UM community dishes out treats and information during Food Day 2017.

As the clock struck 1 p.m. on Wednesday, October 25, campuses around the nation celebrated Food Day by biting into an apple at the same time to raise awareness of healthy eating. Here in Miami, however, apples do not grow naturally, so University of Miami students, faculty and staff bit into a tasty dragon fruit as a part of the UM Food Fair.

The Food Day 2017 events, which have been organized annually by the Office of Civic and Community Engagement in collaboration with the Butler Center for Service and Leadership and Green U since 2011, began Tuesday night with a keynote talk by renowned writer, activist and food security expert Raj Patel. On Wednesday, student organizations, University departments and community partners gathered for the annual Food Fair to expose students to food issues that affect all of us daily.

“Food Day is not only about healthy eating,” said Teddy Lhoutellier, UM’s sustainability manager, who oversees the Green U Office’s efforts. “We engage people on organic, local, fair trade food; food waste management; community supported agriculture; community gardens; and food donations. It’s actually about the whole spectrum of food integrity.”

The organizations and community partners at the event, Lhoutellier explained, advocate for living in environmentally friendly ways and are committed to providing alternatives to the way our current food system grows, distributes and wastes food. Each community partner offered something unique regarding nutrition in South Florida. The Food Recovery Network promoted its mission to decrease food waste and end hunger in the region, Common Threads highlighted the importance of cooking as a life skill, and The Fruit & Spice Park offered samples of exotic fruits and vegetables.

More than ever, student involvement this year was critical to the event’s success. The ECO Agency student organization participated with the goal of encouraging students who had never tasted vegan desserts to sample its vegan cookies and brownies as proof that dairy is not necessary to make their favorite treats delicious. ECO also had a group of freshman representatives who made organic smoothies and buckwheat crepes to show the ease of preparing healthy food options.

Plant Based Canes, a student organization started last year by senior Natalie Hickerson, quickly ran out of its vegan pumpkin cake pops. Yet the students continued to table for their organization, which educates people about the impact of animal products on the environment, and hand out infographics detailing the benefits of a meatless diet. The CommUnity Garden Club was recruiting members for the new food garden being designed for next spring in the UM Arboretum.

Most every environmentally conscious organization on campus was involved in some way in the Food Day festivities, all with a common cause to make campus just a bit greener.

“This leadership position allows me to spread my passion for the environment and promote sustainability,” said freshman ECO Agency representative Alexis Cambridge, and whether that means providing students with tips on how to reduce their environmental footprint or making spinach and mango smoothie samples, she does it with a smile.

— Aaliyah Weathers / UM News

Researchers provide science benchmarks for the restoration and recovery of threatened corals.

MIAMI (July 25, 2017)—A new study found that Caribbean staghorn corals (Acropora cervicornis) are benefiting from “coral gardening,” the process of restoring coral populations by planting laboratory-raised coral fragments on reefs.

The research, led by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and partners, has important implications for the long-term survival of coral reefs worldwide, which have been in worldwide decline from multiple stressors such as climate change and ocean pollution.

“Our study showed that current restoration methods are very effective,” said UM Rosenstiel school coral biologist Stephanie Schopmeyer, the lead author of the study. “Healthy coral reefs are essential to our everyday life and successful coral restoration has been proven as a recovery tool for lost coastal resources.”

In the study, the researchers set out to document restoration success during their initial two years at several coral restoration sites in Florida and Puerto Rico. Their findings showed that current restoration methods are not causing excess damage to donor colonies as a result of removing coral tissue to propagate new coral in the lab, and that once outplanted, corals behave just as wild colonies do.

Staghorn coral populations have declined as much as 90% in the Caribbean since the 1980s. As a result, the species was listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 2006 to help protect and conserve these species that form the foundation of the biologically rich coral reef habitats.

The findings, published in the of the journal Coral Reefs, offers a guide for successful restoration and recovery efforts of the threatened species worldwide.

Thousands of corals are raised in laboratories and planted onto degraded reefs each year. This study is the first to collect baseline coral restoration survival and productivity data at regional scales including data from 1,000s of individual A. cervicornis colonies, more than 120 distinct genotypes within six geographical regions to develop benchmarks to fully assess the progress and impacts of the region’s coral and reef restoration efforts.

