CIRES 2011 Annual Report NOAA Cooperative Agreement #NA17RJ1229
Konrad Steffen, Director
William M. Lewis, Jr, Associate Director
Suzanne van Drunick, Associate Director for Science
Full 180-page Report (PDF, 13 MB)
12-page Summary Report (PDF, 1.8 MB)
Executive Summary
The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder was established in 1967 as NOAA's first cooperative institute. CIRES continues to be a world leader in interdisciplinary research and teaching across a diverse range of Earth system science topics. CIRES researchers use established and innovative approaches to study the cryosphere, ecosystems, weather and climate, solid earth and environmental chemistry, observations, modeling and forecasting. This summary highlights many of the past year's research accomplishments and activities, demonstrating how CIRES supports NOAA in meeting its strategic goals. In service to society, CIRES continues to communicate its research findings to help inform decision makers and the public about how to best ensure a sustainable environment.
On a broader scale, fiscal year 2011 (FY11, July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011) was marked by natural disasters worldwide, including the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, the 2010 Russian Heat Wave and the aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, along with record droughts, tornados and temperature extremes in the United States, making CIRES' mission of forecasting and responding to severe weather and climate more critical than ever. CIRES leads the way in this capacity, extrapolating data gleaned from the Japan megaquake to the United States, where seismologists expect a 9.0 earthquake to shake the Oregon-Washington Coast sometime in the next 200 years. The lessons learned from Japan are serving as an important template for forecast and disaster mitigation in the United States and elsewhere.
CIRES researchers met their forecasting goal by upgrading and extensively testing the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting (HWRF) model; developing advanced DART (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis) programs for the early detection and warning of tsunamis; and creating 22 new digital elevation models of the U.S. coast. These representations of Earth's solid surface are fundamental for modeling and planning for tsunamis, hurricane storm-surges and sea-level rise.
Among CIRES' many other accomplishments, our scientists released a state-of-the-art product, MASIE–NH (Multisensor Analyzed Sea Ice Extent–Northern Hemisphere), which allows anyone to view current Arctic sea-ice coverage by region—information vital for transportation, commerce, ecosystem protection and climate understanding. Additionally, CIRES researchers spearheaded the writing, reviewing and editing of the 2010 international scientific state-of-understanding assessment report on the ozone layer and delivered it to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), where it will inform policy decisions to protect the ozone layer. Advances were also made toward the deployment of an aerosol forecast system (similar to the national ozone forecast system), which will give early warning of high levels of these tiny, airborne particles harmful to human health.
In response to natural hazards, CIRES quickly mobilized around the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill by diverting a cutting-edge research aircraft (the NOAA WP-3D) to the region to evaluate air-quality concerns, oil leakage rates and the risks posed to human health and wildlife. The researchers, who worked in collaboration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, discovered that approximately one-third of the oil evaporated into the atmosphere. After the deadly Russian Heat Wave in summer 2010, CIRES scientists statistically analyzed observations and ran climate models to conclude the event was due to natural variability and not climate change. The researchers cautioned, however, that extreme weather events could become more likely in the future as greenhouse gases continue to increase. Following the April 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland, CIRES researchers ran real-time volcanic ash forecasts using the NOAA/CIRES FIM (Finite-volume Icosahedral Model) and used this data to refine the model in the event of future such eruptions.
CIRES had another exceptional year of research support during FY11, with total extramural research expenses of $60,421,835 (increasing again by 10 percent or nearly $5.7 million more than the previous year). The outlook for CIRES science remains strong, as CIRES' total budget, including university faculty support, was $64,522,969. NOAA support through the Cooperative Agreement accounted for $30,867,036 (48 percent); external research awards accounted for $29,554,799 (46 percent); and university faculty support accounted for $4,101,134 (6 percent).
CIRES supported 193 research scientists, 228 associate scientists, 29 visiting scientists, 28 postdoctoral researchers, 32 administrative staff, 96 graduate students and 86 undergraduate students. In total, CIRES supported 714 scientists, staff and students. In FY11, CIRES had 22 faculty lines. In total, CIRES researchers published 512 peer-reviewed publications during calendar year 2010.
