News

After years of being stuck, the national conversation on climate change finally started to shift — just a little — last year, the hottest year on record in the U.S., with Hurricane Sandy flooding the New York subway, drought devastating Midwest farms, and California and Colorado on fire. Lots of people were wondering if global warming had finally arrived, here at home. This week, stories about this new reality.

Presentations from the 2013 VT EPSCoR Annual State Meeting are now available on the Vermont EPSCoR website.

The first round of photos from the Vermont EPSCoR annual state meeting have been posted to Facebook. More photos coming soon.......

Gullerat, along with three other CCV students, has been selected by Vermont EPSCoR to work as an intern this summer in the organization’s Research on Adaptation to Climate Change (RACC) program. According to Vermont EPSCoR’s Center for Workforce Development and Diversity Director Miranda Lescaze, the four students will be working in watershed areas around the state collecting water samples, analyzing data, answering research questions, and creating final presentations that in the end will give them, and the state, a better grasp on the challenges climate change poses for the region.

Three Colchester High School students have been recognized for their contributions to climate change research as a result of their extensive and impressive work with the University of Vermont’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR): Research on Adaptation to Climate Change (RACC) project!

Registration for the VT EPSCoR Annual State Meeting closes today (May 13th, 2013) at 4 p.m.

We invite you to join us for the VT EPSCoR Research on Adaptation to Climate Change in the Lake Champlain Basin (RACC) Annual State Meeting, a 1-day meeting comprised of scientific presentations, posters and networking opportunities.

Visitors from the National Science Foundation, Congressional Offices, State and Local Agencies, Researchers, Private Sector, Graduate and Undergraduate Students will be present to share progress and provide updates on the second year of the Adaptation to Climate Change in the Lake Champlain Basin: New Understanding through Complex Systems (RACC) project.

Members of the VT EPSCoR Question 1 team presented their work to the LCBP technical advisory committee at the LCBP spring meeting. RACC Q1 Team Leader Andrew Schroth provided an overview of the Q1 overall progress as well as their plans for the upcoming field season. RACC Q1 team members Peter Isles and Courtney Giles provided talks about their research.

Vermont EPSCoR members visited the Vermont State House on May 7, 2013. Legislators from around the state stopped by to learn about the Adaptation to Climate Change in the Lake Champlain Basin: New Understanding through Complex Systems (RACC) research and VT EPSCoR Center for Workforce Development and Diversity (CWDD) at Saint Michael's College integrated workforce development outreach programs for middle school teachers, high schools, undergraduates including disabled and military veterans.

We invite you to join us for the VT EPSCoR Research on Adaptation to Climate Change in the Lake Champlain Basin (RACC) Annual State Meeting, a 1-day meeting comprised of scientific presentations, posters and networking opportunities.

Visitors from the National Science Foundation, Congressional Offices, State and Local Agencies, Researchers, Private Sector, Graduate and Undergraduate Students will be present to share progress and provide updates on the second year of the Adaptation to Climate Change in the Lake Champlain Basin: New Understanding through Complex Systems (RACC) project.

Post-Kyoto Climate Governance: Confronting the Politics of Scale, Ideology and Knowledge
Presenter: Asim Zia, Assistant Professor CDAE, UVM and Gund Fellow

In his Gund tea, Asim discusses key findings from his recent research about the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and the transition into a post-Kyoto climate governance regime. He includes analysis from his recently published book, "Post-Kyoto Climate Governance: Confronting the Politics of Scale, Ideology and Knowledge", which is followed by a lively discussion about the current state of international climate policy.

This event is part of the weekly Gund Tea Series, an opportunity for affiliates of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics and the broader University community to engage in robust discussion about topical research, current events, and relevant theory. The Teas host visiting scholars and research associates from around the world, as well as some of the Gund's very own fellows & students.

The video and slides from Jen Stamp's RACC seminar are now available.

The following topics were presented:
Vermont adaptation strategies,
EPA Regional Monitoring Networks,
Indicator analysis & freshwater biological traits database (macroinvertebrates)

Seven Days
A New Climate-Health Program Readies Vermont for Global Warming Ills
Seven Days
How will warmer temps transform Vermont? A report compiled for Gov. Peter Shumlin's climate-change team paints a grim picture. The report's author, NASA-funded atmospheric researcher Alan Betts of Pittsford, notes that since 1970 the average ...

and more »

Photos from the 2013 CWDD Symposium on April 4th, 2013 are not posted on Facebook.

Record attendance capped off the research year at the VT EPSCoR Center for Workforce Development and Diversity (CWDD) 5th annual Student Research Symposium on Thursday, April 4, 2013 at the DoubleTree Hotel in South Burlington, VT.

This winter in Pittsford was again warm. Very few days had minimum temperatures below -10F. Periods of cold and snowy weather alternated with thaws that melted the snow.

In winter, cold air temperatures freeze the water in the first foot or two of soil. The deep soil temperature stays near 45F, much warmer than the air in winter. When snow cover insulates the ground from the frigid air above, the upward flow of heat from the deep soil can start melting the frozen soil from below. This happened more than once last winter.

I keep track of how long my garden soil is frozen by taking a shovel to my rye cover crop. To my surprise, I was digging again this year on March 11, the same date as last year when the winter was exceptionally warm. This year the unbroken period of frozen soil lasted a remarkably short 55 days, a new record. By March 24, I had turned over all my cover crop and was ready for spring — but until this past week, it was still too cold to plant!

Record attendance capped off the research year at the VT EPSCoR Center for Workforce Development and Diversity (CWDD) 5th annual Student Research Symposium on Thursday, April 4, 2013 at the DoubleTree Hotel in South Burlington, VT.

Over 150 persons attended the symposium which featured 36 high school students representing 12 Vermont school districts, and 3 districts outside Vermont including from as far away as Puerto Rico, in addition to 38 undergraduate students from six Vermont colleges including the Community College of Vermont, and two universities in Puerto Rico. All of these students conducted research as a part of the Research on Adaptation to Climate Change in the Lake Champlain Basin: New Understanding through Complex Systems (RACC) program funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Vermont Public Radio
Mares: Global Warming Challenge
Vermont Public Radio
Mares: Global Warming Challenge. Thursday, 04/11/13 7:55am. Listen (3:12). MP3 | Download MP3. By Bill Mares. One member of my book club is Dr. Asim Zia, who teaches Public Policy at the University of Vermont. And he's just written a book about the ...

Maybe so, but for most of us, that means checking the WeatherBug app on our iPhone, which is nothing like the kind of data crunching that Dupigny-Giroux does as the official climatologist for the state of Vermont. She’s held that post concurrently with her professorship at UVM for the past 16 years, teaching students about weather and climate while using data collected from satellites and weather stations to research climate patterns.

Dr. Tom Manley, Middlebury College, provides photos and captions of recent activities related to the RACC project

Dr. Patrick Clemins, Cyber Specialist for VT EPSCoR, along with Robert Davis of Stromatec, led a roundtable discussion on the SBIR/STTR and VT EPSCoR SBIR Phase 0 grant process at the 8th Annual Invention to Venture (I2V) Conference at the University of Vermont's Davis Center on the afternoon of April 4th, 2013. Attendees participated in one of nine roundtable discussions during three different sessions on topics such as how to build a business team, financial resources in Vermont, and intellectual property protection. Conversation at the SBIR/STTR/Phase 0 roundtable included how to find help in applying for an SBIR/STTR grant, the differences between SBIR/STTR grants and academic research grants such as those from NSF and NIH, how SBIR/STTR grants are reviewed, and the benefits of applying for a Vermont EPSCoR Phase 0 grant before submitting a proposal at the federal level.