News – International Center for Climate and Global Change Research

Auburn professors, doctoral fellow lead groundbreaking climate research on threat of increasing global aridity

Breakthrough climate research led by Auburn University researchers was published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, or PNAS.

Professors Hanqin Tian and Susan Pan of Auburn’s School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, and Hao Shi, a postdoctoral fellow in the school’s International Center for Climate and Global Change Research, worked with a group of international climate scientists to focus on a predictive understanding of how increasing global aridity velocity impacts species range.

“This study was inspired by animal and human behaviors in response to water deficits,” said Tian, who also directs the center. “Just as nomadic people throughout history have migrated long distances or warred with farming neighbors to survive long-term drying, animals continue to migrate to find food and water in dry seasons.”

The study, “Terrestrial biodiversity threatened by increasing global aridity velocity under high level warming,” was published in PNAS on Aug. 30.

Auburn University researcher ranked among the world’s most influential climate scientists

Within its release of the world’s most influential climate scientists, the international news agency Reuters has named Hanqin Tian, professor in Auburn University’s School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, to its list of top scholars leading the study of climate change.

Auburn faculty members receive major NSF funding to study the sustainability of two mother river basins

Three Auburn faculty members and their international co-researchers have received a major National Science Foundation grant to lead a study on climate and global changes that will affect the sustainability of food, energy and water, or FEW, resources for the rapidly growing populations in the United States, China and beyond.

Dr. Hanqin Tian has been elected Fellow of American Geophysical Union (2020) for outstanding and pioneering contributions to understanding the role of terrestrial ecosystems in controlling sources and sinks of greenhouse gases.

Dr. Hanqin Tian, elected AGU Fellow (2020), is a leading expert on atmospheric & terrestrial budgets of biogenic GHGs & how they’re affected by human activity. One of the 1st Earth System modelers to integrate GHGs into one framework, w/ a process-based N cycle, remote sensing & non-linear interactions. To be elected a Fellow of AGU is a special tribute for those who have made exceptional scientific contributions. Nominated Fellows must have attained acknowledged eminence in the Earth and space sciences. This designation is conferred upon not more than 0.1% of all AGU members in any given year.

https://www.agu.org/Account/Candidate-Detail-Page?candidateId=D7DE9309-0510-4B62-A34B-0E2D1883DAF4

Auburn researcher publishes paper on impact of urban green space in slowing spread of COVID-19

New COVID-19 research by Auburn University faculty member Shufen Pan is the first to find that urban vegetation could slow the spread of COVID-19, a finding that was published recently in the journal, Geophysical Research Letters.

To see more: http://ocm.auburn.edu/newsroom/news_articles/2020/10/071000-food-production-climate-threat.php