Abstract
DOE ocean circulation researchers are currently pursuing advanced, variable mesh gridding -with singular intensity, experience and expertise plus a strong focus on software engineering. Meanwhile a team of marine biogeochemistry experts networking across the department has worked for a decade developing the following long view -that ocean-atmosphere-ice geocycling and interchange can constitute a unique niche for DOE. The concept is to fully exploit powerful inter-laboratory collaborations. Projects nucleated by our cross-cutting BGC interactions are now growing into a spectrum of scientific contributions unique to the international community. In the present poster we describe a key subset, working from the classic carbon cycle foundation outward to specialized DOE contributions in aerosol, cloud, ice, coastal and global microlayer processes. All these issues are discussed so that DOE can capitalize: Controls exerted on globally distributed ccn composition and effectiveness, (bio)macromolecular surfactant influence on all mass, momentum and energy exchange across marine interfaces, extensions of organic chemistry into bi-hemispheric pack ice brine channels, and river plume reactions linked to land modeling. Planetary feedbacks in such areas remain invisible to almost all other climate modeling groups. In most cases they constitute complete omissions and thus an extreme form of structural uncertainty. But the requisite DOE mechanisms are in place because they have incubated in an extraordinarily interdisciplinary, national-level scientific environment. Dedication by department biogeochemistry working group members has been no small factor. We further describe recent efforts within OBER to benchmark (validate) and prioritize understudied climate control loops through reduced and hierarchical approaches.