Funding Opportunity: Earth and Environmental Systems Science Research in the Southeast United States

August 2024

The Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program within DOE’s Office of Science is seeking applications for collaborative Earth and environmental systems science research in the southeastern United States.

The U.S. Southeast supports a wide variety of ecosystems, including natural forests, scrub, grasslands, and wetlands, as well as managed forests, farmland, and developed areas. This region is influenced by a generally warm and humid climate that drives a strong atmospheric coupling. Furthermore, the Southeast is subject to extreme events, such as hurricanes, fires, and droughts.

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) will target key Earth and environmental system processes that will enable improved understanding and predictive capabilities of this critically important region. Amendment 000001 was issued August 23, 2024,  to incorporate a list of excluded topics on page 9 and to correct an email address on page 48.

This announcement builds on BER’s past efforts in Earth and environmental systems science and leverages the third Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Mobile Facility (AMF3) in Alabama’s Bankhead National Forest, which will initiate operations in fall 2024. AMF3 observations aim to help improve process understanding and model representations of aerosol, cloud, and land-atmosphere interactions to quantify land-atmosphere feedbacks and aerosol-cloud interactions.

The FOA will consider applications that address science challenges within the scope of BER’s Atmospheric System Research, Earth and Environmental Systems Modeling, and Environmental System Science subprograms.

The announcement focuses on measurements, experiments, field data, modeling, analysis, and synthesis to provide improved understanding and representation of ecosystems, watersheds, atmospheric processes, and regional modeling in ways that advance the sophistication and capabilities of models that span individual processes to Earth system scales.

Topical areas include:

  1. Vegetation and land-atmosphere interactions
  2. Spatial heterogeneity and scaling
  3. Convection, clouds, precipitation, and biogenic aerosols
  4. Extreme events and disturbance

Including underrepresented, minority-serving, or emerging research institutions as part of research teams is encouraged.

Please see the funding opportunity for more details and requirements.

Schedule

  • Deadline for Pre-Applications (required): September 19, 2024; 5:00 pm ET
  • Pre-Application Response Date: October 10, 2024; 5:00 pm ET
  • Deadline for Applications: November 21, 2024; 11:59 pm ET

More Information