The CIRES Council of Fellows welcomed Dr. Stanley Benjamin, Dr. Steve Montzka and Dr. Judith Perlwitz. Benjamin is a NOAA meteorologist working at the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) Global Systems Division. His research focuses on numerical weather prediction, data assimilation and aviation meteorology. Montzka is a NOAA scientist at the ESRL Global Monitoring Division where he tracks trace atmospheric chemicals, including ozone and substitutes for ozone-depleting substances. Perlwitz is a CIRES atmospheric scientist working at the ESRL Physical Sciences Division exploring the two-way interactions between the troposphere and stratosphere, and mechanisms by which the stratosphere influences climate.
CIRES researchers who received awards and honors in FY11 are too numerous to list in this summary, but a sample of recognized expertise and service includes the selection of four CIRES Fellows to be lead authors for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report. They include Konrad Steffen and Tingjun Zhang (cryosphere), Judith Perlwitz (global to regional detection and attribution of climate change) and Steve Nerem (sea-level change). Other notable recognitions of CIRES Fellows include the selection of Waleed Abdalati, Director of CIRES Earth Science and Observation Center and Associate Professor of Geography, to serve as NASA's Chief Scientist for a two-year appointment beginning in January 2011. Professor William Lewis Jr., Director of the CIRES Center for Limnology, was the invited speaker for the Baldi Lecture at the triennial congress of the International Society for Limnology. Margaret Tolbert was named CU Distinguished Professor—the University's highest faculty honor. David Noone, Associate Professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, and Noah Fierer, Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, received the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award.
CIRES facilities are also making news. The National Science Foundation awarded $525,000 to the CIRES National Snow and Ice Data Center, to reduce the data center's carbon footprint and become one of the most energy-efficient data centers in the United States. The completion of the new "Green Data Center" is expected in late 2011. The new Center for Atmospheric Chemistry—a collaboration between CIRES and the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry—will enable researchers to investigate the impact of aerosols on the environment by helping to resolve the differences between the observed and modeled particle-related cooling influence on Earth's surface. The new laboratory likely will become one of the top three in the United States and will support two new faculty lines. CIRES also became part of two new Department of Interior Climate Science Centers in the Southwest and North Central regions that were created to conduct and coordinate research on climate change and ecosystems.
The Western Water Assessment (WWA)—a NOAA Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program created in 1999 as a joint program with CIRES—completed the Colorado Climate Preparedness report and database to facilitate adaptation-planning strategies for the state. Related research by WWA includes the recent findings that dark-colored dust settling on high-elevation snowpack in the Colorado River headwaters causes earlier snowmelt and evaporative losses of nearly 5 percent of the average total annual flow in the river.
CIRES Education and Outreach group serves the community through its science education projects that provide professional development for science educators and scientifically robust climate and energy materials for teachers and students. This group also leads a K-12 program placing graduate students in socioeconomically diverse local schools to enhance science, technology, engineering and math skills. CIRES is involved in other important efforts to improve diversity in Earth system research. We have been a longtime supporter of the Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science (SOARS) program, which is a learning community and mentoring program for promoting ethnic and gender equity in the atmospheric and related sciences. New this year, CIRES established a Diversity Committee for staff and scientists to identify opportunities for underrepresented ethnic groups and women to pursue advanced degrees in science.
Communication of CIRES' research and activities reached a broad audience through 23 press releases that generated wide media coverage; a dynamic website featuring expanded multimedia that includes 16 new videos and several podcasts; and new editions of our popular periodic magazine, Spheres.
CIRES proudly continued support of its established competitive programs that provide research and education opportunities to visiting scientists, innovative CIRES scientists and graduate students. This past year, the CIRES Visiting Fellow Program supported seven sabbatical and five postdoctoral scientists conducting diverse research on the role of erosion in mountain building, Arctic coastal communities, three-dimensional ice-sheet models, climate change impacts on water resources at Shasta Lake, inter-decadal variability in Sierra Nevada aquatic ecosystems, novel microbial degradation of pentachlorophenol, spectroscopic studies of Titan particles and other topics.
