Photo above: Joy Pawirosetiko, an Honors College student who works with Dr. Sharon Pochron in Sustainability Studies, researched the effects of Roundup fertilizer on earthworms.

From “President Stanley Joins International Coalition of Universities to Tackle Climate Change” by Melissa Arnold on SBU Happenings, February 7, 2018

All over the world, conversations about the environment and the state of our planet are intensifying. We are dryer, hotter, more crowded and disaster-prone than ever before. Climatologists and others in the scientific community have stressed a need for immediate, far-reaching action.

On February 6, 2018, Stony Brook University President Samuel L. Stanley Jr. announced his participation on behalf of the SUNY system in a North American initiative of universities designed to help save our planet .

• See: Top Research Universities Announce Coalition to Accelerate Local Climate Action at 2018 Higher Education Climate Leadership Summit

From Feb. 4-6, President Stanley attended the Second Nature 2018 Higher Education Climate Leadership Summit in Tempe, Ariz., an annual gathering of university presidents and other leaders focused on developing rapid climate change solutions. Stanley was a featured speaker during the closing keynote panel Feb. 6.

That same day, he participated in the unveiling of the newly-formed University Climate Change Coalition (UC3). The UC3 comprises 13 leading research universities in the US, Canada and Mexico that are working together to aid their communities in the transition to a low-carbon, eco-friendly lifestyle. Stanley represented the 64 institutions of the SUNY system for the gathering, where he discussed SUNY’s commitment to improve its energy efficiency performance by 20 percent and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020.

“It’s certainly an honor to be a part of this coalition, but more than that, this is an opportunity to pool our resources with other institutions and make a lasting impact on climate change,” President Stanley said. “This is a critical time that calls for decisive action. Thanks to our long history of green initiatives, Stony Brook continues to be at the forefront of this effort to protect our world.”

President Stanley at Feb. 6 panel hosted by the 2018 Higher Education Climate Leadership Summit

Sustainability at Stony Brook
The University has fought for the cause of the environment since well before it became a mandate and “green” was a term used to describe all things environmentally conscious. In 1967, Professor Charles F. Wurster of the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) joined other researchers studying the effects of the pesticide DDT on ospreys. The birds’ reproductive systems were adversely affected by the widespread use of DDT, endangering the species’ survival. Wurster and others filed a lawsuit to ban DDT and the court issued an injunction in less than two weeks, stirring their motivation to go further.

“That news was electrifying. It got us to start thinking bigger,” Wurster said in an Oct. 2016 Times Beacon Record News Media interview. “In the fall of 1967, we incorporated the EDF (Environmental Defense Fund), with the goal of bringing science into the courtroom. We hadn’t the remotest idea of what it would be at that time — we were just a group of 10 people with an idea.”

That freedom to ask tough questions, explore and innovate is what has made Stony Brook a leader in sustainability for decades. But for all that the University has already achieved, there’s more work to be done. Stony Brook is meeting that challenge both academically and in its daily operation.

SoMAS is home to an interdisciplinary Sustainability Studies program, which includes five majors, six minors and a graduate certificate. SoMAS also offers a variety of opportunities for hands-on research and internships in the community.

The courses offered through the program give students an opportunity to get involved in a variety of sustainability efforts. These range from advocacy and leadership in Environmental Design, Policy and Planning, to effective water and land use in Coastal Environmental Studies, to conservation work in Ecosystems and Human Impact, to name a few.

“In Sustainability Studies, we prepare our students to tackle issues in sustainability from many disciplines — we offer courses in the sciences, social sciences, humanities — but all of our majors have a fair amount of breadth,” said Dr. Katherine Aubrecht, Sustainability Studies program director and associate professor of chemistry. “Having that breadth recognizes that working in sustainability involves a lot of synergy, and our students are being prepared to work with people from a number of different backgrounds.”

While Stony Brook has contributed much to domestic research on environmental change and sustainability, the University also boasts student researchers and faculty who are working around the world.

Among them are Heather Lynch in the Department of Ecology and Evolution working with colleagues in Antarctica to study penguin populations, an important gauge of climate change and the health of oceans; Dr. Christina Maxis, the principal investigator of the health sciences component of a SUNY-wide research effort to establish a sustainable village and learning community in a 40-acre region of Haiti; and primatologist Pat Wright, who studies the impact of climate change on primate populations in Madagascar.

Stony Brook’s academic offerings in sustainability are supplemented by the administrative Office of Sustainability, which was founded in 2011with the support of President Stanley to oversee the continuing development of new and existing green measures. This includes everything from the replacement of the campus heating, ventilation and air conditioning system to monitoring energy and water usage, minimizing food waste, managing on-campus recycling and ensuring compliance with state and federal conservation requirements.

Bicycle use on campus increases yearly.

With more than 25,000 students enrolled at our 1,039-acre main campus, there is a constant need for efficient transportation, and the University has developed a number of new, sustainable ways to keep up with the demand. To augment our existing transit system, Stony Brook launched the Wolf Ride Bike Share program in 2013, which offers unlimited hour-long bike rentals from 12 strategic locations on campus.

With 78 bikes available, Stony Brook students, staff and visitors have initiated 82,000 rentals since the program’s inception. More than two-thirds of those rentals occurred in 2017 alone, as the program’s popularity has increased across campus.

Photo above: Beauty of Stony Brook campus reflects ongoing sustainability efforts.

In addition, there are 17 electric vehicle charging stations located throughout campus that are available for use by students, staff and visitors.

“The new charging stations have been installed in close proximity to the Academic Mall, thereby encouraging our community to utilize plug-in vehicles which have less of an impact on the natural environment,”  said SBU Transportation & Parking Site Manager James Ambroise at the time of the installation in 2014.

The University’s hard work hasn’t gone unnoticed. In 2007, four faculty members from SoMAS — Robert Cess, Edmund Chang, Marv Geller, and Minghua Zhang — were named co-recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore for their contributions to the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In 2015, Stony Brook was named the No. 4 Environmentally Responsible University in Princeton Review’s Guide to Green Colleges. Many of the newer buildings on campus have achieved Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, and work continues on older buildings to ensure the entire campus is LEED certified.

It’s going to take global collaboration to help get our planet back on the right track. But the real work begins at the local level, with individuals and businesses doing their part for the environment. That’s the example Stony Brook is setting for Long Island, for our students, and for all universities.

“The focus on sustainability is one of the key values we uphold at Stony Brook,” President Stanley said. “The determination and hard work put in by the previous generation has made it much simpler for us to create sustainable initiatives on campus today. We are able to build on that legacy, improving those areas that benefit from newer technology, while keeping an eye toward what future developments can offer us. We are continually working toward a healthier, more efficient and sustainable campus, and everyone in our community reaps the rewards.”

— Melissa Arnold

From Stemming The (Rising) Tide of Climate Change on the Stony Brook Magazine, Winter 2018 by Victoria Cebalo with Illustrations by Anthony Freda

Research yields new strategies for protecting the biosphere.

There’s no denying that as the Earth is getting warmer, our weather patterns are shifting, wreaking havoc the world over. Stony Brook University researchers are at the forefront of the search for solutions to the challenges presented by climate change, from protecting the coasts from the ravages of storm surges to anticipating the social changes brought about by drought to predicting which species might be threatened with extinction.

Stormy Weather Ahead

Edmund Chang, a professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences(SoMAS), studies midlatitude cyclones, those huge comma-shaped storms that hammer the East Coast. They form when warm tropical air meets cold air from the polar region. While Southern Hemisphere storms will likely become more intense in the future, the outlook for the Northern Hemisphere is less clear, according to Chang. The storms may be reduced in intensity because the northern polar regions are warming, reducing the temperature difference that gives these storms their power.

“But because of that temperature increase, there’s more moisture in the atmosphere,” Chang said. “We can expect heavier rain and more flooding events.”

“We also may experience more extreme heat. With fewer storms there will be less cloud cover and natural protection from the sun’s rays, and high-temperature and duration records may topple”, Chang said.

