yale environmental NEWS Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, and Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies fall/winter 2009–2010 · vol. 15, no. 1 Peabody Curator Awarded MacArthur “Genius” Grant page 12 KROON HALL RECEIVES DESIGN AWARDS Kroon Hall, the Yale School of Foresty & Environmental Studies’ new ultra- green home, captured two awards this fall for “compelling” design from the American Institute of Architects. “The way the building performs is essential contrast with the brownstone and maroon moment a visitor enters the building at ground to this beautiful, cathedral-like structure,” the brick of other Science Hill buildings. Glass level, the long open stairway carries the eye up jurors noted. “Part of its performance is the facades on the building’s eastern and western toward the high barrel-vaulted ceiling and the creation of a destination on the campus. The ends are covered by Douglas fi r louvers, which big window high up on the third fl oor, with its long walls of its idiosyncratic, barn-like form are positioned to defl ect unwanted heat and view into Sachem’s Wood. defi ne this compelling building.” glare. The building’s tall, thin shape, combined Opened in January 2009, the 58,200- Designed by Hopkins Architects of Great with the glass facades, enables daylight to pro- square-foot Kroon Hall is designed to use Britain, in partnership with Connecticut-based vide much of the interior’s illumination. And 50% less energy and emit 62% less carbon Centerbrook Architects and Planners, the the rounded line of the standing seam metal dioxide than a comparably sized modern aca- $33.5 million Kroon Hall received an Honor roof echoes the rolling whaleback roofl ine of demic building. A 100-kilowatt rooftop array Award from American Institute of Architects architect Eero Saarinen’s David S. Ingalls Rink of photovoltaic panels, funded in part by the (AIA) New England and a Design Award from across the street. Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, provides AIA Connecticut. The building is expected to Inside, Kroon’s use of exposed concrete about 25% of the building’s electricity. Four achieve a platinum rating in the green-building surfaces consciously echoes architect Louis 1,500-foot-deep wells use the relatively con- certifi cation program, Leadership in Energy Kahn’s two masterworks on the main campus, stant 55°F temperature of underground water and Environmental Design. the Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale for heating and cooling. And four panels of The architects used Briar Hill sandstone Center for British Art. To soften the concrete, evacuated tubes embedded in the southern from Ohio for the building’s exterior, which is the architects also employed red oak paneling facade use the sun to provide hot water. used in many buildings on the main campus, from the 7,840-acre Yale-Myers Forest, which and its pale yellow coloring makes a luminous is managed by the school. Almost from the In March of 2009, at the International Scientifi c Congress on Climate The mission of YCEI is to bring the weight Change in Copenhagen, Yale’s President Richard Levin announced the of Yale to bear on the most pressing climate and energy issues of our generation. YCEI formation of the Yale Climate and Energy Institute (YCEI), and named as was initiated by the Department of Geology & its fi rst director Rajendra K. Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Geophysics (G&G), which hosted a Yale-wide Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in workshop in March 2008 to inventory and 2007 with Al Gore. share mutual progress in climate and energy research occurring at Yale, and to discuss how an interdisciplinar y “umbrella” institute might be formed to foster practical solution-based research. Following this highly successful 2 yale environmental NEWS / 15:1 View from Kroon Hall’s Knobloch Environment Center. Photo: Robert Benson Photography. workshop, a team of faculty spanning the natu- Seed-funding for the fi rst round of propos- and currently Professor Gary Brudvig from the ral sciences, engineering and social sciences als was committed in fall of 2009, with proj- Yale Department of Chemistry) and an assistant developed a proposal for a new Yale institute to ects ranging from the development and mar- director, Juliana Wang, who oversees day-to-day bring together Yale’s talent and stature, and to keting of more effi cient cook-stoves for devel- operations of the Institute. The deputy direc- address the global problems of climate change oping nations, to the study of carbon dioxide tor also chairs the YCEI Executive Committee, and renewable energy. President Levin received sequestration in ultramafi c rocks. YCEI is also which is composed of Yale faculty from across the proposal in the summer of 2008, and the