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1
Introduction
In the past few years, global environmental change has increasingly taken
a central place on the stage of national and international policy discussions.
In many cases, however, the scientific information that forms the basis of
discussions about far-reaching policies to mitigate or adapt to change is
uncertain and incomplete. Decisions on energy policies to curtail emissions
of greenhouse gases, for example, or decisions to expend funds to adapt to
possible changes in the global environment, must rest on a scientific under-
standing of the earth system that is only beginning to emerge.
Global environmental change encompasses many facets. The environ-
ment is undergoing significant alterations as a result of human activities
superimposed on the natural variability of the earth system. The "green-
house effect" and consequent climatic change are currently of great concern
to the public. Other changes in the global environment include depletion of
stratospheric ozone, deforestation, acid deposition, as well as other as yet
undetected and unanticipated changes. The scientific understanding of each
of these manifestations of global change hinges on the ability to understand
the total earth system and the interactions between the atmosphere, oceans,
land, and biota including humans.
While global change has been the topic of high-level policy discussions,
it has also become the focus of increasingly active planning for scientific
programs. Internationally, the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program
(IGBP) and the ongoing World Climate Research Program (WCRP) consti-
tute closely interrelated and mutually complementary efforts focusing, re-
spectively, on the biological-chemical and the physical-dynamic aspects of
long-term global environmental change. The U.S. Global Change Research
Program (USGCRP) coordinates the U.S. contributions to these interna-
tional programs. Together, these efforts aim toward understanding the earth
9
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RESEARCH STRATEGIES FOR THE USGCRP
system in order to improve our predictive capabilities of global environ-
mental change and thus to provide a foundation for sound policy decisions.
THE U.S. GLOBAL CHANGE RESEARCH PROGRAM
The U.S. Global Change Research Program, initiated in fiscal year 1990,
represents the U.S. federal government's scientific effort to understand,
monitor, and predict global change. The USGCRP is an interdisciplinary
program coordinated across many federal agencies and is designed to (CES,
1989a,b, 1990)
gain an adequate predictive understanding of the interactive physical, geologi
cal, chemical, biological, and social processes that regulate the total earth
system and, hence establish the scientific basis for national and international
policy formulation and decisions relating natural and human-induced changes
In the global env~onrnent and their regional impacts.
It operates under the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engi-
neering, and Technology (FCCSET) Committee on Earth and Environmen-
tal Sciences (formerly the Committee on Earth Sciences) with the advice of
the Committee on Global Change and other units of the National Research
Council.
The overarching scientific objectives of the program are to establish an
integrated, comprehensive long-term program of documenting the earth sys-
tem on a global scale; conduct a program of focused studies to improve our
understanding of the physical, geological, chemical, biological, and social
processes that influence earth system processes and trends on global and
regional scales; and develop integrated conceptual and predictive earth sys-
tem models. To meet these objectives, the plan for the USGCRP currently
embodies seven interdisciplinary science elements (CES, 1989b):
Climate and hydrological systems. The examination of the physical
processes that govern physical climate and the hydrological cycle, including
interactions between the atmosphere, hydrosphere (i.e., oceans, surface and
ground water, clouds, and so on), cryosphere, land surface, and biosphere.
· Biogeochemical dynamics. The study of the sources, sinks, fluxes,
trends, and interactions involving the mobile biogeochemical constituents
within the earth system, including human activities, with a focus on carbon,
nitrogen, sulfur, oxygen, phosphorus, and the halogens.
Ecological systems and dynamics. The investigation of the responses
of ecological systems, both marine and terrestrial, to changes in global and
regional environmental conditions and of the influence of biological com-
munities on the atmospheric, terrestrial, oceanic, and climate systems.
· Earth system history. The uncovering and interpretation of the natural
records of past environmental change that are contained in terrestrial and
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INTRODUCTION
11
marine sediments, soils, glaciers and permafrost, tree rings, rocks, geomor-
phic features, and other direct or proxy documentation of past global condi-
tions.
Human interactions. The study of (1) the social factors that influence
the global environment, including population growth, industrialization, ag-
ricultural practices, and other land usages, and (2) the human activities that
are affected by regional aspects of global change.