He is one of four Stony Brook professors who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore for their work on climate change. He is now working on improving long-range forecasting. Predictions are difficult and subject to change because the atmosphere is chaotic, Chang said. He is testing prediction models using data gathered by the joint U.S.-Canada North American Multi-Model Ensemble, a seasonal forecasting system. He expects the large sample will filter out some of the atmospheric “noise,” which will help push the window of accuracy from the current standard of about 10 days to a month or more. That can give governments and industries — especially utilities, transportation and agriculture — more time to prepare.

Pre-emptive Action

Malcolm Bowman, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor of oceanography in SoMAS and the lead researcher in the Stony Brook Storm Surge Research Group, models storm surges that threaten the New York metropolitan area. After Hurricane Katrina, Bowman began studying protective storm-surge barrier systems in St. Petersburg, Russia; Rotterdam and Amsterdam, the Netherlands; London; Venice, Italy; and New Orleans. He’s become a leading advocate for one that would protect New York and New Jersey, their hospitals, and communications and transportation networks from the kind of devastation brought by Superstorm Sandy.

Bowman’s vision for New York consists of two barriers — one that would extend five miles from Sandy Hook, New Jersey, to Far Rockaway, New York, and the other across the upper East River. Bowman said the ideal height is 30 feet “to provide ultimate protection against a 1,000-year storm.” Floodgates would remain open to accommodate shipping traffic and normal tides, closing only during storm surges. The project faces many environmental obstacles plus a price tag of up to $25 billion.

“It’s expensive,” Bowman said, “but if you compare it to the damage that Sandy created — $80 billion — it puts it in perspective.”

Collaboration Is the Mother of Invention

While climate scientists can predict long-range changes in weather patterns, forecasting the social impacts of weather is harder because human behavior is less predictable. But that’s just what Oleg Smirnov, an associate professor of political science, wanted to do.

Smirnov — along with SoMAS professor Minghua Zhang, who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize — created drought predictions on climate models that explored various scenarios, such as what would happen if greenhouse gas emissions are low to possible outcomes if emissions continued unabated. The researchers found that by the end of this century, the number of people exposed to extreme drought will increase by more than 400 percent under the high-emissions scenario.

More surprising: While policymakers usually focus on stemming population growth as a solution to water scarcity, the research by Smirnov and Zhang showed that only 9 percent of the increase can be attributed to population surges and that climate change alone is responsible for nearly 60 percent.

“Under the high-emissions scenario, we observe very substantial changes in social outcomes — the number of people who are affected and may have to migrate, for example,” Smirnov said. “To ordinary people, a 3-degree Celsius rise in temperature might not seem like much, but to the millions of people who are affected by the resulting climate change, that will be a serious problem.”

Protecting the Biosphere

Of course, it’s not just humans and our property that are at stake. Entire species are threatened by the effects of climate change.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and other organizations have established guidelines to identify threatened species and rate them, from vulnerable to endangered to critically endangered to extinct. H. Resit Akçakaya, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution, wanted to know if the criteria for the Red List of Threatened Species, the IUCN’s global inventory of biological species, would be effective in predicting the effects of climate change.

“The system we use was developed in the 1990s, when we didn’t know very much about climate change,” said Akçakaya, who chairs the IUCN Red List Standards and Petitions Subcommittee.

By running computer simulations using different types of models that predict habitat changes and variations in species’ populations and climate, Akçakaya and collaborators from Europe and Australia confirmed an elevated risk of extinctions under climate change scenarios. They found that the risk for a species could be predicted from available information, verifying the efficacy of the Red List and other systems like it. They were also able to calculate how quickly conservation action must be taken.

“Although the time between identifying that the species is at risk of extinction and when it would actually go extinct is about 60 years,” Akçakaya said, “we found that the warning time can be as short as 20 years for some species, especially if information about their population is limited.”

As budgets are being debated in Washington, D.C., federal funding for climate research is uncertain. Beyond dollars and cents, Chang said, the science behind climate change is clear, and Stony Brook researchers will continue to push our knowledge of the phenomenon and seek solutions to outsmart Mother Nature.

Victoria Cebalo Irwin is a freelance writer based in Berkeley, California.

Photo above:  Interim Dean Larry Swanson speaks about how oil from drilling offshore Long Island would reach our shores based on his research on prevailing winds and the movement of plastics debris in the Atlantic. Photo by Assemblyman Steve Englebright.

Content provided by Dr. Carl Safina, Dr. Malcolm Bowman and Dr. Larry Swanson.

SoMAS faculty joined with public officials, environmentalists and concerned citizens to speak out regarding the Long Island focus of the United States Department of Interior Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s National OCS Program.

On Wednesday, February 14, 2018, Dr. Carl Safina spoke at a meeting hosted by New York State Assemblyman and SoMAS lecturer Steven Englebright.  His testimony, “Why Not To Drill off the East Coast of the U.S.” is below:

Thank you for this opportunity to share my thinking.

 

I’m a bit out of synch with some other environmentalists worried about the big spill, warning of another Deepwater Horizon or Exxon Valdez-type fiasco coming to the Northeast. To me it’s not about “the big spill.” It’s about the day-to-day of chasing oil, the wrong-headedness of it all.

 

It’s not that I don’t have some personal history with the major oil calamities of recent decades; I do. In my early teens the first televised images of oil-coated birds during the 1969 blowout off Santa Barbara shocked me and the nation, inspiring the first Earth Day and helping propel the burst of environmental laws signed by Republican president Richard Nixon.

 

Twenty years later, at home working on a scientific paper, I heard the radio’s news of the Exxon Valdez’ rupture, and of thousands more oiled birds and otters, and sitting right there at my desk I began sobbing.

 

A decade later I visited Cordova, Alaska, and saw how the Exxon Valdez’ pain and disruption had seeped into lives as thoroughly as the oil had seeped into shoreline sediments and the livers of waterfowl. After citizens were awarded damages in a judgment against Exxon, an appeals court had reduced the judgment by roughly 90 percent.

 

And in 2010 I spent a lot of time along, on, and above the Gulf of Mexico while oil freely gushed from the hole PB had made in our coastal soul. There was the failure of the ‘blowout preventer’ to prevent the blowout, the crazy “junk shot” attempt to jam golf balls and shredded tires down a gushing well against the geologic force of the upward-shooting oil, the ghastly photo of one nearly unrecognizable brown pelican dying jacketed in crude. I was there when fishing stopped, tourism stopped, property values went to zero, and the oil would not stop. My chronicle of that summer of anguish became the book, A Sea in Flames.

 

We’re here thinking about all this because the White House has proposed opening a large area off the Eastern Seaboard to oil exploration and potential drilling. No exploration has been allowed here since the 1980s.

 

With everything we know about the threats of drilling and extraction to marine mammals, it’s noise and disruption to them and to other ocean wildlife, the possibilities of catastrophic spills and blowouts, and the mere grind of daily oil-producing infrastructure—with all we know about the need to move off of fossil fuels and onto renewables—no new areas should be explored for oil. We should be looking, planning, and investing forward to cleaner tech and cleaner energy.

 

During that summer of anguish in 2010 while I was witnessing BP’s Deepwater Horizon debacle in the Gulf, I got an invitation to appear on The Colbert Report. During the show, Stephen Colbert expressed alarm as a native South Carolinian that the oil might come up the coast and get into the South Carolina marshes. “Those are my marshes,” he said, sounding every bit the homeboy. Colbert’s concern about his beloved marshes is now grounded in possibility.

 

I’d seen Colbert’s marshes while researching my book Voyage of the Turtle. Sally Murphy of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources took me on an aerial survey of leatherback turtles migrating up the east coast during springtime. Many of them weigh nearly half a ton, so you can see them from the air. As we flew from the airport towards the ocean in a light plane, I wrote, “Soon, we’re over a mosaic of wooded islands inlaid into emerald marshes, grouted with wriggling creeks, spanning expansively toward the coastal contour. The verdant sprawl of a blossoming summer, languid and luscious, stretches to the planetary curve.” More simply, they’re still the most beautiful coastal marshes I’ve ever seen. It’d be nice if they could stay so.

 

I’ve also seen the Mississippi Delta from the air. Louisiana has lost more than 2,300 square miles of wetlands. Each year, another 25 square miles of marsh disintegrate. Oil leak or no leak, mere busyness of getting oil perpetuates the most devastating disaster that’s hit America’s wetlands.

