University of Maryland-led consortium wins $93 million NOAA climate institute

Award is latest demonstration of UM leadership in creating climate knowledge and tools people can use

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – The University of Maryland will lead a new climate research partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), North Carolina State University and 16 other institutions. The nationwide consortium led by Maryland won a competition for a new NOAA-supported Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites (CICS) that will receive up to $93 million in funding over the next five years, with approximately two-thirds of this funding expected to be managed by the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) of the University of Maryland.

"Establishing this Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites is a major step forward in the NOAA-led effort to create a National Climate Service that would provide longer-term forecasts and warnings related to climate change, just as the National Weather Service does for storms and other short term weather changes," said University of Maryland climate scientist Phillip Arkin, director of the new institute. "Our new institute will combine satellite observations with advanced climate change modeling to produce the kinds of services, like long-term regional drought assessments, that such a climate service will provide." The new institute will play a major role in the University of Maryland's CIRUN (Climate Information Responding to Users Needs) Initiative - a cross-campus priority that focuses on the transition from basic research through applied research to support of the need for climate information by end users.

GETTING NEW CICS ("KICKS") OUT OF CLIMATE RESEARCH

In the past decade, the University of Maryland has developed major partnerships with federal agencies and fostered research in areas critical to understanding and responding to climate change, including atmospheric and earth science, satellite remote sensing, climate modeling, and energy and insurance research and policy. ESSIC's existing cooperative agreement with the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center and its Cooperative Institute for Climate Studies, which is jointly operated with the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS) of NOAA, are two of these partnerships. A third is the Joint Global Change Research Institute (with the Department of Energy). The home for these activities is the University of Maryland's M Square research park, which represents one of the nation's largest clusters of federal and university scientists conducting earth science, weather and climate research.

The newly awarded Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites (CICS) will be an outgrowth of the existing University of Maryland-based Cooperative Institute for Climate Studies. The new Cooperative Institute incorporates additional academic and private sector partners into a more comprehensive association that has all three components (data/observations, modeling and climate services) critical to a new climate service.