What is TllMES?

Director: Richard E. Carbone

Welcome to TllMES: The Institute for Integrative and Multidisciplinary Earth Studies, an Institute within the Earth and Sun Systems Laboratory (ESSL) of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

The Institute consists of a Directorate, Water System Program, Biogeosciences Program, BEACHON Project, an incubator function (exploration of project concepts), and a home for multi-disciplinary Strategic Initiatives (UTLS, with THORPEX and Gravity Waves pending). The directorate sponsors visitors, workshops, retreats, symposia and a regular seminar series. It also organizes and sponsors related educational and outreach activities.

The thematic expression of our integrative role is mainly interfacial and multi-scale.  Framed in this manner, problem selection points to “critical paths” for advances, often requiring diverse sets of skills and interests from within and outside of NCAR.  Initially, TIIMES will focus on the following three interfacial/multi-scale themes:

• Processes within and exchanges among the biosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere.
• Processes and phenomena at the interface of weather and climate.
• Processes and phenomena coupling the lower, middle and upper atmospheres.

Click on the individual program, project, or initiative on the organizational chart to the left for additional information.

Vision

To squarely face “critical path” issues central to the understanding and prediction of the climate system.

To conduct studies integral to hydrology and ecosystems, and to quantify two-way interactions with the atmosphere.

To communicate, collaborate and transform this knowledge for application in the social sciences, assessment of impacts, and decisions by policymakers.

Mission

To facilitate research among the atmospheric sub-disciplines, biogeosciences, water system sciences and other multidisciplinary endeavors.

To stimulate community-wide collaboration and the shared leadership of multidisciplinary research projects, especially with universities and international programs.

To explore innovative approaches with our sister Institutes¹ and other scholars, inclusive
of the physical, social and mathematical dimensions of Earth system science.

To maintain a focus on multi-scale and interfacial processes, related fluxes, and their representations in numerical models.

¹  Institute for Study of Society and Environment
    Institute for Mathematics Applied to Geosciences

For additional information please refer to the TIIMES Strategic Plan online. Hardcopies of this document may be requested by contacting the TIIMES Acting Administrator, Terri Cantrell, 303-497-8281.