Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz have received a five-year, $737,000 grant from the Heising-Simons Foundation to study the chemical and biological makeup of Pacific coastal fog water. Peter Weiss-Penzias and Eyal Rahav will lead this effort as part of a larger project involving several institutions. The aim is to improve understanding and management of coastal resources in response to climate change.
The Pacific Coastal Fog Research project seeks to answer questions about how fog may change as global temperatures rise and what implications these changes could have for society. “Understanding if and how fog will change as the climate warms is critical for societal planning for climate change,” said Weiss, who serves as a continuing lecturer and faculty researcher in the Science Division.
Weiss also highlighted the importance of determining what substances are present in fog, including potential pollutants, and assessing how much water fog contributes to systems such as agriculture. These findings are expected to be important for human health and resource management along the coast. “Additionally, key questions such as what is in fog—including pollutants—and how much water fog provides to human systems like agriculture, are foundational to human health and resource management in the coastal environment,” Weiss said.
The research team plans to collect fog water samples from 15 locations along California’s coastline, focusing on different airsheds and transport patterns. They will analyze concentrations of inorganic nutrients, biological molecules such as algal toxins, and chemical contaminants found in coastal fog water.
Students from the Baskin School of Engineering will design and build an active fog collector using facilities at Slugworks. Further details about their work can be found at the Weiss-Penzias Lab at UC Santa Cruz.
Other institutions 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 sustainable solutions for climate issues, advances scientific research, promotes education for young learners, and backs human rights initiatives.
