Dry conditions can also make warming worse, said Amir AghaKouchak, [professor of civil & environmental engineering], who studies climate-related and other water resource issues at the University of California, Irvine. Warming causes soil to lose moisture through evaporation … “During droughts, moisture levels become very low, so evaporation doesn’t happen,” Dr. AghaKouchak said. “The skin of the earth warms up, and that warms the atmosphere.” [Subscription required, campus-wide access provided by UCI Libraries.

University of California, Irvine Foundation trustee Stacey Nicholas has gifted $5 million to a diversity program in the Henry Samueli School of Engineering. The donation will rename the school’s Office of Access and Inclusion to the Stacey Nicholas Office of Outreach, Access and Inclusion. Nicholas’ donation will also create the Women in Engineering Program, which will support women pursuing the field with leadership training and professional development mentorship. Read More

A group of engineering students from Engineers for a Sustainable World at University of California, Irvine visited Irvine-based utility-scale solar developer Sunpin Solar last week for a Lunch and Learn presentation and a solar tour at Sunpin Solar’s 96.75-MW ColGreen North Shore solar project in Riverside County.

Felicia Chiang is the lead author of a new study on droughts and climate change, from the University of California-Irvine. “Essentially we found that droughts are warming faster than the average climate in the southern, the midwestern and the northeastern states of the U.S.,” she says.