Clark geographer to lead key chapter of national climate assessment

Abby Frazier, assistant professor of geography, has been selected to lead the Hawai’i and U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands chapter of the Fifth National Climate Assessment. Established through a 1989 presidential initiative, the congressionally mandated report works as part of the U.S. Global Change Research Program to assist the nation in understanding, assessing, predicting, and responding to the human-induced and natural processes of global climate change.

Frazier, who earned her doctoral and master’s degrees in geography from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, currently has several other projects in the islands, including a $1.33 million National Science Foundation grant to install a new network of over 80 climate stations across Hawaii in an attempt to better understand the complex weather climate of the islands. These climate stations, located in some of the most remote parts of the state, will allow researchers to forecast a number of serious weather events that will be shared through the Hawai’i Climate Data Portal, in addition to the National Mesonet Program supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Dr. Frazier is also a co-principal investigator of the Pacific Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (Pacific RISA) program. Funded by a $6.36 million NOAA grant, the program works to provide information to Pacific Island communities on building resilience to the effects of climate change. Spanning Hawai’i, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Republic of Palau, and American Sāmoa, Frazier’s team collaborates closely with natural resource managers, policymakers, local and national governments, and nonprofit organizations to gather data and information as well as advocate for regional climate needs at national and international scales.

Before joining Clark, Professor Frazier was a research fellow at the East-West Center and a postdoctoral research geographer at the USDA Forest Service Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry.