U.S. Senator Brian Schatz today announced that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has selected the University of Hawai‘i to lead the agency’s new Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (CIMAR), which includes a five-year commitment of up $210 million.
“UH is a recognized leader on climate and marine science in the Indo-Pacific region,” said Senator Schatz, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “NOAA’s investment in UH will help us better forecast natural hazards like hurricanes, king tides, and tsunami; protect the health of our oceans and fisheries in the face of climate change; and maintain the U.S. leadership role in ocean and earth science in the region.”
According to NOAA, the newly-established CIMAR’s mission will be to conduct research, understand, and predict environmental changes in the Indo-Pacific region in order to better conserve and manage the coastal and marine resources in the Hawaiian Islands and U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands.
CIMAR will conduct research under eight different themes: ecological forecasting, ecosystem monitoring, ecosystem-based management, protection and restoration of resources, oceanographic monitoring and forecasting, climate science and impacts, air-sea interactions, and tsunami and other long-period ocean waves.