Advances in natural-language processing and large language models (LLMs), such as those utilized by ChatGPT, are transforming how geoscientists interact with complex datasets, enabling efficient and intuitive scientific analyses. As part of the Tracking and Communicating on Sea Level Pacific RISA project, PI Widlansky and the University of Hawaiʻi Sea Level Center (UHSLC) are developing tools that use LLMs to allow researchers to ask questions in everyday language and receive clear explanations and data analyses in response, minimizing the need for time-consuming tech support for project managers. One such tool, called the Station Explorer Assistant (SEA), draws on the UHSLC’s extensive databases and uses AI to analyze sea level data, compare water levels to normal conditions, and predict potential flooding. It even writes and runs its own analysis software, which it shows the user to check that its results are accurate. By making sea level science easier to understand and access, SEA can support communities adapting to rising seas and other coastal challenges.
SEA technology is also generalizable across geoscience domains, through a framework called an Intelligent Data Exploring Assistant (IDEA), which can be demonstrated by asking it to analyze atmospheric observations from Mars collected by NASA’s InSight Mission (Try it!). By combining LLM capabilities with robust domain-specific customizations, SEA and the IDEA example generate accurate analyses, visualizations, and insights through natural-language prompts. This study highlights the potential of IDEA frameworks to lower technical barriers, enhance educational opportunities, and transform geoscientific workflows while addressing the limitations and uncertainties of current LLM technology. PI Widlansky’s work also highlights how AI can enhance scientific research and communication, and helps us to envision how the creation of similar tools can support scientists in many fields.
A recent white paper, co-authored by Pacific RISA’s Laura Brewington and the U.S. Invasive Species Advisory Committee (ISAC) highlights the critical importance of islands to the United States, and the harmful impacts that invasive species have on them. In “Island Resilience is American Resilience: Actions Towards Reducing the Impacts of Invasive Species on US and US Affiliated Islands,” the authors outline how U.S. and U.S.-affiliated islands, such as Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaiʻi, and the Freely Associate States, contribute vital components to national and global food production, economies, biodiversity, cultural heritage, and security. Read More
This February, the Pacific RISA team traveled to Palau for a week to support the co-development of climate services and products that are locally relevant, impact-driven, support sector-based decision making, and to build local capacity to access and use climate data and information. Part of the team’s international work on climate services delivery, the week advanced our research on climate impacts to human health and agriculture, key priority areas for Palau as identified in multiple national reports and planning documents.Read More
This year, our third year of Phase IV funding, we accelerated research, outreach, and policy implementation with outcomes across all aspects of the program: engaged with Native Hawaiian and frontline or underserved communities; advanced modeling and visualization tools focused on the Island of Kauaʻi as a research hub; led authorship of the Hawaiʻi and Pacific Islands chapter of the Fifth National Climate Assessment; mapped compound flooding impacts; informed US federal agencies about the dual threat of invasive species and climate change, and initiated the next-generation of Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment (PIRCA) reports.
In August 2023, we saw firsthand how the synergistic effects of invasive species and a changing climate can impact the landscape, as a fast-moving wildfire devastated the town of Lāhainā, Maui, and ultimately became one of the deadliest wildfires in United States history. High winds with gusts up to 80 miles per hour were recorded on the dry, leeward slopes of the Hawaiian Islands due to Hurricane Dora, which passed 550 miles to the south of the archipelago. With dry conditions resulting from a summer of extreme drought, the risk of fire in Hawaiʻi was already high when the gusting winds likely caused the start of the fire and then accelerated it while also grounding the firefighting helicopters. Invasive grasses, a consequence of Hawaiʻi’s plantation history, cover over a quarter of the land in the state and burned quickly in the fire that was responsible for billions of dollars in damages and the displacement of thousands of residents. In response to the fire, Pacific RISA developed a web page with resources for understanding the context and science of wildfire in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific Islands. As the devastating impacts of the fire continued to unfold, the team also responded to numerous media interviews and requests for information.