 

That’s why, as the oil was gushing in 2010, I came to the conclusion that the main disaster is the oil we don’t spill. It’s the daily grind of oil extraction. That’s why I find myself not focusing on the inevitable big accidents. I’m more worried about the day-to-day.

 

Sally Murphy, the South Carolina sea turtle researcher who’s now retired after 33 years working for that State, says, “It’s not a fear of a big spill. But everything else: the tanker traffic, the storage tanks, the increased highways, railways, the omnipresent smell of petrochemicals. You might get an occasional big spill,” she says, “but it’s the daily, chronic, minor spills that just pollute everything. Go to Houston, and you get the picture. It’s infrastructure, port expansion—. Our number one industry is tourism. All the stuff that would be needed for oil; where will it go?”

 

And then, yes, there is the possibility of a blowout or major spill. When that stuff gets on every blade of marsh grass and every mile of beach, there’s no getting it out. It can remain in the sediments for decades.

 

A question becomes: are we willing to realize that our coast is precious?

 

Oil-related jobs are being dangled before our eyes, but maybe we’d like to hold on to the multi-billion-dollar tourism that comes for lovely shores and clean waters.

 

And before we get the first drop of oil, we’d have to find it. To do so, seismic air-guns fire intense blasts of compressed air as frequently as every ten seconds, for days to weeks at a time, loud enough to harm marine life.” A 2012 Draft Environmental Impact statement estimated that the seismic surveys would cause millions of instances of harassment to whales and dolphins annually. [Draft EIS, p xiii]

 

I asked whale expert Ken Balcomb about this. He was the first person to document Navy sonar kills of whales. “There are many cases of air gun use leading to injury and death of marine mammals,” he said.

 

With seismic exploration, marine animals often have time to move themselves away from the noise before they’re in the zone of injury. Slowly ramping up air-gun noise is another way to let mammals get out of the area. But “the area” happens to be where they live and hunt for food. They’re there because it’s where they need to be.

 

Thanks to oil industry lobbying and subsidies, we have built no viable clean alternative to oil. I think our very own coastal ocean is as good a place as any to stop the advance of the fossil fuel footprint.

 

We get the jobs we plan for. So let’s plan for cleaner, renewable, eternal energy instead. The heat of the sun, the strength of the wind, the power of the tides, the warmth of the earth. It’s there. Remember, a solar spill is called: a sunburn.

Additional coverage of the 2018-02-14 event is available in The Statesman, TBR News, CBS and Newsday.

On Friday, March 2, 2018, the Department of Interior was invited by Representative Lee Zeldin to the Town of Brookhaven offices in Farmingville, New York for a public hearing in response to President Trump’s Executive Order to permit offshore oil drilling all around the US Exclusive Economic Zone.  Dr. Malcolm Bowman noted that there were “several hundred people in attendance.” The hearing focused on the offshore waters of the New York Bight, out to the edge of the continental shelf.  All speakers were given three minutes to make their presentation.

The public comment period closes on March 8, 2018 and the event offered the chance for many to voice their concerns.

The hearing began with the testimony of Congressman Lee Zeldin (R) of the 1st Congressional District of New York, who came out very strongly against the permitting of oil drilling off the coasts of New York. This was followed (in no particular order) by testimonies by NY State Assemblypersons Steve Englebright (D), Christine Pellegrino (D) and Fred Thiele (I), Town of Brookhaven Town Councilman Kevin LaValle and Town of Brookhaven Supervisor Ed Romaine (R). All spoke against the proposal.

This was followed by a long stream of testimonies lasting over three hours from representatives of NGOs, academia (Dean Larry Swanson and myself), advocacy groups and private citizens. All testimonies were strongly negative. Not one speaker spoke in favor of permitting offshore drilling.

SoMAS Interim Dean Larry Swanson and Professor Malcolm Bowman both spoke at the event.  Dr. Swanson’s testimony is below:

I am Dr. Larry Swanson, Director of the Waste Reduction and Management Institute and Interim Dean of the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University. It is an honor to be able to speak to you today. I am pleased to be able to express my concerns about the prospects of opening the New York Bight to oil exploration and production.

 

Represetative Lee Zeldin introduces a public comment session where SoMAS professor Malcolm Bowman, Interim Dean Larry Swanson and SoMAS alum Carl LoBue (pictured) were there to speak

The Federal Government proposal to explore and possibly drill for oil in the New York Bight (continental shelf area off the Atlantic shores of Long Island and New Jersey) is irresponsible and must be prevented. We have four decades of experiences dealing with medical waste and other marine debris wash-ups in this area to inform us of the consequences. The events demonstrate the vulnerability of the coasts to polluting activities within the Bight driven by its oceanographic processes — particularly oil at the surface. We can say with certainty that major negative ecological and economic consequences will occur.

 

Some 70 miles of beaches were closed at times from Rockaway Inlet to Moriches Inlet on Long Island in June 1976. New York State Governor Hugh Carey declared the area a disaster and President Ford sent the Job Corps to clean up under the supervision of the U.S. Coast Guard. In 1988, essentially the same beaches were closed, off and on, for most of July. The central coast of New Jersey experienced a similar problem in 1987. These latter wash-ups raised the marine debris problem as an international concern and was the cover story of NEWSWEEK on August 1, 1988. Following Superstorm Sandy, when considerable debris escaped into the marine environment, little of it returned to our local beaches.

 

All this can be explained quite nicely by wind patterns throughout the seasons. Floating debris, like an oil slick, tends to be transported at about 3 percent of the wind speed and in the direction of the wind. Our prevailing summer winds (May-September) are from the south to southwest. If there is debris on the water surface in the Bight (i.e., from combined storm sewers, oil, etc.) these winds, if persistent, will transport it to the ultimate barrier, Long Island’s south shore. Persistent southerlies (blowing continuously from a given direction for days) are rather common in summer. In a controlled experiment in the 1970s, drift cards, designed to mimic surface oil spills, were released some 14 miles south of Long Island during summer. They were recovered on the south shore beaches within days, further substantiating the drift of debris and oil.

 

The New Jersey wash-up in August 1987 was a consequence of easterlies — somewhat unusual in summer. Superstorm Sandy debris, if in the Bight, most likely moved with the northwesterly winds of winter offshore and to the south.

 

In a way, these incidents served as grand experiments — ones that are informative, couldn’t be replicated at the same scale as a science experiment, and hopefully won’t be replicated in reality. In 1976 and 1988, for days, even weeks, debris washed ashore in waves. According to records, debris could be identified that came from as far away as Maryland. And, when TWA Flight 800 crashed in July 1996, it took little more than two days for wreckage to wash ashore in the vicinity of Quogue, some 20 miles northeast of where the plane went down. These debris incidents clearly ascertain that the ocean coast of Long Island will be particularly susceptible to the chronic oil discharges from oil rigs and devastated by a spill in summer. New Jersey is less at risk during summer. However, if oil sinks, it could impact New Jersey beaches due to upwelling (bottom water transported shoreward) driven by the southerly winds.

 

The economic costs of the 1987/1988 incidents were $1.3-5.4 billion ($2.8-11.8 billion in 2018). Summertime visitations (3 months) at Jones Beach, Long Island dropped about 1.4 million from 1987 to 1988. It took until 1993 for attendance to recover.

 

We can look forward to constantly having oil and tar balls on our beaches during the prime tourism months from offshore oil products as well as spills. Stations dispensing alcohol towels to wash one’s feet will probably be necessary just as it is in much of Florida and the Caribbean.

 

Predictably, spilled oil will have serious environmental consequences. While it is relatively easy to clean oil off sandy beaches, the real challenge will be in preventing the spilled oil from entering the ecologically sensitive and prolific south shore lagoons, where New York State is trying to restore water quality and shellfish populations. It will be necessary to have floating curtains at the ready at all seven inlets along the south shore to prevent spilled oil from entering.