supporting several one to two-day interdisci- the University. Institute was created in early 2009. YCEI is a plinary workshops that cover focused topics in YCEI puts Yale on the international stage as testament to President Levin’s commitment climate and energy. For example, workshops an important player in these monumental chal- to this issue, and he personally recruited Dr. in 2010 will explore ancient cultural collapse lenges, with the intention that its future contri- Pachauri to be the YCEI’s fi rst director. to abrupt climate variability, and the propaga- butions will be lasting and profound. At present, YCEI is promoting its fi rst activi- tion of vector-borne pathogens in response to ties through interdisciplinary grants, workshops, climate change. For more information on YCEI, visit their Web site at postdoctoral fellowships and symposia, and In addition to Director Pachauri, the www.climate.yale.edu/ participated at the COP15 International Climate Institute’s governance includes a faculty deputy Congress in Copenhagen in December 2009. director (formerly G&G Chair David Bercovici, yale environmental NEWS / 15:1 3 CONFERENCES, SEMINARS, SYMPOSIA The Fall 2009 list of YIBS and YCEI speakers and their topics were: Nicholas Longrich, Gaylord Donnelley Postdoctoral Environmental Associate, Yale Department of Geology & Geophysics: Diversity of Dinosaurs and Other Vertebrates from the Late Cretaceous of Western North America: Implications for the Patterns and Processes of the End Cretaceous Mass Extinction ■ Linda Thomas, Artist/Muralist: Art on the Wild Side ■ Rajendra Pachauri, Director, YCEI; Director General of the Energy Resources Institute, YCEI Seminar: Climate Change and Copenhagen: Scientifi c and Ethical Imperatives ■ John Wettlaufer, Batemann Professor, Yale Department of Geology & Geophysics, YCEI Seminar: Whither Arctic Sea Ice? ■ Allessandro Gomez, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Yale University, YCEI Seminar: Evolution of a yibs presents four climate and This fall, YIBS Director Jeffrey Park was Fossil-Fueled Civilization: The Next Few Decades energy seminars during its fall pleased to incorporate four seminars spon- ■ Robert Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of schedule 2009 sored by the new Yale Climate and Energy Business and Government, Environment and The Yale Institute for Biopsheric Studies (YIBS) Institute (YCEI) that specifi cally addressed Natural Resources Program, Belfer Center continues its sponsorship of the weekly YIBS/ issues relating to climate and energy. YCEI for Science and International Affairs, YCEI ESC Friday Luncheon Seminars held in the Class seminars were held in Burke Auditorium in the Seminar: Getting Serious About Global Climate of 1954 Environmental Science Center (ESC) School of Forestry & Environmental Studies Change in the Post-Kyoto World ■ Scott A. during the fall and spring semesters, a popular (F&ES) Kroon Hall on Prospect Street, with Dr. Strobel, Henry Ford II Professor of Molecular offering for students and faculty. Rajendra Pachauri, director of the YCEI, as the Biophysics & Biochemistry and Chemistry, Yale fi rst presenter. University, YCEI Seminar: Rainforest Microbes yibs center for the study of global change – topics in global change seminars The YIBS Center for the Study of Global Global Warming? and Can the Carbon Budget Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI): Limits Change presented its weekly seminar series, Be Managed? ■ Robert Adair, Sterling Professor to Marine Life Posed by CO2 and O2 Levels ■ Topics in Global Change, during the Fall 2009 Emeritus and Senior Research Scientist, Richard Seager, Doherty Senior Research semester. Center Director Karl K. Turekian, Department of Physics, Yale University: Scientist, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Sterling Professor in the Department of Stochastic Contributions to Global Temperature Columbia University: Global Warming Geology & Geophysics, organized the Changes ■ Dr. Richard Feely, National Oceanic Impacts on Drought Around the World ■ Nancy seminars with an emphasis on climate and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): Knowlton, Adjunct Professor of Marine change consequences. Ocean Acidifi cation: The Other CO2 Problem Biology/Director of CMBC, Smithsonian Speakers and topics for the Fall 2009 seminars ■ Taro Takahashi, Doherty Senior Scholar, Institution: Global Change and the Future of were: Lamont-Doherty Earth Oberservatory, Coral Reefs ■ Sydney Levitus, National Oceanic ■ John Wettlaufer, Professor in the Department Columbia University: Uptake of Atmospheric and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): of Geology & Geophysics, Yale University: CO2 by the Global Oceans: How Is It Global Ocean Heat Content 1955-2008 and Whither Arctic Sea Ice? ■ Inez Fung, Professor