The Pacific RISA Team recently took a field day to volunteer with the Army Natural Resources Program on Oʻahu (ANRPO) in the Wai‘anae Mountains, where we got to see firsthand what it takes to manage and restore some of Hawai‘i’s most remote and precarious native ecosystems. Read More
As part of Pacific RISA’s UNEP CIS-Pac5 research program on climate information and early warning systems, the team convened a Sector-based Climate Services and Coordination Workshop in Koror, Palau from February 26 to March 1, 2024. The workshop was funded by the Green Climate Fund and hosted by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Pacific RISA, and the University of Hawaii in partnership with the Palau Ministry of Finance Bureau of Budget and Planning, Palau Office of Climate Change, and the Palau Weather Service Office.
Participants at the Sector-based Climate Services and Coordination Workshop included President Surangel Whipps of Palau and US Ambassador to Palau Joel Ehrendreich, center.
Invasive species are a significant threat to climate-preparedness and resilience, according to a new white paper prepared for the US Department of the Interior by the Invasive Species Advisory Committee (ISAC). The paper, Invasive Species Threaten the Success of Climate Change Adaptation Efforts, addresses one of the most critical intersections between invasive species and climate change—where invasive species are posing a direct threat to natural climate solutions and climate resilience—and provides recommendations for action at the federal level.
“There are many examples—in the Pacific Islands and beyond—of how efforts to prevent and manage invasive species have resulted in more climate-resilient communities, ecosystems, and economies”, said white paper author and Pacific RISA Co-Lead Investigator Laura Brewington
Executive Order No. 14008mandates that US federal agencies and departments develop Climate Change Adaptation Plans to enhance the nation’s resilience to climate change, but invasive species are also documented to reduce the effectiveness of climate adaptation and mitigation actions. For example, fire-tolerant invasive grasses are supercharging wildfires in many parts of the United States, including Hawaii and the US Pacific Islands, which not only threatens critical infrastructure and ecosystems, but also reduces wildland climate resilience and carbon storage capacity. In spite of this, only eight of the 26 federal Climate Change Adaptation Plans directly reference invasive species, and just four meaningfully consider the reciprocal impact of invasive species on climate adaptation efforts.
The devastation of Lahaina, Maui, after wildfires fueled by invasive grasses and high winds in August, 2023 Credit: Elyse Butler
To develop recommendations for addressing this intersection of climate and invasive species, the ISAC author team conducted a gap analysis of the US Climate Change Adaptation Plans and synthesized case studies around the impacts of invasive species on US climate resilience. The five recommendations, if implemented, would transform how invasive species are considered within federal climate change planning, programs, and policies.
Five key recommendations for US federal agencies and departments to integrate invasive species into climate adaptation planning and processes. Source: ISAC 2023
“Our research confirmed what we already suspected: federal agencies have not yet actively integrated invasive species management into climate action planning, funding, and implementation—and they must take clear steps to do so in order to meet their own climate goals,” said Leigh Greenwood, TNC’s Director of Forest Pests and Pathogens programs and Chair of ISAC’s Climate Change subcommittee. “Each of the five recommendations is achievable and would help protect both people and nature from the damaging impacts of climate change.”
Featured image: Water hyacinth, a fast growing invasive weed that clogs waterways and flood control mechanisms in the southeastern United States. Credit: Florida Fish and Wildlife (via Flickr).
Among the findings of the Fifth US National Climate Assessment, released by the White House, are that climate change in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific Islands worsens inequities and threatens unique island ecosystems, along with cultural resources, human health, livelihoods, the built environment, and access to clean water and healthy food. The assessment concludes that adaptation strategies incorporating local and Indigenous knowledge can improve the resilience of Pacific Island communities, and that efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit climate change impacts are now underway in every US region, including the Pacific Islands
“Climate change continues to threaten things we care about,” said Frazier, now an assistant professor at Clark University and the Hawai‘i-Pacific chapter’s lead author. “As the devastating hurricane-fueled wildfires on Maui and Typhoon Mawar in Guam made clear, when communities are already hurting from stressors like COVID-19, extreme weather can multiply harms. The sooner we scale up global action to curb threats from climate change, the better. Fortunately, cutting emissions or preparing for new extremes also creates immediate local benefits—improved health, a stronger economy, and more resilient communities.”