 

Clearly, the downsides of oil drilling are excessive and the undertaking is not worth the environmental risks. When it comes to drilling in the ocean, we can with certainty guarantee an accident no matter the assurances of industry. Twenty-five years ago, the Federal government ended ocean dumping of a variety of wastes in the Bight by passing the Ocean Dumping Act (P.L. 100-688), with the idea that we would be able to clean it up for numerous beneficial uses. Let’s not allow the Federal government to reverse this positive step by permitting major polluting activities by the oil industry.

 

This concludes my testimony and I will be glad to answer questions.

Dr. Bowman did not submit a written testimony; however his oral remarks will be entered in the Federal Register along with all submitted written testimonies.  After introducing himself as a Distinguished Service Professor of Physical Oceanography at the School of Marine & Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS), also President of the NY Marine Sciences Consortium and Chair of the Metropolitan NY-NJ Storm Surge Working Group, he made the following points:

Hydro Power. The US Federal Government is now heading in exactly the wrong direction in terms of energy policy. However, NY State is blessed with abundant resources and possibilities for renewable energy. New York is the largest hydroelectric power producer east of the Rocky Mountains and is fourth in the nation in the generation of electricity from hydropower. More than 300 hydroelectric generating stations – some very small, a few very large (St Lawrence River, plus Quebec Hydro imports) and many in between – connect to New York’s electric grid. Hydro plants typically meet at least 17 percent of the state’s total electricity demand with renewable, clean and inexpensive power.

 

Wind Power. An increasing number of wind power turbines are being installed, both onshore and offshore. The American Wind Energy Association ranks New York eleventh in the nation for installed wind generation capacity. As of 2014, 20 projects are operating with a rated capacity of a little more than 1,812 MW, approximately 2.6 percent of all the electric power available from generation facilities in New York and enough to power more than 500,000 homes. In addition, two wind power projects are under construction in New York, and one is under active review .

Solar Power. NY-Sun is Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s $1 billion initiative to advance the scale-up of solar and move New York State closer to having a sustainable, self-sufficient solar industry. The growth of solar in the State has increased more than 300 percent from 2011 to 2014, twice the rate of U.S. solar growth overall. The NY-Sun Incentive Program will help bring affordable solar electric power to 150,000 new homes and businesses by 2020.

 

Many opportunities are available to continue this growth of renewable energy.

 

The 2015 New York State Energy Plan is committed to:

•  40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels
•  50% electricity will come from renewable energy resources
•  600 trillion Btu increase in statewide energy efficiency.

 

Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) has also recently unveiled his 20th Proposal of his 2018 State of the State message: New York’s Clean Energy Jobs and Climate Agenda.  He has also released his First-in-The-Nation Offshore Wind Master Plan to Guide New York’s Development of Renewable Energy.  He has also to set an Energy Efficiency Target for New York. His promise claims to be an important first step to transforming the state into a national energy efficiency leader. It includes offshore wind power, expanding energy storage, and reducing power plant pollution. Energy efficiency is fundamental for climate progress and integral to the state’s clean energy platform.

 

In November 2017, the northeastern States of Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island released three reports on offshore wind development, claiming that industry has the potential to power almost four million homes and provide thousands of U.S. jobs.

 

Nine eastern States have agreed to cut power plant emissions by an extra 30% between 2020 and 2030. The compact of Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states (Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont) known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) has worked for two years to hammer out the next step in their landmark emissions cap-and-trade program, which puts a price on carbon dioxide emissions from the production of electricity. The program has a track record of cutting emissions fairly painlessly across a densely populated section of the country.

 

Because of humanity’s insatiable appetite for fossil fuels, we are heading down the slippery slope of the so-called “worst case scenario” as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This details the worst effects of the continuing increase in atmospheric CO2 buildup in the atmosphere (and associated acidification of the oceans). In a recent article published by the National Academy of Sciences , the worst case scenario is predicted to lead to a rise in sea level of up to 1.8 m (six ft) by the end of this century .

 

Long Island, a relic pile of sand (terminal moraine) left over from the retreat of the last ice age, is especially vulnerable with its low topography and the especially vulnerable southern and eastern coastlines. Even a two-foot sea level rise will be catastrophic for Long Island and a serious threat to New York City and coastal New Jersey. A 6 ft rise in sea level will spell the end of life as we know it in Metropolitan New York, coastal New Jersey and Long Island.

 

New York State

DEC has officially taken the position that a 6 ft rise in sea level may occur by the end of this century and all available steps need to be taken to adjust to this grim prediction.

 

As a state and as a nation, we need to reverse this dangerous reliance on fossil and fuels and drive forward to a fossil free future before it is too late. As a society, we need to think hard, before it is too late about the legacy we will leave to our descendants. What kind of world will they inherit from us?

Additional coverage of the 2018-03-02 event is available in Newsday, WSHU, TBR News.

Dr. Swanson’s testimony included the following references:

Ofiara, D.O. 2015. The New York Bight 25 years later: Use impairments and policy challenges. Marine Pollution Bulletin 90:281-298.

Long Island Beach Pollution June 1976. 1976. Report coordinated by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Marine EcoSystems Analysis (MESA) New York Bight Project, Stony Brook, New York, R. Lawrence Swanson, manager; with major contributions from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region II (EPA-RII) and U.S. Coast Guard, 3rd District, Marine Environmental Protection Branch, Governors Island, New York Environmental Research Laboratories.

Swanson, R.L. et al. 1978. Pollution of Long Island Ocean Beaches. Journal of the Environmental Engineering Division, ASCE, Vol. 104, Issue 6, 1067-1085.

Swanson, R.L. and R.L. Zimmer. 1990. Meteorological conditions leading to the 1987 and 1988 washups of floatable wastes on New York and New Jersey beaches and comparison of these conditions with the historical record. Estuarine, Coastal, and Shelf Science 30:59-78.

Swanson, R.L., K. Lwiza, K. Willig, and K. Morris. 2016. Superstorm Sandy Marine Debris Wash-ups on Long Island – What Happened to Them? Marine Pollution Bulletin 108, Issues 1-2, 215-231.

From “Supercolony” of Adélie Penguins Discovered in Antarctica on the Stony Brook Newsroom by Gregory Filiano

Additional coverage of this story is featured on CBS News, Futurity, Drone DJ, Geek.com, Newsday, BBC and the New York Times

STONY BROOK, N.Y., March 2, 2018 – For the past 40 years, the total number of Adélie Penguins, one of the most common on the Antarctic peninsula, has been steadily declining—or so biologists have thought. A new study led by Stony Brook University ecologist Heather Lynch and colleagues from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), however, is providing new insights on this species of penguin. In a Scientific Reports paper, the international research team announced the discovery of a previously unknown “supercolony” of more than 1,500,000 Adélie Penguins in the Danger Islands, a chain of remote, rocky islands off of the Antarctic Peninsula’s northern tip.

Thomas Sayre-McCord (WHOI/MIT) and Philip McDowall (Stony Brook University) pilot a Quadcopter at an Adélie penguin breeding colony on Brash Island, Danger Islands, Antarctica. Credit: Stony Brook University, Courtesy Alex Borowicz.

“Until recently, the Danger Islands weren’t known to be an important penguin habitat,” says Lynch, Associate Professor of Ecology & Evolution in the College of Arts & Sciences, Joint Faculty at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and the paper’s senior author, titled “Multi-modal survey of Adélie penguin mega-colonies reveals the Danger Islands as a seabird hotspot.”

These supercolonies have gone undetected for decades, Lynch notes, partly because of the remoteness of the islands themselves, and partly the treacherous waters that surround them. Even in the austral summer, the nearby ocean is filled with thick sea ice, making it extremely difficult to access.

“Now that we know how important this area is for penguin abundance, we can better move forward designing Marine Protected Areas in the region and managing the Antarctic krill fishery,” explained Lynch.

In 2014, Lynch and colleague Mathew Schwaller from NASA discovered telltale guano stains in existing NASA satellite imagery of the islands, hinting at a mysteriously large number of penguins. To find out for sure, Lynch teamed with Stephanie Jenouvrier, a seabird ecologist at WHOI, Mike Polito at LSU and Tom Hart at Oxford University to arrange an expedition to the islands with the goal of counting the birds firsthand.

