The international office of the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC), now based in Switzerland, is relocating this fallto the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The office's mission is to coordinate and communicate about the many projects underway around the world, studying the impact of rising temperatures on the Earth’s frozen regions known as the cryosphere.
Two UMass Amherst geosciences professors, Rob DeConto, director of the School of Earth and Sustainability and Raymond Bradley, will lead the project.
Bradley, who is also director of the Climate System Research Center, said the project will coordinate activities that are going on in different institutions.
"So, for example, there's a whole bunch of different places where they're developing models to simulate what will happen as ice sheets and glaciers recede, how that will affect sea level change and impact coastal communities," Bradley said.
Other research focuses on the recession of snow and ice in mountain environments, Bradley said, "and how that will affect communities and water resources and natural hazards and in mountainous areas."
Whether or not you live near a glacier, Bradley said, everyone will feel the impact of melting ice and snow.
The project is currently based in Geneva. An international steering committee with scientists from around the world will provide oversight.
NASA and the National Science Foundation provided grants of $2.5 million to support locating and staffing the project at UMass for at least the next five years.