The chapter’s key takeaways for the region include:
Figure 30.5, US Fifth National Climate Assessment, https://nca2023.globalchange.gov/chapter/30#fig-30-5
Climate change impairs access to healthy food and water. Increasing temperatures, altered rainfall, flooding, pollution, and fisheries decline will further affect food and water availability.
Climate change undermines human health. Climate shocks and stressors compromise healthcare and worsen long-standing social and economic inequities that contribute to illness, but community strengths and adaptation measures can boost resilience.
Rising sea levels harm infrastructure and islands’ economies. Sea level rise intensifies loss of territory and disrupts livelihoods, but governments and communities are innovating through renewable energy, green infrastructure, and sustainable economic growth.
Responses help to safeguard tropical ecosystems and biodiversity. Increased fire risk, severe droughts, and ocean changes have broad negative impacts on native plants and wildlife, and ocean ecosystems. Effective adaptation strategies include ecosystem protection and restoration, invasive species measures, and fire prevention.
Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge systems are central to the resilience of island communities amidst the changing climate.
New since the Fourth National Climate Assessment, published in 2018, is the chapter’s inclusion of a key message on human health and its emphasis on food security, integration of Indigenous knowledge, and recognition of data inequities for the Pacific Islands and US Caribbean.
About the Fifth National Climate Assessment
Mandated in the Global Change Research Act of 1990, the National Climate Assessment provides authoritative scientific information about climate change risks, impacts, and responses in the US. The assessment reflects the scientific consensus and is widely used for decision-making but does not include policy recommendations nor advocate for any specific policy.
The Fifth National Climate Assessment includes 32 chapters on physical science, national-level sectors (such as water, energy, agriculture, ecosystems, transportation, health, infrastructure, etc.), regional impacts in the US, and responses. The assessment was written by a diverse team of more than 500 authors and more than 250 technical contributors from every state. The report has undergone multiple rounds of review, including three opportunities for public comment, extensive agency review, and an external review by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The Hawai‘i and US-Affiliated Pacific Islands chapter has 16 authors and 41 technical contributors and is backed by nearly 500 citations from published literature.
Resilient and sustainable Pacific Island communities using climate information to manage risks and support practical decision-making about climate variability and change.
Building an Intelligent Data Exploring Assistant for Pacific RISA
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Posted on April 29, 2025 by pacrisa
Advances in natural-language processing and large language models (LLMs), such as those utilized by ChatGPT, are transforming how geoscientists interact with complex datasets, enabling efficient and intuitive scientific analyses. As part of the Tracking and Communicating on Sea Level Pacific RISA project, PI Widlansky and the University of Hawaiʻi Sea Level Center (UHSLC) are developing tools that use LLMs to allow researchers to ask questions in everyday language and receive clear explanations and data analyses in response, minimizing the need for time-consuming tech support for project managers. One such tool, called the Station Explorer Assistant (SEA), draws on the UHSLC’s extensive databases and uses AI to analyze sea level data, compare water levels to normal conditions, and predict potential flooding. It even writes and runs its own analysis software, which it shows the user to check that its results are accurate. By making sea level science easier to understand and access, SEA can support communities adapting to rising seas and other coastal challenges.
SEA technology is also generalizable across geoscience domains, through a framework called an Intelligent Data Exploring Assistant (IDEA), which can be demonstrated by asking it to analyze atmospheric observations from Mars collected by NASA’s InSight Mission (Try it!). By combining LLM capabilities with robust domain-specific customizations, SEA and the IDEA example generate accurate analyses, visualizations, and insights through natural-language prompts. This study highlights the potential of IDEA frameworks to lower technical barriers, enhance educational opportunities, and transform geoscientific workflows while addressing the limitations and uncertainties of current LLM technology. PI Widlansky’s work also highlights how AI can enhance scientific research and communication, and helps us to envision how the creation of similar tools can support scientists in many fields.
