparian forest
cover. Stream temperature will be monitored year-round to give an
indication of overwinter stream flow and habitat conditions.
The PhD position will be supervised by Alexander M. Milner (E-
mail: a.m.milner at bham.ac.uk)and David M. Hannah (E-mail:
d.m.hannah at bham.ac.uk), both of GEES at University of Birmingham.
For application instructions, please contact: Gretchel Coldicott,
Postgraduate Administrator GEES E-mail: G.Coldicott at bham.ac.uk
********************
(JOB 2) Research Scholar - Atmospheric Pollution and Economic
Development (APD) Program - International Institute for Applied
Systems Analysis (IIASA) - Austria
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Admin/PE/Jobs/2007-01-apd-rs-mod.html
Closing date for applications: 1 April 2007. Review of
applications will begin immediately.
Tasks - The successful candidate will have responsibility for
further developing and maintaining the GAINS model, a widely used
integrated assessment modeling framework to analyze various aspects
of climate change mitigation and air pollution control for European
and Asian countries. This includes the collection and maintenance of
technology data and the further development of the GAINS optimization
framework, which is extensively used for policy applications. The
incumbent will document the new aspects of the GAINS model and
contribute to scientific publications on various aspects of modeling
greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Close interaction with
other members of the interdisciplinary program team will be essential.
Profile - The candidate should have a PhD or equivalent in
environmental engineering, environmental economics, operations
research, environmetrics or related fields. He/she should have
practical experience in complex bottom-up technological modeling and/
or quantitative techno-economic assessments of emission control
options for greenhouse gases in an international context. Familiarity
with international databases (e.g., compiled by UNFCCC) would be an
advantage. The candidate must have a good command of the English
language. Familiarity with GAMS and basic knowledge in SQL are an asset.
Appointment Terms - The successful candidate will be offered an
initial fixed-term contract for 12 months with the possibility of
extension, beginning as soon as possible. The salary is competitive
and commensurate with experience.
**************************************************
This newsletter has been developed by C. Susan Weiler to distribute
information of potential interest to recent PhDs engaged in
interdisciplinary aquatic science or climate-change research, and to
build an international sense of community among recent grads. It
provides an international forum for the exchange of information and
opinions regarding research, professional and social issues. The
views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the
funding agencies or sponsoring societies. Dr. Weiler reserves the
right to edit or reject material submitted to the list.
Please submit announcements of interest to recent PhDs to
phd at whitman.edu. Send a short message in the body of an e-mail
message, and link to any appropriate websites. Do not send attachments.
Moving? Send address changes to dialog at whitman.edu or
disccrs at whitman.edu
**********
C. Susan Weiler, Ph.D.
Office for Earth System Studies Tel: 509-527-5948
Whitman College Fax: 509-527-5961
Walla Walla, WA 99362
weiler at whitman.edu
Programs for Recent PhDs http://aslo.org/phd.html
DISCCRS poster http://www.aslo.org/phd/disccrsposter.pdf
Workshop Report, Meeting the Needs of
Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Graduates in a
Changing Global Environment
http://marcus.whitman.edu/~weilercs/biocomplexity/
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