Global Environmental Science

Marine Science 205C
1000 Pope Road
Honolulu, HI 96822
Tel: (808) 956-7932
Fax: (808) 956-9225
E-mail: ges@soest.hawaii.edu
Web: www.soest.hawaii.edu/oceanography/GES

Faculty

F. T. Mackenzie, PhD (Program Coordinator)--geochemistry, biogeochemical cycling, global environmental change
J. M. Becker, PhD--geophysical fluid dynamics, nonlinear waves and stability, coastal processes, general ocean circulation
R. R. Bidigare, PhD--bio-optical oceanography, pigment biochemistry, plankton metabolism
S. Businger, PhD--mesoscale and syntopic meteorology
A. D. Clarke, PhD--physical and chemical properties of aerosol in remote troposphere, aircraft studies of aerosol in free troposphere
J. P. Cowen, PhD--microbial geochemistry, particle aggregation dynamics, hydrothermal systems
E. H. DeCarlo, PhD--aquatic chemistry; metals and their anthropogenic inputs, transformations, fate and transport
S. Dollar, PhD--biogeochemistry, nearshore processes and effects of human activity on the coastal zone
A. El-Kadi, PhD--hydrogeology, modeling groundwater systems
R. C. Ertekin, PhD--hydrodynamics, computational methods, offshore and coastal engineering, oil-spill spreading, fishpond circulation
P. J. Flament, PhD--surface ocean layer dynamics, mesoscale circulation structures of the ocean, remote sensing of the sea surface
C. H. Fletcher, PhD--quaternary and coastal marine geology, sea-level history, coastal sedimentary processes
P. Fryer, PhD--marine geology, petrology, tectonics
M. O. Garcia, PhD--volcanology, igneous petrology, geochemistry
T. W. Giambelluca, PhD--interactions between the atmosphere and the land surface, including influences of land use and land cover change on climate and surface hydrology and effects of global climate change on hydrologic processes and terrestrial ecology
C. R. Glenn, PhD--paleoceanography, marine geology, sedimentology, sediment diagenesis
E. G. Grau, PhD--environmental physiology and comparative endocrinology of fish
R. W. Grigg, PhD--ecology and paleoecology of coral reefs, precious corals
B. J. Huebert, PhD--air pollution, climate change, atmospheric aerosols, global elemental cycles
M. C. Jarman, LLM--environmental law, administrative law, ocean and coastal law, legal writing; the public trust doctrine, land use, the intersection of indigenous peoples' rights and environmental law, and community empowerment through the law
D. E. Konon, PhD--international trade, microeconomics, computational economics
M. R. Landry, PhD--zooplankton, population dynamics, marine ecosystem modeling
E. A. Laws, PhD--phytoplankton ecology, aquatic pollution, aquaculture
Y. H. Li, PhD--marine geochemistry, environmental pollution
K. Lowry, PhD--design, planning and evaluation of ocean and coastal management programs. Experience in Hawai'i, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Philippines and Thailand
R. Lukas, PhD--physical oceanography, interannual and decadal climate variability
D. Luther, PhD--observational physical oceanography, circulation variability and dynamics, mesoscale fluctuations, waves in the ocean
J. J. Mahoney, PhD--isotope geochemistry of oceanic and continental crust and mantle
A. Malahoff, PhD--submarine volcanic processes and the geophysical monitoring of submarine volcanoes, processes of formation of ocean floor minerals
S. J. Martel, PhD--engineering and structural geology
G. M. McMurtry, PhD--geochemistry, geology and geophysics
C. Measures, PhD--trace element geochemistry, hydrothermal systems, elemental mass balances
P. Menon, PhD--environmental and occupational health standards
M. A. Merrifield, PhD--physical oceanography; coastal circulation; sea level variability; current flows and mixing in the vicinity of coral reefs, islands and seamounts
J. N. Miller, MS--marine and land environmental management, environmental assessment
G. F. Moore, PhD--marine geophysics, structural geology
M. J. Mottl, PhD--hydrothermal processes, geochemical cycles
P. Mouginis-Mark, PhD--volcanology from space, remote sensing of natural hazards
P. K. Muller, PhD--ocean circulation, waves and turbulence
B. N. Popp, PhD--isotope biogeochemistry, organic geochemistry
J. N. Porter, PhD--atmospheric science, use of satellites to study aerosol and cloud forcing, ship measurements of aerosol and cloud optical properties
R. L. Radtke, PhD--fisheries oceanography, migrations and history
M. A. Ridgley, PhD--resource management and human-environment system analysis
J. Roumasset, PhD--environmental economics and sustainable growth
K. Rubin, PhD--isotope geochemistry, chronology
F. J. Sansone, PhD--suboxic/anoxic diagenesis in sediments, hydrothermal geochemistry, lava-seawater interactions, trace gas geochemistry
T. Schroeder, PhD--mesometeorology, tropical meteorology
S. K. Sharma, PhD--atmospheric instrumentation and remote sensing; Lidar, Raman, and infrared spectrometry and fiber-optic environmental sensors
C. R. Smith, PhD--seafloor ecology, deep-ocean food webs, sediment geochemistry
S. V. Smith, PhD--global biogeochemistry; carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycling, particularly in the coastal zone; behavior of the global carbon cycle
K. J. Spencer, PhD--isotope geochemistry, petrology, environmental geochemistry
M. E. Tiles, PhD--logic, history, and philosophy of mathematics, science, and technology
J. S. Tribble, PhD--sedimentary geochemistry and diagenesis
H. K. Van Tilburg, MA--nautical archaeology, maritime history, submerged cultural resource management
B. Wang, PhD--atmospheric and climate dynamics
D. W. Woodcock, PhD--vegetation and climate, paleoenvironmental reconstruction, use of fossil wood as a paleoenvironmental indicator, and the terrestrial carbon cycle

