Research Bio
Whendee Silver's research interests are in the fields of biogeochemistry and ecosystem ecology, and include the causes and consequences of climate change, possible solutions, feedbacks to the global climate system, tropical ecology, rangeland ecology, and redox sensitive biogeochemical cycling.
Research Expertise and Interest
climate change, global change, greenhouse gases, ecosystem ecology, biogeochemistry, grasslands, tropical forests, carbon sequestration, environmental sensing
In the News
New Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Improving soil quality can slow global warming
UC Berkeley Leads New Assessment of Bay Area Climate Impacts
Can ‘carbon ranching’ offset emissions in California?
Could cultivating dense fields of weeds help mitigate climate change by soaking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere? Berkeley scientists Dennis Baldocchi and Whendee Silver are exploring that possibility in California’s agricultural heartland, the San Joaquin Valley. National Public Radio reports.
Featured in the Media
Simple practices that enhance soil quality on farms -- such as planting cover crops, composting, and sowing legumes -- could slow climate change by drawing significant amounts of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, a new study led by environmental science, policy and management professor Whendee Silver has found. "As someone who has been working on carbon sequestration for a long time, I have always had this question in the back of my mind, 'Will sequestration in soils make a difference with climate change at a global scale?'" Professor Silver says. "We found that there are a wide range of practices deployable on a large scale that could have a detectable worldwide impact. A big take-home message is that we know how to do this, it is achievable." For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News. Other stories on this topic appeared in AZo Cleantech, Advocator, Courthouse News Service and Xinhua.