SIF176B Prominence-to-Preeminence (P2PE) STEM Targeted Initiatives Fund

Climate Science: Bridging Global and Community Scales

Project Manager: Karen McGlathery

Approved: November 2021

Project Dates: 3/01/2022 – 2/28/2027

Total Funding: $3,800,000

Executive Summary

Researchers in the Environmental Resilience Institute (ERI) have partnered with the College of Arts & Sciences, the School of Data Science, and the School of Engineering and Applied Science on an initiative bridging global-scale climate dynamics with regional/local processes and systems to guide decision-making for equitable climate resilience and sustainability outcomes. This is a critical knowledge gap in creating actionable solutions to climate change, and one in which UVA is uniquely poised to become a preeminent leader. The initiative’s research objectives are organized around three overarching themes: utilizing downscaling and model-data fusion to make advances in climate science more actionable and equitable at the local scale; leveraging cyber-physical systems (CPS) to advance our ability to monitor energy and water flows within communities, reduce energy consumption at the building scale, and mitigate global climate change impacts to infrastructure systems; and exploring how engineering and nature-based approaches to decarbonization be realistically integrated at the regional scale to cut emissions in line with global climate goals.

Progress:

The SIF176B “Climate Science: Bridging Global and Community Scales (G2C)” Initiative aims to dramatically advance the University of Virginia as a world leader in climate change analysis and solutions research.

We focus on bridging global-scale climate dynamics with community-scale processes and systems to guide decision-making for equitable climate resilience and sustainability outcomes.

The project’s broad aims include:

a. Strengthen our capacity to understand and project climate dynamics and impacts at scales that matter for communities (i.e., regional/local and years/decades);

b. Use these enhanced projections in combination with local-scale data (e.g., real-time environmental sensing) to improve regional and global scale quantification of energy and carbon dynamics; and

c. Drive actionable natural and engineered solutions to climate change (e.g., land-use changes, infrastructure, decarbonization).

Milestones have been achieved to advance the goals of SIF176B. Following the establishment of important foundations in year-1, including hiring a Program Manager, creating an official website, and recruiting the first postdoc, the initiative accomplished additional milestones in year-2. These include:

• The successful recruitment of 5 postdoctoral research associates (1 in year 1 and 4 in year 2) to work with 7 full-time UVA faculty across 7 disciplines, in line with the 5 pillars of the post-doctoral program, including diversity, impact-oriented research, interdisciplinarity, working as a cohort, and mentorship.

• The postdoc search in year-2 attracted a diverse applicant pool of 96 unique applicants; postdocs recruited come from 4 countries on 3 continents.

• The Institute is ahead of schedule to recruit three (3) new postdocs to be funded in year-3 under SIF176B. All three (3) incoming year-3 postdocs have accepted their offers and are expected to start between June and August 2024.

• Two (2) postdocs hired with SIF176B funds in year-2 but could not start in year-2 due to immigration challenges will join the year-3 cohort, bringing the total of P2PE postdocs to 10. Apart from these 10 postdocs, the Institute works with four (4) other postdocs funded under SIF187D.

• 5 published scholarly articles resulting from the work of recruited postdoctoral research associates, reflecting the project’s commitment to increasing UVA’s focus on using innovative approaches such as Machine Learning, Agent-based Modeling and Climate Modeling for climate research; two (2) more journal articles under review. One postdoc publication was featured on the cover of Science Magazine.

These accomplishments align with SIF176B’s five-year vision to significantly advance the University of Virginia as a world leader in climate change analysis and solutions research, by bridging global-scale climate dynamics with community-scale processes and systems to guide decision-making for equitable climate resilience and sustainability outcomes.

Our year-2 accomplishments build on the foundation laid in the first year. As the foundational strategies set out in year-1 took shape in year-2, the Institute’s engagement with several UVA faculty, schools, and departments, has already resulted in the identification of new projects for which postdocs have been recruited for funding in year-3. In furtherance of the preparing recruited postdocs for fulfilling future positions, the Institute also engaged with UVA entities focused on professional development to help equip them with skills they need to become effective, well-rounded climate researchers and faculty advancing climate research.

Buoyed by the advancements made in year-2, the Institute looks forward to making further strides toward meeting and exceeding the set goals of this initiative in year-3.