Jennifer Balch

A “Revolution” in Environmental Data Science

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 20:34:04 +0000

A “Revolution” in Environmental Data Science Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/07/2022 - 13:34

New national center at CU Boulder will tackle pressing socio-environmental challenges with big data analytics, more

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has funded a major new data science and diversity effort at Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), a research institute at CU Boulder—the Environmental Data Science Innovation and Inclusion Lab or ESIIL. The new center will enable work that illuminates the biological impacts of climate change and the loss of biodiversity, helps planners prepare for extreme disturbances such as wildfires and floods, and above all, includes diverse voices and responds to community needs.

Funding of $20 million for 5 years will support collaborative research and education involving huge science datasets, innovative cyber infrastructure, machine-learning approaches to analysis, and engagement with decision makers and other stakeholders.

ESIIL, pronounced like the word “easel,” promises to empower a diverse community of researchers to turn environmental data into actionable knowledge, said ESIIL director Jennifer Balch, an associate professor of Geography and a fellow of CIRES. The metaphor of an easel is intentional, Balch said: “We want to be the structure to support vivid new science.”

NSF and other agencies and organizations have established environmental networks and observatories that are generating vast amounts of open access environmental data—more data than can be analyzed to their full potential today, said Balch. So, she and colleagues from across CU Boulder, the University of Arizona, and the University of Oslo proposed building “a community of thousands” of researchers and students who know how to ask and answer important environmental questions with data.

University of Arizona research assistant professor Tyson Swetnam, part of the new center’s leadership team, is an informatician at CyVerse, an NSF-funded cyberinfrastructure center. Swetnam said he can imagine ESIIL supporting a project, for example, by a student researcher located in rural Arizona who lacks access to large computing resources. With just a cell phone and intermittent broadband internet connection, she should be able to freely explore and analyze diverse datasets on the cloud, looking for evidence of, say, genetic resilience in spruce trees growing on the peaks of Arizona’s sky islands, where many species are threatened by warming, drought, pests and disease.

“We want to support open data, open source software, open code…and open science,” Swetnam said.

CU Boulder Computer Science professor Claire Monteleoni is another critical ESIIL leadership member, an expert in using machine learning in climate science who helped create the field of climate informatics a decade ago. Monteleoni said she’s especially inspired by ESIIL’s focus on team science. The lab will be studying itself, essentially, to help identify factors that help diverse teams work well together, as well as the impact of teamwork training. “I’ve spent the first chunk of my career trying to get people working on climate change to talk with people working on AI and machine learning,” Monteleoni said. “So it will be great to have lessons coming from team science as we connect these communities.”

Finally, ESIIL will involve students and communities. ESIIL’s Stars internship program, for example, will support students and babyֱ��app members from Oglala Lakota College, United Tribes Technical College, and Metropolitan State University of Denver, to start. And ESIIL’s Leaders program will support emerging scientists from underrepresented communities.

Linking Tribes and Tribal colleges, other academic institutions, government agencies and private organizations, is a key characteristic of the new center, said James Rattling Leaf Sr., ESIIL’s Tribal liaison. “Effective partnerships and communication among these groups are needed to address major challenges facing our world and ESIIL is well positioned to address those challenges.”

Principal investigator: Jennifer Balch
Funding: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Collaboration/support: CyVerse at the University of Arizona; Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) Education and Outreach Program, Department of Computer Science, Earth Lab, USGS North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center, all at CU Boulder; Metropolitan State University of Denver; Oglala Lakota College; United Tribes Technical College; and University of Oslo, Norway.

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Panel discussion: Fire and Climate Change in Brazil

Anonymous — Sat, 29 Feb 2020 00:55:07 +0000

Panel discussion: Fire and Climate Change in Brazil Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 02/28/2020 - 17:55

This panel of scholars will put Brazil’s recent period of forest fires into a larger historic, political perspective.
Moderated by Joe Bryan, Associate Professor, Geography

Panelists

Peter Newton
Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies Program

Colleen Scanlan-Lyons
Project Director, Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force

Jennifer Balch
Associate Professor, Geography

Marcos Steuernagel
Assistant Professor, Theatre and Dance

Myanna Lahsen
Associate Professor, Wageningen University

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CU Boulder to Host Federal Climate Adaptation Science Center: Jennifer Balch, Director

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 21:14:55 +0000

CU Boulder to Host Federal Climate Adaptation Science Center: Jennifer Balch, Director Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/24/2018 - 15:14

The U.S. Geological Survey has selected a University of babyֱ��app Boulder team to host the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center for the next five years, in a move that will foster both innovation and applied research, said new University Director Jennifer Balch. The center is one of eight regional climate centers created to help meet the changing needs of land and resource managers across the country; the North Central center serves babyֱ��app, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas and Nebraska.

