Project Grant 2202881

This National Science Foundation Project Grant award of $552,632 provides funding from August 1, 2022 through July 31, 2025 to support the research project "Defining the Paleoclimate-Fire Relationship in CA Across Temporal Scales Through Integrated Monitoring, Stalagmite Studies, and Proxy System Modeling." The award is made under the NSF's Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050) to support basic research expanding understanding of the integrated Earth system.

Specifically, the University of Connecticut will conduct research to better define the relationship between past climate change and wildfire behavior in California over the last 70,000 years. Key products and services include monitoring cave systems to develop a process-based understanding of hydroclimate and fire tracers, building a multi-proxy karst system model linking relevant proxies to environmental drivers, developing comparable proxy records from 10 stalagmites across California, and producing quantitative climate and fire activity reconstructions through proxy-model comparisons. The research aims to provide a basis for future climate modeling efforts focused on hydroclimate change and fire activity drivers in the western U.S. Undergraduate and graduate students will also receive training through the project.