Professor Christopher K.R.T. Jones — Recipient of the 2020 MPE Prize
Professor Chris Jones is the Bill Guthridge Distinguished Professor in Mathematics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Director of the Mathematics and Climate Research Network (MCRN). The 2020 MPE Prize recognizes Professor Jones for his many significant contributions to climate science and the mathematics of planet Earth.
Category Archives: Biosphere
Ocean Acidification and Phytoplankton
The health of the world’s oceans has been in the news a lot over the last few months. Recent reports suggest that the oceans are absorbing carbon dioxide at unprecedented rates. The ocean is the dominant player in the global carbon cycle, and the sequestering of more carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, sounds like a good thing. However, researchers have measured significant increases in ocean acidity, and they worry this will have a negative impact on marine life, especially phytoplankton. Continue reading
Posted in Biosphere, Inverse Problems, Ocean
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How Vegetation Competes for Rainfall in Dry Regions
The greater the plant density in a given area, the greater the amount of rainwater that seeps into the ground. This is due to a higher presence of dense roots and organic matter in the soil. Since water is a limited resource in many dry ecosystems, such as semi-arid environments and semi-deserts, there is a benefit to vegetation to adapt by forming closer networks with little space between plants. Continue reading
Posted in Biosphere, Mathematics, Patterns
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The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Collective Animal Behavior
Observing collective phenomena such as the movement of a flock of birds, a school of fish, or a migrating population of ungulates is a source of fascination because of the mystery behind the spontaneous formation of the aggregating behavior and the apparent cohesiveness of the movements. However, they can also be the cause of a major environmental and social problem when one thinks, for example, of the flight of a swarm of voracious locusts ravaging crops in various parts of the world and putting many communities under severe stress. Continue reading
Posted in Biosphere, Mathematics, Patterns
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Patterns on Earth
A recurrent idea in science is that the loss of stability of an equilibrium position through diffusion can lead to the creation of patterns. The idea goes back to Turing in his famous 1952 paper “On the chemical basis of morphogenesis,” which proposes a model for morphogenesis through chemical reaction-diffusion. Continue reading
Posted in Biosphere, Mathematics, Patterns
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Slithering Away: A Warming Planet Displaces Snakes’ Habitat
When paleobiologist Michelle Lawing joined field expeditions to collect rattlesnake data in the deserts of Southwestern America, she didn’t expect that her research would uncover such grim predictions for the rattlesnakes and their habitats in the future. Continue reading
Posted in Biosphere, Climate Change
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The Mystery of Vegetation Patterns
Vegetation patterns are a mysterious phenomenon that we can think about in the same way as patterns that form in many other contexts. What’s more, they may have importance that transcends their beauty. Continue reading
Posted in Biosphere, Mathematics, Patterns
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DIMACS/CCICADA Collaboration on REU and Other Sustainability Projects
The Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS) and the Command Control Interoperability Center for Advanced Data Analysis (CCICADA), both based at Rutgers University, have collaborated on some recent activities to enhance the summer experience for several undergraduate students participating in the DIMACS/CCICADA Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. DIMACS and CCICADA recently co-hosted a workshop on Science and Technology Innovations in Hurricane Sandy Research. Continue reading
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Prospects for a Green Mathematics
It is increasingly clear that we are initiating a sequence of dramatic events across our planet. They include habitat loss, an increased rate of extinction, global warming, the melting of ice caps and permafrost, an increase in extreme weather events, … Continue reading
Posted in Biosphere, Mathematics
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