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2
Global Change and the
Changing Atmosphere
WILLIAM C. CLARK
Harvard University
A considerable set of long-term developments has put us in the
somewhat awkward position today of having multiple programs and
multiple problems that are partially overlapping but that lack well-
understood linkages. One hundred and twenty years ago, the Italian
geologist Antonio Stoppani wrote eloquently about the importance
of understanding the connections, on a global scale, among human
interventions, how the earth's surface was being transformed, and
how that affected local climate and the atmosphere. Sixty years
later, this theme was picked up by the "patron saint" of this gath-
ering, Vladimir Vernadsky, in his lectures at the Sorbonne. He put
forward almost as a matter of religious faith, considering the lack
of observations at the time the notion that a fuller understanding
of many of the atmospheric and related problems of the day would
be served not by greater specialization in narrow subdisciplines but
rather by trying to fashion a concept of the biosphere as a whole. Lit-
tIe research developed along these lines over the next 20 to 30 years
because there were neither data nor instruments nor testable theories
that would let anyone go beyond the assertion that the integrated,
interdisciplinary perspective might be a useful approach.
Thirty years ago marked the occurrence of the International Geo-
physical Year (IGY), which for the first time gave us, on a systematic
international basis, a worldwide perspective on environmental change
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GLOBAL CHANGE
s
in and of itself. It marked the start of the now infamous carbon diox-
ide monitoring series and of other such data records. It provided
a window on the possible gIobal-scale perturbations of many of the
more important components of the geosphere-biosphere system by
human activities.
In the years since the IGY, there have been broad advances
in the basic sciences of the earth: biogeochemical processes and
climate-biotic interactions, and how these both interact with human
processes. The fundamental nature and importance of these advances
are not diminished by the fact that many of them came about in
response to specific problems of environmental change thought to
offer threats to society. Examples of advances in atmospheric sciences
include acid deposition programs, the stratospheric ozone programs
to be discussed in this symposium, and climate change programs.
Each of these programs, although building on and adding to a base
of fundamental research, has pushed our understanding far deeper
into areas of science linked to specific problems than into other areas
that are every bit as interesting and every bit as fundamental to an
integrated understanding of biosphere dynamics.
What is really new in the last 10 years is the pervasive conviction
that the connections among the relatively well researched problem
areas are not side effects but are central to our basic understand-
ing of environmental change. In a sense, we are now saying that
Vernacisky was right, that understanding particular changes in the
geosphere-biosphere system, be they in climate, stratospheric chem-
istry, or atmosphere-soi! interactions, requires a certain commitment
to studying the interactions among those changes as well as the
individual problems themselves.
Recognition of these interconnections is occurring in the scien-
tific, administrative, and policy communities. Scientifically, we see
it in the recognition that deforestation affects climate change, that
climate change influences stratospheric chemistry involved in ozone
depletion, and that the chIorofluorocarbons involved in ozone de-
pletion feed back again on climate change. The neat separations
between these areas that were almost complete 10 or even 5 years
ago are simply not holding up today.
Administratively, we are seeing a scramble by the executive agen-
cies to rearrange their budgeting criteria and evaluation mechanisms
to support the kinds of research that deal with the connections.
Sometimes it appears that administrative perspectives have forced
scientists to look at the interactions among elements of global change.
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WILLIAM C. CLARK
More often, at least from the point of view of the science community,
administrative structures have lagged behind scientific recognition of
where the challenges for research lie. But nobody who is aware of
what has been going on in the National Aeronautics and Space Ad-
ministration (NASA), National Science Foundation (NSF), and the
other executive agencies, even in the Office of Management and Bud-
get, over the last several years, can help but realize that a determined,
if imperfect, effort is under way to try to rearrange our funding pri-
orities and our abilities to support long-term research efforts that
address this notion of important connections among environmental
changes.
Finally, a point that should not be overlooked is that this notion
of connections is achieving more and more significance for manage-
ment and policy. There is a growing recognition that, for example,
we cannot set our policy toward fossil fuel use by looking at the
greenhouse implications alone. One has to recognize that any policy
change affecting fossil fuel use will also affect acid deposition, green-
house warming, corrosivity of the atmosphere, and so on. This line of
reasoning also applies to land-use management strategies, industrial
policy, and similar policy issues. We have an opportunity to fashion
arguments that people in the executive agencies and Congress can
really use to try to advance policies in these very complex areas, by
helping them to see these linkages and to explain them to their con-
stituencies. The scientific community is beginning to recognize the
opportunity but has done little so far to provide useful conceptual
tools and means of communicating these linkages that can be used
to build the social and political consensus necessary for action.
So, where is all this taking us? Many places, but most obviously
to the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP). IGBP
has been brewing for many years out of a recognition of the exis-
tence of connections among disciplines. A couple of years ago in
Berne, Switzerland, the International Council of Scientific Unions
General Assembly anointed IGBP with the avowed goal of describing
and understanding interactive physical and biological processes that
regulate the total earth system and the unique environment that it
provides for life, the changes that are occurring within this system,
and the manner in which they are influenced by human activities.
Now, that ~ a goal of basic research in the earth sciences that is dif-
ficult to disagree with. The problem that has preoccupied scientists
and administrators over the last several years is how such a goal can
be approached in practicable, doable steps that, at a minimum, do
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GLOBAL CHANGE
no harm to scientific research already under way. Steps that, in a
more optimistic vein, promote some of the new long-term research,
observations, and synthesis that are necessary to turn the notion of
connections into a real revolution in our understanding of, and ability
to cope with, global change in the geosphere-biosphere system.