SEAinfo page, with several YouTube video demonstrations and presentations by PI Widlansky
https://uhslc.soest.hawaii.edu/research/SEAinfo/
GitHub IDEA page
https://github.com/uhsealevelcenter/IDEA
IDEA manuscript with a plain language summary and abstract
https://uhslc.soest.hawaii.edu/research/SEAinfo/IDEA_manuscript_latest.pdf
New Publication on Islands and Invasive Species
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Posted on April 2, 2025 by Laura Brewington
A recent white paper, co-authored by Pacific RISA’s Laura Brewington and the U.S. Invasive Species Advisory Committee (ISAC) highlights the critical importance of islands to the United States, and the harmful impacts that invasive species have on them. In “Island Resilience is American Resilience: Actions Towards Reducing the Impacts of Invasive Species on US and US Affiliated Islands,” the authors outline how U.S. and U.S.-affiliated islands, such as Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaiʻi, and the Freely Associate States, contribute vital components to national and global food production, economies, biodiversity, cultural heritage, and security. Read More
Advancing Climate Services for Food Production in Palau
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Posted on March 30, 2025 by Laura Brewington
This February, the Pacific RISA team traveled to Palau for a week to support the co-development of climate services and products that are locally relevant, impact-driven, support sector-based decision making, and to build local capacity to access and use climate data and information. Part of the team’s international work on climate services delivery, the week advanced our research on climate impacts to human health and agriculture, key priority areas for Palau as identified in multiple national reports and planning documents.
Read More
Announcing the Pacific RISA 2023-2024 Annual Report
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Posted on October 23, 2024 by pacrisa
The Pacific RISA 2023-2024 Annual Report is LIVE!
In August 2023, we saw firsthand how the synergistic effects of invasive species and a changing climate can impact the landscape, as a fast-moving wildfire devastated the town of Lāhainā, Maui, and ultimately became one of the deadliest wildfires in United States history. High winds with gusts up to 80 miles per hour were recorded on the dry, leeward slopes of the Hawaiian Islands due to Hurricane Dora, which passed 550 miles to the south of the archipelago. With dry conditions resulting from a summer of extreme drought, the risk of fire in Hawaiʻi was already high when the gusting winds likely caused the start of the fire and then accelerated it while also grounding the firefighting helicopters. Invasive grasses, a consequence of Hawaiʻi’s plantation history, cover over a quarter of the land in the state and burned quickly in the fire that was responsible for billions of dollars in damages and the displacement of thousands of residents. In response to the fire, Pacific RISA developed a web page with resources for understanding the context and science of wildfire in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific Islands. As the devastating impacts of the fire continued to unfold, the team also responded to numerous media interviews and requests for information.
Click to download and explore the Pacific RISA 2023-2024 Annual Report
CREDIT: Elyse Butler
Climate Change and Endangered Species Conservation in the Wai‘anae Mountains
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Posted on September 19, 2024 by pacrisa
The Pacific RISA Team recently took a field day to volunteer with the Army Natural Resources Program on Oʻahu (ANRPO) in the Wai‘anae Mountains, where we got to see firsthand what it takes to manage and restore some of Hawai‘i’s most remote and precarious native ecosystems. Read More
Palau Climate Services and Coordination Workshop
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Posted on March 18, 2024 by Laura Brewington
As part of Pacific RISA’s UNEP CIS-Pac5 research program on climate information and early warning systems, the team convened a Sector-based Climate Services and Coordination Workshop in Koror, Palau from February 26 to March 1, 2024. The workshop was funded by the Green Climate Fund and hosted by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Pacific RISA, and the University of Hawaii in partnership with the Palau Ministry of Finance Bureau of Budget and Planning, Palau Office of Climate Change, and the Palau Weather Service Office.
Read More
Invasive Species Threaten US Climate Change Resilience
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Posted on February 8, 2024 by Laura Brewington
Invasive species are a significant threat to climate-preparedness and resilience, according to a new white paper prepared for the US Department of the Interior by the Invasive Species Advisory Committee (ISAC). The paper, Invasive Species Threaten the Success of Climate Change Adaptation Efforts, addresses one of the most critical intersections between invasive species and climate change—where invasive species are posing a direct threat to natural climate solutions and climate resilience—and provides recommendations for action at the federal level.
