Updates and insights
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Fund for Climate Solutions awards five new grants From floods to fire, the 2023 summer cohort of FCS projects seeks scalable climate solutions The second round of 2023 Fund for Climate Solutions (FCS) awardees has been announced. The FCS advances innovative, solutions-oriented climate science through a competitive, internal, and crossdisciplinary funding process. Generous donor support has enabled us to raise more than $10 million towards the FCS, funding 58 research grants since the campaign’s launch in 2018. This latest cohort of grantees includes five projects working toward a range of scalable solutions to address climate impacts around the globe, from boreal and tropical forests, to heat-impacted cities, to much-discussed and still-struggling carbon markets.
Boreal fire management to protect permafrost and carbon Project lead: Dr. Brendan Rogers Collaborator: Dr. Peter Frumhoff As the climate changes, wildfires in boreal forests are intensifying and putting tremendous amounts of carbon at risk of accelerated release from trees and soils to the atmosphere. Motivated by previous Woodwell Climate research, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has recently set aside 1.6 million acres of the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Reserve in Alaska for enhanced fire management to protect carbon and permafrost, and has invited our collaboration to assess the potential and cost-effectiveness of boreal fire management as an overlooked natural climate solution. This invitation is an unprecedented opportunity for actionable scientific research and timely policy impact. Supported by the FCS, the team will conduct the first-ever field study of boreal fire management for climate mitigation. Then, they will bring this work and its implications to decision makers and interest holders in Alaska and Washington, DC, positioning Woodwell Climate to expand the reach of this work within Alaska and, ultimately, to other boreal nations. Insights and lessons from 20 years of research on forest dynamics and agricultural sustainability in the Amazon Project lead: Dr. Ludmila Rattis Collaborators: Dr. Marcia Macedo, Dr. Michael Coe, Dr. Linda Deegan, Dr. Christopher Neill, and Dr. Paulo Brando Tanguro Field Station celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2024. Since its establishment by the Amazon Environmental
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Research Institute (IPAM Amazônia), 177 research papers have been published based on work conducted there. More than 215 students and journalists have participated in activities at Tanguro and produced theses, dissertations, policy briefs, and special content in prestigious journals and news outlets. While research at Tanguro has significantly advanced our understanding of tropical regions and continues to provide valuable ecological insights, there is a pressing need to synthesize past research. This award will support the preparation and publication of a synthesis paper that consolidates the findings and key insights from 20 years of research at Tanguro to facilitate a better understanding of the complex interdependencies within tropical ecosystems. This synthesis will also aid in developing a proposal to establish a Biological Integration Institute (BII-NSF) at Tanguro to promote collaboration, interdisciplinary approaches, and knowledge sharing among researchers, policymakers, and people affected by climate change and deforestation in the region. Detecting post-fire recruitment failure and permanent forest loss Project lead: Dr. Arden Burrell Collaborators: Dr. Yili Yang, Dr. Anna Talucci, and Dr. Brendan Rogers Extensive field campaigns in the boreal forest and the western U.S. have revealed that at an increasing number of study sites, tree species are failing to re-establish after fire destroys the stand. Such post-fire recruitment failure is increasing due to climate change, leading to a loss of both wildlife habitat and carbon storage, and reducing the area’s ability to provide ecosystem services. However, the large-scale extent of recruitment failure has not been studied—this is a key
Climate Science for Change
Fall 2023