Degree Offered: BS in global environmental science

The Academic Program

Global environmental science is a holistic, scientific approach to the study of the Earth system and its physical, chemical, biological, and human processes. It is a bold new academic program designed to educate leaders and citizenry to become wise stewards of our planet. Global environmental science focuses on the global reservoirs of hydrosphere (water, primarily oceans), biosphere (life and organic matter), atmosphere (air), lithosphere (land, sediments, and rocks), and cryosphere (ice); their interfaces; and the processes acting upon and within this interactive system, including human activities. In the course of their scientific studies, global environmental science students are able to investigate natural as well as economic, policy, and social systems and their response and interaction with the Earth system. Global environmental science has important ties to the more classical sciences of geology and geophysics, meteorology and climatology, oceanography, and ecology as well as to the social sciences. Thus, the scope of global environmental science is extremely broad. This breadth is reflected in the interdisciplinary nature of the faculty, which is primarily drawn from numerous departments and research institutions within the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology.

Global environmental science has much to offer the student who is interested in the environment and the effect of humans on the environment. The skills developed in global environmental science can be brought to bear on local, regional, and global environmental issues. Many of the critical environmental problems confronting humankind involve large-scale processes and interactions among the atmosphere, oceans, biosphere, cryosphere, shallow lithosphere, and people. Some of the problems derive from natural causes; others are a result of human activities. Some of the issues that global environmental science students deal with are: climatic changes from anthropogenic inputs to the atmosphere of CO2 and other greenhouse gases; human interventions and disruptions in the biogeochemical cycles of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, trace metals, and other substances; emissions of nitrogen and sulfur oxide gases and volatile organic compounds to the atmosphere and the issues of acid deposition and photochemical smog; depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer and associated increase in the flux of ultraviolet radiation to Earth's surface; increasing rates of tropical deforestation and other large-scale destruction of habitat, with potential effects on climate and the hydrologic cycle; disappearance of biotic diversity through explosive rates of species extinction; global consequences of the distribution and application of potentially toxic chemicals in the environment and biotechnology; interannual and interdecadal climate variability, e.g., El Ni˜no/Southern Oscillation; eutrophication; water and air quality; exploitation of natural resources with consequent problems of waste disposal; earthquakes, tsunamis, and other natural hazards and prediction; and waste disposal: municipal, toxic chemical, and radioactive. In all cases, the student is encouraged to understand and appreciate the social, economic, and ultimately the policy decisions associated with these and other environmental issues.

Specifically with respect to learning objectives, the students develop competency in understanding how the physical, biological, and chemical worlds are interconnected in the Earth system. They obtain skills in basic mathematics, chemistry, physics, and biology that enable them to deal with courses in the derivative geological, oceanographic, and atmospheric sciences at a level higher than that of qualitative description. In turn, these skills enable the students to learn the subject matter of global environmental science within a rigorous context. The students develop an awareness of the complexity of the Earth system and how it has changed during geologic time and how human activities have modified the system and led to a number of local, regional, and global environmental issues. They become competent in using computers and dealing with environmental databases and with more standard sources of information in the field. They are exposed to experimental, observational, and theoretical methodologies of research and complete a senior research paper in environmental studies using one or more of these methodologies. Field work is encouraged for the senior thesis and, depending on the topic chosen by the student, can be carried out at the Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology's Coconut Island facility, E. W. Pauley Laboratory, and associated He'eia ahupua'a or elsewhere.

The ultimate objective of the global environmental science program is to produce a student informed in the environmental sciences at a rigorous level who is able to go on to graduate or professional school; enter the work force in environmental science positions in industry, business, or government; enter or return to teaching with knowledge of how the Earth system works; or enter the work force in another field as an educated person with the knowledge required to become a wise environmental steward of the planet.

