# Presentation: 243262

## Identifying Grand Challenges in Climate Change Research: Guiding DOE’s Strategic Planning: 

- Report on the DOE/BERAC workshop
- 25-27 March
- Crystal City
- For BERAC meeting
- 20 May

## Meeting summary

- About 60 Participants – about half from DOE labs and half from universities and other Federal labs.
- Mix of plenaries and breakout sessions.
-  Organized based on Orbach’s charge letter – seen in agenda in appendix but not repeated as not used as framing for the challenges recommended.

## Process of report preparation

- Initial content agreed to by a drafting group meeting the afternoon following the workshop
- Written by the co-chairs and iterated many times with a subset of the workshop participants.
- The reports overall message appears to have converged.
- However, it still needs to be looked at by the BERAC and the other workshop participants who have not yet seen it (comments through the latter better done from a closed interactive website).

## Background to the meeting

- Climate change from use of fossil fuel energy recognized by DOE as a major constraint on the Nations future development and use of energy.
- IPCC 2007 reported that this climate change already highly visible and expected to continue unabated for at least the next several decades.
- Since that report, a number of further studies showing some changes happening even faster than anticipated.
- A chorus of voices asking for more detailed local information on what has and will change for their planning horizons
- NOAA planning on providing a “Climate Services” to meet this need with there yet being little of the research being done that such a “Services” would have to be built upon.

## Grand Challenges Identified by the Workshop

**Improve the characterization of Earth’s climate, and its evolution through the last century to its present state.**
**Predict regional climate change for the next several decades.**
**Simulate Earth System change over centuries.**

## Translation into DOE science strategy

- Report implies that much of DOE’s current climate science program needed .
- But shift in emphasis called for to realign to fit current scientific and political reality of need for useful climate information.
- Obtaining and disseminating such information is a hugh task with a large practical component – “climate services” – but such needs to be informed by a research program that DOE can be a major contributor to.

## Improve the characterization of Earth’s climate, and its evolution through the last century to its present state.

- A high-dimensional dynamical system – individual observations are snapshots of components are particular times and place - do not recognize the interconnectedness.
- NWP provides a prototype what is needed. Through statistical modeling, combine multiple streams of observations with model predictions to optimally describe system.
- Reanalyses go back in time using a single consistent model.
- Provide global system research data sets and initial conditions for future projections.
- Improves with improvement of the model process descriptions.

## Predict Regional Climate Change for the Next Several Decades

- Much more climate detail can be provided by
- Use of latest high performance computational tools.
-  limiting time frame to decadal and  processes to those that are important on that time frame.
-  Additional information if initial state adequately constrained by observations – expected product from the first Challenge.

## Simulate Earth System change over centuries

- On century time scales many feedbacks affect climate system that are not yet modeled or adequately so (e.g., involving biogeochemical cycling, dynamic vegetation,  and atmospheric chemistry) .
- Carbon cycle feedbacks have large control on how much atmospheric CO2 over this time.

## Research areas needed to address Grand Challenges-each area has 3-components

- Characterize the Earth’s present climate.
- Predict climate over the next several decades.
- Simulate Earth System change over centuries.

## Characterize impacts of radiatively active constituents-aerosols and atmospheric chemistry

- Current radiative forcing-regionally specific -attribution of current observed patterns?
- How affect clouds?
- Analysis and assimilation of observations into models.
- How will forcing change regionally in the next several decades?
- Changes over century of aerosols and other radiative forcing from human and natural causes and feedbacks with climate change.

## Interactions between ecosystems  and  climate 

- What are the appropriate state variables for Earth System models?
- What and how do natural and managed ecosystems contribute to atmospheric composition?
- Spatial data sets needed to represent in Earth System models.
- How will ecosystems be impacted by and contribute to climate change and air quality change  regionally over next few decades?
- Changes and feedbacks on century time scale?

## Interactions between climate change and management of hydrological systems

- Regional climate impact of land use/land cover change?
- How incorporate impacts of climate change on water management?
- Eliminate persistent biases in simulated regional predictions.
- quantitative measures of ability to predict changes in extreme precipitation probabilities.
- Changed frequencies of floods and droughts?
- How temperature change affected by changing soil moisture and land cover?

## Earth System Modeling

- Plan and develop next/multiple generations
- Incorporate advances in process understanding to further model complexity and improve parameterizations-e.g. clouds.
- Develop and improve/validate initialization procedures.
- Resolve cloud processes.
- Provide regional details to integrated assessment models.
- Use next generation of emission scenarios to project Earth System on century scale.

## Energy Systems and Climate Change

- Most promising near term strategies for reduction of carbon emission?
- How will climate change and mitigation efforts impact national economies over the next several decades?
- Vulnerable sectors of society?
- What adaptation strategies should we be putting in place?

## Emphases implied for DOE climate program

- Better inform modeling activities through DOE’s climate observational programs (ARM, aerosol, carbon, ecology...) needed interfaces currently missing?
- Connect integrated assessment modeling to climate modeling – recognize in general major human dimensions elements that involve research questions.
- Will require training/education of many more scientists.

## Directions Highlighted

- Grand Challenges include the integration and communication of many improved and improving kinds of scientific information into overall assessment of how climate is changing.
- Physical processes, options for mitigation and adaptation.
- New research, computational, observational, and experimental directions needed.
- Directly related to and facilitated by enhanced computing capabilities.
- Large multiyear field program needed?
- Several workshops to develop more details.