Annual Reports

In this report, each of the PIs has selected one feature of their research from 2023 to highlight, summarize and provide context for their work. The research highlights are followed by a complete list of the year’s peer-reviewed publications.

CMI, now in its twenty-third year, has left an immeasurable impact on how society deals with the climate problem. In 2022, over 50 researchers and students worked under the leadership of fourteen principal investigators to find ways to mitigate crises and help policymakers develop equitable solutions to environmental problems.

Despite the COVID pandemic of the last two years, CMI researchers have maintained unabated research progress.

Despite the Coronavirus pandemic, CMI researchers remained fully active developing a blueprint for a carbon-neutral U.S. economy, launching a land-based climate solutions initiative, and continuing other relevant research to address the carbon problem.

This year’s report provides an overview of new research on realizing net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States; enhancing the understanding of the role that soil carbon plays in the global carbon cycle; and addressing critical unknowns in methane cycling.

2018 ended with a successful effort to renew CMI through 2025 and the launch of a large project on net-zero greenhouse gas-emitting infrastructure for the United States. Progress continued with numerous other research initiatives including: soil carbon, methane, extreme weather events, climate modelling of oceans and terrestrial ecosystems, carbon capture and storage, and battery technology.

New research on methane sources and sinks in the atmosphere and on land is underway along with the study of surface waves at the interface between the atmosphere and ocean waters. Both of these new initiatives add to the reporting on ongoing efforts to identify risks and opportunities posed by the carbon program.

During 2016, CMI research efforts continued improving the understanding of carbon sinks in the ocean and on land, enhancing prediction of extreme weather under climate change, and explored means for reaching carbon neutrality.

In 2015, CMI was restructured to form three research work groups: Science, Technology, and Integration and Outreach.

CMI lead investigators reported on recent research advances in terrestrial and ocean carbon science, carbon capture and sequestration, climate science, and carbon targets.

From the future fate of carbon sinks to strategies for making “negative emission” transportation fuels, CMI research in 2013 closed in on answers to old questions and also applied existing tools to new problems.

After an infusion of new faculty in 2011, CMI has an even stronger program with new areas of research that complement established efforts.

2011 was a year of growth for CMI. Long-term members continued to refine and apply tools developed in our first decade to better understand CO2 capture and storage, natural carbon sinks, and carbon policy, while also striking out in new directions.

Over its first decade, CMI has accomplished many of its original goals by creating tools to address critical questions about the efficacy and cost of carbon capture and storage and the impacts of climate change on natural carbon sinks.

Now entering our 10th year, CMI is both producing important results in original research areas and expanding into new territory. At the same time, our researchers are taking on important external projects to accelerate mitigation research and inform climate policy.

The eighth year of CMI was marked by bp’s decision to commit to the funding of CMI through 2015, a five-year extension that has enabled a deepening of commitment when otherwise we might have begun to close down.

We continue to enter the global discussion of global climate change through several portals, and our effectiveness as participants increases with our experience and staying power. Dramatic changes in Washington in 2007 made our work more valued close to home, and a much broader acceptance of tough global mitigation goals around the world made our work more pertinent than ever.

CMI has concluded its sixth year, which was marked by steady progress on our original goals plus some positive new developments.

Having established roots in multiple departments around the university, CMI now has a mature research program with a strong core group of mitigation experts. Our team has made substantial progress toward achieving our original goals, in the process becoming a recognized force in the field of carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Following on our three-year review last November, Year Four of CMI has been a period of growth and refocusing. The research groups of CMI have continued exploring their core subjects, but have also added new research directions.

Over the first three years we have rooted CMI in four areas of the campus, achieving substantial commitment from faculty, staff, and students. From an initial group of fewer than 20 researchers, CMI has increased its ranks to include 60 investigators. We have built new labs and office space, expanded into new research areas, and developed new relationships with other institutions.

Year Two of CMI was a year of consolidation and cohesion. Nearly all of the faculty, staff, post-doctoral and graduate students recruited during the first year remained involved, and recruitment continued.

CMI initiated a research program on the capture, storage, science, and policy of carbon mitigation, together with a structure of governance to direct and coordinate research and outreach.