When the group arrived in December 2015, they found hundreds of thousands of birds nesting in the rocky soil, and immediately started to tally up their numbers by hand. The team also used a modified commercial quadcopter drone to take images of the entire island from above.

Danger Islands Expedition team members on Heroina Island, Danger Islands, Antarctica. Credit: Stony Brook University, Courtesy Casey Youngflesh.

“The drone lets you fly in a grid over the island, taking pictures once per second. You can then stitch them together into a huge collage that shows the entire landmass in 2D and 3D,” says co-PI Hanumant Singh, Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University, who developed the drone’s imaging and navigation system. Once those massive images are available, he says, his team can use neural network software to analyze them, pixel by pixel, searching for penguin nests autonomously.

The accuracy that the drone enabled was key, says Michael Polito, coauthor from Louisiana State University and a guest investigator at WHOI. The number of penguins in the Danger Islands could provide insight not just on penguin population dynamics, but also on the effects of changing temperature and sea ice on the region’s ecology.

“Not only do the Danger Islands hold the largest population of Adélie penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula, they also appear to have not suffered the population declines found along the western side of Antarctic Peninsula that are associated with recent climate change,” says Polito.

Being able to get an accurate count of the birds in this supercolony offers a valuable benchmark for future change, as well, notes Jenouvrier. “The population of Adélies on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula is different from what we see on the west side, for example. We want to understand why. Is it linked to the extended sea ice condition over there? Food availability? That’s something we don’t know,” she says.

It will also lend valuable evidence for supporting proposed Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) near the Antarctic Peninsula, adds Mercedes Santos, from the Instituto Antártico Argentino (who is not affiliated with this study but is one of the authors of the MPA proposal) with the Commission for the Conservation of the Antarctic Marine Living Resources, an international panel that decides on the placement of MPAs. “Given that MPA proposals are based in the best available science, this publication helps to highlight the importance of this area for protection,” she says.

Also collaborating on the study: Alex Borowicz, Philip McDowall, Casey Youngflesh, Mathew Schwaller, and Rachael Herman from Stony Brook University; Thomas Sayre-McCord from WHOI and MIT; Stephen Forrest and Melissa Rider from Antarctic Resource, Inc.; and Tom Hart from Oxford University; and Gemma Clucas from Southampton University. The team utilized autonomous robotics technology from Northeastern University.

Funding for this research was provided by a grant to the Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution from the Dalio Ocean Initiative. Logistical support was provided by Golden Fleece Expeditions and Quark Expeditions.

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About Stony Brook University

Stony Brook University is going beyond the expectations of what today’s public universities can accomplish. Since its founding in 1957, this young university has grown to become a flagship as one of only four University Center campuses in the State University of New York (SUNY) system with more than 26,000 students and 2,600 faculty members, and 18 NCAA Division I athletic programs. Our faculty has earned numerous prestigious awards, including the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Indianapolis Prize for animal conservation, Abel Prize and the inaugural Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics. The University offers students an elite education with an outstanding return on investment: U.S. News & World Report ranks Stony Brook among the top 50 public universities in the nation. Its membership in the Association of American Universities (AAU) places Stony Brook among the top 62 research institutions in North America. As part of the management team of Brookhaven National Laboratory, the University joins a prestigious group of universities that have a role in running federal R&D labs. Stony Brook University is a driving force in the region’s economy, generating nearly 60,000 jobs and an annual economic impact of more than $4.6 billion. Our state, country and world demand ambitious ideas, imaginative solutions and exceptional leadership to forge a better future for all. The students, alumni, researchers and faculty of Stony Brook University are prepared to meet this challenge.

Reporter Contact:  Gregory Filiano
631 444-9343

Photo above by R. Lawrence Swanson: An eroding bluff at Long Beach has been stabilized by constructing a stone seawall at the bluff’s base. The bluff has been terraced to capture material that rolls down from the top and can be planted with vegetation that will help stabilize it.

In a January 11, 2018 editorial on TBR Newsmedia titled “Your Turn: Forgotten North Shore vulnerable to sea level rise,” SoMAS Interim Dean Larry Swanson highlighted how the South Shore of Long Island is featured in the majority of proposals for preparing for the next big storm after Superstorm Sandy.  According to Dr. Swanson, “the North Shore of the Island has been largely neglected in the sea level rise/storm surge discussions and planning even though it is equally vulnerable to these processes.”

The early March Nor’easter demonstrates the power of nature and the difficulty of implementing resiliency measures that are effective and affordable.  The combination of wind, rain, and storm surge severely eroded the bluffs of Nissequogue on Long Island’s north shore.  The photos clearly show the slumping of the morainal when left unprotected.  However, stabilization measures were left wanting as well.  The terraced slopes failed and even the hardened sea walls suffered damage.  Comparison of Fall 2017 photos with those of March 4 2018 shows these situations along with the hanging stairs where some two to three feet of elevation were lost on the beach face.

Comparison of storm surge elevations in Stony Brook Harbor shows that by historical standards, the recent event was not as high as had been previously recorded.  The undermining of the unprotected and stabilized bluffs could have been far worse and most likely will be in the future.  New York State and the communities located along the north shore need to explore reasonable measures to protect that coastline including both the bluffs and the downstream barrier beaches that are maintained by the natural erosion of those bluffs.

PDF Report on March 2018 Nor’Easter

The Stony Brook University Graduate School recently announced the 2018 Graduate Award Winners.

According to Dr. Charles Taber, Dean of the Graduate School, “the winners represent the very best of Stony Brook.” A committee of faculty covering a variety of departments on campus sorted through the numerous applications. Dean Taber noted that the committee, which included SoMAS Professor Anne McElroy, received “many impressive applications,” making their work “very challenging.” He thanked all of those who nominated students for awards.

Molly Graffam, a PhD student advised by Dr. Nils Volkenborn, has received the Dean’s Alumni Association Leadership Award. Molly nomination was supported by several people at SoMAS, including Dr. Volkenborn, Graduate Director Dr. David Black, Graduate Program Coordinator Ginny Clancy and members of her lab.  Molly will accept her award at the Graduate School’s Annual Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, May 16, 2018.

Congratulations Molly!

The weather forecast may say winter, but nature says it is spring! Our male osprey has returned to his nest located at the Marine Sciences Center at Stony Brook Southampton.  Arriving from his winter home in South America, he will do some spring cleaning of the nest, making sure that everything is perfect for when his lady returns roughly two weeks later. Last year was the first time we had a pair build a nest at the Center. Although they did a great job, they never laid any eggs, perhaps because they were still a young pair and that was their first attempt at nesting. Hopefully after another year of traveling the world, they will be wiser and will be successful in raising a family this year.

On Tuesday March 21, Captain Brian Gagliardi moved the R/V Peconic close to the platform so that Marine Sciences Center Manager Chris Paparo could clear out the trash (below) that had collected in the nest.  The ospreys will have a good opportunity to create a clean nest and make the move official!

The garbage pulled from the osprey nest, collected either by the wind or put in place by the ospreys when they built the nest last year.

The osprey even braved the snow on Wednesday March 21 to stand guard over Old Fort Pond Bay.

Back in April of 2017, a pair of ospreys arrived to begin building the nest. Marine Sciences Manager Chris Paparo captured the video below.

Look who showed up just in time for another noreaster! He is on the nest located outside my office window at @somas.sbu ‘s Marine Sciences Center at @sbusouthampton . Can’t wait to watch them nest! . . . #osprey #springisnear #springishere #nomoresnow #officewithaview #birdofprey #raptor #fishhawk #seahawk #Southampton #somas #stonybrooksouthampton #hamptons #fishguyphotos

A post shared by FishGuyPhotos (@fishguyphotos) on Mar 20, 2018 at 2:40pm PDT

Image above: Satellite image of a bomb cyclone moving along the North Atlantic storm track on the East Coast as seen from NOAA’s GOES-16 Satellite on January 4, 2018. Credit: NOAA/CIRA

From To improve season storm track forecasts, look to the tropical stratosphere  by Ali Stevens (NOAA Research Communications) on March 27, 2018

People have become familiar with “bomb cyclones” this winter, as several powerful winter storms brought strong winds and heavy precipitation to the U.S. east coast, knocking out power and causing flooding. With strength that can rival that of hurricanes, bomb cyclones get their name from a process called bombogenesis, which describes the rapid intensification they undergo within 24 hours as they move along the coast.

These winter storms tend to form and travel within narrow “atmospheric conveyor belts”, called storm tracks, which can change location over a period of years.

Scientists have extensively studied potential causes behind these year-to-year changes in attempt to better forecast storm tracks and their extreme impacts, but new research from scientists at the Stony Brook University (SBU) School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, funded by NOAA Research’s MAPP Program, identifies another crucial controlling force.

After analyzing 38 years of model data, the research team found that an alternating pattern of winds high up in the tropical stratosphere, called the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO), affects significant year-to-year changes in both the North Pacific and North Atlantic storm tracks.

The QBO’s dual influence

The wind in the tropical stratosphere shifts between easterlies and westerlies over two to three years. This alternating pattern, called the QBO, can influence the location of the North Pacific and North Atlantic storm tracks, or the atmospheric conveyor belts that carry storms like bomb cyclones along the U.S. coasts. Credit: NOAA Climate.gov animation.

Past research has primarily considered how variabilities in the lower part of our atmosphere — the troposphere — and in the polar region of our stratosphere influence storm tracks. These studies mostly found that different atmospheric patterns affected storm tracks in just one ocean basin. For instance, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation influences the North Pacific storm track but not the North Atlantic storm track.

“This study finds that the QBO modulates the North Pacific and North Atlantic storm track simultaneously. Such a finding on a basin-wide influence is relatively new,” said Hyemi Kim, paper co-author and SBU Assistant Professor.

Not only does the QBO influence both the North Pacific and North Atlantic storm tracks, but the authors also found that the two storm tracks respond differently.

“When the QBO pattern has easterly winds, the North Pacific storm track shifts further north, while the North Atlantic storm track shifts to a lower vertical height in the atmosphere,” said Jiabao Wang, graduate researcher and lead author of the paper.

In addition, when the QBO pattern has westerly winds, the North Atlantic storm track shifts to a higher vertical height in the atmosphere. The authors explained that these directional and vertical shifts in storm track locations can cause changes in local weather and climate, such as strong winds and heavy precipitation, and can impact aviation by causing severe turbulence in higher or lower parts of the atmosphere.

“Because the QBO is a fairly uniform circumglobal phenomenon, we thought that its influence on storm tracks over the two basins would be similar,” said Wang. “The different responses between the North Pacific and North Atlantic storm track to the QBO were not as expected.”

Given that the QBO’s alternating pattern every 2-3 years can be accurately predicted up to 12 months in advance, Edmund Chang, co-author and SBU Professor, explained that these storm track changes and, potentially, the likelihood of related natural disasters should be predictable out to several months ahead of time. Thus, their study offers a new pathway to improve seasonal forecasts of storm tracks and their extreme impacts — like future winter weather bombs.

If forecasters take the QBO into account, Chang noted that the potential prediction improvements would provide useful information to advance decision-making in many sectors, including wind and solar energy, agriculture, water management, and emergency response.

View the paper:

Wang, J., Kim, H.-M. & Chang, E. K. M. (2018). Interannual Modulation of Northern Hemisphere Winter Storm Tracks by the QBO. Geophysical Research Letters, 45. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076929

This story is also featured on NOAA’s Climate Program Office and Stony Brook University Happenings.

Photo above: Stony Brook group on safari in Tanzania, 2017

From Tanzania Study Abroad Program Sends Students to Africa by Suzanne Mobyed on SBU Happenings, March 30, 2018.

Stony Brook University’s Tanzania Study Abroad program recently won the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Innovative Study Abroad Program for 2017–2018.  The award will help fund this summer’s trip to the eastern African nation, to be led by Kamazima Lwiza, director of the undergraduate programs in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, and Thomas Bilfinger, MD, ScD, professor of surgery at Stony Brook University Hospital. Faculty members from both sides of campus are working together to send students abroad on the academic program.

“My trip to Tanzania was life changing in the sense that it affirmed my career goals and provided some reassurance that I am headed on a path I truly believe in,” said Christian Cole, ’18, a Health Science major. “Walking throughout the towns, hospitals and orphanages, I got a deeper sense of my passion for healthcare, and a renewed urgency to take advantage of opportunities that are presented to me,” he said.

Stony Brook students in Tanzania, summer 2017

Students participating in the summer program will help to set up a remote clinic to provide biometric screenings — a series of health tests designed to offer insight into overall health — in Dareda, a rural community that has very little access to healthcare. The initiative serves the dual purpose of reaching deep into the local community and allowing Stony Brook students to experience medical care in an indigenous setting.

“As a native Tanzanian, it has been especially fulfilling for me to see students visit my country, learn about the culture and immerse themselves in the customs and traditions,” said Mariam Isack, assistant program director of the Tanzania study abroad program. “Each year I have seen students transformed by this unique opportunity, molding them into global citizens with a better understanding of the developing world.”

The itinerary includes a one-week introduction on campus to the history, culture and environment of Tanzania, followed by three weeks in Tanzania in various locations including national parks. A portion of the program focuses on health facilities and delivery systems in the developing country, in addition to culture and environment.

Within the program, students from various curricula can find independent research within their field of interest as well as internships with professionals and peers in healthcare for comparative experiential learning endeavor. Students visit orphanages, schools and hospitals to study the narratives and needs of those who live and work in the communities. Additionally, students learn about the culture and language — Kiswahili — through immersion in native life.

“As an aspiring healthcare professional, I found that the internship experience was one of the greatest opportunities I could have been given,” said Jane Jonas ’18, a Health Science major in the College of Arts and Sciences and a recently admitted student to the School of Nursing. “It’s great to be able to learn about Tanzanian healthcare in a traditional classroom setting, but it was extremely eye-opening and enriching to experience the culture firsthand.”

Stony Brook’s nursing curriculum has changed with the development of the academic safari. Students in the Nursing Bachelors program now have the option to select one of their core courses to be taken on campus or in Tanzania for their Clinical Health Assessment requirement.

The Tanzania Study Abroad program provides students with the option of a 10-day extension for one internship credit. This portion of the program is made up of two parts: community outreach and education, and shadowing at a hospital through peer mentorship. In years past, the community projects have focused on hand-washing education for children, dental care, feminine health, mental health awareness, positive self-image, fitness and overall wellness.

“Studying abroad in Tanzania made me more compassionate and humble,” Jonas said. “I now have a different outlook on life and feel grateful for everything I have.”

The Tanzania study abroad program began in 1996 under the leadership of social anthropologist William Arens, Dean of International Academic Programs and faculty director of the academic safari program in Tanzania. Since then, the program has grown to include a hospital internship component and successful community workshops that are supported with donations raised by alumni. Stony Brook’s relationship with the University of Dar es Salaam, a public university in Tanzania, has led to joint research and faculty exchange.

Stony Brook President Samuel L. Stanley Jr.’s internationalization strategy for the University through 2018 focuses mainly on Africa and Asia. Stony Brook features five global sites with robust programs in Kenya, Madagascar and Tanzania and in-depth partnerships in Korea and China.

Photo above: Mark Lang cavorts with the dancing sand shrimp.

From Earthstock 2018 to Combine Traditions and Innovations by Glenn Jochum on SBU Happenings, April 11, 2018

Earthstock, Stony Brook’s annual celebration of Earth Day, kicks off Monday, April 16,  featuring a winning combination of hallowed traditions and fresh programming.

The Duck Race is an annual Earthstock highlight.

More than a week’s worth of educational and social events will culminate in the Earthstock Festival, to be held on the Academic Mall between 11:00 am and 3:00 pm on Friday, April 20. As always, a highlight of the festival is the Duck Race, to be held at 2:00 pm in “The Brook,” adjacent to the Administration building. Ducks can be purchased for $2 at the Student Activities Center, Room 222, Monday through Friday, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. Prizes are awarded for the first and last duck. A complete schedule of is 2018 events is available on the Earthstock website.

