Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz have received a five-year grant totaling $737,000 from the Heising-Simons Foundation. The funding will support Peter Weiss-Penzias and Eyal Rahav as they study the chemical and biological makeup of Pacific coastal fog water. Their work is part of a broader project involving several institutions that seeks to improve management of coastal resources and ecosystems in response to climate change.
The Pacific Coastal Fog Research project aims to address common questions about fog, including how it may be affected by global warming. “Understanding if and how fog will change as the climate warms is critical for societal planning for climate change,” said Weiss, who is a continuing lecturer and faculty researcher in the Science Division.
Weiss also highlighted the importance of understanding what substances are present in fog, such as pollutants, and assessing how much water fog provides to sectors like agriculture. This information is seen as essential for public health and resource management along the coast.
Weiss and Rahav plan to gather fog water samples from 15 sites along California’s coast, representing different airsheds and transport histories. They are focusing on tracking patterns over time and space in concentrations of inorganic nutrients, biological molecules such as algal toxins, and chemical contaminants found in coastal fog.
Students from the Baskin School of Engineering will design and build an active fog collector at UC Santa Cruz’s Slugworks facility to assist with sample collection. More details about their research can be found through the Weiss-Penzias Lab at UC Santa Cruz.
In addition to UC Santa Cruz, other campuses participating in this research include San Francisco State University, California State University Monterey Bay, UC San Diego, and Indiana University.
The Heising-Simons Foundation supports projects that promote sustainable climate solutions, scientific research, education for young learners, and human rights initiatives.