Balch, an assistant professor of Geography at CU Boulder and director of CIRES’ Earth Lab, said the new, $4.5-million award recognizes the huge potential for synergy with existing campus programs and expertise.

“The new center is about generating usable science, and Earth Lab is all about accelerating discovery. The key advantage of having them both at CU Boulder and CIRES is that we can tightly couple those things to better serve resource managers,” Balch said.

JENNIFER BALCH (CU BOULDER) AND ROBIN O'MALLEY (USGS), DIRECTORS OF THE NEW NORTH CENTRAL CLIMATE ADAPTATION SCIENCE CENTER. IMAGES: CU BOULDER AND USGS

U.S. Geological Survey funds will enable CU Boulder researchers and a consortium of partner institutions to focus state-of-the-art analysis tools on climate-related challenges facing natural resource management agencies: How to manage the habitat of a species in a changing environment, for example, and how to protect Tribal lands resources in the face of a changing climate. “Or how do we manage a resource so that it’s resilient in the face of extreme events?” Balch said.

Consortium partners include the Great Plains Tribal Water Alliance, Wildlife Conservation Society, Conservation Science Partners, South Dakota State University, and the University of Montana.

“The new consortium headed by CU Boulder is an exciting opportunity for us to build on our past and expand our capabilities for serving the science needs of natural resource managers in the North Central region. This new team brings an innovative vision, new partners, and a strong track record of producing useful science,” said Robin O’Malley, USGS Director of the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center.

Center staff will work from the Sustainability, Energy and Environment Community building on east campus, in offices next to Earth Lab.

The new center will conduct science in support of the resource management efforts of a wide range of stakeholders, mostly Tribal, federal, and state resource managers. “These are the people who help define our science questions,” Balch said.

At times, academics have been reluctant to tackle real-world problems, she said, for fear it could compromise the cutting-edge nature of research. Balch’s conviction that it’s possible to do both—advancing science and conducting science that matters—aligns with a new university initiative aimed at simultaneously embracing academic excellence and innovation, and also furthering the public good.

“This center will advance the university’s core mission to engage in real-world problems, creating knowledge with and for the public,” said Terri Fiez, Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at CU Boulder.

The North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center will host an Open House later in the year, date TBD.

This article is reprinted from the CIRES website, 10/23/18.

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The key triggers of 2017's costly wildfire season

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 21:30:51 +0000

The key triggers of 2017's costly wildfire season Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 06/08/2018 - 15:30

New CU Boulder-led research shows that three major “switches” affecting wildfire—fuel, aridity and ignition—were either flipped on and/or kept on longer than expected last year, triggering one of the largest and costliest U.S. wildfire seasons in recent decades.

The 2017 wildfire season cost the United States more than $18 billion in damage. That year, 71,000 wildfires scorched 10 million acres of land, destroying 12,000 homes, evacuating 200,000 people and claiming 66 lives. By comparison, 2016 saw 5.4 million acres burned.

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Jennifer Balch Named RIO Faculty Fellow

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Dec 2017 19:27:42 +0000

Jennifer Balch Named RIO Faculty Fellow Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/08/2017 - 12:27

Geography professor Jennifer Balch has been named a RIO Faculty Fellow. The Research & Innovation Office (RIO) Faculty Fellows Program is a campus-wide research and creative works leadership program that supports rising CU Boulder babyֱ��app interested in furthering their leadership skills to achieve maximum impact within and beyond the campus. RIO Faculty Fellows seeks to identify and develop tenured and tenure-track assistant or associate professors who are poised to lead significant collaborative projects, develop vision and deliver novel and impactful scholarly work. The program was founded and will continue to be led by Faculty Director Alan Townsend and Program Director Kirsten Rowell.

