Cooperative institute for marine and atmospheric studies (cimas) innovative science, service and stewardship PI: benjamin paul kirtman, university of miami cimas proposed budget: $310,000,000 proposed…

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded the University of Miami a $94.801 million cooperative agreement on October 1, 2025, under the NOAA Cooperative Institutes program (CFDA 11.432) for the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS). The award is structured as a five-year agreement extending through September 30, 2030, with a total proposed budget of $310 million.

CIMAS, located at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS), conducts research on weather, climate, and marine ecosystems; develops and maintains observing systems; and performs model development and hypothesis testing. The institute's work focuses on improved forecasts of severe weather and climate, investigations of how weather and climate variability affect marine ecosystem management and coastal resilience, and fish stock assessments. Research maintains regional and local emphasis on the Southeast US, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, and South Atlantic within global weather and climate contexts.

The research includes tropical weather observations and prediction; Atlantic red snapper population estimates using close-kin mark-recapture, epigenetic ageing, mtDNA sequencing, and genomic analysis; acoustic telemetry and spatial capture-recapture modeling to estimate effective sampling areas; and recreational discard exploitation rate estimation through conventional tagging.

The CIMAS consortium includes sub-recipients across academic and research partners: Black Swift Technologies LLC (unmanned aircraft systems); Universidade De Santiago De Compostela; Nova Southeastern University, Inc.; Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Inc.; Colorado State University; and MER Consultants LLC. Two consortium partners, Florida International University and the University of the Virgin Islands, are minority-serving institutions. Place of performance is Key Biscayne, Florida.

Cooperative institute for marine and atmospheric studies (cimas) innovative science, service and stewardship PI: benjamin paul kirtman, university of miami cimas proposed budget: $310,000,000 proposed budget period: october 1, 2025 september 30, 2030 the cooperative institute for marine and atmospheric studies (cimas) is located at the rosenstiel school of marine and atmospheric science (rsmas). Since its establishment in 1977, cimas has served as a mechanism to bring the research resources of the university of miami together with those of NOAA to foster excellence in research and education about the earth's oceans, atmosphere and marine ecosystems. Our research on weather, climate, and marine ecosystems; the development, quantitative assessment and maintenance of observing systems; and model development and hypothesis testing is used for many critical applications. We create improved forecasts of severe weather and climate and investigate how weather and climate variability affect the management of marine ecosystems, fish stock assessments and coastal resilience. Cimas research has a regional and local focus in the context of global weather and climate, including coastal resilience and the management of natural marine resources in the southeast US, gulf of mexico, caribbean and the south atlantic. The scientific and technological expertise provided by the cimas consortium of partners (caricoos, FAU, fit, FIU, FSU, nova, UF, USF, and UVI)1 is a critical component of scientific and technological expertise for our regional/local focus, and two of our consortium partners (FIU and UVI) are minority serving institutions (msis). The proposed cooperative institute (CI) will build on the highly successful research and infrastructure accomplishments from the predecessor CI, and will provide innovative science, service and stewardship aligning with noaas mission in several important ways. We have four research themes: (i) tropical weather observations, analysis and prediction; (II) ocean and climate observations, analysis and prediction; (III) ecosystem observations, modeling, forecasting and management; and (IV) protection and restoration of marine resources. We will continue to accelerate scientific innovation under each of these themes. For example, to improve hurricane intensity forecasts, we have successfully implemented multiple moving high-resolution nests simultaneously capturing an array of tropical systems in the unified forecast system (UFS), quantitatively assessing the utility of various in situ ocean and atmosphere observations and including machine learning techniques. The planned machine learning activities are a high-profile example of how the proposed CI leverages the newly established university of miami institute for data science and computing (idsc) and the high-performance computing capabilities housed therein. We will continue to innovate in our ocean observations collaboration with NOAA in the stewardship of the global drifter program, the argo floats, the ship of opportunity program, the western boundary time series observations, and pirata, to name just a few. We propose innovative analyses and model experiments to understand the role of ocean circulation, including the atlantic meridional overturning circulation, in coastal flood risk from days to decades. The proposed CI will innovate in fish stock assessment through genetic technology, for instance, in close-KIN mark-recapture to study the relatedness of adult and offsprings products in fish populations. We will continue to develop innovative approaches to the quantification of uncertainties in stock assessments. We are developing ecosystem models that focus on economically important fishes and incorporate best available science (e.g., stock assessment outputs). Leveraging the new experimental reef laboratory and the recently established southeast florida coral reef restoration hub at the rosenstiel school, we will study genotypic resilience in corals