WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $19 million in funding for 31 new projects in atmospheric sciences aimed at improving the power of Earth system models to predict weather and climate.

“Atmospheric processes leading to cloud formation and precipitation are notoriously complex and difficult to model accurately,” said Dr. Chris Fall, Director of the DOE’s Office of Science.  “These studies, which combine observation and modeling, will be important steps toward more precise and predictive models on both regional and global scales.”

Selected projects cover a range of atmospheric science topics, including interactions between clouds and aerosols (tiny particles that contribute to cloud formation), atmospheric processes in the high Northern and Southern latitudes, and the development of new data products to render atmospheric data more usable and accessible to researchers. The resulting data and analysis will help improve Earth system models, which are large-scale simulations of environmental processes run on powerful supercomputers. 

Projects were chosen by competitive peer review under the DOE Funding Opportunity Announcement, under the Atmospheric System Research Program, sponsored by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research, within the Department’s Office of Science.

Funding totals $19 million with Fiscal Year 2020 dollars for projects lasting three years. A list of projects can be found at the BER website under “What's New”.