Biological and Environmental Research Climate and Environmental Sciences
Description The Climate and Environmental Sciences subprogram supports fundamental science and research capabilities that enable major scientific developments in climate-relevant atmospheric and ecosystem process and modeling research, in support of DOE’s mission goals for basic science, energy, and national security. This includes research on clouds, aerosols, and the terrestrial carbon cycle; large-scale climate change and Earth system modeling; the interdependence of climate change and ecosystems; and integrated analysis of climate change impacts on energy and related infrastructures, with a view toward increasing fractions of renewable energy of total U.S. energy production. It also supports subsurface biogeochemical research that advances fundamental understanding of coupled physical, chemical, and biological processes controlling both the terrestrial component of the carbon cycle and the environmental fate and transport of energy byproducts, including greenhouse gases. This integrated portfolio of research from molecular-level to field-scales emphasizes the coupling of multidisciplinary experimentation and advanced computer models and is aimed at developing predictive, systems-level understanding of the fundamental science associated with climate change and other energy-related environmental challenges. The Department will continue to advance the science necessary to further develop predictive climate and Earth system models targeting resolution at the regional spatial scale and interannual to centennial time scales and to focus on areas of critical uncertainty including Arctic ecology and permafrost thaw, tropical ecological change, and carbon release, in close coordination with the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and the international science community. In addition, environmental research activities will support fundamental research to explore advances in environmental cleanup and reductions in life cycle costs. The subprogram supports three primary research activities, two national scientific user facilities, and a major data activity. The two national scientific user facilities are the Atmospheric Radiation Measurements Climate Research Facility (ARM) and the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL). ARM provides unique, multi-instrumented capabilities for continuous, long-term observations and model–simulated high resolution information that are needed to develop and test understanding of the central role of clouds and aerosols on climate scales and on spatial scales extending from local to global. EMSL provides integrated experimental and computational resources needed to understand the physical, biogeochemical, chemical, and biological processes that underlie DOE’s energy and environmental mission. The data activity encompasses observations collected by dedicated field experiments, routine and long term observations accumulated by user facilities, and model generated information derived from climate modeling platforms. Atmospheric System Research Atmospheric System Research (ASR) is the primary U.S. activity addressing two major areas of uncertainty in climate change model projections: the role of clouds and the effects of aerosols on precipitation, and the atmospheric radiation balance. ASR coordinates with ARM, using the facility’s continuous long-term datasets that provide three-dimensional measurements of radiation, aerosols, clouds, precipitation, dynamics, and thermodynamics over a range of environmental conditions at diverse climate-sensitive locations. The long-term observational datasets are supplemented with laboratory studies and shorter-duration, ground-based and airborne field campaigns to target specific atmospheric processes under a diversity of locations and atmospheric conditions. ASR research results are incorporated into Earth system models developed by Climate and Earth System Modeling to both understand the processes that govern atmospheric components and to advance Earth system model capabilities with greater certainty of predictions. ASR seeks to develop integrated, scalable test-beds that incorporate process-level understanding of the life cycles of aerosols, clouds, and precipitation into dynamic models. Environmental System Science Environmental System Science supports research to provide a robust, predictive understanding of terrestrial surface and subsurface ecosystems, including the effects of climate change, from the subsurface to the top of the vegetated canopy and from molecular to global scales. This includes understanding the role of ecosystems in climate with an emphasis on carbon cycling and the role of subsurface biogeochemical processes in the fate and transport of carbon, nutrients, radionuclides, and heavy metals. A significant fraction of the CO 2 released to the atmosphere during fossil fuel combustion is taken up by terrestrial ecosystems, but the impacts of climatic change, particularly warming, on the uptake of CO 2 by the terrestrial biosphere remain poorly understood. The significant sensitivity of climate models to terrestrial carbon cycle feedback and the uncertain signs of that feedback make resolving the role of the terrestrial biosphere on the carbon balance a high priority.
Science/Biological and Environmental Research
FY 2017 Congressional Budget Justification
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