U of A-CNRS IRC for Global Grand Challenges

U of A PI: Shane Byrne, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory

CNRS PI: Susan Conway, Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géosciences UMR 6112

Extensive buried water ice is known to exist in the martian mid-latitudes and forms both a resource for future astronauts as well a potentially habitable niche for present or past life. The topic of our proposed work is to better constrain the ice’s history, present-day distribution and purity. We will use orbital images to identify scarps where water ice is visible at the surface, and map their distribution at unprecedented completeness. Glacier-like forms are also common in these areas and we will derive topography from stereo images to use with finite element models, to constrain the ice composition, temperature, and its contamination with dust and/or salts. This topic forms one of the great challenges for future human exploration of Mars, because this near-surface ice will be a key resource for providing water to astronauts and for producing hydrogen for fuel. Likewise, ice’s longevity, thermal history, and whether basal melting has ever occurred has profound implications for subglacial habitability and astrobiological potential.

U of A PI: Ewan Douglas, Steward Observatory

CNRS PI: Mamadou N'Diaye, Observatoire de la Cote d’Azur

Future large telescopes to search for extraterrestrial life will benefit from precise wavefront control, freezing the “twinkling” of starlight and enabling stable high-contrast instruments to reveal faint rocky planets around nearby stars. We propose the development of active optics strategies for Earth analog imaging and spectroscopy with future observatories, positioning the U of A and CNRS at the forefront of future searches for life outside our solar system.

U of A PI: Christopher Hamilton, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory

CNRS PI: Alexis Bouquet, Laboratoire de Physique des Interactions Ioniques et Moléculaires (PIIM)

Cryovolcanism is an expression of internal heat loss via the eruption partially-liquid water from an internal reservoir to the surface. It is particularly important as a transport mechanism between internal liquid oceans or lenses and frigid surfaces that can be sampled and accessed. However, there are many unknowns about how cryomagmatic plumbing systems work on icy bodies given that liquid water and brines are negatively buoyant relative to the surrounding ice. The proposed research will combine numerical models of melt-migration (Task 1) with laboratory experiments (Task 2) to determine how relatively dense cryomagma can erupt to Europa’s surface and how space weathering processes affect will affect these materials.

U of A PI: Tommi Koskinen, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory

CNRS PI: Panayotis Lavvas, Université Reims UMR7331

Titan, the largest satellite of Saturn, is shrouded by a thick organic haze that has puzzled scientists for decades as its formation and growth mechanisms remain poorly understood. Our team is pursuing a comprehensive investigation of Titan’s middle and upper atmosphere in order to uncover the key chemical and dynamical processes that give rise to Titan’s seasonally changing haze layers, thermal structure and circulation. This effort combines models with observations from different instruments of the late Cassini spacecraft. Here, we propose to reduce, analyze, and interpret ultraviolet images and spectra from the Cassini/UVIS instrument that provide novel constraints on atmospheric composition and haze formation. The results will be compared with observations from other Cassini instruments towards a more complete picture of temporal and spatial distribution of gases and hazes in Titan’s atmosphere. This will provide a pivot for future studies of circulation and chemistry in different regions of Titan’s atmosphere.

U of A PI: Tyler Robinson, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory

CNRS PI: Franck Montmessin, Laboratoire Atmospheres Universite de Versailles

Clouds, hazes, and dusts have profound impacts on the climate and spectral observables of nearly all planets both inside and outside the solar system. However, models for the formation and evolution of aerosols in solar system atmospheres, as well as commonly-adopted models for representing clouds/hazes within exoplanet remote sensing frameworks, sorely need detailed validation against ground-truthed data. Fortunately, solar system occultation observations provide a sensitive and unique path forward for understanding aerosol atmospheric structures. We propose to analyze a broad, high-quality collection of occultation observations at Mars and Titan (and, later, expanding to Venus, Earth, Saturn, and Pluto) to uncover a diversity of cloud, haze, and dust structures. Our derived database of aerosol vertical profiles will then be used to both improve tools for studying Martian climate and habitability as well as to validate approaches to parameterizing cloud/haze effects in exoplanet atmospheric remote sensing models.

Agrivoltaics refers to the co-location and synergistic association of agriculture with photovoltaic energy production and is defined as “the set of techniques for the protection and agro-climatic regulation of agricultural activities“^[1]. This unique combination is of interest to various players in agronomic, social, legal, environmental, and science research, as it makes it possible to reconcile the objectives of agricultural and energetic transition. The installation of photovoltaic modules addresses a double challenge: on the one hand, to contribute to the acceleration of the production of renewable energies with the aim of eventually reaching climate neutrality, and on the other hand, to protect agricultural production from meteorological hazards (excessive sunshine, risk of drought, frost, hail). However, the challenges of the agrivoltaic sector are numerous. For farmers, the acceptability of a project remains conditional on having no negative impact on agricultural production and the income derived from it.

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In a warming climate, agrivoltaics is a transformative solution to enhance crop yields, conserving water, generating clean energy, and boosting food security. Through a special partnership with the University of Arizona, the CNRS supports international collaborative research on agrivoltaics in all its dimensions, from natural to physical to social sciences.

2025 SYMPOSIUM

U of A PI: Brian Enquist, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

CNRS PI: Cyrille Violle, Centre D’Ecologie fonctionnelle & Evolutive

This project addresses the increasing global human health risks posed by allergenic disease due to pollen, which are expected to worsen under climate change. Current risk assessments often rely on limited data and overlook biodiversity shifts driven by extreme drought, heatwaves, and human activities. By integrating novel high-resolution biodiversity and phenology data with climate projections, drought risk models, and species distribution forecasts, this project will improve predictions of allergenic plant species distributions. The project will examine how key plant functional traits – including flowering time and pollen production - influence pollen exposure dynamics and allergy risks. Using previously uncollected data and advanced quantitative methods, the project will generate realistic risk assessments that link plant responses to environmental stressors with human health outcomes. The result will be a predictive framework that integrates biodiversity, climate, and public health data to improve understanding of how extreme heat, drought, and land-use change influence allergy risk.

