NOAA Awards Over $15 million for Climate Science, Community Resilience

NOAA’s Climate Program Office (CPO) has announced a total annual award of $15.2 million to support 63 new, innovative and impactful projects that will improve our nation’s resilience at a critical time in the fight against the climate crisis.

“The window of time to avoid costly, deadly and irreversible future climate impacts is quickly closing,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to bold action and these new awards from NOAA are critical economic and research investments that will improve data, tools and resources needed to mitigate the impacts of climate change while building better, more resilient communities across America.”

Over the next year, universities, other research institutions and agency partners across the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands will conduct newly-funded projects in partnership with NOAA programs, laboratories and research centers. For example, this is the first time Climate Adaptation Partnerships/Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (CAP/RISA) is funding a full five-year team in the Caribbean. CPO is committed to funding these awards for three years, and in some cases up to five years, conditional on appropriations.

This year’s new funding supports a broad spectrum of new climate research, including:

• Improving understanding of wildfire pollutants at transition zones where wilderness meets the city.
• Strengthening understanding and management of drought’s impact on ecosystems, and building tribal drought resilience in tribal nations.
• Supporting the management of National Marine Sanctuaries and Marine National Monuments through better understanding of climate variability and change in the sanctuary system.
• Assessing the financial aspects of and capacity for adaptation in rural communities.
• Improving modeling of atmospheric aerosols and refining understanding of these aerosols’s rolein potential climate intervention.

The map shows a breakdown of NOAA Climate Program Office climate science and resilience funding by state from 2016 to 2022, which includes the current $15 million award. Credit: NOAA

“These grants will spur the knowledge and innovation needed to tackle the climate crisis, which is a top priority for the Department of Commerce and NOAA,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. “These new NOAA investments are essential to improve understanding of climate change, how to mitigate increasing impacts and bolster community resilience. All of these substantive steps work together towards our goal of building a Climate-Ready Nation.”

CPO’s peer-reviewed competitive funding process ensures that proposals chosen to receive funding meet high standards of scientific rigor, quality, relevance to societal challenges, NOAA’s mission and equity. Research inside and outside of NOAA is supported. These projects conducted by external partners expand the reach of NOAA’s mission and the frontiers of scientific inquiry. While CPO funds new projects each fiscal year, CPO continues to support multi-year initiatives funded in previous years.

"CPO funds research to advance climate science and climate adaptation, as well as climate engagement, education, assessment and integrated information systems," said Wayne Higgins, Ph.D., director of NOAA’s Climate Program Office. “These investments in climate science lead to credible and actionable information to enhance our nation’s resilience.”

CPO’s annual awards adapt to meet changing climate challenges. This year, the awards address several new and urgent priorities, including offering a competition that focuses on tribal nations for the first time through the National Integrated Drought Information System. Additionally, this year marks the first round of grants awarded as part of the Earth's Radiation Budget program. For more information on the 2022 funding, please go to the CPO website.