Earthstock is a joyous celebration, but it’s not all fun and games. Recent legislation in Suffolk County, the “bring your own bag law,” which requires consumers to pay a nickel per plastic bag in an effort to reduce plastic in the world’s oceans and landfills, has fired up Earthstock committee members such as junior Condrea Zhuang and senior Maria Grima. The friends, who are also members of the Undergraduate Student Government Sustainability Committee and Stony Brook University Environmental Club, consider plastic to be one of the most pressing global environmental issues.

“People feel trapped by how much plastic is used and how they can’t avoid it. It’s not just about how it affects random animals in the ocean but also how it has an impact on humans,” said Maria.

Stony Brook Environmental Club and Earthstock Committee members Condrea Zhuang and Maria Grima

Sometimes, visual reminders have the most impact. To make a point, Condrea donned four and a half pounds of plastic garbage — the average amount each New Yorker is estimated to generate a month — and walked around campus during Earthstock 2017.

This year, she is focusing on zero-waste gardening through the use of egg cartons. Condrea, who has been collecting egg cartons for a year for this event, will teach her classmates how to turn them into compostable planters on April 18 at 8:00 pm in Room 302 of the Student Activities Center.

To reward fellow students for their devotion to the cause and spirit of Earthstock, committee members have established Challenge Days. From April 9 to 22, participants are invited to post a picture or video of themselves completing daily challenges. Their reward?  The opportunity to be honored as Earthstock Ambassador of the Day on Earthstock 2018 social media channels.

Each challenge earns participants one point, and bonus points can be earned for continuing the daily challenges throughout the two-week period. For the Challenge Days, students can follow @sbuenvironmentalclub on Instagram or Facebook.

The School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) is also strongly committed to Earthstock through educational programming and collaborative partnerships, particularly with student affairs and co-curricular programming.

“SoMAS stepped up so much last year and has carried through to this year with the number and types of exhibits they are providing,” said Jeff Barnett, interim associate dean of students and Earthstock chair since 2007. “The sophistication and quality of what they bring is experiential, elaborate and fun.”

That elaborate sophistication is exemplified by the 24-foot research vessel, The Privateer, which SOMAS will transport to campus and make available for Earthstock visitors to view.

“Our Facilities Manager Mark Wiggins was our former small boat captain and technician, and the hope is to demonstrate some of the sampling gear used from the vessel,” said Mark Lang, SoMAS senior systems engineer and Earthstock social media coordinator. “It won’t be available to climb on, but it should still be a fresh addition to our showcase.”

The new experiential angle SoMAS brings to Earthstock will be visible during the Sustainability Studies Alumni panel discussion at the Javits Center in Room 109 at 1:00 pm on April 18.

“This year the panel will include both local and remote participants who will be brought in via videoconference. Going virtual allows greater participation with alumni,” Lang said.

In keeping with the celebratory spirit of Earthstock’s culminating day on April 20, SoMAS may reprise a dancing lobster, which more resembles a sand shrimp, said Lang. “The lobster loves to dance to Peat Moss and the Fertilizers and pose for pictures with everyone. Rumor has it, if the lobster shows up it might bring a shark friend too,” Lang added.

The incoming dean of SoMAS, Paul Shepson, is this year’s keynote speaker. Shepson is the Jonathan Amy Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University. He is also currently division director for Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences at the National Science Foundation. His lecture, which takes place at 7:30 pm at the Charles B. Wang Center on April 20, is titled “Embrace the Change!” (climate change and its challenges). Shepson assumes the duties of SoMAS dean on July 2.

Two compelling events are hosted by SoMAS faculty. Interim Dean of SoMAS Larry Swanson will give a lecture titled “Dredging Stony Brook Harbor,” to be held at the Setauket Neighborhood House potluck dinner at 6:00 pm on April 16 and Malcolm Bowman, Distinguished Service Professor of Oceanography at Stony Brook, will host “The Great Debate— is Climate Change to Blame for Forced Mass Human Migrations?,” which will take place at Harriman Hall Auditorium, 4:00 pm on April 19.

“There appears to be a vibrant mood on campus for action-oriented research and innovation for stewardship of the planet,” said Shepson.  I know that SoMAS is excited about its leadership in this area, and I am indeed thrilled to be able to lead SoMAS, work with colleagues across campus, and help Stony Brook make a difference.”

— Glenn Jochum

EARTHSTOCK HIGHLIGHTS

Monday, April 16

• Potluck Dinner/Lecture: “Dredging Stony Brook Harbor” The Setauket Neighborhood House, Setauket, New York, 6:00 pm
• Experience: Full Bloom Beauty Paint Night Student Activities Center (SAC), Ballroom B, 7:00 pm

Wednesday, April 18

• Bramble Rambles: Guided Nature Walk Through the Ashley Schiff Preserve. Meet at the northeast trailhead along Circle Drive next to the wooden kiosk across from Roth Quad, 1:00 pm
• Presentation: “OMG, It’s Melting” NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory oceanographer Josh Willis talks about issues related to sea level rise. SAC, Sidney Gelber Auditorium, 1:00 pm
• Panel Discussion: Sustainability Studies Alumni Javits Center, Room 109, 1:00 pm
• Experience: Salutation to the Sunset Yoga and meditation program. Staller Steps, 6:00 pm
• Zero Waste Gardening: Egg Carton Planters SAC, Room 302, 8:00 pm

Thursday, April 19

• The Great Debate: “Is Climate Change to Blame for Forced Mass Human Migrations?”, Harriman Hall Auditorium, 4:00 pm
• Experience: Jam Poetree and Sustainable Dye Night Staller Steps, 7:00 pm
• Lecture: “Space Junk — How the Debris Orbiting the Earth Affects Our Planet and Our Lives,” SAC, Sidney Gelber Auditorium, 7:30 pm

Friday, April 20

• Earthstock Festival, Academic Mall
• Farmers Market, 11:00 am
• Environmental and Educational Displays and Exhibitors, 11:00 am
• Live Music and Dance Performances on Two Stages, 11:30 am
• Opening Remarks/Green Pledge Ceremony, 12:15 pm
• Rubber Duck Races, 2:00 pm
• Ice Cream Social, 2:30 pm
• Drum Line and Color Guard Showcase, 3:00 pm
• Environmental Student Research Exhibition, 6:30 pm
• Keynote: Paul Shepson, “Embrace the Change,” Charles B. Wang Theater, 7:30 pm

Rain Location: SAC

Saturday, April 21

• Celebration: Environmental Club’s Green Gala  SAC, Ballroom B, 8:00 pm

Tuesday, April 24

• Film Screening: “Wasted: The Story of Food Waste”

Food culture expert and author Eve Turow Paul discusses sustainable culinary practices.  Charles B. Wang Center, Lecture Hall 1, 5:00 pm

FACEBOOK:

Friday Festival: https://www.facebook.com/events/224952638051747/

Paul Shepson Keynote: https://www.facebook.com/events/604381299922879/

Sustainability Studies Alumni Panel: https://www.facebook.com/events/123267305192086/

Photo above: Algae-scrubber team includes, from left, Christina Giordanella, Elisabeth Van Roijen, Shauna Wright and Associate Professor Kate Aubrecht.

From Stony Brook Students Wield Science on Behalf of Sustainability by Glenn Jochum on SBU Happenings, April 16, 2018

As the nation celebrates another Earth Day and Stony Brook pays homage to the planet with programming aimed at spreading the green gospel to campus and community, Stony Brook students are fanning out with individual and collective projects that make a difference.

Graduate student Lisa Herbert studies trace metals such as iron, manganese, nickel, cobalt and arsenic that are released into the Arctic Ocean by melting glaciers.

Another graduate student, Lisa Prowant is working closer to home by charting the whereabouts of a Long Island inhabitant whose numbers are declining, the Eastern box turtle.

Lisa Herbert looks for trace metals off the coast of Norway.

And undergraduate Shauna Wright ’18 is part of a team studying algae for use as a possible biofuel in the Life and Sciences Greenhouse on campus.

Lisa Herbert, who works with Professor Laura Wehrmann, PhD, head of the Biogeochemistry lab in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, studies fiords in Svalbard, Norway.

