The first publication that resulted partly from NICCR Coastal Center funding appeared in Science on November 16, 2007. The study, led by ecologist Jeff Chambers at Tulane University, showed that powerful hurricanes can cause more widespread damage in coastal forest ecosystems than previously thought, with potential implications for carbon cycling under conditions of future climate change. Specifically, the authors estimate the biomass loss due to Hurricane Katrina at ~100 teragrams of carbon, which corresponds approximately to the net amount of carbon that is sequestered annually in U.S. forests. Once respired into the atmosphere, this could provide a positive feedback to global warming. A nice illustration of this work, including a video, is provided by NASA.

This study caught widespread attention from the news media, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune along with numerous international news outlets (Reuters) as well as television and radio coverage, including a report by National Public Radio.