The challenge of implementing the goals of IGBP hinges on two
issues, which unfortunately have not always been distinguished. One
is substantive, the other organizational. Substantively, the problem
is to identify the few really anew start" programs of experimentation
and observation that could make the most difference in our overall
understanding of the interlinked earth science system. In doing that,
the first requirement is one that is analogous to a principle accepted
by the medical community: Do no harm to existing programs that
are under way. We have to recognize that the opportunity for doing
7
such harm is monumental if the exercise is not conducted with very
close attention to what works already and therefore does not need
fixing or extra coordinating.
Organizationally, there are equally strong imperatives and chal-
lenges. Again, a first requirement is to do no harm to organizational
frameworks that, through years of evolution, are finally at the stage
where they are supporting programs that are actually helping us to
get on with the business of increasing understanding. Second, having
ensured that we do as little harm as possible, we must make sure that
the interdisciplinary linkages mentioned earlier do not fall between
organizational stools. Third, we must take steps to ensure that the
organizations we do have in place do not impede research that is
crossing over their historical boundaries of self-definition. Finally,
the ultimate challenge is to identify which, if any, new organizational
frameworks would make a positive contribution to our ability to get
on with the substantive work of understanding global change.
This brings us back to the purpose of this symposium. Obvi-
ously, a great many endeavors are under way to address both the
substantive and organizational issues of global change. One of these
is the recent report Earth System Science, A Closer View (National
Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, D.C., January
1988) of the Earth Systems Science Committee. In addition to being
the community's bid for the coffee table book of the year, this report
represents an heroic effort to take an overview of the earth system,
to identify some of the most important substantive problems, and to
address the organizational difficulties of going after them effectively.
It is a step in the right direction, but only if we build on it rather
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WILLIAM O. CLARK
than simply setting it on the shelf. A second endeavor is the Na-
tional Research Council's continuing review of geosphere-biosphere
issues. Its most recent incarnation, the Committee on Global Change
(CGC), is developing a preliminary plan for U.S. participation in the
IGBP. The CGC ~ a noteworthy group in that it consists of not
only atmospheric scientists and oceanographers but also biologists
and geophysicists and even camouflaged sociologists. The challenge
to the CGC is not to come out with simply another endorsement
stating that linkages are important and that the geosphere-biosphere
is out there and needs further study, but rather to really come to
terms with the notion of significant, definable new problem areas for
which solid research can be productive in the near term.
~ remain puzzled as to just what role this symposium is going
to play in moving on with the implementation of a research program
on global change. But even that ambiguity is something that should
be fostered. The symposium has clearly brought together a number
of the best researchers in several closely related areas, in which just
the type of connections that ~ referred to earlier are beginning to be
unraveled and explored. Two National Research Council groups, the
Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate and the Comrn~ttee on
Global Change, have joined forces to explore this issue. Finally, the
symposium audience consists of most of the Important Washington
tribes: the Congress, the executive agencies, the nongovernmental
organizations, and the press, all of whom are going to be necessary
if a global change program is really to move forward and advance us
some steps on the way to an understanding of the geosphere-biosphere
system. ~ look forward to seeing what interactions scientific, ad-
ministrative, and political this particular mix will provoke.
(in answer to a question): If the planned global change programs
are as successful as they promise to be, they are going to create
many more problems for the policy and management community
than they solve, at least in the short run. They are going to turn
up things that we did not know were going on and that we will
be very uncertain and a little worried about. The global change
program should not be viewed as a short-term response to existing,
already known and understood problems. If a global change program
is to have any long-term eEect, the funding and support efforts also
have to take a long-term perspective. We have to say over and over
again to ourselves, to the agencies, to Congress, and to the public
at large that the only way we will ever get out of playing "crisis
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GLOBAL CHANGE
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response" to the degree that we have been doing of late (be it in ozone
depletion, acid deposition, or some other "problem of the month")
is to get the necessary broad-based basic research going. We need
to take more initiative in showing how the halting progress we are
making across the broad front of understanding really is improving
our ability to deal with specific problems. The speed and efficiency
with which efforts were mounted to take a look at the antarctic
ozone phenomenon, once it was noticed, are an excellent illustration
of how 10 to 15 years of basic preparatory research can prepare us to
cope with surprises. We need to get that message across at least as
much as we need to be concerned with getting the FY 1989 budget
secured or getting a congressional hearing on immediate solutions to
immediate problems.
(In answer to another question): Events will doubtless open
up windows of opportunity for stepwise advances in support and
understanding and will also close them on occasion. As a member of
CGC, ~ fee} that such opportunities will be wasted if we do not have
on the table plans consistently and broadly supported by the entire
community. These plans should be about very specific programs of
measurement, experimentation, and documentation. They should
not be broad statements saying where we hope to be, but instead
plans specifying what we want to do next and exactly how we are
going to do it. Then we can keep coming back and saying, "That is
the sort of thing that should have been funded two years ago. That
is the thing that should be supported now." We are not in that
position now. AD of the good works to date associated with global
change through NASA, NSF initiatives, and the National Research
Council have produced a good foundation but have not moved to
a level allowing one to give congressional testimony and to talk to
colleagues on the Hill and elsewhere and say, "Here is the research
we are planning to do." Until we do that, the opportunities may
come and go without our having a compelling rationale for pushing
commitment and action.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
change program
