ESRL congratulates seven of its NOAA and CIRES researchers, and their collaborators for winning Colorado 2019 Governor's Awards for High-Impact Research.

Kelly Mahoney and Rob Cifelli with ESRL's Physical Sciences Division, Trevor Alcott and Eric James (CIRES) with ESRL's Global Systems Division, and colleague Jeff Lukas with CIRES and the Western Water Assessment are members of an interdisciplinary team that were awarded for the Pathfinding Partnerships project: "Avoiding deadly floods through innovative partnerships: Estimating extreme precipitation in the 21st century to enhance dam safety and community resilience.” The team developed engineering and decision support tools that provide a scientifically defensible basis for determining the risk of extreme precipitation events to guide dam spillway design and to enhance community resilience in a changing climate. The study, and its extensive review board of national experts, was designed with a larger vision: to serve as a national model for other States to follow. Read more

Stephen Montzka and Geoff Dutton (CIRES) with ESRL's Global Monitoring Division, and Eric Ray (CIRES) with ESRL's Chemical Sciences Division were awarded for the Manifestation Mastery project: "Discovering a major violation of the most successful international treaty, the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer." This data sleuthing effort that revealed outlaw emissions of CFC-11 – violations of Montreal Protocol emissions standards – resulted in China making a national-level plan to comply with the Protocol. Read more

The awards were presented on November 12th during a reception at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

---