The Climate Change Sciences Program includes process research and modeling efforts to (1) improve understanding of factors affecting the Earth's radiant-energy balance; (2) predict accurately any global and regional climate change induced by increasing atmospheric concentrations of aerosols and greenhouse gases; (3) quantify sources and sinks of energy-related greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide; and (4) improve the scientific basis for assessing both the potential consequences of climatic changes, including the potential ecological, social, and economic implications of human-induced climatic changes caused by increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the benefits and costs of alternative response options. Research is focused on understanding the basic chemical, physical, and biological processes of the Earth's atmosphere, land, and oceans and how these processes may be affected by energy production and use, primarily the emission of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion. A major part of the research is designed to provide the data that will enable an objective assessment of the potential for, and consequences of, global warming. The program is comprehensive with an emphasis on the radiation balance from the surface of the Earth to the top of the atmosphere, including the role of clouds and on improving quantitative models necessary to predict possible climate change at the global and regional levels. The Environmental Processes subprogram is DOE's contribution to the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, a program that integrates federal research on global change and climate change.

The Environmental Remediation Sciences Program advances fundamental science to understand, predict and mitigate the impacts of environmental contamination from past nuclear weapons production and provide a scientific basis for the long-term stewardship of nuclear waste disposal. The program supports an integrated portfolio of research ranging from molecular to field scales with emphasis on the use of advanced computer models and multidisciplinary, iterative-experimentation to understand and predict contaminant transport in complex subsurface environments.

User Facilities

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility (ACRF) is a multi-platform national scientific user facility, with platforms and instruments at fixed and varying locations around the globe for obtaining continuous field measurements of climate data to promote the advancement of atmospheric process understanding and climate models through precise observations of atmospheric phenomena. 

Molecular-level studies of the physical, chemical and biological processes that underpin DOE's energy and environmental challenges are pursued at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. EMSL supports studies in biogeochemistry, interfacial science, atmospheric chemistry, and biological dynamics.