A national consortium led by the University of Maryland has won a $93 million contract from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to use satellite observations to detect and monitor climate change data.

NOAA, the University of Maryland and North Carolina State University have formed the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, NOAA officials said in a news release today. In addition to examining data from satellites now in operation, the scientists involved will use climate data from two next-generation satellite systems: the Geostationary Operational Environment Satellite-R series and the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, the officials said.  

The institute will operate at two sites — in College Park, Md. and in Asheville, N.C., the officials said.

The institute's scientific partners include Howard University, Princeton University, Duke University, University of California at Irvine, Columbia University, University of Miami (Florida), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Oregon State University, Colorado State University, City University of New York, Remote Sensing Systems, Renaissance Computing Institute of the North Carolina University System, and the Energy Department's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The consortium won a national competition and will receive the funding over five years, the University of Maryland said in a news release. About two-thirds of the funding will be managed by the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center at the University of Maryland.