California’s Climate Crisis Examined on UCI Special Report Website

Cross-disciplinary expertise shared through stories, videos, podcasts and more

Human-caused climate change is having a profound impact on California. Through a new special report website, UCI is providing an interdisciplinary examination of the environmental transformations taking place throughout the Golden State. Steve Zylius / UCI

Oct. 20, 2021 - For the past half century, the University of California, Irvine has been home to some of the world’s leading experts on the environment, energy, oceans and atmosphere in the Golden State. To share their stories, UCI today is launching a web special report, “California’s Climate Crisis.”

Through its three main sections – The Problem, Human Impacts and Solutions – the site offers dozens of feature articles, videos, podcast recordings and photographs, with plans for ongoing updates and new stories. The materials outline the UCI researchers’ understanding of the climate issues facing California and the extent to which they are working to counteract the dilemma.

“UCI’s approach to addressing the impacts of global warming and climate change on our home state has always been highly multi-disciplinary with a broad scope,” said UCI Vice Chancellor for Research Pramod Khargonekar. “This newly published collection of materials demonstrates how nearly every UCI school has people engaged with California’s ongoing climate change-driven problems.”

Parts 1 and 2 of the site offer written pieces, videos and audio recordings covering a wide range of topics and regions, from a coastline threatened by potential sea level rise to alpine forests suffering from drought. Special attention is paid in text and audio formats to the recent catastrophic oil spill on the Orange County coastline. The online resource also addresses the impact of a transforming climate on California’s residents, including the elderly, minority populations and those facing economic hardship.

Part 3 – Solutions – reflects the “all hands-on deck” nature of UCI’s response to the crisis. The features in that section range in topic from using chemistry methods to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to advocating for changes in laws and regulations to help cool the planet.

The site offers ample opportunities for sharing, providing feedback and learning more about the many UCI experts conducting research on California’s climate and environment.

“UCI researchers have engaged in climate change research in our home state in a spirit of creative optimism that the problems we face are very serious but not impossible,” said Khargonekar.

The California’s Climate Crisis website address is: https://specialreports.news.uci.edu/climate-change/.

– Brian Bell / UCI

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