Welcome to the Global Environmental Change Lab at UC Davis
Our Lab brings together high school and undergraduate interns, graduate students and early career researchers to conduct interdisciplinary research to better understand the drivers and consequences of global environmental change. We explore novel methods to examine the interactions between the human and Earth systems, relying on a variety of approaches, including the development and use of process-based models, empirical/statistical data-driven models and observational data analysis.
We are specifically interested in examining the impacts of climate and weather extremes and of management practices on various sectors of the economy and on ecosystems services. Our research has three major areas of focus: 1) the land system, including agriculture, forest productivity and health, wildfires, and biodiversity; 2) the interaction among climate, air quality and human health; and 3) the impacts of global environmental change on the global biogeochemical cycles.
Our goal is to identify and understand the role of key stressors on the environment and society in order to provide actionable information to support effective and efficient adaptation strategies. Through a better understanding of the dynamics between the human and Earth systems, we aim to identify and evaluate adaptation strategies to better support decision making to ensure a resilient, equitable, sustainable and prosperous world.
Lab News
- March 20, 2025: Shuaiqi's manuscript on "Advancing the Modeling of Future Climate and Innovation Impacts on Perennial Crops to Support Adaptation: A Case Study of California Almonds" was accepted for publication in Earth's Future! Congratulations! And stay tuned for early access to that work soon.
- March 11, 2025: Congratulations to Hamsa for her feature in the Sustainably UC Davis Episode 2: The Student Farm for her leadership at the UC Davis Student Farm.
- February 1, 2025: Yanyan was awarded a 2024-2025 Henry A. Jastro Graduate Research Award. Congratulations!
- September 18, 2024: Sequoia and Shuaiqi were both awarded a 2024-2025 Atmospheric Science Graduate Group Fellowship. Congratulations!
- August 26, 2024: Yanyan Lu passed her Qualifying Examination. Congratulations!
- June 11, 2024: Offical release of the workshop report for the 2023 Inaugural MultiSector Dynamics Workshop, led by Erwan.
- June 2, 2024: Earth's Future published a new study on "Projecting Changes in the Frequency and Magnitude of Ozone Pollution Events Under Uncertain Climate Sensitivity" co-authored by Erwan.
- March 11, 2024: Sequoia Alba passed her Qualifying Examination. Congratulations!
- January 16, 2024: PNAS published an article co-authored by Erwan on the "Health and equity implications of individual adaptation to air pollution in a changing climate".
- October 21, 2023: The Sacramento Bee published an article on "California has had another calm wildfire season so far. Here’s why, according to experts" that includes an interview with Erwan.
- February 23, 2023: The MIT News highlighted an article co-authored by Erwan on the "Rapid Estimation of Climate–Air Quality Interactions in Integrated Assessment Using a Response Surface Model".
- September 15, 2022: Shuaiqi Wu passed his Qualifying Examination. Congratulations!
- February 23, 2022: Earth's Future published a new study on "Multisector Dynamics: Advancing the Science of Complex Adaptive Human-Earth Systems" co-authored by Erwan and describing the field of MultiSector Dynamics (MSD), laying out core definitions and concepts, identifying MSD science questions, and describing ongoing activities.
- February 23, 2022: The MultiSector Dynamics (MSD) vision report, which outlines a vision of MSD as an emerging transdisciplinary field that seeks to advance our understanding of how human-Earth systems interactions shape the resources, goods, and services on which society depends, co-authored by Erwan, is finally out.
- November 12, 2021: Erwan weighs in on "October storm sets new records for single-day rainfall after years-long dry spell" for the California Aggie.
- August 30, 2021: Erwan weighs in on the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment in the “What Can I Do About Climate Change?” blog.
- July 21, 2021: Congratulations to Lab member Jared Trok for being awarded a Graduate Fellowship from the American Meteorological Society (AMS) to support his graduate work in atmospheric science starting next year at Stanford University.
- January 7, 2021: Congratulations to Lab member Aditya Tadimeti for being named one of the top 300 scholars in the 2021 Regeneron Science Talent Search (STS) competition.
- September 1, 2020: Interview with Erwan by The California Aggie about the nearly 14,000 lightning strikes leading to hundreds of wildfires spreading across California.
- April 30, 2020: Article co-authored by Erwan awarded "Top downloaded paper of 2018-2019".
- February 12, 2020: Our article on the "Premature mortality related to United States cross-state air pollution", co-authored by Erwan and published in Nature, received a lot of attention from the media including: CNN, The New York Times, Reuters, Scientific American, Science Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, Bloomberg, Boston Globe, Forbes, and MIT News.
- October 30, 2019: MIT News highlights a new MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab report on climate, agriculture, water, and food security, co-authored by Erwan.
- July 17, 2019: Nature Communications published our work on "Future nitrogen availability and its effect on carbon sequestration in Northern Eurasia" co-authored by Erwan.
- May 27, 2019: Our article on the "Northern Eurasia Future Initiative (NEFI): facing the challenges and pathways of global change in the twenty-first century", co-authored by Erwan and describing the science foci of the Northern Eurasia Future Initiative (NEFI), a large-scale, interdisciplinary program aimed at developing a better understanding of the interactions between the ecosystem, atmosphere, and human dynamics in northern Eurasia, receives the award for "The most cited paper award 2019".
- April 3, 2019: Popular Science interviews Erwan about the first meeting of the year for the House Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change.
- February 27, 2019: Article co-authored by Erwan makes the US Department of Energy Science Highlight.
- February 4, 2019: Great media coverage for our article on the "Ocean Colour Signature of Climate Change", co-authored by Erwan and published in Nature Communications: CNN, BBC News, Newsweek, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Forbes, The Washington Post, Fox News, Huffington Post, National Geographic, WBUR News, AAAS EurekAlert!, Sciences et Avenir, and MIT News.