Coral reefs provide many goods and services including fisheries habitat, food for humans and other ocean species, and protection against natural hazards such as hurricanes. As a result, coral restoration is viewed as an effective and cost-efficient strategy to buffer coastlines from the effects of storm surge and sea-level rise.

“Coral reefs are declining at an alarming rate and coral restoration programs are now considered an essential component to coral conservation and management plan,” said Diego Lirman, UM Rosenstiel School professor of marine biology and ecology and a coauthor of the study. “Our findings provide the necessary scientific benchmarks to evaluate restoration progress moving forward.”

The study was conducted in collaboration with U.S. Acropora Recovery Program partners: Nova Southeastern University, University of Miami, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Mote Marine Laboratory, The Nature Conservancy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The public can get involved in restoration through the UM Rescue-a-Reef program, where citizen scientists help plant nursery-grown corals onto depleted reefs alongside scientists.

The study, titled “Regional restoration benchmarks for Acropora cervicornis,” was authored by: Schopmeyer and Lirman from the UM Rosenstiel School; Erich Bartels, Cory Walter from Mote Marine Laboratory; David Gilliam and Elizabeth Goergen from Nova Southeastern University; Sean Griffin from I.M. Systems Group, NOAA Restoration Center; Meaghan Johnson and Caitlin Lustic from The Nature Conservancy; and Kerry Maxwell from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Funding for the study was provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Award #NA09NFF4630332).

— UM News

UM Rosenstiel School researchers study particles released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels to better predict future climate changes.

MIAMI (July 17, 2017)—In a new study, scientists found that aerosol particles released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels are a primary driver of changes in rainfall patterns across the globe.

The results of the climate system-model simulations conducted by researchers Brian Soden and Eui-Seok Chung from the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science revealed that changes in clouds, as a result of their interaction with these man-made aerosols in the atmosphere, are driving large-scale shifts in rainfall and temperature on Earth.

A southward shift of the tropical rain belt is thought to be the leading cause of the severe drought conditions experienced in large portions of Africa and South America during the second half of the 20th century, which have caused significant impacts to local communities and water availability in these regions.

Using multiple climate model projections, the researchers measured the effects man-made aerosols have had on rainfall changes in the 20th and 21st centuries to discover that when only greenhouse gases or natural climate forces are considered, climate models are not able to capture the southward shift of the tropical rain belt. The analysis suggests that man-made aerosols are the primary driver of the observed southward shift in rainfall patters throughout the latter half of the 20th century.

“Our analysis showed that interactions between aerosol particles and clouds have caused large-scale shifts in precipitation during the latter half of the 20th century, and will play a key role in regulating future shifts in tropical rainfall patterns,” said UM Rosenstiel School atmospheric scientist Chung, the lead author of the study.

Changes in the radiative properties of clouds from the increase of these man-made particles in the atmosphere is resulting in large-scale changes in atmospheric circulation that drive regional climate and rainfall, says the researchers.

“Human-induced changes in rainfall can have substantial implications for society and the environment by affecting the availability of water,” said Soden, a UM Rosenstiel School atmospheric sciences professor and the senior author of the study. “Our work helps to understand the mechanisms that drive large-scale shifts in precipitation to better predict how the climate will change in the future.”

The models the researchers used also found that the largest shift in rainfall patterns will occur over the tropics rather than in the mid-latitude northern hemisphere, the greatest source region of these man-made industrial aerosols.

Understanding these aerosol-cloud interactions are necessary to better model future changes in tropical rainfall worldwide, said the researchers.

The study, titled “Hemispheric climate shifts driven by anthropogenic aerosol-cloud interactions, was published online July 17 in the journal Nature Geoscience and was supported by grants from the NASA ROSES Program. DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2988

— UM News

 

New study showed relief from current dry spell in the Middle East unlikely within next 10,000 years.

MIAMI (July 11, 2017)—The results, which include information during the last glacial and interglacial periods, showed that relief from the current dry spell across the interior of the Middle East is unlikely within the next 10,000 years.

“Local governments generally prefer the narrative that the region is only in a temporary dry spell and better prospects of water availability lay ahead,” said the study’s lead author Sevag Mehterian, a Ph.D. student at the UM Rosenstiel School. “Our study has found evidence to the contrary, suggesting that in fact, the future long-term trend based on paleoclimate reconstructions is likely towards diminishing precipitation, with no relief in the form of increased Mediterranean storms, the primary source of annual precipitation to the region, in the foreseeable future.”

