Identifying Grand Challenges in Climate Change Research: Guiding DOE

1
Identifying Grand Challenges in Climate Change
Research Guiding DOEs Strategic Planning

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

2
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 Orbachs charge letter seen
  in agenda in appendix but not repeated as not
  used as framing for the challenges recommended.

3
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).

4
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.

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Grand Challenges Identified by the Workshop

• Improve the characterization of Earths 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.

6
Translation into DOE science strategy

• Report implies that much of DOEs 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.

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Improve the characterization of Earths 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.

8
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.

9
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.

10
Research areas needed to address Grand
Challenges-each area has 3-components

• Characterize the Earths present climate.
• Predict climate over the next several decades.
• Simulate Earth System change over centuries.

11
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.

12
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?

13
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?

14
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.

15
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?

16
Emphases implied for DOE climate program

• Better inform modeling activities through DOEs
  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.

17
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.