Energy & Environment

UC Merced Aerial Picture
Packard Foundation Awards $1 Million to Support Climate Research at UC Merced
December 9, 2022
Longtime UC Merced supporter and institutional partner the David and Lucile Packard Foundation has made a significant gift to the campus that will catalyze research efforts and scientific investigations focused on climate change and... Read More
New Website Offers Farmers Vital Information at Their Fingertips
December 7, 2022
  When planting crops, farmers confront numerous questions. Among them: Will it get too hot? Is it likely frost will stunt growing? When is the best time to plant? What kind of pests could impact the harvest? UC Cooperative Extension... Read More
Experts Recommend a New, More Innovative Approach to Wildfire Research
December 5, 2022
Fire scientists typically respond to agency opportunities and conduct research in response to past wildfires. But it is time they take more proactive, integrative, predictive approaches toward mitigating and adapting to this potentially... Read More
Ground Tilled, Crops to be Planted at UC Merced’s Smart Farm
November 28, 2022
Land has been tilled at UC Merced’s smart farm, the first physical step in developing the state-of-the-art project. “Even though it’s just a blank field, we have overcome some pretty big obstacles to be where we are today,” said Danny... Read More
Research Reveals an Easy Way Dairy Farmers Can Dramatically Reduce their Climate Impact
November 28, 2022
Adding even a small amount of biochar — a charcoal-like material produced by burning organic matter — to a dairy’s manure-composting process reduces methane emissions by 84%, a recent study by UC Merced researchers shows. The dairy... Read More
Continued Drought Conditions Add Billions in California Agriculture Losses, UC Merced Report Finds
November 22, 2022
Losses to California’s ag industry have continued to mount as the state’s drought stretched into a third straight year, according to a report released Tuesday by researchers from the School of Engineering and the Public Policy Institute of... Read More
UC Merced Gains Prestigious UC Agricultural Experiment Station Designation
November 16, 2022
UCs Merced and Santa Cruz became the newest campuses in the system to be named an agricultural experiment stations (AES), UC President Michael Drake announced at today’s Regents’ meeting. They are the first campuses in more than 50 years... Read More
Solar Car Race Draws Middle School Competitors to UC Merced
November 10, 2022
    It wasn’t exactly “Racers, start your engines.” More like, “Racers, remove     your covers.”     But the solar car challenge put on by CalTeach and the Solar Energy     Association at UC Merced Saturday, Nov. 5, was still an... Read More
Nishiguchi Joins California Academy of Sciences, Recognized for Contributions to Microbiology
November 9, 2022
Molecular and Cellular Biology Professor Michele “Nish” Nishiguchi has been inducted as a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and was recently named president-elect for the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB... Read More
Professor Contributes to New Report on Health and Climate Change that Paints Grim Picture
October 26, 2022
The 2022 report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change warns that global health is at the mercy of fossil fuels. An accompanying policy brief states that an estimated 32,000 people in the U.S. died due to air pollution in... Read More