Founded on lessons from the successful Aldo Leopold Leadership Program, the program engages fellows as individuals and as a cohort on research and creative work leadership; collaboration and systems thinking; along with team building and academic management; scholarly communication and values; equity; ethics; and personal and professional coaching. Its greatest promise may be in identifying a network of campus leaders, already experts in their respective fields, and equipping them to break down discipline-based silos on campus while strengthening the university’s reputation nationally and globally through deeper and wider collaborations beyond campus.

More information>>

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Jennifer Balch Discusses Wildfires On Science Friday

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 19:05:58 +0000

Jennifer Balch Discusses Wildfires On Science Friday Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/27/2017 - 13:05

Hear Geography Professor Jennifer Balch discuss "How Will The Wildfires Of Today Fuel The Fires Of Tomorrow?" on Science Friday.

This year, 50,000 wildfires have burned 8.5 million acres of land in the United States. California, Washington, Oregon, and Montana currently have multiple large fires burning. The large Eagle Creek fire in the Columbia River Gorge near Portland was started by two teenagers who set off a firecracker.

Dr. Balch conducted a study which showed humans were responsible for starting 84 percent of wildfires.

Balch and Hugh Safford, a fire ecologist with the Forest Service, discuss the role that human influence—including climate change—might have on future wildfire seasons, and how this will affect the ecosystems and management of wildfires.

Additionally, atmospheric chemist Bob Yokelson describes the composition of the smoke plumes from these wildfires and the effects on air quality.

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Geography Department featured in babyֱ��app Arts and Sciences Magazine

Anonymous — Thu, 27 Apr 2017 15:40:09 +0000

Geography Department featured in babyֱ��app Arts and Sciences Magazine Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 04/27/2017 - 09:40

"Encompassing South American wildfires, Arctic sea-ice retreat, post-Soviet politics, climate change in Tibet and GIS, CU Boulder geographers keep their fingers on the pulse of a changing world"

A new article titled "This is not your junior-high geography" by CU's Clint Talbott featuring the Geography Department has been published in the babyֱ��app Arts and Sciences magazine. The article presents an overview of the breadth of research undertaken by several babyֱ��app members and aims to redefine "Geography" by discussing the nature of our work. Check it out today!

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Jennifer Balch Paper Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 17:32:14 +0000

Jennifer Balch Paper Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 03/01/2017 - 10:32 Jennifer Balch

Jennifer Balch's paper titled Human-started wildfires expand the fire niche across the United States was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS). Jennifer and her team have been getting the attention of the press with articles from the Associated Press, Washington Post, Pacific Standard, NPR, 7News Denver, and USA Today.

More than 10 wildfires burned over 200,000 acres in Southern California in October 2003, many of them started by humans. This satellite image shows strong winds carrying smoke over the Pacific.

Fighting wildfires in the United States costs billions of dollars annually. Public dialog and ongoing research have focused on increasing wildfire risk because of climate warming, overlooking the direct role that people play in igniting wildfires and increasing fire activity. Our analysis of two decades of government agency wildfire records highlights the fundamental role of human ignitions. Human-started wildfires accounted for 84% of all wildfires, tripled the length of the fire season, dominated an area seven times greater than that affected by lightning fires, and were responsible for nearly half of all area burned. National and regional policy efforts to mitigate wildfire-related hazards would benefit from focusing on reducing the human expansion of the fire niche.

See more at Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences >

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Jennifer Balch Elected ESA Early Career Fellow

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 03:09:59 +0000

Jennifer Balch Elected ESA Early Career Fellow Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/06/2016 - 21:09

Jennifer is among the Ecological Society of America Early Career Fellows (2016–2020) for advancing the science of ecology and showing promise for continuing contributions. She was elected for her exceptional work and novel discoveries on fire risk, proliferation and consequences in both tropical and temperature ecosystems.

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Decade-long Amazon rainforest burn yields new insight into wildfire vulnerabilities

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Sep 2015 02:34:21 +0000

Decade-long Amazon rainforest burn yields new insight into wildfire vulnerabilities Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/02/2015 - 20:34

Jennifer Balch's research featured in CU News Center

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