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From providing a foundation for innovative computing research to fostering new connections and opening the door to diverse career paths, ATPESC (Argonne Training Program on Extreme-Scale Computing) has become a defining chapter in the professional journeys of many attendees. Since its launch in 2013, the annual ATPESC has hosted nearly 800 attendees for an immersive learning experience designed to teach them the fundamentals of using supercomputers for scientific research.

The nation is closer to its offshore wind energy goals than ever before, but has some rough waters yet to navigate. To further reduce risk and costs associated with offshore wind development—and help assure future wind farms operate efficiently and reliably—better wind forecasting is needed. Weather patterns are difficult to predict offshore due to complex atmosphere-ocean interactions and a lack of observational data.

New research describes how demands from plant roots affect source-to-sink carbon relationships mediated by a ubiquitous hormone in poplar trees. A key part of tissue growth and 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

productivity in plants is their ability to shuttle carbon to specific parts of a plant, thereby enabling those parts to become a carbon sink (e.g., roots). Even so, the molecules and biomolecular processes that drive plants, and particularly trees, to create sinks for carbon is not well understood.

Students from Hunter College Middle School and Ward Melville High School are headed to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Science Bowl this spring after earning the top spots in the Long Island Regional Middle School and High School Science Bowl competitions hosted by DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory on Feb. 1 and 2. These are repeat wins for both schools, who were named regional champions in the fast-paced question-and-answer academic tournament last year.

Ice-nucleating particles

ice-nucleating particles

Tiny specks of material suspended in the air that act as starting points for the formation of ice crystals in clouds.

Source: PNNL Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Source

consist of tiny specks of material suspended in the atmosphere that act as starting points for the growth of ice crystals in clouds. These rare particles are poorly understood and are not well characterized at lower latitudes in remote marine regions. As part of a published study, a multi-institutional team of researchers collected particles by aircraft in the marine boundary layer and free troposphere over Portugal’s Azores islands as part of the 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

and Cloud Experiments in the Eastern North Atlantic (ACE-ENA) campaign.

Kevin Reed, associate dean of research and associate professor at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University and an Earth & Environmental Systems Modeling (EESM)-funded scientist, will help lead the formation of the New York Climate Exchange (“The Exchange”), an international climate center located on Governors Island in New York Harbor. Reed is a co-principal investigator for the U.S. Department of Energy HyperFACETS project.

Polyolefins are a type of plastic that is resistant to breaking down. This makes this plastic—a kind found in everything from grocery bags to car bumpers—hard to recycle. In this study, scientists discovered a potential solution, the yeast Yarrowia lipolytica. The study found that the yeast can use hydrocarbons from polyolefin plastic wastes to grow its own cells. It does so by shifting its production of protein toward energy and lipid metabolism to grow on hydrocarbons.

Microorganisms and their metabolisms help silica to mineralize near deep ocean methane

methane

A hydrocarbon that is a primary component of natural gas. Methane is also a greenhouse gas (GHG), so its presence in the atmosphere affects the earth’s temperature and climate system

Source: EPA Source

seeps. Communities of microbes

microbe

Microbes are tiny living things that are found all around us and are too small to be seen by the naked eye. They live in water, soil, and in the air.

Source: NIH Source

that live in ocean sediments can consume methane. In oxygen-deprived sediments these microbes form clusters, called aggregates, that can have deposits of silica on their surfaces. It is not clear if these silica deposits result from the activity of methane consuming aggregates, or if their formation is unrelated to biological processes.

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility will host an open science-focused summer school from May 19 to 24, 2024, at Cleveland State University in Ohio. The ARM Open Science Summer School: Connecting State-of-the-Art Models with Diverse Field Campaign Observations is targeted at students from undergraduates to postdoctoral scholars. Planned activities include instructional talks, tutorials, and mentored hackathon sessions for attendees to work with ARM data

ARM data

Continuous field measurements of atmospheric data collected with Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) instruments at fixed and varying locations worldwide.

Source: Argonne National Laboratory Source

and open-source software.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science is pleased to announce that the Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program is now accepting applications for the 2024 solicitation 1 cycle. Applications are due on Wednesday, May 1, 2024, at 5:00 p.m. ET. The SCGSR program provides supplemental awards to outstanding U.S. graduate students to conduct graduate thesis research at a DOE national laboratory or facility in collaboration with a DOE laboratory scientist to prepare graduate students for scientific and technical careers.

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility has two proposal calls open simultaneously for its tethered balloon systems (TBS). For fiscal year 2025 (FY2025), ARM is now accepting preliminary proposals for TBS missions while also participating in a joint call with the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL). Like ARM, EMSL is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science user facility. The ARM/EMSL call is supported through the Facilities Integrating Collaborations for User Science (FICUS) program.

With lots of solar and wind power, energy storage, and advanced extreme weather impact modeling, Puerto Rico could achieve a 100% renewable power grid by 2050. These and other recommendations are the results of the Puerto Rico Grid Resilience and Transitions to 100% 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

Study (PR100). For the last two years, six Department of Energy national laboratories, with extensive input from stakeholders in Puerto Rico, studied how the island can build a renewable, resilient grid.