Advising

Students contemplating a major in global environmental science should visit the program coordinator at the earliest opportunity. Inquire at the global environmental science office, Marine Science 205C; tel. (808) 956-7932, fax (808) 956-9225; e-mail: ges@soest.hawaii.edu

BS in Global Environmental Science

Requirements
Aside from core University requirements, the global environmental science program has core requirements of two basic types: basic sciences and derivative sciences. The former provides the foundation to understand and appreciate the latter in the context of basic skills in mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics. Both global environmental science core requirements provide the necessary cognitive skills to deal with the higher academic level courses within the global environmental science curriculum. These include required foundation courses in global environmental science and coupled systems courses. It is within this latter category of course work that the formal course program will be tailored to the individual student's needs. For example, we anticipate that most students will follow closely a natural science track of study, perhaps concentrating on the terrestrial, marine, or atmospheric environment. However, because of the human dimensions issues involved in the subject matter of environmental change, some students may wish to expand their academic program into the social sciences that bear on the issues of global change.

Core University Requirements (69 credit hours total; 56 credit hours exclusive of science and mathematics)

Maximum of 69 credit hours of core requirement course work minus 13 credit hours of mathematics and natural sciences equals 56 credit hours of work, up to 15 credit hours of which can also be in science provided that these hours (or others elsewhere in the curriculum) meet the writing intensive requirement. This leaves 68 to 83 hours of science and mathematics for a 4-year program.

Core Basic Sciences Requirement (39 hours)

BIOL 171/171L, 172/172L
CHEM 161/161L, 162/162L
MATH 241, 242/242L, 243 (or GG 312), 244 (or ECON 321)
PHYS 170/170L, 272/272L

Core Derivative Sciences Requirement (10 hours)

GG 101/101L
MET 200
OCN 201

The global environmental science core requirement represents 49 hours of work. This requirement plus the University General Education Core requirement of 41 to 56 hours leaves 19 to 34 credit hours for other courses for a 4-year program. This is equivalent to six to eleven 3-credit courses that can be taken from the foundation and coupled systems courses and from senior research.

Foundation Course Requirements (17 hours)

GEOG 411 Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change
OCN 310/310L Global Environmental Change
OCN 363 Earth System Sciences Databases
OCN 401 Biogeochemical Systems
PHIL 315 (OCN 315) Modeling Natural Systems

Coupled Systems Courses (Examples)

AREC 432 Natural Resource Economics
ASTR 240 Foundations of Astronomy
BIOC 241 Fundamentals of Biochemistry
BIOL 265 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
BIOL 360 Island Ecosystems
BIOL 410 Human Role in Environmental Change
ECON 321 Introduction to Statistics
ECON 358 Environmental Economics
ECON 638 Environmental Resource Economics
GEOG 300 Climatology
GEOG 402 Agricultural Climatology
GEOG 405 Water in the Environment
GG 301 Mineralogy
GG 309 Sedimentology and Stratigraphy
GG 324 Low temperature and Environmental Geochemistry
GG 455 Hydrogeology
GG 466 Planetary Geology
MET 302 Atmospheric Physics
MET 303 Introduction to Atmospheric Dynamics
OCN 320 Aquatic Pollution
OCN 330 Mineral and Energy Resources of the Sea
OCN 331 Living Resources of the Sea
OCN 620 Physical Oceanography
OCN 621 Biological Oceanography
OCN 622 Geological Oceanography
OCN 623 Chemical Oceanography
PHIL 316 Science, Technology, and Society
PLAN 310 Introduction to Planning
SOC 412 Analysis in Population and Society
SOIL 304 Fundamentals of Soil Science
SOIL 430 Soil Chemistry
SOIL 461 Soil Erosion and Conservation

The student may also wish to take additional courses in fundamental physics, chemistry, biology, or mathematics. Global environmental science currently has three optional tracks (or combination of electives):

Marine science and environment: In this track, the student concentrates his/her studies in marine/ocean science and the application of their work to environmental problems related to the ocean. The student is encouraged to take as many oceanography courses as practical and to have a senior thesis problem that is related to ocean studies. It is within this track that a student's program can be designed so that the student is able to apply to graduate school in oceanography.
Policy/economics and environment: this track enables the student, after satisfying the GES science core, to concentrate further course work and the senior thesis in environmental economics, policy, and law. This is probably the best route for a student to take who is going directly into the work place or is simply interested in becoming a wise environmental steward of the planet.
Climate and environment: this track enables the student to concentrate academic studies and the senior thesis topic on the interactions between climate and the environment, on human impacts on climate, and the causes of climatic change. The student is encouraged to take coupled systems courses in meteorology and climatology.

Majors should consult with their adviser as early as possible to devise a curriculum suited to their particular goals.

Senior Research Paper (3-6 hours)

OCN 499 Undergraduate Thesis

Each student is required to complete a senior thesis based on research conducted with one or more chosen advisers.

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Please note: This Catalog was prepared to provide information and does not constitute a contract. The University reserves the right to change or delete, supplement, or otherwise amend at any time and without prior notice the information, requirements, and policies contained in this Catalog.