Executive Order No. 14008 mandates that US federal agencies and departments develop Climate Change Adaptation Plans to enhance the nation’s resilience to climate change, but invasive species are also documented to reduce the effectiveness of climate adaptation and mitigation actions. For example, fire-tolerant invasive grasses are supercharging wildfires in many parts of the United States, including Hawaii and the US Pacific Islands, which not only threatens critical infrastructure and ecosystems, but also reduces wildland climate resilience and carbon storage capacity. In spite of this, only eight of the 26 federal Climate Change Adaptation Plans directly reference invasive species, and just four meaningfully consider the reciprocal impact of invasive species on climate adaptation efforts.
Credit: Elyse Butler
To develop recommendations for addressing this intersection of climate and invasive species, the ISAC author team conducted a gap analysis of the US Climate Change Adaptation Plans and synthesized case studies around the impacts of invasive species on US climate resilience. The five recommendations, if implemented, would transform how invasive species are considered within federal climate change planning, programs, and policies.
“Our research confirmed what we already suspected: federal agencies have not yet actively integrated invasive species management into climate action planning, funding, and implementation—and they must take clear steps to do so in order to meet their own climate goals,” said Leigh Greenwood, TNC’s Director of Forest Pests and Pathogens programs and Chair of ISAC’s Climate Change subcommittee. “Each of the five recommendations is achievable and would help protect both people and nature from the damaging impacts of climate change.”
Download and share the full 2023 ISAC climate change white paper!
Featured image: Water hyacinth, a fast growing invasive weed that clogs waterways and flood control mechanisms in the southeastern United States. Credit: Florida Fish and Wildlife (via Flickr).
Fifth US National Climate Assessment Release
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Posted on November 14, 2023 by pacrisa
Pacific Confronting Growing Climate Change Impacts, Official US Assessment Finds
Adapted from the East-West Center Press Release at: https://www.eastwestcenter.org/news/news-release/pacific-confronting-growing-climate-change-impacts-official-us-assessment-finds
Among the findings of the Fifth US National Climate Assessment, released by the White House, are that climate change in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific Islands worsens inequities and threatens unique island ecosystems, along with cultural resources, human health, livelihoods, the built environment, and access to clean water and healthy food. The assessment concludes that adaptation strategies incorporating local and Indigenous knowledge can improve the resilience of Pacific Island communities, and that efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit climate change impacts are now underway in every US region, including the Pacific Islands
The report’s chapter on Hawaiʻi and US-Affiliated Pacific Islands was written by 16 authors, including Pacific RISA’s Abby Frazier, Victoria Keener, Zena Grecni, Kirsten Oleson, and Chris Shuler. The chapter has 41 technical contributors and is backed by nearly 500 citations from published literature.
“Climate change continues to threaten things we care about,” said Frazier, now an assistant professor at Clark University and the Hawai‘i-Pacific chapter’s lead author. “As the devastating hurricane-fueled wildfires on Maui and Typhoon Mawar in Guam made clear, when communities are already hurting from stressors like COVID-19, extreme weather can multiply harms. The sooner we scale up global action to curb threats from climate change, the better. Fortunately, cutting emissions or preparing for new extremes also creates immediate local benefits—improved health, a stronger economy, and more resilient communities.”
The chapter’s key takeaways for the region include:
New since the Fourth National Climate Assessment, published in 2018, is the chapter’s inclusion of a key message on human health and its emphasis on food security, integration of Indigenous knowledge, and recognition of data inequities for the Pacific Islands and US Caribbean.
About the Fifth National Climate Assessment
Mandated in the Global Change Research Act of 1990, the National Climate Assessment provides authoritative scientific information about climate change risks, impacts, and responses in the US. The assessment reflects the scientific consensus and is widely used for decision-making but does not include policy recommendations nor advocate for any specific policy.
The Fifth National Climate Assessment includes 32 chapters on physical science, national-level sectors (such as water, energy, agriculture, ecosystems, transportation, health, infrastructure, etc.), regional impacts in the US, and responses. The assessment was written by a diverse team of more than 500 authors and more than 250 technical contributors from every state. The report has undergone multiple rounds of review, including three opportunities for public comment, extensive agency review, and an external review by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The Hawai‘i and US-Affiliated Pacific Islands chapter has 16 authors and 41 technical contributors and is backed by nearly 500 citations from published literature.
Our Vision
Resilient and sustainable Pacific Island communities using climate information to manage risks and support practical decision-making about climate variability and change.
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