The University of Georgia Marine Extension, Georgia Sea Grant and the Carl Vinson Institute of Government partnered on a regional effort to track flooding from Florida to New York in relation to storm surge and rain from Hurricane Joaquin on Oct. 2-5 and a naturally occurring king tide on Oct. 27-28. Using a new smartphone app to gather data on coastal flooding, the collaboration was a pilot effort to utilize citizen science to inform the forecasting of storm surge and flooding, as well as assess the accuracy of current models. 

The Georgia team walked the edge of floodwaters on Tybee, Skidaway and St. Simons Islands and in Brunswick, mapping the extent of flooding, and reported trouble spots that may warrant further investigation. Oct. 2015 had three of the top 10 highest tides on record for the NOAA tide gauge at Fort Pulaski near Savannah. During the king tide on Oct. 27, the tide gauge measured 10.43 feet mean low low water (MLLW), the third highest on record since the gauge began operating in 1935. The Sea Level Rise app was created by Norfolk, Virginia-based Wetlands Watch and developer Concursive.  

• Congratulations to Dr. George Vellidis on receiving the D. W. Brooks Award for Excellence in Research!
• The Florida Natural Resources Leadership Institute (NRLI) is now accepting applications for Class XVI (2016-2017). NRLI is an eight-month professional development program that seeks to impact decision making in Florida by creating a network of professionals with members in every county and across all natural resource sectors who can effectively address natural resource issues through conflict management and collaborative leadership. For more information (including the 2016-2017 schedule and application process), please visit this link.
• The Pine Integrated Network: Education, Mitigation, and Adaptation project (PINEMAP) (based at UF) recently hosted a virtual meeting with special guest Dr. Andrew Hoffman, author of the insightful book "How Culture Shapes the Climate Change Debate" (available here). After PINEMAP researchers presented a brief overview of PINEMAP's different stakeholder groups, Dr. Hoffman spoke with the PINEMAP team about how to build trust to improve climate science communication. A recording of the meeting is available here . If you are interested in better understanding the barriers to communicating with diverse audiences about controversial science issues, PINEMAP encourages you to check out Hoffman's book and his engaging talk. (via Florida Climate Institute)
• The Carolinas Integrated Sciences & Assessments (CISA) at the University of South Carolina has come out with "The South Carolina Floods of October 2015: An analysis by  of the climatological and hydrological conditions which contributed to this extreme event and how to consider future risks as communities recover and rebuild." Find their analysis here.
• Paper published by Dr. Senthold Asseng regarding short-term forecasting: "Is a 10-day rainfall forecast of value in dry-land wheat cropping?" Read more here.

Please visit http://www.seclimate.org/opportunities/ and click on "Employment."