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    Areas of Global Change Research. Research by DOE’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research addresses the effects of energy production and use on the global Earth system primarily through studies of climate response. It includes research in climate modeling, atmospheric chemistry and transport, atmospheric properties and processes affecting the Earth’s radiant energy balance, sources and sinks of energy-related greenhouse gases (primarily CO₂), consequences of atmospheric and climatic changes on vegetation and ecosystems, critical data needs for global change research and for early detection of climatic change, support of scientifically based assessments of environmental and economic consequences of climate change, and funding for education and training of scientists and researchers in global change.

    FY 2000 Program Highlights. The DOE Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program utilizes the unique multidisciplinary facilities of the DOE National Laboratories and supports research and infrastructure at these Laboratories, universities, and other research institutions. With the other USGCRP agencies, a new focus in FY 2000 is the Accelerated Climate Prediction Initiative (ACPI), which will integrate the frontiers of computational science and climate science to accelerate progress in climate simulation model development and application; to substantially reduce the uncertainties in decade-to-century model-based projections of climate change; and to increase the availability and utility of climate change projections to the broader climate change research and assessment communities. Additional new resources are requested by DOE for new research to advance understanding of the global carbon cycle, particularly how natural processes control the exchange of carbon between the atmosphere and terrestrial and marine ecosystems. In support of the USGCRP, the BER program includes activities in the following four key areas:

    1) Climate and Hydrology: The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program focuses on the improvement of parameters for climate prediction. In FY 2000, ARM will deploy the third research station in the Tropical Western Pacific and continue activities at the Southern Great Plains and on the North Slope of Alaska. The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle program will complete additional experiments and data analysis to resolve the excess absorption uncertainty.

    In FY 2000, the Program on Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) will focus on phase 2 of the international Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, and the Computer Hardware, Advanced Mathematics and Model Physics (CHAMMP) program will provide results of the first set of new Parallel Climate Model climate simulations. The ACPI will focus on the analysis and downscaling of GCMs for regional studies, on multi-institutional model development research for long time simulation at regional resolution, and improved predictability and parameterization of GCMs.

    2) Atmospheric Chemistry and Carbon Cycle: In FY 2000, new resources will be invested in new carbon cycling research that will seek to reduce the uncertainties in the estimated net exchange of anthropogenic carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and terrestrial and ocean systems and to explore the biophysical processes controlling the net exchange. In FY 2000, the Terrestrial Carbon Processes (TCP) will focus on regional-scale calibration of calculated net primary productivity using NASA satellite-derived estimates. With the Program on Ecosystem Research (PER) and the National Institute for Global Environmental Change (NIGEC), the AmeriFlux CO₂ measurement network will analyze model-derived estimates and experimental results.

    In FY 2000, Environmental Meteorology research will focus on vertical transport and mixing and on studies of the transitions between stable and convective conditions. The Atmospheric Chemistry program will focus on aerosols and research in support of NARSTO.

    In FY 2000, BER and NOAA will enter the final phase of joint activities to synthesize data from the ocean carbon dioxide surveys. The Biological Investigations - Ocean Margins Program (BI-OMP) will be recompeted, focusing on linkages between carbon and nitrogen cycles in marine microbes and on developing collaborative partnerships between institutions with strong traditions in marine biology with those with emerging capabilities.

    3) Ecological Processes: In FY 2000, PER, TCP, and the NIGEC programs will continue to support experimental and modeling studies to assess the consequences of human-induced climate changes and of increases in atmospheric CO₂ and tropospheric ozone on major terrestrial ecosystems and resources. The research includes Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Exchange (FACE) experiments to examine responses of terrestrial vegetation and ecosystems to elevated concentrations of atmospheric CO₂ and will include approaches for conducting multi-factor experiments on intact ecosystems. PER will continue Throughfall Displacement Experiment studies on hardwood forest ecosystems.

4) Human Dimensions: The Integrated Assessment program analyzes the entire climate change system, from emissions through impacts. The program supports the analysis of benefits and costs as well as presents the results of the USGCRP to the policy process. FY 2000 will focus on supply curves for gases other than carbon dioxide and on the development of supply curves for land use and carbon sinks.

    The three components of the Global Change Education Program are: (1) the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience, involving students at the end of their sophomore or junior years and including mentored research experience at national laboratories; (2) the Graduate Research Environmental Fellowships; and (3) a continued partnership in the multi-agency Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science (SOARS) undergraduate and graduate program.

    The Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), a component of the U.S. Global Change Data and Information System (GCDIS), provides access to current global-change information and quality-assured and fully documented numeric data, technical publications, newsletters, and research summaries. FY 2000 will focus on management of data from the FACE experiments, NARSTO, and AmeriFlux.

    The National Institute for Global Environmental Change (NIGEC) supports research at universities and in FY 2000 will emphasize research at AmeriFlux sites and on implementing scientifically-based assessments of the consequences of climate change.

    Related Research. DOE plays a major role in the President’s Climate Change Action Plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through changes in energy supply and improvements in energy efficiency and conservation. Building on global change research, activities in carbon management are part of the Climate Change Technology Initiative.

    Mapping of Budget Request to Appropriations Legislation. In the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill, DOE USGCRP activities are funded under Title III, Department of Energy, within the Energy Supply, Research, and Development Activities account. In Appropriations Committee reports, funding for DOE’s USGCRP programs is included within the Biological and Environmental Research account.