News

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM),

Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM)

The Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) project includes Earth System Models, simulations, and predictions to investigate energy-relevant science using code optimized for DOE's advanced supercomputers.

Source: NVCL Web Page Source

including its atmosphere model (EAM), incorporates many relatively new features. In a prior investigation, a comprehensive parametric sensitivity analysis for the EAM was performed based on short, perturbed parameter ensemble (PPE) simulations, focusing on global mean climate features and metrics.

Water-soluble and reactive organic gases emitted by biomass

biomass

Material that comes from living things, including trees, crops, grasses, and animals and animal waste. Some kinds of biomass, such as wood and biofuels, can be burned to produce energy.

Source: EPA Global Climate Change Source

burning are key unidentified sources of fine secondary organic aerosol

aerosols

Small particles or droplets, such as wildfire smoke, volcanic gases, or salty sea spray, that float in the air. They are emitted by both natural events and human activities.

Source: NASA Global Climate Change Source

particles in the atmosphere. Thousands of tiny particles in the atmosphere unseen by the naked eye scatter and absorb solar radiation and seed clouds. A lot of these particles are not directly emitted but are formed by reactions of gases with atmospheric oxidants in multiple phases.

Atlantic tropical cyclones (TCs) cause enormous damage. Scientists have sought to understand TC risk at local-to-regional scales. The challenge in understanding that risk lies in the limited historical data and rarity of these storms making landfall, combined with the high cost of simulating storms using advanced climate models.

The current convection-cloud chamber, while useful, is likely too small to explore how turbulence affects the collision-coalescence among cloud droplets. Droplet collision-coalescence plays an important role in the initial formation of drizzle-sized droplets, yet quantitative

quantitative

Data represented numerically, including anything that can be counted, measured, or given a numerical value.

Source: National Library of Medicine Source

understanding of this process in turbulent clouds is lacking.

The renewable energy

renewable energy

Renewable energy comes from unlimited, naturally replenished resources, such as the sun, tides, and wind. Renewable energy can be used for electricity generation, space and water heating and cooling, and transportation.

Source: U.S Department of Energy Source

spotlight is turning toward distributed wind. Increased reliability and affordability, combined with funding and incentives provided by the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, have given rise to an unprecedented opportunity for distributed wind energy deployment. Making it easier for businesses, farmers, homeowners, and communities to turn this opportunity into on-site energy.

New Mexico middle and high school students are encouraged to apply for the free, two-week Summer Physics Camp for Young Women, taught primarily by women scientists and engineers of Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories, which runs June 10-21, 2024. The application deadline is April 1, 2024. Hosted at the New Mexico School for the Arts in Santa Fe, the camp will explore topics related to energy and energy security.

If anyone can see the forest for the trees, it’s KC Cushman. Cushman, a Liane B. Russell Fellow at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been studying trees and forests in an effort to help humans care for them and improve the health of the planet. Cushman decided as a college student that studying the world’s forests might be a good way to help mitigate the effects of climate change

climate change

A change in the average conditions — such as temperature and rainfall — in a region over a long period of time.

Source: NASA Climate Kids Source

and literally help save the earth.

Hydropower

hydropower

One of the oldest and largest sources of renewable energy, which uses the natural flow of moving water to generate electricity

Source: U.S. Department of Energy Source

dams provide reliable renewable energy, but they also have a direct impact on the environment, especially fish. Adjusting the amount of water spilling over a dam can help fish successfully navigate dams. But spilling more water means less water is available to produce power.

Assessing the genomes of soil bacteria around the globe, researchers identified three dominant life strategies linked to different types of soil. Soil bacteria help regulate the cycling of carbon and nutrients on Earth. Over time, these bacteria have evolved strategies that determine where they live, what they do, and how they deal with a changing environment.

For kids in underserved communities, access to STEM experiences does not come as a given. Candice Halbert, YO-STEM founder and chemist at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is working to change this. Halbert devotes her time outside the lab to building STEM opportunities for youth in nearby communities.

Current streamflow simulations in Earth system models

earth system model (ESM)

A model that simulates how chemistry, biology, and physical forces work together. These models are similar to, but much more comprehensive than, global climate models.

Source: U.S. Department of Energy Source

are faced with considerable uncertainties, necessitating parameter calibration to constrain the results. Although both hydrological and hydrodynamic processes

hydrodynamic process

The movement and behavior of fluids, notably water, as influenced by various forces such as gravity, pressure gradients, and fluid viscosity.

Source: Source

play crucial roles in influencing streamflow variability, previous studies focus on calibrating only one process to improve streamflow simulation.

Researchers use fire intensity data to inform plume-rise model and understand how aerosols travel vertically. The more intense a fire, the further biomass-burning aerosols—mostly comprised of organic carbon and black carbon—go into the air, and they have significant effects on the Earth system because they absorb heat and influence cloud properties.