On March 22 the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Departments of Energy and Agriculture launched a joint research funding program designed to create high-resolution models that will be significantly more powerful than existing climate change models. The goal, they say, is to develop new tools to help regional and local decision-makers to develop adaptation strategies for climate change.
Called Decadal and Regional Climate Prediction Using Earth System Models (EaSM), this new program, according to official statements, seeks to generate:
1) predictions of climate change and associated impacts at more localized scales and over shorter time periods than previously possible; and
2) innovative interdisciplinary approaches to address the sources and impacts of climate change. These interdisciplinary approaches will draw on biologists, chemists, computer scientists, geoscientists, materials scientists, mathematicians, physicists, computer specialists and social scientists.
"This extraordinary and exciting multi-agency research program will enable a major step forward in our ability to understand and predict both climate change and its impacts on people--at the spatial and temporal scales relevant to human life and societal decision making," said Timothy Killeen, NSF's assistant director for the Geosciences Directorate.
By producing reliable, accurate information about climate change and resulting impacts at improved geographic and temporal resolutions, models developed under the EaSM will provide decision-makers with sound scientific bases for developing adaptation and management responses to climate change at regional levels.
"This project integrates expertise from multiple communities -- including the fundamental sciences -- which is needed to understand climate change processes, and advanced modeling, which is needed to quantitatively assess climate change impacts," explained Edward Seidel, NSF's acting assistant director for the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate.
According to a joint statment, the development of high-resolution, interdisciplinary predictive models through EaSM is important because the consequences of climate change are becoming more immediate and profound than anticipated. These consequences include prolonged droughts, increased ecosystem stress, reduced agriculture and forest productivity, altered biological feedbacks, degraded ocean and permafrost habitats and the rapid retreat of glaciers and sea ice--all of which are expected to have major impacts on ecological, economic and social systems as well as on human health.
To mitigate these consequences, EaSM models will be designed to support planning for the management of food and water supplies, infrastructure construction, ecosystem maintenance, and other pressing societal issues at more localized levels and more immediate time periods than can existing models.
Initial funding for EaSM projects will come from three areas -- about $30 million from NSF, about $10 million from DOE, and about $9 million from USDA. About 20 NSF grants under EaSM are expected to be awarded.
The statement adds that "this project represents an historic augmentation of support for interdisciplinary climate change research by NSF and its partner agencies."