“Fiords are the conduits between the glacier and the open ocean,” said Herbert. “Once trace metals enter the fiords in meltwater, they are subject to a number of chemical reactions in the water and sediment that determine whether they crystallize and become trapped in the sediment or dissolve and are transported to the ocean.”

Herbert said that metals have a big impact on marine life because they can act as either fertilizers or toxins and could ultimately affect marine ecology and climate change. Experiments show that fertilizing the ocean with iron (by dumping iron sulfate powder overboard) causes an explosion of algae growth, which in turn stimulates the food chain and sucks carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

“I don’t advocate iron fertilization as a means to intentionally remove CO2 from the atmosphere, as some have in the past,” said Herbert. “But I do want to figure out if a natural version of iron fertilization is happening in the ocean as a result of climate change. The poles of our planet are where the effects of climate change occur most rapidly and dramatically, so there is an urgency behind our need to understand what is happening in those places,” she added.

Climate change is also central to Lisa Prowant’s turtle study. New conservation approaches are needed as the climate undergoes change and one such approach is translocation, the human-mediated movement of organisms from one area to another.

“The goal of my research is to create the best translocation plan for the Eastern Box Turtle using information on their predators and Ranavirus, a deadly disease of frogs and turtles.”

While pursuing her master’s degree in biology she learned the threat that climate change is posing on global biodiversity and specifically, on reptiles.

“As of 2013, 19 per cent of reptiles were threatened were extinction. Within that threatened category, established by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, 12 percent as critically endangered, 41 percent as endangered and 47 percent as vulnerable,” Prowant said. Box turtles are one of the vulnerable species and they are right here and once ubiquitous on Long Island.

Via Stony Brook lab connections, Prowant found professors interested in the plight of the box turtle and learned how to radio-track the reptiles. She since turned the project into her dissertation.

Lisa Prowant with an Eastern box turtle.

After completing two field seasons and collecting information on box turtles and their Long Island predators, Prowant conducted her study at 30 locations from Brooklyn and Queens to Long Island’s Twin Forks. The data collected will help her determine areas that are conducive to translocation.

Shauna Wright has immersed herself in multiple facets of sustainability during her undergraduate career while working toward a bachelor of science in coastal environmental studies and a bachelor of arts in environmental design, policy and planning. Her dedication to the environment extended beyond curricula and classroom, however.

In summer 2016 Shauna served as a land stewardship intern mapping and removing invasive plants from the landscape and lakes of Teatown Lake Reservation in Ossining, New York. In summer 2015, she served as a nature specialist for Yorktown Parks and Recreation in Yorktown, New York. And she has been a member of the Stony Brook University Sierra Club since 2015.

This summer, Shauna will be interning at the International Center for Coral Reef Research and Restoration in the Florida Keys.

In Associate Professor Kate Aubrecht’s Chemistry lab, she became part of a team project that splits its time between the lab and the Life Sciences Greenhouse, exploring conditions that allow for increased lipid production in algae in order to cultivate an efficient biofuel.

“We are using algal turf scrubber units, or water flow devices with tile substrates, built in-house to allow for the cultivation of algae,” she said. “The algae have a variety of potential applications such as medicine, food and fertilizer. Our project seeks to maximize the percent lipid content. We first grow the algae in high nutrient conditions to maximize growth and move it to starvation conditions to promote lipid production.”

By reducing toxins in the oceans, saving turtles and lessening our reliance on fossil fuels, Stony Brook students are using the skills they learned in the field, lab and classroom and saving our planet one project at a time.

Every two years, the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences produces a report to summarize the activities of the school.  The 2016-2017 report celebrates our 50th Anniversary and includes additional content that showcases our celebratory events and memories.

View the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences 50th Anniversary Biennial Report

This report is divided into several sections; some sections highlight a different aspect of the activities at SoMAS for 2016-2017, while others discuss accomplishments during our 50 years here at Stony Brook University.  A brief description of each section is below:

• Welcome! – A message from the Dean and the introduction to the report
• 50MAS Stories – Stories from faculty, staff, students and alumni celebrating Fifty Years of Making Scientific Research Count.
• Timeline – A chronicle of the history of SoMAS and MSRC.
• People – A listing of the faculty at SoMAS, including Faculty, Staff, Joint and Adjunct Faculty, and our Endowed Professorships.  This page also includes the membership of the Dean’s Council and featured profiles of our alumni.
• Awards – Awards received by SoMAS faculty, staff and students
• Institutes and Facilities – Report on the institutes and facilities at SoMAS
• Research Highlights – Highlights of the research conducted at SoMAS
• Education Programs – Enrollment numbers and a description for each our Education Programs
• Publications and Grants – The publications and grants of SoMAS faculty
• Financials – The school’s funding data
• Social Media – Reporting information for the SoMAS presence on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter and Instagram

From Earth Day Beach Cleanup at Warner Island Is a Success on SBU Happenings, April 25, 2018

Students, faculty and staff from Stony Brook Southampton and the Stony Brook main campus celebrated Earth Day on Sunday, April 22 with the annual Beach Clean Up at Warner Island in Shinnecock Bay.

Captain Andrew Brosnan took the crew of 16 out on the R/V Peconic on a beautiful (and long overdue) spring afternoon. The group filled five bags of trash from the Island. The event was part of the Town of Southampton’s Great East End Clean Up.

Stony Brook Southampton Student Life provided lunch for the participants, who enjoyed the weather as well as the wonderful wildlife of Shinnecock Bay. The group saw around 50 seals hauled out on a sand bar, eight species of nesting birds on the island, and one juvenile bald eagle.

The full photo album by Kurt Bretsch is available on Google Photos.

Mateo (left) and Sajjad (right) with Dr. Sharon Pochron

Students Mateo Mezic and Sajjad Hussaini working with Dr. Sharon Pochron in the Earthworm Toxicology Lab received Undergraduate Recognition Awards for Excellence and Outstanding Achievement in the category for Academic Excellence.

Mateo earned this award in part through his work for his honor’s thesis, which combines economics and ecotoxicology. Specifically he’s using the Worm Lab to ask if the high-tech stoves being distributed throughout the developing world produce ash of higher toxicity than traditional stoves. Mateo is a dual major in Economics and Sustainability Studies.  He’s also a volunteer at LIJ University Hospital and an inventor of board games. Mateo plans on attending graduate school in Ecology and Evolution.

Sajjad earned his award in part through his work in the Worm Lab. For his honor’s thesis, he use the Worm Lab (but no worms) to ask if garden plants can bioaccumulate a common livestock pharmaceutical. Sajjad is majoring in Biology with an Ecosystems and Human Impact minor. He’s also a member of the National Society of Leadership and Success and a volunteer at SBU hospital. Sajjad plans on attending medical school.

Congratulations to Mateo and Sajjad!

The Long Island GIS Conference was held at Farmingdale State College on April 25, 2018. Student posters displayed were voted on by Conference attendees for the People’s Choice Award for Best Poster. Student posters from SoMAS and Sustainability Studies were accepted for display by Lucy Dibenedetto, Courtney Stuart, Mark Lusty, Cassidy Bell, Matthew McDermott, and Brooke Morrell. These posters were generated as the final projects in GSS 313/314.

Courtney Stuart, a Marine Vertebrate Biology student, received the 2nd Place Award for her poster “Geospatial Analysis of Tiger Shark Distribution and Habitat Utilization Related to Depth and Potential Ontogenetic Diet Shifts Along the Subtidal Eastern Coastline, USA” and Lucy DiBenedetto, a Coastal Environmental Studies student, received the 3rd Place Award for her poster ” A Geospatial Analysis of Quantuck Bay, New York: Making Decisions for Remediation”. They were both participating in URECA and could not attend the LIGIS Conference. They are pictured above with their awards and below with their posters at URECA.

Content contributed by Maria Brown.

Courtney Stuart with her poster “Geopsatial Analysis of Tiger Shark Distribution and Habitat Utilization Related to Depth and Potential Ontogenetic Diet Shifts Along the Subtidal Eastern Coastline, USA” at the 2018 URECA Celebration.

Lucy Dibenedetto with her poster ” A Geospatial Analysis of Quantuck Bay, New York: Making Decisions for Remediation” at the 2018 URECA Celebration.