Nestled into the College of the Environment, the faculty, staff and students in the Department of Atmospheric and Climate Science at the University of Washington study a broad range of atmospheric phenomena and processes using methods ranging from mathematical analysis to field experimentation. Research projects range in size from small studies involving individual scientists to large national and international programs involving teams of scientists; those directed toward understanding the chemical and physical modification of the environment by human activities can be highly interdisciplinary and creative.

The CO2 Foundation has committed funding to two research projects, both centering on new uses of climate models. One team, led by Ed Blanchard-Wrigglesworth and Aaron Donohoe, is asking whether targeted aerosol injection could blunt an incoming heatwave before it kills. The other, led by Cecilia Bitz and P. Joshua Griffen, is co-producing locally usable coastal hazard predictions with Indigenous communities on Alaska’s eroding Arctic shoreline.

The heatwave mitigation project is possible due to recent advances in weather forecasting, which make it possible to predict extreme heatwaves seven to ten days in advance and to identify the wind patterns that cause them. That lead time creates a potential window for intervention. The research team will use state-of-the-art climate model simulations to investigate whether briefly injecting aerosols into an airmass upstream from a developing heatwave could meaningfully reduce its peak temperatures. The global risks associated with broader use of stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) are not applicable here, because aerosols are short-lived and this approach would keep them regionally confined. This study will use the record-breaking Pacific Northwest heatwave of June 2021 — which reached 116°F in Portland and caused over 1,000 deaths — as their primary case study. The team is expecting this work to lay a foundation for future research and new collaborations.

The second project addresses a different but equally challenging problem. Arctic coastal communities face compounding threats from extreme cyclones, sea ice loss, large ocean waves, and storm surge — hazards that are accelerating as warming continues. This team has spent five years building a working partnership with the Kivalina Volunteer Search and Rescue organization, and this project is a direct response to the informational priorities that partnership has surfaced. The project will develop machine learning methods to downscale predictions from the Community Earth System Model to the local scale, translating broad climate projections into actionable coastal hazard warnings for Kivalina and, ultimately, other Alaska Native communities. A participatory scenario workshop and hazard response training in Kivalina in summer 2026 will ensure the predictive products reflect community-defined priorities. The team plans to generate an open-source framework designed to be expanded to additional Arctic communities.

CO2 Foundation is proud to support both projects. Together they exemplify work the Foundation believes is essential: rigorous, novel science that could change what is possible in terms of protecting people and communities from harm in the face of accelerating extreme weather.