Rising sea levels and ocean acidification are just some effects of global climate change on the health of the world’s oceans, a topic that is the focus of UC Irvine’s “Global Change and Oceans” conference. The event will feature scientists from UCI’s Department of Earth System Science, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and Columbia University, and also will address how laws can be used to implement environmental policy change.

The 2008 environmental program “Global Change and Oceans” is presented by the Newkirk Center for Science and Society and the Department of Earth System Science at UCI. The Newkirk Center was established in 2001 to improve science’s response to community needs and to increase the effective uses of scientific results for the benefit of society. Research in the Department of Earth System Science focuses on the atmosphere, land and oceans and how the Earth will change over a human lifetime, paying special attention to understanding global environmental issues such as global warming, ozone depletion and air pollution.