Two USU professors contribute to national climate report – Cache Valley Daily

FILE PHOTO: Arid dirt. Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

LOGAN – The UN Climate Change Conference begins Thursday and continues until Dec. 12, hosted by Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

In advance of the conference the Biden-Harris Administration this month released the Fifth National Climate Assessment, documenting impacts of climate change while assessing the state of climate science in the United States.

Two of the authors of that report are Utah State University professors Mark Brunson and Peter Howe of the school’s Quinney College of Natural Resources. Brunson authored the section detailing issues in the Southwest, including Utah, and Howe authored the report’s section on human health.

Wednesday on campus Brunson and Howe spoke of their experience participating in the report process while also addressing gaps they see in the science for the region that still need to be filled.

Howe, an interdisciplinary environmental social scientist, said earlier that climate change is now affecting everybody in specific and difficult ways — but not necessarily everybody equally or with the same level of impacts.

Brunson has spoken about how human-driven warming is intensifying wildfires across the region and exposing almost everyone to unhealthy levels of wildfire smoke. His research and teaching focuses on the dynamics of social-ecological systems, especially in rangelands and deserts. He is a professor of human-environment interactions.