Interior department launches CSU climate science center

FORT COLLINS — One of eight U.S. Department of Interior regional climate science centers has been launched in CSU’s Natural and Environmental Sciences Building.

CSU was selected recently for the interior department’s North Central Climate Science Center. The center will be dedicated to climate science research to help natural resource managers anticipate the effects of climate change on nature and agriculture.

The center is the latest addition to CSU’s ecological research leadership facilities, which include the Warner College of Natural Resources, Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability and others.

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The center will address key important ecological issues related to climate change that face the region, including the pine beetle infestation and habitat and behavior change of endangered species as well as energy, land and water sustainability.

The center “is one part of a national effort to develop resource management strategies that are climate responsive and sustainable,” Dennis Ojima, university director of the center, said recently.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar last month announced funding of more than $10 million to the regional climate science centers for studies.

“Climate science centers are off and running to meet the needs of those who must safeguard our precious natural resources as the climate changes,” Salazar said. “These projects demonstrate the benefits of our national climate science strategy, which is focused on the needs of managers in each region.”