NOAA's sixteen Cooperative Institutes are comprised of forty-two universities and research institutes in twenty-three states and the District of Columbia. The Institutes make up part of the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) and conduct research that supports NOAA's Mission Goals and Strategic Plan. Research goals include Healthy Oceans, Weather-Ready Nation, Climate Adaptation and Mitigation, Resilient Coastal Communities and Economies, and NOAA Enterprise Objectives. Beyond furthering research, Cooperative Institutes also help educate and train the next generation of NOAA’s and the nation’s scientific workforce.
About this guide: This guide is intended to provide access to publications of NOAA's Cooperative Institutes. Only Cooperative Institutes with a public archive of their publications are listed. Where possible, links are provided to the series through NOAA's Institutional Repository.
CIGLR was formed from a partnership between NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL), and the University of Michigan. This cooperative institute was established in 1989. CIGLR was formerly known as the Cooperative Institute for Limnology and Ecosystems Research (CILER) until 2017. CIGLR's research themes consist of advanced environmental change warning systems, healthy ecological communities, weather readiness, and coastal resilience.
Founded in 1977, CIMAS is a partnership between NOAA and 10 academic partner universities. CIMAS' major research themes are tropical meteorology, climate change, ocean and coastal observations, ocean modeling, ecosystem modeling and forecasting, ecosystem management, and the protection and restoration of resources. CIMAS is located at the University of Miami. Projects include the Ocean Modeling and Observing System Simulation Experiments Center, the North American Multi-Model Ensemble, SUBX, an experimental weather forecast project, and OceanScope, a cruise ship-based research project.
CIMMS was established in 1978 to study mesoscale weather systems, those that range between microscale and synoptic scale systems. CIMMS major areas of inquiry are weather radar, stormscale and mesoscale modeling, forecast improvements, impacts of climate change related to extreme weather events, and the social and socioeconomic impacts of high impact weather systems. CIMMS is located at the University of Oklahoma in Norman.
CIMRS is a cooperative effort between Oregon State University and NOAA, specifically the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, and the Northwest Fisheries Science Center. CIMRS current research themes include marine ecosystems and habitats, protection and restoration of marine resources, seafloor processes: earth-ocean interactions, marine acoustics, coastal mapping and monitoring, and coastal and marine natural infrastructure. Newport, Oregon is home to CMRS.
CIMSS was established in 1980 as a joint effort between NOAA, NASA, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is located in Madison, Wisconsin. CIMSS performs research on environmental models and data assimilation, satellite meteorology research and applications, satellite sensors and techniques, software, and instruments in the field.
CIRA was formed as a partnership between NOAA's OAR and NESDIS with Colorado State University and is headquartered at Fort Collins, Colorado. CIRA was founded in 1980. CIRA's research themes include satellite algorithm development, regional to global-scale modeling systems, data assimilation, climate-weather processes, data distribution, and societal and economic impact studies.
Established in 1967, CIRES is a joint effort between NOAA and the University of Colorado at Boulder. CIRES areas of research include atmospheric science, biological and ecosystems science, chemistry, climate and weather, cryosphere, energy, the oceans, science policy, solid earth geophysics, and water resources.
Established in 2019, CISESS predecessor was the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites (CICS), originally founded in 1984 as the Cooperative Institute for Climate Studies CISESS is a national consortium, with leadership from the University of Maryland and North Carolina State University, partnering with NOAA partners NESDIS and NWS. CISESS research areas will include the analysis of satellite observations; improving data access, management, quality, and stewardship; and performance computing, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and social sciences.
Established in 1977, JIMAR is a partnership between NOAA and the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. JIMAR's eight research areas are ecosystem forecasting, ecosystem monitoring, ecosystem-based management, protection and restoration of resources, equatorial oceanography, climate research and impacts, tropical meteorology, and tsunami and other long-period ocean waves.
A collaboration between the University of Washington and NOAA, JISAO was established in 1977. JISAO has seven major research themes; they are climate research and impacts, environmental chemistry, marine ecosystems, ocean and coastal observations, protection and restoration of marine resources, seafloor processes, and tsunami observations and modeling.
NGI is a collaboration between six universities, led by Mississippi State University, and NOAA. The four NGI research themes are climate change and climate variability effects on regional ecosystems, coastal hazards, ecosystem management, and effective and efficient data management systems supporting a data-driven economy. NGI was established in 2006.
