The Terrestrial Ecosystem Science (TES) program within the US Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research supports basic science to improve representation of critical terrestrial ecosystem processes in Earth System Models. TES’s vision and funding strategy will be presented while highlighting the Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiment (NGEE) project, a major 10-year effort in the Arctic. NGEE seeks to understand, characterize and model the response of permafrost-dominated ecosystems to climate change. Permafrost represents a major carbon sink, a potentially strong tipping point necessitating a concentrated research effort. Additional program activities in the tropics/Amazon, AmeriFlux network, Spruce-peatland climate manipulation studies and other key research activities will be discussed. This town hall will engage the ESA community and foster synergistic leveraging opportunities within TES investments and solicit community feedback.