A paper by professor Laurence C. Smith (left) and Scott Stephenson, a Ph.D. candidate, both in the UCLA Department of Geography, has been selected as one of the top 10 news stories in 2013 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
Their paper, published in the scholarly journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Plus, offers the first thorough assessment of trans-Arctic shipping potential as global temperatures continue to rise. Their study is based on independent climate forecasts for the years 2040 to 2059, and it received coverage in USA Today, Scientific American, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Reuters.
Chair of the geography department, Smith is an authority on the ways in which climate change is affecting the Arctic, where average temperatures have risen faster than the global average since the mid-1980s. He has quantified the disappearance of more than 1,000 Arctic lakes. He also is the author of "The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future," a 2010 book that looks at new economic opportunities, as well as environmental degradation, taking shape in the northern quarter of the globe. With Stephenson, Smith has calculated the toll global warming will take on Arctic ice roads and the communities and businesses that depend on them.
