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Program Domain

Biosphere-Atmosphere Interactions

Setting up a portable eddy-covariance system to measure carbon and water flux in the San Francisco Delta. Portable solar panels provide power.
Setting up a portable eddy-covariance system to measure carbon and water flux in the San Francisco Delta

To advance understanding of dynamic biosphere-atmosphere interactions involving greenhouse gases, water and energy, such as respiration, photosynthesis, and ecosystem carbon storage.

Programs

Program

Terrestrial Ecosystem Science

This program’s focus is to understand and explain mechanisms and processes controlling primary production, carbon cycling, and soil biogeochemistry; the impacts of disturbance on terrestrial ecosystems; and ecosystem feedbacks to climate in vulnerable environments. In addition, it seeks to establish and maintain environmental field observatories.

Margaret Torn

Margaret S. Torn mstorn@lbl.gov 510-495-2223

Program

Climate Modeling

This program aims to develop global process-resolving models to help quantify the roles of climate feedbacks in anthropogenic climate change. Abrupt and extreme climate changes from anthropogenic warming pose some of the greatest risks to society and the environment. Understanding of the complex interactions involved with feedbacks is critical.

Christina Marie Patricola cmpatricola@lbl.gov

lightening strike in Great Plains Oklahoma
Program

Atmospheric System Research

The Earth and Environmental Sciences Area’s, Atmospheric System Research Program advances fundamental understanding of atmospheric radiation, clouds, and precipitation, and their interactions with Earth’s surface and climate.

Margaret Torn

Margaret S. Torn mstorn@lbl.gov 510-495-2223

Background

The Biosphere-Atmosphere Interactions (BAI) Program Domain was initiated early 2016, within the new Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division (Fall 2015). Programs and projects within this program domain use measurements, theory and models to deepen understanding of complex terrestrial ecosystem processes that have profound impacts on atmospheric composition and climate.

Research endeavors involve both large and small teams of researchers, assessing factors for ecosystem response to climate change, such as disturbance impacts on terrestrial ecosystems in vulnerable environments, or carbon storage changes in response to warming soils. Scientists work from molecular to regional to global spatial scales, and from diurnal to centennial timescales. Collaborations involve big data sets and international networks.

BAI is one of four Program Domains within the Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division.

Current research activities

  • Use atmospheric measurements and process understanding to evaluate and improve Earth system models.
  • Advance basic understanding of the role of the land surface in cloud and precipitation processes, including drought and heat extremes.
  • Measure heterogeneous soil moisture and surface fluxes for process understanding, model implementation, and uncertainty analysis.

Program Domain Leads

Margaret Torn

Margaret S. Torn
Senior Scientist

News & Events

EESA Scientists Collaborate With Universities to bring Environmental Science Research Opportunities and Training to Students Underrepresented in STEM

January 13, 2023

  EESA researchers are collaborators in three of the 41 projects awarded in December by DOE through its Reaching a New Energy Sciences Workforce (RENEW) initiative.  RENEW aims to build foundations for research at institutions that have been historically underrepresented in the Office of Science (SC) research portfolio. The initiative provides opportunities for undergraduate and…

A Q&A With Postdoc Kunxiaoja Yuan

January 4, 2023

  Kunxiaojia Yuan received her Bachelor’s of Engineering in remote sensing and Ph.D. in geographic information engineering from Wuhan University. She is a postdoctoral researcher in EESA, with a research focus on global carbon, energy, and water cycle analysis and model evaluation using machine learning and causal inference. What motivated you to pursue a postdoc…

A Q&A With Postdoc Brandon Enalls

After flipping on the TV to a science channel segment about environmental microbes, postdoc researcher Brandon Enalls was instantly amazed by microbiology. After working with a research group that studied microbes in extreme salinity, like the Dead Sea, Enalls knew he wanted to study microbes “in strange places, doing strange things,” inspiring him to get…

Study Demonstrates the Importance of Data Management When Downscaling

December 12, 2022

Global climate models can help show the planet’s future, but what if you want to zoom in on an individual spot on the map? To get more local information, climate scientists commonly use an approach called downscaling to make global data relevant to an individual area. Downscaling relies, in part, on comparing the observed historical…

Strengthening FAIRer Earth and Environmental Systems Science Data with Community-led Reporting Formats

November 14, 2022

Earth and environmental systems science (ESS) research is evidence-based and relies on the analysis and modeling of diverse and multi-scale datasets. The volume of ESS data has risen sharply in recent years, with more data gathered by the minute. This may come as positive news—however, much of this data remains unarchived, difficult to access, and…

Register for the 2022 ESS-DIVE Community Data Workshop to Advance Environmental System Science through Collaborative Data Management

October 26, 2022

From the climate crisis to water insecurity, high-quality, openly available data are needed to solve global environmental challenges. However, important environmental systems science (ESS) data often remains difficult to access, unarchived, or even unusable. To help improve access to and use of ESS data, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) supported the establishment of the…

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