This Nevada EPSCoR Rll project seeks to create a statewide interdisciplinary program that stimulates research, education, and outreach centered on the effects of regional climate change on ecosystem resources. The six focus areas in this project are: climate modeling; ecological change; water resources; cyberinfrastructure; education; and policy, including related decision-making and public outreach. The goal is to build capacity to model regional climate change, evaluate methods to downscale model output, understand and quantify key ecological and hydrological processes, translate climate change science into formats usable by decision-makers, integrate models and data, and improve how students learn about climate change.
Intellectual Merit: Ongoing climate changes in Nevada are resulting in complex interactions among climate, biophysical, and human systems. To date, most efforts to address these issues have been directed at the global scale. There is limited understanding of regional processes and their impacts. This project will take an integrated approach to learning how climate change will affect water resources, linked ecosystem services, and human systems. The primary questions to be addressed are (1) How will climate change affect water resources and linked ecosystem services and human systems? and (2) How will climate change affect disturbance regimes and linked systems? Related questions include identification of forcing factors underlying recent climate changes; feedback mechanisms between climate and vegetation; impact of locally generated aerosols on climate; and effects of change in precipitation type on hydrology. This project in the unique natural laboratory of the Great Basin has the potential to transform climate change studies at regional and sub-regional scales.
Broader Impacts: Strategies to increase diversity are woven throughout the six components that will drive the research. A key strategy is to make results from the research easily available via an accessible, on-line data portal. Outreach to diverse stakeholders will be accomplished by identifying important needs in climate change research as well as informing and involving the public in climate change science. Nevada has a strong history of involvement in K-12 outreach as well as undergraduate and graduate research. This outreach will continue with summer research programs, academic year scholarships, mentorship programs for graduate students, and training for teachers in climate change science. Recruitment of new faculty and graduate students will target underrepresented groups. A statewide virtual information center for climate change will be created to focus on outreach, and visualization strategies will be employed to communicate findings to the public and policy makers.
Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE Intellectual Merit The overarching goal of Nevada’s Track-1 RII project was to create a statewide interdisciplinary program to stimulate transformative research, education, and outreach on the effects of regional climate change on ecosystem resources and support use of this knowledge by policy makers and stakeholders. The project has advanced the field of climate modeling with new methods for downscaling general circulation model outputs into resolutions appropriate for hydrological, ecological, and economic impact modeling studies and predictions for impact assessment. It has furthered understanding of climate variability and its impact on water, soil, and plants within key vegetation zones from valley to mountaintop through data acquired from the Nevada Climate - Ecohydrological Assessment Network (NevCAN). New knowledge on how rural and urban Nevadan communities and stakeholders perceive climate change has increased the capability of political scientists to determine future impacts of climate change on these communities. The project has advanced knowledge and expertise in science data portals with the development of the Nevada Climate Change Portal (NCCP – sensor.nevada.edu). As of August 31, 2013 the NCCP has stored more than 991 million data measurements, all available for download by interested users. New approaches and intelligent interactive software tools for model and data interoperability will have a significant impact on the scientific modeling community, making it easier for researchers to focus on the science itself rather than on developing software for their analyses and experiments. These outcomes have led to increased national competitiveness of Nevada in the field of climate change and its impacts. As a direct result of the project, nearly 200 scientific papers were published, and 47 new grants were awarded for a total of $42M. Broader Impacts The project involved close to 200 faculty, students and staff, of whom 44% were women and 17% were underrepresented minorities. The project improved the content knowledge and training of 48 secondary school teachers regarding climate change, affecting 6,500 students annually. One hundred students received undergraduate research awards, exposing them to climate change research and enhancing their research skills. Nineteen students, equipped with new analytical, research, and teaching skills, graduated with advanced degrees. Nevada added 10 new faculty positions related to the climate change theme. Several new college-level courses/modules on climate change were developed and offered. Stakeholder engagement was an important aspect of the project; in the last year of the project alone, project members engaged in close to 100 outreach events with federal, state, and local government agencies, legislators, private foundations, businesses, casinos, water and energy purveyors, museums, national and international organizations. The education section of the Nevada Climate Change Data Portal houses 45 lesson plans, Losing the Lake computer simulation game, the LibGuide of annotated educational material on climate change communication, and materials for the half dozen climate change courses developed so these can be offered at other institutions than where they were developed. There have been 19,328 visitors to the education section of data portal, reflecting 6,632 distinct clients. There have been 643 page views of LibGuide during January - August 2013; extrapolating to the entire year results in 965 page views annually. Hundreds of individuals per year will be exposed to the Losing the Lake simulation game from its placement in the Las Vegas Natural History Museum and Lake Mead Visitor’s center, increasing knowledge of water conservation practices and potentially affecting behavior. The Nevada STEM Pipeline website (www.nvstempipeline.org) provides a clearinghouse of STEM education programs and opportunities for students, teachers, and parents to explore opportunities to further knowledge and education in STEM-related fields.
