The DOE SC program in Biological and Environmental Research (BER) hereby announces its interest in receiving applications for Atmospheric System Research (ASR) within BER’s Earth and Environmental Systems Sciences Division (EESSD). ASR supports research on key cloud, aerosol, precipitation, and radiative transfer processes that affect the Earth’s radiative balance and hydrological cycle, especially processes that limit the predictive ability of regional and global models. This FOA solicits research grant applications for observational, data analysis, and/or modeling studies that use observations supported by BER, including the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility, to improve understanding and model representation of:
All research supported by awards under this FOA is intended to benefit the public through increasing the understanding of the Earth system.
The goal of ASR is to quantify the interactions among aerosols, clouds, precipitation, and radiation to improve understanding of key cloud, aerosol, precipitation, and radiation processes that affect the Earth’s radiative balance and hydrological cycle, especially processes that limit the predictive ability of regional and global models. For the most part, ASR investments are based on measurements of radiation, aerosols, clouds, precipitation, thermodynamics, turbulence, and state variables from the ARM user facility. ARM’s continuous observational datasets are supplemented with process models, laboratory studies, and shorter-duration ground-based and airborne field campaigns to target specific atmospheric processes in different atmospheric and climatic regimes and across a range of spatial and temporal scales. ASR’s four priority research areas are focused on reducing the large uncertainties in Earth system prediction that can be traced to: aerosol processes, warm boundary-layer processes, convective processes, and high-latitude processes. Specific topics solicited in ASR funding opportunity announcements vary from year to year to take advantage of new ARM data, respond to ASR-relevant workshop reports, and maintain a balanced research portfolio. Not all ASR priority research areas will be solicited every year.
ASR’s FOA topics change from year to year to ensure breadth across the program and to take advantage of observations from recent ARM campaigns. A list of eligible topics can be found starting at https://science.osti.gov/ber/-/media/grants/pdf/foas/2023/DE-FOA-0002850.pdf#page=11.
