Utah State University Climate Center Awarded $141,000 Grant

In conjunction with the Utah State University Climate Center, a team of USU professors have procured a grant of $141,000 from the U.S. Bureau of Water Reclamation. Funded by the WaterSMART Grants program, the money will be used to further develop climate analysis tools so that scientists across the country can use the Climate Center’s data to better predict weather patterns that heavily influence watershed resources. 

The grant is the work of Rob Gillies, associate professor, and, Jiming Jin, assistant professor in the Department of Plants, Soils and Climate, and Simon Wang, assistant professor of climate at the Utah Climate Center. The grant proposed is a two-year project with an estimated completion date of July 2013.

“People need to know where they get their water from,” said Gillies. “It’s important for people, and people’s children, and people’s grandchildren, to know what’s going to happen to their water in the future.”

The research conducted at the Climate Center is focused on making Atmospheric General Circulation Models more accurate. A GCM is a mathematical model of the circulation of an atmosphere. GCM data is used by scientists in every field, including ecologists, biologists and hydrologists. Currently, GCMs produce data that is too vague for water managers and scientists to make predictions about the weather. However, by using a system combining statistics and modeling, the team hopes to be able make GCM data more specific, thus shedding light on the future of watersheds across the world.

“If you have some idea of what is going to happen to your future water resource and you have some idea of how things may change within your watershed, you can come up with a risk management strategy for the future.” said Gillies.

In areas like Somalia and Texas that are drought prone, risk management is vital. Gillies hopes that his team’s research will be used in preparing such areas for water shortage. Even in areas that do have a large amount of precipitation, Gillies hopes the research will impact future weather predictions, which in turn will be a great asset to farmers, scientists and citizens.

The initiative for the grant has been in the making for nearly five years. The grant is extremely competitive, with scientists across the world vying for funding. The connections that the Climate Center has with national agencies combined with the research on watersheds that has been done since the center opened were major contributing factors in earning the award.

Gillies said watershed research is important because it affects everybody even if they don’t realize it.

“Water is the source of life, so it’s important that you have some inkling of how that might change,” he said.

Related links:

• Utah Climate Center
• USU Department of Plants, Soils and Climate
• USU Extension
• USU College of Agriculture

Contact: Rob Gillies, (435) 760-8023, Robert.gillies@usu.edu

Writer: Alexandria Evensen, Extension Writer, (435) 797-8190, allee.evensen@usu.edu