Advancing the Understanding of the Earth System: Funding Opportunities in the Earth System Science and Modeling Division at NOAA's Climate Program Office

Advancing the science of Earth’s atmosphere, ocean, land, and ice systems is key to understanding and predicting future changes. This knowledge will support the Nation’s health, well-being, and economic vitality, while also informing strategies to reduce risks from extreme weather, natural disasters, and mitigate climate change.

Situated in the Climate Program Office (CPO) within NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), the Earth System Science and Modeling (ESSM) Division supports competitive research through its five programs. This research aims to advance scientific understanding of the Earth system and improve NOAA’s Earth system models, predictions, projections, and applications to address NOAA’s climate mission. ESSM leads collaborations with national and international partners to co-develop scientific priorities and coordinate resources. These partnerships include an array of researchers from federal agencies, national labs, and universities, focusing them on the most pressing climate research.

Recent ESSM’s Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) have featured five to eight annual competitions. These competitions have focused on topics like precipitation dataset development, methane measurements and modeling across scales, climate model improvements, applications of satellite data to aerosol research, decadal climate variability and predictability, field campaigns, among others.