Nyack H.S. Grad’s Climate Article Selected for 2015 Science Writing Anthology

Eli Kintisch, a graduate of Nyack High School’s Class of 1995, was honored by his selection to be in  “Best Science and Nature Writing of 2015,” published this month in trade paperback by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

One of 26 articles chosen this year, his piece titled “Into the Maelstrom” was published in SCIENCE on April 18, 2014. It profiles Dr. Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist doing research at Rutgers University, whose hypothesis claims that the rapid warming of the Arctic is affecting our weather in the United States’ latitudes. The change of behavior of the northern polar jet stream, popularly called “the polar vortex” in the press, is slowing the movement of weather patterns from west to east, she claims. This would explain the prolonged cold northeast winter period last year while measurements showed overall warming of the Earth. The article describes scientific debate about her theory among leading climatologists.

Kintisch studied Biology at Yale where he earned writing awards at graduation in 1999. A former science journalist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and a former staff writer at SCIENCE magazine, he was twice chosen to be a Knight Foundation Science Journalism Fellow at M.I.T. He wrote “Hack the Planet,” published by Wiley in 2010, about the proposed climate mitigations known collectively as geoengineering. He is currently writing at SCIENCE and other major publications, concentrating on Arctic issues. This summer he worked alongside scientists in Siberia and Barrow, Alaska. He lives in Washington D.C.

Jack Dunnigan, who runs Pickwick Book Shop in Nyack, ordered extra copies. “I like to support our local author’s, especially Nyack H.S. alumni,” he said.