Funding-Decadal and
Regional Climate Prediction using Earth System Models (EaSM); June 25, 2010
Agency
National
Science Foundation
Description
The
consequences of climate variability and change are becoming more immediate and profound
than previously anticipated. Important impacts, such as the onset of prolonged
droughts on several continents, increasing stresses on natural and managed
ecosystems, loss of agricultural and forest productivity, altered biological
feedbacks, degraded ocean and permafrost habitats, global sea level rise and
the rapid retreat of ice sheets and glaciers, loss of Arctic sea ice, and
changes in ocean currents, have highlighted that climate variability and change
can have significant effects on decadal and shorter time scales, with
significant consequences for plant, animal, human, and physical systems.
This
activity enables interagency cooperation on one of the most pressing
problems of the millennium--climate change--how it is likely to affect our world,
and how we can proactively plan for its consequences. It allows the partner
agencies--National Science Foundation (NSF), U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA), and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)--to combine resources to identify
and fund the most meritorious and highest-impact projects that support their
respective missions, while eliminating duplication of effort and fostering
collaboration between agencies and the investigators they support.
This
interdisciplinary grand challenge calls for the development of next-generation
Earth System Models that include coupled and interactive representations of
ecosystems, agricultural working lands and forests, urban environments,
biogeochemistry, atmospheric chemistry, ocean and atmospheric currents, the
water cycle, land ice, and human activities. The realization of these
goals demands the engagement of diverse interdisciplinary teams of
experimental, theoretical, modeling and computational researchers, including
but not limited to, biologists, chemists, computer scientists, geoscientists,
material scientists, mathematicians, physicists, cyberinfrastucture
specialists, and social scientists. Successful proposals will develop
intellectual excitement in the participating disciplinary communities.
Also encouraged are proposals that promoted diversity and have broad
educational or societal impacts that capitalize on this interdisciplinary
opportunity.
Competitive
projects should address key problems critical
to linking relevant Earth system processes over a variety of spatial
and temporal scales and to advancing the theoretical foundations for the
modeling and simulation of existing data and data collected by the new and
envisioned NSF environmental observatories. Proposals are encouraged that have
the potential to dramatically improve our predictive capabilities as well as
our understanding of how small and large scale processes lead to non-linearities and activation thresholds.
The
specific goals of this solicitation are to improve upon and extend current
modeling capabilities in order to:
1.
Achieve
comprehensive, reliable global and regional predictions of decadal climate
variability and change through advanced understanding of the coupled
interactive physical, chemical, biological and human processes that drive the
climate system.
2.
3.
Quantify
the impacts of climate variability and change on ecological, agricultural and
other human systems, and identify and quantify feedback loops through which
human systmes help determine environmental outcomes.
4.
5.
Maximize
the utility of available observational and model data for impact and
vulnerability/resilience assessments through up/downscaling activities.
6.
7.
Effectively
translate model results and associated uncertainties into the scientific basis
for well-informed human adaptation to and management decisions for climate
change.
8.
Two
types of proposals--incubator/capacity building activities (Type 1) and
large collaborative interdisciplinary research projects (Type 2)--are
solicited. Please refer to Section II, Program Description, for additional
information about the two categories of proposals.
Announcement
Number:
nsf10554
Closing
Date:
June 25, 2010
Letter of Intent Due Date(s) (required) (due by 5 p.m.
proposer's local time):May
24, 2010
Link
to Full Announcement
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2010/nsf10554/nsf10554.htm?WT.mc_id=USNSF_25&WT.mc_ev=click
Contact
Information
·
Jay Fein,
Directorate for Geosciences (GEO), telephone: (703) 292-8527, email: jfein@nsf.gov
·
Eric C. Itsweire, Directorate for Geosciences (GEO), telephone:
(703) 292-8582, email: eitsweir@nsf.gov
·
Thomas F. Russell,
Directorate for Mathematical & Physical Sciences (MPS), telephone: (703)
292-4863, email: trussell@nsf.gov
·
Tanja Pietrass,
Directorate for Mathematical & Physical Sciences (MPS), telephone: (703)
292-2170, email: tpietras@nsf.gov
·
Todd Crowl, Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO),
telephone: (703) 292-7870, email: tcrowl@nsf.gov
·
Elizabeth R. Blood,
Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO), telephone: (703) 292-8470, email: eblood@nsf.gov
·
Krishna Kant,
Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE),
telephone: (703) 292-4776, email: kkant@nsf.gov
·
John Cozzens,
Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE),
telephone: (703) 292-8910, email: jcozzens@nsf.gov
·
Rita Teutonico, Directorate for Social, Behavioral &
Economic Sciences (SBE), telephone: (703) 292-7118, email: rteutoni@nsf.gov
·
Cheryl L. Eavey, Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic
Sciences (SBE), telephone: (703) 292-7269, email: ceavey@nsf.gov
·
Philip Bogden, Office of Cyberinfrastructure
(OCI), telephone: (703) 292-7092, email: pbogden@nsf.gov
·
Mimi McClure,
Office of Cyberinfrastructure (OCI), telephone: (703)
292-5197, email: mmcclure@nsf.gov
·
Erica Key,
Office of Polar Programs (OPP), telephone: (703) 292-8029, email: ekey@nsf.gov
·
Peter Milne,
Office of Polar Programs (OPP), telephone: (703) 292-4714, email: pmilne@nsf.gov
·
Luis Tupas, US Department of Agriculture, National Institute of
Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA), telephone: (202) 401-4926, email: ltupas@nifa.usda.gov
·
Renu Joseph, Department of Energy,
Office of Science (DOE-SC), Office of Biological and Environmental Research,
telephone: (301) 903-9237, email: Renu.Joseph@science.doe.gov