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1
Reducing Uncertainties
Does the Program Address the Scientific Priorities for Reducing Un
certair~ies about Global Environmental Change?
Based on our review, we conclude that the interagency USGCRP, as
described in the President's FY 1991 budget, defines an appropriate first
step toward a sound national program to reduce the scientific uncertainties
associated with global change issues. The program is clearly aimed at
advancing our understanding of the earth system. If successfully pursued it
should improve our ability to identify trends and anticipate effects of many
of the environmental changes that are currently perceived as likely to be of
greatest consequence over the next 10 to 100 years.
The focus of the program with greatest initial emphasis given, in
order of priority, to climate and hydrologic systems, biogeochemistry, eco-
logical systems, earth system history, and the human dimensions of global
change with somewhat lesser emphasis on solid earth processes and solar
lIlnUeIICeS IS in our view appropriate to achieve its stated goals. in making
a heavy initial investment in a space-based observational system, the pro-
gram lays the foundation for obtaining sustained, long-term measurements
of certain of the vital signs of the earth; it also initiates a modern data and
information system (EOSDIS) that will make the data readily available to
those who need them.
Scientific priorities for reducing uncertainties about global change
have been developed by the NRC and other bodies in a series of studies
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over the past seven years. Documents of those efforts include the report
of the NASA Earth System Science Committee (`Ea~th System Science:
A Program for Global Change, 1988~; reports of the National Research
Council that have recommended and defined a global change program
(Global Change in the Geosphere-Biosphere, 1986; Toward an Understanding
of Global Change, 1988~; a Space Science Board report (The ~enty-
First Century: Mission to Planet Earth, 1988~; and international planning
documents for the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program and World
Climate Research Program. These documents underscore that if changes in
the global environment are to be understood and predicted, knowledge of
how the earth works as a system must be expanded, with particular emphasis
on the connections that link climate, biogeochemistry, ecological systems,
human aspects of change, and the development of earth system models that
will allow improved predictions. The reports also recommend that certain
priority parameters of the earth system be under extensive, long-term
surveillance, and that the results of monitoring be made freely available
both nationally and internationally. The USGCRP has been designed by
the CEES to follow these guidelines, and it is clearly coincident with the
recommendations from the scientific community.
While the scientific priorities identified in the FY 1991 plan seem
appropriate, given current knowledge, it is necessary that the plans be
kept flexible and are under continual review as the program evolves. The
USGCRP does now and must continue to address issues broader than
climate and deeper than the sometimes ephemeral concerns that readily
attract public attention. The broader issues potentially include changes in
the chemistry and quality of not only the atmosphere but also the soils
and surface and subsurface waters and the oceans themselves; reductions
in biodiversity from deforestation and other land use practices; and other
responses of the earth system to extensive agriculture, industry, urbaniza-
tion, land use alterations, the spread of anthropogenic pollutants, and other
changes induced by humans. Some of these problems are addressed by the
FY 1991 plan; others, such as reductions in biodiversity and the human
causes and responses to change (e.g., impacts on agricultural systems and
public health) are addressed inadequately or not at all.
Today public and policy concern is riveted on anticipated greenhouse
warming, with added concern regarding the depletion of stratospheric
ozone, acid precipitation, and tropical deforestation. Continued stress on
the environment, driven by a burgeoning world population, will expose
new and perhaps unexpected concerns that may prove as significant if
not more so-than any of these. The usefulness of the USGCRP will rest
ultimately on its ability to shift focus, as needed, to apply the energies of
an organized research community to new and unanticipated concerns about
the global environment, and to distinguish long-term significant issues from
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those that are ephemeral. The program can best achieve this by holding
to its original goal of understanding the earth as a system including the
role of humans as well as the natural variability of the system and by
documenting significant trends in global change, without any prescience of
what these changes will be or any prejudice as to where or how they will
emerge. The program must therefore be ready to add or drop priorities
as scientific insights develop. It must also exert particular prudence in the
selection of instruments and parameters that are to be monitored from
space, where costs and long lead times have the most limiting effects.
PRINCIPAL RECOMMENDATIONS
The panel endorses the general scientific priorities of the USGCRP
and urges that they be kept flexible in ensuing years. ~ maintain the
required program flexibility and to ensure its appropriate direction, we
urge that the USGCRP be reviewed at frequent intervals by scientists who
are sufficiently detached from the agencies that implement the program to
render impartial judgements.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
global environment
