WSU hosts Northwest climate researcher

Edward L. Miles, a recent inductee into the National Academy of Sciences and University of Washington Professor of Marine and Public Affairs and Senior Fellow, Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Oceans (JISAO), will speak at Washington State University on Thursday, April 21.

Miles’ presentation, titled “The Projected Impacts of Global Climate Change on the Pacific Northwest,” will take place at 3 p.m. in Fulmer Room 226 on the WSU Pullman campus. The event is free and open to the public.

“This is the researcher who is involved with all the major research studies which are specifically focused on the Pacific Northwest,” said Eugene A. Rosa, Edward R. Meyer Distinguished Professor of Natural Resource and Environmental Policy in the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service. “It means,” said Rosa, “that he can answer questions about what could happen here and why.”

“The projections Miles works with are not just next-generation or next-century,” said Ed Weber, director of the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service. “His work includes scenarios which might be expected within 15 to 20 years and there is a lot at stake including water levels, fish populations, forests and hydro-electric power plants which depend on snow pack runoff. Many things we count on could be negatively impacted by global warming,” Weber said. “Miles will share what he has learned.”

Miles is co-founder of the Climate Impacts Group (CIG), which describes itself as “… an interdisciplinary research group studying the impacts of natural climate variability and global climate change (“global warming”) on the U.S. Pacific Northwest.”

Miles is currently the Virginia & Prentice Bloedel Professor of Marine and Public Affairs at UW. His professional associations include: former chair of the Ocean Policy Committee for the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council; former chair of the Advisory Committee on International Programs of the National Science Foundation; and is presently a trustee of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment in Washington D.C.

Miles is the author of many studies on international organizations, science and technology policy, and marine policy and ocean management. His most recent book is Environmental Regime Effectiveness: Confronting Theory with Evedence, (MIT Press, 2002, co-authored).

Edward L. Miles’ lecture is sponsored by Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service, in association with the WSU Environmental Studies Colloquium Group.