July 16, 2010

NOAA announced today its selection of the University of California, San Diego to lead a new federal/academic research partnership, forming the Cooperative Institute on Marine Ecosystems and Climate to study climate change and coastal ecosystems.

This new cooperative institute will replace the Joint Institute for Marine Observations, which has supported collaborations between NOAA and UCSD scientists since 1991. NOAA selected UCSD through a competitive application process. CIMEC will be based at UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif.

“The Scripps Institution of Oceanography has a long history of leading discoveries in climate and marine sciences,” said Steve Murawski, Ph.D., acting chair of the NOAA Research Council. “Our previous partnership brought unique capabilities of NOAA and UCSD together to advance marine science. We look forward to continuing our work together.”

CIMEC will include six other university partners: California State University, Los Angeles; University of California, Davis; University of California, Santa Barbara; Humboldt State; University, Arcata; University of California, Los Angeles; University of California, Santa Cruz.

The partnership provides scientists at these universities with support for research projects that may involve NOAA scientists, primarily at the NOAA Climate Program Office, the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center, and other NOAA Cooperative Institutes.

Research projects will focus on:

• collecting and analyzing data to improve our understanding of climate processes globally and within the southwestern U.S. marine environment;
• improving our understanding of ocean and atmospheric processes associated with climate change and its impacts on various spatial and temporal scales;
• improving our ability to understand marine ecosystem structure and function, to forecast algal blooms and fish and beach contamination, and to protect threatened species, and;
• improving our ability to develop human coastal communities resilient to climate change and our understanding of the relationships between these communities and natural ecosystems.

The amount of NOAA funding is variable from year to year and is based on the number of projects the lead university proposes and NOAA approves.

NOAA supports cooperative institutes to promote research, education, training and outreach aligned with its mission. Cooperative institutes also coordinate resources among non-government partners and promote the involvement of students and post-doctoral scientists in NOAA-funded research. This unique setting provides NOAA the benefit of working with complimentary capabilities of a research institution that contribute to NOAA-related sciences ranging from satellite climatology and fisheries biology to atmospheric chemistry and coastal ecology.

NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Visit us on Facebook.