During the first weekend of November, Jacob travelled to Washington to attend the 18th annual Graduate Climate Conference. Hosted at the University of Washington’s Pack Forest in the foothills of Mount Rainier, the Conference was organized by graduate students for graduate students to discuss ongoing research related to Earth’s climate system. Presentation topics ranged from atmospheric river patterns over the western U.S. to food security in the Arctic to the global vegetation response to rising vapor pressure deficit. The purpose of the Conference is for students studying climate-related topics to learn from each other and create interdisciplinary research collaborations.
Jacob gave a talk on the research he’s conducting at the Sevilleta LTER Mean-Variance Experiment to better understand how desert vegetation will respond to a drier and more variable climate across the southwest U.S. His talk was titled The Future Carbon Sequestration Potential of Chihuahuan Desert Ecosystems. Following the Conference, he spent a day playing tourist in Seattle with fellow attendees.