Stalagmites are calcium carbonate deposits that slowly grow on cave floors and, under the right circumstances, record changes in the climate outside the cave in their chemical composition.

“We take what we have learned from the past climate and applied it to better understand what to expect moving forward with the current state of the changing global climate,” said study co-author Ali Pourmand, an associate professor of marine geosciences at the UM Rosenstiel School.”

The researchers found that climate during the last 70 to 130 thousand years, including during the last interglacial as recorded in the interior of the Middle East, is closely linked to the climate of the North Atlantic region. By comparing their findings with others, they saw a close connection between water availability and enhanced solar insolation across the mid-latitudes of Eurasia. The study showed that solar insolation is not returning to high values relative to today until another 10,000 years from now.

The researchers determined the depositional age of the two stalagmites, collected in Qal’e Kord Cave in central northern Iran, using a technique called uranium-thorium geochronometry conducted in the UM Rosenstiel School’s Neptune Isotope Lab. The paleoclimate data, which included mainly changes in the oxygen isotopes of the calcium carbonate deposits, were then compared to similar records from other caves, ice cores, and sediment records as well as model predictions for water availability in the Middle East and west central Asia today and into the future.

 

The study, titled “Speleothem records of glacial/interglacial climate from Iran forewarn of future Water Availability in the interior of the Middle East,” was published May 15 in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews. DOI:10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.03.028. The study’s authors include: Mehterian, Pourmand, Arash Sharifi, and Peter Swart from the UM Rosenstiel School; and Hamid Lahijani and Majid Naderi from the Iranian National Institute for Oceanography and Atmospheric Science in Tehran. National Science Foundation grants AGS-1103489 and EAR-1003639 provided funding for the study.

— UM News

UM President Julio Frenk signed onto a declaration in support of upholding pledges under the Paris Climate Agreement.

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (June 8, 2017)—The University of Miami has joined a growing list of U.S. cities, states, businesses and higher education institutions that are committed to implementing and upholding ambitious actions on climate change.

A coalition that includes The American Sustainable Business Council, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Sierra Club and others, coordinated an open letter for local, state, business and higher education leaders to declare that they will forge ahead in protecting the global climate in the absence of committed U.S. federal leadership.

On June 1, U.S. President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The 2015 Paris Agreement is lauded as a historic feat of global cooperation. The accord calls on its 195 original signatories—all countries except Syria and Nicaragua—to commit to reducing greenhouse emissions.

“The Paris Agreement is a forward-looking achievement of unified action by most countries against one of the most serious threats facing humankind,” tweeted President Frenk on June 1, just hours after Trump’s announcement. “Today, University of Miami reaffirms our commitment to research and work on climate change.”

The new coalition signatories represent more than 120 million Americans in 125 cities—from Los Angeles and Houston to Pittsburgh and Dubuque—and nine states, which contribute to more than $6.2 trillion to the U.S. economy. Businesses from varied industries, ranging from technology and media to retail and health, have also signed on, accounting for more than $1.4 trillion in total annual revenue and including over 20 Fortune 500 companies.

In addition to the University of Miami, the declaration includes more than 183 colleges and universities, including Columbia University, New York University, Northwestern University, Tufts University, George Washington University and others.

Universities have a valued role to play in developing innovative and sustainable ways to adapt and mitigate climate change impacts.

The Paris Agreement used the fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released in 2013-2014, the most comprehensive analysis of climate change ever produced, as a basis for framing a sustainable future with reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Two University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science faculty joined hundreds of scientists from around the world to write the 5,000-page report. Ben Kirtman, professor of atmospheric sciences, was a coordinating lead author for the chapter on near-term predictions and projections in the IPCC’s fifth report, while Brian Soden, also a professor of atmospheric science, was lead author for the chapter on observations. Soden was also a lead author on the IPCC’s fourth assessment report, released in 2007, the same year the IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

From his first months at the University of Miami, President Frenk has committed to using science to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems. During his inauguration in January 2016, he said the University would increase its scientific research into climate change and its impacts.

“This is exactly the kind of transformative, global contribution that Miami can and should be making to the search for sustainable solutions,” he said.

Learn more about the University of Miami’s work on climate change.

— Jessica M. Castillo / UM News