Impacts

Fire & Ice's impacts come in the form of material contributions to Alaska's research capacity, impacts of F&I's various components, and scientific discoveries. All numbers are current as of February 2022.

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Contributions to Research Capacity

• 5 University of Alaska tenure-track faculty hires
• 4 University of Alaska postdoctoral researcher hires
• 50+ UA faculty members,  40+ UA staff, and 10 postdocs involved in the project
• 50+ graduate students and 58+ undergraduate students involved the project
• 36 students graduated
• 30+ academic publications
• Submitted 87 grant submissions for $56.2 million, including NSF Coastlines and Peoples (CoPe) and other large-scale proposals
• 27 grants awarded for $13.7 million; major awards include 2 NSF Navigating the New Arctic awards, Department of Energy Education Innovation and Research award
• Partner in NSF Research Traineeship "Tamamta" award
• 16 faculty and 17 student research seed awards
• 4 Sitka Sound Science Center fellowships
• Increased support at the University of Alaska for interdisciplinary science and education
• Impacts to University of Alaska perspectives, values, and organization
• Increased collaborations across University of Alaska campuses       

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Impacts of Boreal Fires Component

Boreal Fires research will improve people’s ability to

• Quantify short-term fire ignition risk
• Map boreal fuels
• Use algorithms to scale up local fuel characterizations
• Produce seasonal climate forecasts
• Predict zones of more likely fires
• Monitor fire temperatures and intensities
• Characterize low-intensity fires
• Forecast fire behavior
• Track the impacts of fire on ecosystem services and plan for contingencies
• Take steps to reduce costs of fire prevention and suppression

Boreal Fires research impacts across the sciences include:

• Climatological data linking large scale phenomena to fire weather
• Advancements in remote sensing and Hyspex techniques
• Impacts on fish, wildlife ecology and forestry policy and management
• Sociological insights into co-production of knowledge with Indigenous communities
• Economic data on fire prevention and suppression

Multiple Boreal Fires deliverables will enhance Alaskan wildfire prevention and response, including:

• Improved fire weather outlooks for use by fire managers
• Hyperspectral analysis of fire fuels scaled up to state level
• Techniques for rapid assessment of fire impacts on ecosystem services
• Fire risk maps and tables, and property damage risk maps

Many Boreal Fires findings can be applied across the circumpolar regions and the boreal forest, including:

• Climate, lightning and fire fuels findings
• Fire spread, intensity and severity data
• Hyperspectral and UAV techniques
• Co-production of knowledge applicable to fire-impacted rural communities and subsistence systems

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Impacts of Coastal Margins Component

Coastal Margins research will improve people’s ability to:

• Understand how freshwater runoff influences coastal oceanographic processes
• Predict future conditions in glacially influenced estuaries
• Track the relative importance of key environmental drivers on nearshore ecosystems
• Understand how organisms will respond to changing ocean conditions
• Understand how nutrition sources change along the glacial to non-glacial gradient
• Elucidate marine terrestrial linkages in a changing environment
• Reveal and mitigate potential community vulnerabilities to environmental change

Coastal Margins impacts across the sciences include:

• Multiple years of stream biogeochemistry data to aid in establishing modern baselines across glacier gradients
• Predicted impacts of climate change to keystone species, biological community structure, and primary and secondary production
• Linking biophysical processes across terrestrial, glacial, freshwater, and marine systems
• Novel data on coastal and estuarine hydrodynamics and chemical oceanography
• Extensive environmental and biological datasets enabling continued and expanded research into key ecosystems

Impacts to Alaska include:

• Insights into climate change impacts to coastal Gulf of Alaska ecosystems, food webs, and fisheries
• Information on physiological thresholds of commercially important marine species
• Enhanced laboratory facilities and field equipment in two key regions

Many Coastal Margins results can be applied across the circumpolar regions and beyond, including:

• New insights into the drivers of extreme ocean acidification events
• Improved understanding of how changes to nearshore variables impact distribution and productivity of commercial species
• Improved knowledge of how local drivers impact large-scale coastal processes
• Information about terrestrial marine linkages relevant to coastal glacierized landscapes worldwide
• Human dimensions findings broadly applicable to resource based communities around the world

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Impacts of DEW, Economic Development, and Communications components

• 34 teachers trained in afterschool curriculum, reaching at least 238 K-12 students
• 125 students supported through UAF and UAA tutoring
• 64 high-school aged girls participated in "Girls on Water" and "Girls in the Forest" programs
• 8 education and outreach awards and 6 data visualization awards
• 100 travel awards
• 61 faculty and postdocs involved in mentoring activities
• 235 people attended workshops
• Key research findings about first-generation STEM students that contrast with dominant narratives
• 13 "Phase 0" awards given out to Alaskan startup businesses
• 25+ community economic development events, including technology events, Startup Weeks, workshops on philanthropic giving, presentations on applying for federal grant monies
• Shared information with the public via newsletters, 900+ Facebook followers and 1,000+ Twitter followers, and multiple YouTubevideos