About 36 fisheries and oceanography projects will be conducted throughout the Pacific under a $5.7 million federal grant to the University of Hawaii. UH gets $5.7 million
research grant
By Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.comThe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration funding covers a bundle of projects, said Tom Schroeder, chairman of the UH meteorology department and director of the Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research.
"JIMAR has research themes ranging from tsunamis to fisheries oceanography, to tropical meteorology to climate, to equatorial oceanography and coastal research," he said.
Major investigations will be done on coastal processes in the main Hawaiian Islands and northwestern chain, he said.
Other projects include collaborative research with the Sea Level Center, which maintains the global tide gauge network, and with the Honolulu Laboratory of the National Marine Fisheries Service on pelagic fisheries throughout the Pacific.
JIMAR is one of 11 cooperative institutes operated between NOAA and academic institutions. It was created in a 1977 agreement between UH and NOAA's Environmental Research Laboratories to pursue mutual interests in oceanic, atmospheric and geophysical research.
The joint institute has 70 full-time employees, mostly connected with the UH Research Corp., and 50 students and part-timers, Schroeder said.
"We get basically zero from the state budget," he said. "We are an entrepreneurial enterprise."
JIMAR's total research income last year exceeded $9 million, with the fisheries service, National Weather Service and Environmental Research Labs of NOAA as partners, he said.
NOAA said it expects to award more than $800 million in grants this year to academic, scientific and business entities to help study the Earth's natural systems.
University of Hawaii