The Innovative Research Program is designed to stimulate a creative and interdisciplinary research environment within CIRES by supporting novel, unconventional or fundamental pilot or exploratory studies. Six inventive proposals were funded on diverse topics that include: secondary organic aerosol formation from evaporated crude oil; nitrogen fixation by blue-green algae to better understand the global nitrogen cycle and nutrient limitation in aquatic ecosystems; novel lidar technology to extend measurements of wind, temperature and possibly aerosols to the stratosphere and troposphere; development of a lower boundary layer radar for wind energy research; development of an instrument for laboratory experiments of contact nucleation to investigate this ice formation mechanism that occurs at temperatures much warmer than other mechanisms; and development of a novel air sampling technology to improve the study of the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances.
The CIRES Distinguished Lecture Series featured five prominent speakers: David Goldston, U.S. Natural Resources Defense Council, "Loving science to death: Problems at the intersection of science and policy"; Mike Hulme, University of East Anglia, "Why we disagree about climate change"; Daniel Jacob, Harvard University, "Mercury in the environment: Where does it come from, where does it go?"; Andrew Revkin, Pace University, "Are we stuck with 'blah, blah, blah bang'?"; and Peter Rhines, University of Washington, "Exploring the cold oceans of the North."
CIRES continues to support strongly its expanding graduate student enrollment through fellowships and sponsorship of its Graduate Student Association. CIRES offers two graduate student fellowships. The CIRES Graduate Student Research Fellowship was awarded to nine doctoral students, who are advised by CIRES Fellows, with dissertation topics that include determining emissions and chemistry of atmospheric trace species in the laboratory and field; atmospheric processing of methylglyoxal in aqueous environments; acquisition of atmospheric data such as wind vectors and air density; formation and evolution of supra-glacial lakes on glaciers in the Himalaya and Karakoram; electromagnetic study of crust and mantle electrical conductivity beneath the Rio Grande Rift; forecasting and uncertainty treatment in hydrologic modeling; scaling and parameterization of oceanic mesoscale eddies; and decision makers' demand for climate change adaptation information. The ESRL-CIRES Fellowship will be awarded in 2011-12 and funded by participating divisions at ESRL.
CIRES participated in, organized and sponsored numerous events in FY11. Highlights include a special seminar on "Arctic seasons: An Inuit perspective"; a panel on Japan's recent disaster; and workshops on "Deepwater Horizon Data," "Energy and the Environment," the "Colorado River Basin" and "Mountain Pine Beetle and Water." In December 2010, we wished a fond retirement to Distinguished Professor and longtime CIRES Fellow Roger G. Barry, who directed the World Data Center for Glaciology (WDC) since 1976. Under Barry's leadership, the WDC/National Snow and Ice Data Center grew from a staff of two in 1977 to about 90 in 2008, when he stepped down as Director. A leader in the cryospheric science community, Barry shares a legacy of discovery about Arctic and mountain climates and cryospheric processes, climate change and collaborations incorporating indigenous environmental knowledge into scientific weather analysis. He published four textbooks and more than 200 scientific papers and chapters, and he inspired nearly 60 graduate students. 
This annual report is an accounting of collaborative research goals described in the CIRES–NOAA July 1, 2010, to Sept. 30, 2012, Scientific Workplan, year one. The report is organized by NOAA's six scientific themes identified in the Cooperative Agreement—advanced modeling and observing systems, climate variability, geodynamics, planetary metabolism, regional processes and integrating activities.
We dedicate this report to Dr. George Colvin Reid who passed away on May 6, 2011, at age 81. Reid was a founding fellow of CIRES, a NOAA physicist who helped pioneer climate research since the 1970s, recipient of the Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Federal Service presented by President Jimmy Carter and a Nobel Laureate for his contribution as an IPCC author.
