Alison Haugh of Farragut High School, Farragut, TN was a semifinalist in the Intel Science Talent search for 2013.  Her work on "Decreasing the cost of high dimensional simulations of the community land model through machine learning and emulation" uses ideas from uncertainty quantification to provide tools to climate scientists to test and understand effects of model parameters with greater speed and accuracy.  Alison performed her senior math thesis project at the Climate Change Science Institute in spring 2012 and continued her project over the summer and into the fall. This dedication produced results that impressed the Intel Science Talent search committee. Her mentors at CCSI were Rick Archibald, Chad Steed, and Dan Ricciuto. Pictured: Chad Steed with Alison Haugh in front of EVEREST.

Gary Jacobs, director of Environmental Sciences Division and operations and business manager for the Climate Change Science Institute at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, retired on January 1, 2013. When he arrived at ORNL in 1983, his focus was studying legacy radionuclide contamination from the 1950s and 1960s. In his 30 years, he has had the opportunity to broaden his focus into several areas of ESD. Most recently, that scope has expanded to include the urgent effort to understand global climate change and its consequences.

Read more about Gary’s 30 year career here.

Ben Preston, Deputy Director of CCSI, was selected by the Greater Knoxville Business Journal as one of Knoxville’s “40 under 40” award winners. The 40 winners were selected "for their passion, commitment, visibility, diversity and overall impact in shaping our region and making it a better place." Ben strives to be a reliable source for educating the public about climate change. His research aims to understand the effects of climate change on humans so that he can devise strategies that will minimize any negative effects. For the complete story, click here.

Unless world leaders initiate a large, concerted effort soon,  keeping the planet’s rise in temperature below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels will soon become an unachievable goal, say authors of a Dec. 2, 2012, article in Nature Climate Change. The findings were published as part of the Global Carbon Project, which provides regular analyses of major global carbon sources and sinks. The authors, who represent institutions in Australia, France, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States, include Tom Boden of the Climate Change Science Institute at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Current emission estimates produced by ORNL’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center are tracking radiative forcing scenarios closer to a 4 to 6 degree Celsius global-temperature increase, so achieving a rise of only 2 degrees Celsius would require high-level technological, social, and political innovations, say the authors.  Learn more at http://www.news.appstate.edu/2012/12/03/international-climate-change-goals/.

The Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) has completed its website redesign. The new site has a cleaner look, is more intuitive to navigate, and provides support for additional viewing platforms (e.g. mobile devices and tablets). CDIAC is the primary climate-change data and information analysis center of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). CDIAC is part of the Climate Change Science Institute located at DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and includes the World Data Center for Atmospheric Trace Gases.

CDIAC's data holdings include estimates of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel consumption and land-use changes; records of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other radiatively active trace gases; carbon cycle and terrestrial carbon management datasets and analyses; global and regional climate data and time series; and analyses of land-cover/land-use change.

Sujithkumar Surendran Nair, Shujiang Kang, Wilfred ‘Mac’ Post, Stan Wullschleger and colleagues published a review article on bioenergy crop models in the GCB Bioenergy journal. This paper has been recognized as one of the top 15 most downloaded articles for 2012 in the journal GCB Bioenergy.  The article reviewed crop models that have been developed or adapted for simulating bioenergy crops. The bioenergy crops considered were herbaceous energy crops (switchgrass, miscanthus, and sugarcane [Saccharum officinarum] or energy cane [Saccharum spp.]), perennial woody crops (hybrid poplar Populus spp.] and willow [Salix spp.]), and crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) crops adapted to arid lands (Agave and Opuntia). The review provides a description of each model; discusses approaches used to simulate crop growth, phenology, and water, carbon, and nitrogen dynamics; and considers how abiotic stresses are represented.

Wanda Ferrell, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility Program, received the Cleveland Abbe Award for Distinguished Service to Atmospheric Sciences “for skillful, dedicated leadership in managing the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility, which has improved knowledge about the interactions among clouds, radiation, and aerosols.” Dr. Ferrell is the program director for the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Infrastructure group as well as the Climate Information & Data Management group within the Office of Biological & Environmental Research at the Department of Energy. The Cleveland Abbe Award for Distinguished Service to Atmospheric Sciences is administered by the Atmospheric Meteorological Society and is presented on the basis of activities that have materially contributed to the progress of the atmospheric or related sciences or to the application of the atmospheric or related sciences to general, social, economic, or humanitarian welfare. Congratulations Wanda!

In October, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service Southern Research Station announced the ForWarn Team as recipients of its 2012 Director’s Science Delivery Award. ForWarn is a satellite-based forest disturbance monitoring system for the conterminous United States. It delivers new forest change products every eight days and provides tools for attributing abnormalities to insects, disease, wildfire, storms, human development or unusual weather. Forrest Hoffman, Jitendra Kumar, and Richard Mills of the Climate Change Science Institute, along with colleagues from the USDA Forest Service, NASA Stennis, USGS EROS, was selected by Dr. Rob Doudrick to receive the 2012 Southern Research Station Director's Award for Excellence in Science Delivery. For more information on ForWarn, go to http://forwarn.forestthreats.org/. 

CCSI Researchers Support Adaptation in Australia

Benjamin Preston, Deputy Director of the Climate Change Science Institute at ORNL, and Megan Maloney, research associate, traveled‘Down Under’ in early September to showcase outputs from their project focused on coastal adaptation to climate change. The project, Prioritizing Coastal Adaptation Options for Local Government, is funded through a grant from the Australian Government’s Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency to the Sydney Coastal Councils’ Group (SCCG) – a not-for-profit organization supporting education and coastal management in the Sydney region. The SCCG subsequently recruited staff from CCSI as well as the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) to develop methods for evaluating the utility of different coastal adaptation options as well as a framework for monitoring and evaluating adaptation responses. The project therefore represents the first funded effort under a collaborative memorandum of understanding between ORNL and USC.