Changes in global climate have the potential to significantly alter the physical and biological environment in ways that can impact both human society and global and regional ecosystems. ESI members are involved in research that examines evidence for impacts of climate change that has already occurred as well as research that attempts to predict impacts of future climate change.
Image: Researchers at UT are measuring the thickness of Antarctic ice sheets
to determine whether the sheets are changing as a result of global warming.
Christopher Bell
Assistant Professor
http://www.geo.utexas.edu/faculty/bell.htm
Research Interests: Dr. Bell's research centers on understanding the complex
dynamics of vertebrate faunal communities during the Quaternary Period. Dr.
Bell's research program concentrates on two terrestrial vertebrate groups,
squamate reptiles and small mammals, and focuses in part on the differences
and similarities in the responses of these groups to climate change.
Camille Parmesan
Assistant Professor
http://www.biosci.utexas.edu/IB/faculty/parmesan.htm
Research Interests: Biotic responses to global warming; foraging behavior and evolution of diet in butterflies.
Edward C. Theriot
Professor; Director, Texas Memorial Musuem
http://www.biosci.utexas.edu/IB/faculty/theriot.htm
Research Interests: Aquatic biology with an emphasis on systematics and ecology of diatoms, especially diatom evolution in the context of environmental change. Research goals are to improve understanding of the utility of diatoms as environmental indicators, particularly as indicators of naturally occurring local and global climate change.
Kenneth R. Young
Ph.D., Quantitative Landscape Ecology
http://www.utexas.edu/depts/grg/office/faculty/faculty/young.html
Research Interests: Conservation, ecological restoration issues, and ecosystem
management, and have skills in landscape assessment and analysis using GIS
and quantitative methods. He will teach courses and seminars in landscape
ecology, international conservation, and field methods.
Karl W. Butzer
Dickson Professor of Liberal Arts and Director, Applied Geomorphology and
Geoecology Laboratory
http://www.utexas.edu/depts/grg/office/faculty/faculty/butzer.html
Research Interests: Dr. Butzer, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, studies and teaches about geomorphology, climate and global environmental change, geoarchaeology, and human adaptations to environmental change in Africa, Spain, Australia, and Mexico. He is currently leading a multi-year project studying Holocene climate and fluvial system changes in the Texas/Mexico borderlands.
Gregory W. Knapp
Professor; Chairman, Department of Geography
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~gwk/gwk.html
Research Interests: Dr. Knapp works on adaptive dynamics, modeling changes in human-environment relations as related to the microscale patterning of soil and water in mountain and desert environments. He has worked on impacts of global climate change on the high Andes, and is currently working on the long term impact of volcanic eruptions on adaptive strategies in Ecuador.
Steven Moore
Assistant Professor
http://mather.ar.utexas.edu/Faculty/moore/
Research Interests: Dr. Moore teaches design and a series of courses related to the philosophy, history, and application of environmental technology. These topics naturally lead to the critical study of Design With Climate issues and "sustainability" as a cultural phenomenon.
Jay L. Banner
Professor; Director, ESI
http://www.geo.utexas.edu/faculty/banner/
Research Interests: Dr. Banner's research investigates how the interactions that occur between the atmosphere-land-ocean systems are preserved in the geologic record. This is explored using field, microscopic, geochemical, and dating studies of 1) cave deposits as records of links between climate change and hydrology, 2) limestones as records of the chemistry of ancient oceans, and 3) modern urbanized aquifers.
Paul F. Hudson
Asssitant Professor and co-director, Digital Landscape Laboratory
http://www.utexas.edu/depts/grg/office/faculty/faculty/hudson.html
Research Interests: Dr. Hudson's area of specialty is in fluvial geomorphology, with regional interests in Gulf Coastal Plain river systems. His major areas of research and teaching include: (1) river channel adjustment in alluvial river systems, particularly due to human impacts from engineering and land cover change, (2) discharge and suspended sediment transport dynamics, (3) channel metamorphosis in response to climate change and sea-level rise during the Holocene, (4) Geographic Information Systems.
David Morse
Research Associate
http://www.ig.utexas.edu/people/staff/morse/index.htm
Research Interests: Dr. Morse analyzes Antarctic aerogeophysical data to evaluate under-ice tectonics and kinematics. His analysis concerns geologic controls on the past, present, and future behavior of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which in principal could melt over a period of only two hundred years, producing profound effects on sea level, coastal geography, and climate.
Bridget Scanlon
Research Scientist
http://www.beg.utexas.edu/environqlty/scanlonrsme.htm
Research Interests: Dr. Scanlon's research employs soil physics, environmental and applied tracers, and numerical modeling to explain flow and transport in unsaturated systems. Soil physics studies, for example, measure spatial and temporal variability in water content and water potential so that we can evaluate current flow processes. Dr. Scanlon's group has established monitoring stations to evaluate infiltration and percolation in the Chihuahuan desert and in the Southern High Plains. These stations include thermocouple psychrometers, heat dissipation sensors, and time domain reflectometry probes. Dr. Scanlon's group uses these monitoring data to validate liquid and vapor transport simulations in response to atmospheric forcing.
Liang Yang
Assistant Professor
http://www.geo.utexas.edu/climate
Research Interests: Dr. Liang Yang's current research interests include:
Global Change; Climate Modeling; Land-Surface Modeling; Snow Hydrology; Runoff;
North American Monsoon; Tropical Deforestation; Interaction of Terrestrial
and Atmospheric Hydrological Processes; Flood and Drought; Remote Sensing
Kenneth H. Dunton
Associate Professor
http://wwwutmsi.zo.utexas.edu/staff/dunton/index.htm
Research Interests: Physiological ecology, in situ productivity, and trophic relations in estuarine marsh, seagrass and algal communities; photosynthetic performance and UV effects on arctic and antarctic macroalgae. Application of remote sensing and GIS in landscape and global change studies.
Hilary Olson
Research Associate
http://www.ig.utexas.edu/people/staff/olson/index.htm
Research Interests: Dr. Olson is a micropaleontologist who applies various methods to evaluate Foraminifera collected from ocean-bottom sediment cores. When combined with monitoring of heavy minerals, water nutrients, and isotopic analysis, micropaleontological methods provide essential information about past and present climate, and transport properties of ocean and atmospheric currents.
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