Fund for Climate Solutions awards new round of climate research projects
Woodwell Climate Research Center’s Fund for Climate Solutions has announced support for a new round of innovative climate science initiatives.
The Fund advances climate solutions by extending or augmenting crucial research efforts, seeding new projects that offer breakthrough policy or scientific impact, and allowing startup projects to get off the ground to show proof of concept.
The new projects being supported by the Fund:
Integrating state-of-the-art science with indigenous knowledge to support climate-threatened Arctic communities
Project Lead: Dr. Susan Natali
This project will develop a new geospatial monitoring and change detection framework that will integrate Indigenous knowledge, in situ monitoring, and multi-scale and multi-sensor remote sensing to develop climate change indicators that are critically needed for adaptation decisions and actions.
Planning for and mitigating boreal wildfires: societal risks, management influence, policy opportunities, and strategic partnerships
Project Lead: Dr. Brendan Rogers
Wildfires are becoming more common and intense in boreal forests, with a myriad of negative impacts on local residents and global climate. This project will develop key partnerships and methods for assessing the potential for a new paradigm in wildfire management – one that considers the effects on human society, ecosystem services, and global carbon budgets.
A pattern recognition approach to connecting disruptions in the stratospheric polar vortex with extreme weather in mid-latitudes
Project Lead: Dr. Jennifer Francis
This research aims to develop a new way to detect disruptions in the stratospheric polar vortex, which will be used to better understand the connections between vortex disruptions and extreme weather in mid-latitudes.
A spatial bookkeeping model of land carbon
Project Lead: Dr. Richard Houghton
Using data from Woodwell Climate’s Carbon Monitoring System, Houghton will create a new model examining global gains and losses of woody biomass and soil carbon, calculating how much carbon is accumulating on land, how much is being lost, and where.
Developing a new geospatial approach for rangeland carbon monitoring
Project Lead: Dr. Jonathan Sanderman
This project will develop new tools for ranch managers to better understand the carbon balance of their range properties using a combination of remote sensing, on-the-ground measurements, and modeling.
For more information about the Fund for Climate Solutions, contact Alison Smart, Vice President for Strategy & Advancement, at asmart@woodwellclimate.org.
