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Climate and Environmental Systems

Climate and environmental scientists at ORNL conduct research, develop technology and perform analyses to understand and predict how environmental systems respond to global and regional changes – including climate change, environmental stress and energy production and use. By integrating field and laboratory methods with new theory, modeling, data systems and policy analysis, we develop solutions to complex environmental challenges.

ORNL has an increasing programmatic focus on climate change and subsurface biogeochemical research. Current priorities in the area of climate and environmental research are focused on understanding biogeochemical cycling in terrestrial ecosystems by creating new databases and models to inform climate change research; executing large-scale terrestrial ecosystem projects to improve comparisons of climate change model predictions and reduce climate prediction uncertainty; and understanding geochemical and biological controls on mercury methylation and bioaccumulation at both regional and global scales.