$15.6 million awarded for atmospheric research to improve climate modeling
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced a total of $15.6 million in funding awards for 27 scientists who will conduct 26 research projects through DOE’s Atmospheric System Research (ASR) program.
The university-based projects are designed to expand the fundamental understanding of earth systems and improve earth system models. Researchers will study the properties, formation, and interactions between atmospheric clouds and the aerosols that form them. According to the DOE announcement, these projects will help scientists better understand one of the most challenging aspects of earth system modeling and strengthen their ability to accurately predict weather and climate patterns.
“The Earth’s atmosphere holds the answers to how our planet is changing in the face of the climate crisis, as well as how we can predict and mitigate the effects,” says Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “By putting some of America’s most talented researchers on the case, coupled with DOE’s unparalleled scientific capabilities, we’ll gain a better understanding of how this crisis is unfolding—paving the way for solutions that leave a safer, healthier world for our children and grandchildren.”
ASR advances understanding of the atmospheric system in a holistic, comprehensive fashion that addresses a range of interrelated climatic processes, resulting in improved earth system models that can increase confidence in decision and policymaking. These studies will use atmospheric data gathered by DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility.
“We targeted our call to cover five research areas of interest to the Department of Energy and the ASR research community,” says ASR Program Manager Jeff Stehr. “Those targeted areas include aerosol-cloud interactions, aerosol processes, warm boundary-layer processes, deep convective processes from ARM’s CACTI (Cloud, Aerosol, and Complex Terrain Interactions) field campaign in north-central Argentina, and also from ARM’s recent high-latitude field campaigns.”
Researchers will study atmospheric processes in the Arctic using data from the Cold-Air Outbreaks in the Marine Boundary Layer Experiment (COMBLE) in Norway and the Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) in the central Arctic.
“We want to thank everyone who took the time and did the hard work to submit proposals. We also want to thank the 58 members of our review panels for their time and thoughtful dedication.”
In response to DOE Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) DE-FOA-0002391, the scientific community submitted 91 full proposals for 85 distinct projects. Review panels composed of university, federal, and DOE national laboratory scientists with expertise in observations, data analysis, and modeling of the atmospheric system provided input on the scientific merit of the proposals.
“With so many excellent proposals, it was difficult to select just 26 projects,” says Stehr. “We want to thank everyone who took the time and did the hard work to submit proposals. We also want to thank the 58 members of our review panels for their time and thoughtful dedication.”
The ASR FOA was sponsored by the Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program within DOE’s Office of Science.
Once fiscal year 2021 funding awards are finalized, principal investigators, project titles, abstracts, and team members will be added to the ASR projects web page.
Following are the 26 recommended projects and 27 scientists selected for awards.
- Timothy Bertram, University of Wisconsin, Madison – “Observation-based Constraints on the Condensational Growth of Marine Aerosol Particles to Cloud Condensation Nuclei in the Eastern North Atlantic”
- Will Cantrell, Michigan Technological University – “Laboratory Investigations of Aerosol-Cloud Interactions in an Entraining, Turbulent Environment”
- Marcelo Chamecki, University of California, Los Angeles – “Boundary layer theory for canopies covering complex terrain: Going from eddies in motion to biosphere-atmosphere exchanges and their representation in climate models”
- Jessie Creamean, Colorado State University – “Closing the gap on understudied aerosol-climate processes in the rapidly changing central Arctic”
- Ann Fridlind, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (lead) and Lynn Russell, University of California, San Diego (co-investigator) – “Combining long-term observations and Lagrangian case studies to evaluate stratiform cloud precipitation processes in climate models”
- Hamish Gordon, Carnegie Mellon University – “Insights from ARM observations into aerosol processing and transport by extratropical cyclones and aerosol effects on cyclone clouds”
- Colette Heald, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – “Exploring Past and Future Drivers of Biogenic SOA”
- Christopher Hennigan, University of Maryland, Baltimore County – “Brown Carbon Production and Loss in Atmospheric Clouds: Dynamic Changes due to Droplet Drying, pH, and Photolysis”
- Thijs Heus, Cleveland State University – “Understanding spatial organization during precipitation-induced convective cloud transitions”
- Adele Igel, University of California, Davis – “Observational Assessment of Aerosol Impacts on Updraft Speed in Deep Convection”
- Coty Jen, Carnegie Mellon University – “Vertically-Resolved Measurements of Nucleation Precursors”
- Neil Lareau, University of Nevada, Reno – “Boundary layer and orographic controls on convection initiation during CACTI”
- Alexander Laskin, Purdue University – “Spectro-Microscopic Investigation of the Aerosol Impact on Hydrological Processes”
- Ezra Levin, Handix Scientific LLC – “Investigating spatial variability of aerosol, cloud condensation nuclei, and ice nucleating particles in mountainous terrain”
- Dan Lubin, University of California, San Diego – “Search for a Cloud Phase Feedback in the Arctic Climate System”
- Gerald Mace, University of Utah – “High Latitude Aerosol-Cloud Interaction during MARCUS, MICRE, and AWARE: The role of CCN variability on Marine Cloud Brightening and links to Precipitation”
- Sergey Matrosov, University of Colorado, Boulder – “Investigations of snowfall processes based on multi-sensor measurements collected during the MOSAiC expedition”
- Mark Miller, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey – “Mesoscale Organization in Cumulus-Coupled Marine Stratocumulus”
- Suzanne Paulson, University of California, Los Angeles – “Cloud Water Chemistry and Aerosol Processing: Assessing the Hydroxyl Radical Burst in Newly Formed Cloud Droplets”
- Scott Powell, Naval Postgraduate School – “Dynamics of Shallow to Deep Convective Transitions During CACTI”
- Kristen Rasmussen, Colorado State University – “Investigation of clouds, aerosols, vertical motion, and cold pools during the full convective lifecycle using observations and model simulations from the CACTI field campaign”
- Scott Salesky, University of Oklahoma – “Effects of large-scale motions on turbulent heat and moisture transport in the convective boundary layer”
- Manabu Shiraiwa, University of California, Irvine – “Interplay of Gas-phase Reactions and Multi-phase Processes on Phase State and Growth Dynamics of Secondary Organic Aerosols”
- Matthew West, University of Illinois – “High-detail aerosol simulation for intercomparison with spatially distributed and pointwise field measurements and global models”
- Ian Williams, Iowa State University – “Interactions Between Clouds and Wind-Driven Surface Heat Exchanges over Land”
- Qi Zhang, University of California, Davis – “Investigating the Impacts of Aqueous-Phase Processing on Organic Aerosol Chemical Climatology Using ARM and ASR Observations.”
ARM is a DOE Office of Science user facility operated by nine DOE national laboratories.