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Atmospheric, Earth, and Energy

LLNL looks to revolutionize 3D printing through microwave technology

In the rapidly evolving world of 3D printing, the pursuit of faster, more efficient and versatile production methods is never-ending. Traditional 3D printing techniques, while groundbreaking, are often time-consuming and limited in the kinds of materials they can use as feedstock. But, through a new process a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) team is calling…

Tropical forests feel the burn of climate change

Tropical forests account for more than 50% of the global terrestrial carbon sink, but climate change threatens to alter the carbon balance of these ecosystems. New research by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and colleagues from Colorado State University and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute found that warming and drying of tropical forest…

LLNL wins three 2024 technology commercialization grants

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers continue to capture key Department of Energy (DOE) Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) grants with three new project grants announced in 2024. This year’s TCF program focuses on funding projects aimed at delivering clean energy solutions to the market — using new technology commercialized from DOE national labs…

Greenland ice sheet melted in recent past

Greenland was once actually green — even if it was close to a million years ago. But its lack of an ice sheet back then may lead to clues about the increased risk of sea-level rise in a warmer future. A new study provides the first direct evidence that the center, not just the edges, of Greenland’s ice sheet melted away in the recent geological past and the now-ice-covered…

It’s all in the accounting

Natural ecosystems can be used to offset manmade CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions that we add to the atmosphere, but the accounting needs to be right for carbon offset policies to be effective. For years, it’s been suspected that forest inventory and, more recently, biometeorological methods bias the carbon sequestration equation by potentially miscounting the…

Livermore’s research involvement in 23-year-old cold case

When local law enforcement are unable to identify skeletal remains, they may seek out external resources and capabilities like those at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (CAMS). That’s exactly what happened in 2007 when police from Newfoundland, Canada, were six years into an investigation with nothing but dead ends…

LLNL honors 23 as Distinguished Members of Technical Staff

Twenty-three LLNL researchers have been named Distinguished Members of Technical Staff (DMTS) for their extraordinary scientific and technical contributions, as acknowledged by their professional peers and the broader scientific community. As distinguished citizens of the Laboratory and their scientific areas of specialization, DMTS honorees have a sustained history of…

A pattern of temperature change emerges from natural climate fluctuations

When comparing model simulations of Earth’s recent warming to real-world observations, differences can arise from several factors, including model errors in the simulated response to increased greenhouse gases and natural fluctuations within the climate system. Natural climate variability, also called internal variability, can change regional and global atmospheric…

Lab study on climate sensitivity earns top notch in list of influential research

The American Geophysical Union is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its journal Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) by showcasing some of the highest-achieving papers that have been published over the past 50 years. A paper by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists is one of the winners. The paper, “Causes of Higher Climate Sensitivity in CMIP6 Models,”…

Lab assists west Fresno County in clean-energy future

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) will provide technical assistance to 30 disadvantaged communities in west Fresno County to provide a future in clean-energy projects, including carbon capture and storage. The project is part of the Department of Energy’s Local Energy Action Program (LEAP) that aims to facilitate sustained community-wide economic and…

Celebrating LLNL researchers on World Intellectual Property Day

World Intellectual Property (IP) Day is Friday, April 26. World IP Day shines a light on the important role innovation plays in achieving the United Nations’ (UN) 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aim to create a better future for everyone by protecting the planet. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL)’s Innovation and Partnerships Office (IPO) is…

Using seismoacoustics to improve explosion monitoring

In a special issue of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Lawrence Livermore scientists describe recent work in seismoacoustics, an area of research that uses observations of both seismic and low-frequency acoustic waves (infrasound) to differentiate between earthquakes and other shallow underground or surface sources like explosions and volcanoes. Both…

Hard as a rock, LLNL to study geologic hydrogen production

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has received $1 million to explore technologies that stimulate hydrogen production from mineral deposits found in the subsurface, including developing our understanding of hydrogen-producing geochemical reactions and how to enhance or control the rate of hydrogen production. The use of hydrogen fuel to offset fossil fuel…

Lawrence Livermore’s popular 'Science on Saturday' lecture series returns to Las Positas College

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's (LLNL) popular lecture series, “Science on Saturday,” returns Feb. 3 and runs through Feb. 24. The series offers four different lectures with the theme, “Magic of Materials.” Each lecture is presented by leading LLNL researchers who are joined by high-school science teachers. Below is the schedule of lectures, which can also be…

New analysis outlines national opportunities to remove CO2 at the gigaton scale

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers, along with scientists from more than a dozen institutions, have completed a first-of-its-kind high-resolution assessment of carbon dioxide (CO2) removal (CDR) in the United States. The report, “Roads to Removal: Options for Carbon Dioxide Removal in the United States,” charts a path for the United States to achieve…

Geophysicist characterizes the earth while forming community at Livermore

Geophysicist Christina “Chris” Morency’s research has led her around the globe to demystify the world beneath our feet. Since arriving at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 2011, she has held leadership roles on numerous research teams and has worked diligently to make Lawrence Livermore a welcoming place for all. Originally from France, Morency said she is …

Record-setting SC23 builds mile-high momentum for exascale computing, AI, and the future of HPC

The crowds returned to SC, and with them came a renewed excitement for the future of high performance computing (HPC). A record number of attendees — more than 14,000 — experts, researchers, vendors and enthusiasts in the field of HPC descended on the Mile High City for the 2023 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis,…

Inaugural National Lab Research SLAM showcases early-career researchers

Gathered in the Congressional Auditorium on Wednesday, Nov. 15, 17 early-career researchers used three minutes and a single slide to present their pioneering research during the inaugural National Lab Research SLAM. Representing each of the 17 Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories, finalists presented in four research categories: Energy Security, National…

LLNL-led SCREAM team clinches inaugural Gordon Bell Prize for climate modeling

A Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)-led effort that performed an unprecedented global climate model simulation on the world’s first exascale supercomputer has won the first-ever Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modelling, ACM officials announced Thursday. The Simple Cloud Resolving E3SM Atmosphere Model (SCREAM) team, led…

National economy continues to reenergize post-pandemic, while pushing toward a new, decarbonized normal

In 2022, Americans used more renewables to generate electricity than in previous years, according to the most recent energy flowcharts and carbon flowcharts released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The nation used 3% more energy, emitted an additional 96 million tons of CO2, but decreased the carbon intensity of U.S. electricity generation by 3.6%,…