CIFAR

Cooperative Institute for Alaska Research

Research

As NOAA’s Alaska Regional Cooperative Institute, CIFAR facilitates research in three broad thematic areas:

Ecosystem Forecasting and Studies - Gain sufficient knowledge of Alaskan ecosystems to forecast their response to both natural and anthropogenic change;
Coastal Hazards - Improve understanding of coastal hazards, storms, and tsunamis that affect Alaska's population, ecosystems and coast to improve weather forecast and warning accuracy; and
Climate Change and Variability - Foster climate research targeted at societal needs and advance Arctic climate research to improve predictive capacity of climate variations affecting coastal regions and ecosystems.

Research in all three themes contributes to improving NOAA's prediction and forecasting abilities in the Alaska region, throughout the nation, and internationally; and directly assists NOAA in four of its Mission Goals:
(1) Protect, restore, and manage the use of coastal and ocean resources through an ecosystem approach to management;
(2) Understand climate variability and change to enhance society's ability to plan and respond;
(3) Serve society's needs for weather and water information; and
(4) Support the Nation's commerce with information for safe, efficient, and environmentally sound transportation.

In addition, CIFAR's education and outreach efforts provide crosscutting NOAA human resources development and regional capacity building needed for increasing the resiliency of all Alaska residents in the face of unprecedented change.

Research projects are funded through CIFAR either in response to an announcement of opportunity, or as a result of NOAA's interest in funding an individual project.

For example, the Russian-American Long-term Census of the Arctic (RUSALCA) projects were competitively awarded after CIFAR released an announcement of opportunity to the arctic science community and projects were selected through peer review by an external panel of experts.

Links to research projects and reports:

For CIFAR PIs:

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