UA PI: Jian Liu, Systems and Industrial Engineering

CNRS PI: Abdel Lisser, Université Paris Saclay

Fire protection processes are critical for safeguarding human lives and infrastructure. However, uncertainties in fire dynamics, environmental conditions, and human behavior pose significant challenges to designing and optimizing fire safety systems. Recent catastrophic fire events, such as the wildfires in California and Australia, highlight the growing intensity and frequency of fire incidents, often exacerbated by climate change. Rising global temperatures, prolonged droughts, and extreme weather events create conditions that fuel wildfires, making them more unpredictable and difficult to control. This project explores methodologies for designing robust fire protection strategies while accounting for these uncertainties. Furthermore, it examines the impact of these uncertainties on human health, particularly in terms of exposure to fire, smoke inhalation, and toxic gases.

UA PI: Armin Sorooshian, Chemical and Environmental Engineering 

CNRS PI: Anne Monod, Laboratoire de Chimie de L’Environnement

The largest uncertainty in predicting climate change is linked to aerosol-cloud interactions. Aerosol particles are the seeds of cloud droplets and thus there is an urgent need to improve predictions of cloud droplet size and number concentration from aerosol properties. SURFACTIVE is a follow-up of the INSPIRE project and can be seen as a “return on investment” as it proposes to use the developments of INSPIRE to deepen understanding of cloud droplet activation. We propose 3 interconnected tasks: (1) Leverage developed methods during the INSPIRE project to measure surface tension and amphiphile surfactants in various samples; (2-3) re-investigate the ACTIVATE database to examine surface tension effects on cloud droplet activation, and investigate the potential role played by PFAS amphiphile molecules. Uniting expertise from both research groups will enhance each one’s overall research and add significant value to on-going projects and spearhead further collaboration

UA PI: Kerri Hickenbottom, Chemical and Environmental Engineering

CNRS PI: Vincent Nicolas, Institute Jean Lamour, Université  Lorraine

Globally, communities are turning to desalinate alternative water resources, including seawater, brackishwater, and reclaimed water, to augment potable, agricultural, and industrial water supplies. Therefore, highly integrated treatment technologies that increase water and energy utilization and efficiency, recover additional water and mineral resources, and achieve zero-liquid discharge - especially in inland and arid regions - are necessary to increase water resiliency and resource security in our rapidly changing climate. To address this challenge, CNRS - Institut Jean Lamour and UofA team collaboration propose a 3D printed and biobased solar crystallizer for salt/water separation of high concentrated brine for self sustained desalination, mineral recovery, and zero-liquid discharge. The 3D-SEPARATION project proposes to integrate the 3D printed carbon evaporator crystallizer in the MD-CSP/PV system to recover valuable minerals from highly saline brines, and increase the overall desalination system efficiency by mitigating membrane scaling - a phenomena that inhibits water recovery and reduces energy efficiency in the desalination process. The goal of the 3D-SEPARATION project is to strengthen the desalination innovation ecosystem and close the loop on the circular water-energy-resource recovery economy. The project will focus on three specific goals : (i) design a new and efficient solar evaporator for salt separation, (ii) design a new solar crystallizer and (ii) move towards realizing zero liquid discharge  (ZLD). Our methodology will focus on the parallel use of a stereolithography 3D printer (SLA) in both teams. The CNRS will develop evaporation materials, formulate and simulate optimal geometries for 3D-printed evaporators, and the UofA team will carry out tests on site, in a real operating environment, then on a larger scale and integrated into a solar crystallization reactor.

UA PI: Sara Fraker, School of Music

CNRS PI: Anne Peggy Hellequin, Université Paris, Nanterre

Climate change is having a major impact on societies and their environments in semi-arid regions such as deserts. These territories experience variations in average temperatures or precipitation regimes that affect biodiversity or human health. Our aim is to understand how stakeholders in a region of southern Arizona understand the dynamics of their socio-ecosystems through the observation of their biodiversity, particularly in its sonic dimension. And we seek to understand how soundscapes contribute to their awareness of ongoing changes and threats to their well-being and quality of life. This project brings together geographers, anthropologists, ecologists, eco-acousticians and musicians in an attempt to grasp the way in which societies apprehend the local impacts of global change. It enables us to develop arts/sciences approaches to raise awareness of and make audible the microexperiences of environmental transformations.

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UA PI: Heidi Brown, Public Health

CNRS PI: Florent Mouillot, Centre D’Ecologie fonctionnelle & Evolutive

Both heat waves and wildfires have significant impacts on human health. Increasing evidence warns that climate change will generate more prolonged and frequent heatwaves leading to concomitant heat-driven large fire events. Yet, a multi-risk assessment of these events combined together and their human health impacts is lacking. We leverage complementary skills between UofA (epidemiology) and CNRS (fire/climate science) to assess the current exposure and vulnerabilities of human populations to this combined hazard. By assembling epidemiological information, historical daily climate and extreme event indices, remotely sensed fire types and smoke plume, we will question i) the differential effects of fire characteristics on human health, ii) the potential multiplicative effect of concomitant heatwave and wildfire considering the counterfactual winter prescribed burnings, and iii) the differential vulnerabilities of exposed populations across continents. We will then assemble the scientific basis for management strategies on mitigating climate change impact on human health in fire-prone regions