Dr. Stephanie Pau, FSU Geography Department, introduces students in the course to the textbook, FCI's Florida's Climate: Changes, Variations & Impacts .

A team of professors at Florida State University have developed an innovative course using FCI's book, Florida's Climate: Changes, Variations & Impacts as the primary textbook. Drs. Andy Opel (Communication), Bill Landing (Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science), Chari Arespacochaga (Theater), and Stephanie Pau (Geography) have initiated the Florida Climate Change Collaboration course, which brings together ~100 students from four distinctly different academic disciplines. It's interdisciplinary design is intended to connect the skill sets of diverse students in an effort translate the climate science into forms that public audiences can relate to. Students are working in teams and develop publicly accessible projects that address some of the myriad ways climate change is impacting Florida. The four participating classes (documentary video production, environmental science, theater, and geography) meet separately and as a large group. The planned assignments include a "Pitch a Project" deliverable, a social media/public engagement plan, and a final group project that will be showcased at a public event toward the end of the semester. For information about the course, contact Dr. Andy Opel.

(Source: WLRN Miami) Miami-Dade County is offering people the chance to learn more about sea-level rise and how to prepare for it with a free training. The course, which is only two hours long, shows how to use online tools that map out different scenarios of sea level rise in South Florida. According to Sandra Saint-Hilaire, spokesperson for the county's office of resilience, all the maps used in the training are open to the public but the class, which has to be attended in person, goes into detail to teach participants how to accurately read the tools. Read full article.

Coastal wetlands are globally important sinks of organic carbon (C). However, to what extent wetland C cycling will be affected by accelerated sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion is unknown, especially in coastal peat marshes where water flow is highly managed. The  objective of this study was to determine how the ecosystem C balance in coastal peat marshes is influenced by elevated salinity. As sea-level rise increases the rate of saltwater intrusion into coastal wetlands globally, understanding how water management influences C gains and losses from these systems is crucial. Under current Everglades' water management, drought lengthens marsh dry-down periods, which, coupled with saltwater intrusion, accelerates CO ₂ loss from the marsh. Read the article.

Source: Wilson, B.J.; Servais, S.; Mazzei, V.; Kominoski, J.S.; Hu, M.; Davis, S.E.; Gaiser, E.; Sklar, F.; Bauman, L.; Kelly, S.; Madden, C.; Richards, J.; Rudnick, D.; Stachelek, J.; Troxler, T.G.; (2018). Salinity pulses interact with seasonal dry-down to increase ecosystem carbon loss in marshes of the Florida Everglades. Ecol Appl, 28(8), 2092-2108.

Communicating about environmental risks requires understanding and addressing stakeholder needs, perspectives, and anticipated uses for communication products and decision-support tools. A recent paper by Delorme et al. (2019) demonstrates how long-term dialogue between scientists and stakeholders can be facilitated by repeated stakeholder focus groups. The authors describe a dialogic process for developing science-based decision-support tools as part of a larger sea level rise research project in the Gulf of Mexico. They demonstrate how focus groups can be used effectively in tool development, discuss how stakeholders plan to use tools for decision-making and broader public outreach, and describe features that stakeholders perceive would make products more usable. Read the article.

Source: Delorme, DE; Stephens, SH; Hagen, SC; Bilskie, MV, (2019). Communicating with Coastal Decision-Makers and Environmental Educators via Sea Level Rise Decision-Support Tools. JCOM, 17(3).

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Arpan, L. M., Xu, X., Raney, A. A., Chen, C. -fei, & Wang, Z. (2018). Politics, values, and morals: Assessing consumer responses to the framing of residential renewable energy in the United States. Energy Research & Social Science, 46, 321-331.

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DeLorme, D. E., Stephens, S. H., Hagen, S. C., & Bilskie, M. V. (2018). Communicating with Coastal Decision-Makers and Environmental Educators via Sea Level Rise Decision-Support Tools. Journal of Science Communication, 17(3).

Fahey, C., Fahey C, Angelini, C., Angelini C, Flory, S. L., & Flory SL. (2018). Grass invasion and drought interact to alter the diversity and structure of native plant communities. Ecology, 99(12), 2692-2702.

Hall, J. A., Weaver, C. P., Obeysekera, J., Crowell, M., Horton, R. M., Kopp, R. E., et al. (2019). Rising Sea Levels: Helping Decision-Makers Confront the Inevitable. Coastal Management, .

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Wilson, B. J., Wilson BJ, Servais, S., Servais S, Mazzei, V., Mazzei V, et al. (2018). Salinity pulses interact with seasonal dry-down to increase ecosystem carbon loss in marshes of the Florida Everglades. Ecol Appl, 28(8), 2092-2108.

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Florida's Climate: Changes, Variations, & Impacts provides a thorough review of the current state of research on Florida's climate, including physical climate benchmarks; climate prediction, projection, and attribution; and the impacts of climate and climate change on the people and natural resources in the state. The book is available for purchase in paperback and Kindle format at Amazon.com.

Individual chapters may be accessed on the FCI website.

The Florida Climate Institute (FCI) is a multi-disciplinary network of national and international research and public organizations, scientists, and individuals concerned with achieving a better understanding of climate variability and change.     

Member Universities