· Solid earth processes. The study of geological processes (e.g., volca-
nic eruptions and erosion) that affect the global environment, especially
those processes that take place at the interfaces between the earth's surface
and the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, and biosphere.
· Solar influences. The investigation of how changes in the near-space
and the upper atmosphere that are induced by variability in solar output
influence the earth's environment.
The U.S. President's budget for fiscal year 1991 proposed a budget of
over $1 billion for this program, with the participation of seven federal
agencies.
INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS: IGBP AND WCRP
Internationally, scientific research on global change is being undertaken
principally under the auspices of two complementary scientific programs-
the IGBP, of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), and the
WCRP, which is jointly carried out under the auspices of the World Meteo-
rological Organization (WMO) and ICSU.
The IGBP was formally adopted by ICSU in 1986 with the objective to
(ICSU, 1986)
describe alla understand the interactive physical, chemical, aIld biological processes
that regulate the total earth system, the unique environment that it provides
for life, the changes that are occurring in this system, and the marmer in
which they are influenced by human activities.
Priority in the IGBP falls on
Pose areas of each of the fields involved that deal with the key interactions
and significant change on time scales of decades to centuries, that most affect
the biosphere, that are most susceptible to human perturbation, and Hat most
likely lead to predictive capability.
Since 1986, ICSU's Special Committee for the IGBP has developed sev-
eral operational components of the program. These core projects include
the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) program, address-
ing the important interactions between the terrestrial and marine biospheres
and the atmosphere; the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS), address
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RESEARCH STRATEGIES FOR THE USGCRP
ing the fluxes of carbon and associated biogenic elements in the ocean and
the exchanges with the atmosphere, the sea floor, and the continental boundaries;
Past Global Changes (PAGES), aiming to improve understanding of the
history of the earth system over the past 2,000 years and the dynamics that
caused glacial-interglacial variations in the late Quaternary epoch; the bio-
spheric aspects of the hydrological cycle; terrestrial systems and global
change; and data and information needs. Other core projects focusing on
such issues as coastal zones and earth system models are currently being
developed (IGBP, in preparation).
The World Climate Program was established by WMO in 1979, on the
basis of extended studies by expert panels of its executive committee and
the deliberations of the First World Climate Conference. The program has
four major components, dealing with data, applications, the study of im-
pacts, and research. The last of these, the WCRP, builds directly upon the
scientific and institutional framework of the highly successful Global At-
mospheric Research Program (GARP). Like GARP, it is conducted as a
joint enterprise of WMO and the nongovernmental ICSU.
The major objectives of the WCRP are to determine
· to what extent climate can be predicted and
· the extent of man's influence on climate.
To this end, the WCRP initiates studies of regional and global climate,
climate variability, and mechanisms; assesses significant trends; develops
physical-mathematical models; and investigates the sensitivity of climate to
natural and human stimuli. Planning currently considers three principal
streams of activity dealing with various time scales: monthly/seasonal;
seasonal/interannual; and long-term climate sensitivity and change over de-
cades to centuries.
Within this framework, a number of projects of varying degrees of rel-
evance to the global change effort are being planned or implemented. Among
these are the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE), the Tropical
Ocean and Global Atmosphere (TOGA) program, the Global Precipitation
Climatology Project, the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project,
the International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project, and the Global
Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX).
OBJECTIVES AND ORGANIZATION OF THIS REPORT
This report recommends a number of initiatives for achieving the goals
and objectives of the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Specifically,
the report elaborates on the scientific needs for developing integrated earth
system models, conducting focused studies to improve understanding of
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INTRODUCTION
13
global change, and documenting global change. The recommended focused
studies, previously identified by the Committee on Global Change (NRC,
1988), constitute the initial priorities for the U.S. contributions to the IGBP.
The report is not intended to provide a comprehensive view of all the
scientific priorities for the USGCRP. Rather, it represents a contribution to
the full suite of scientific planning documents for global change research,
including reports of the interagency Committee on Earth Sciences (CES,
1989a,b, 1990), the World Climate Research Program (WCRP, 1990), and
the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (1986, 1988, in prepara-
tion).
In chapter 2 of this report, the committee addresses the scientific needs
that must be met to develop integrated conceptual and predictive models of
the earth system. Chapters 3 through 7 address the objective of the USGCRP
to develop focused studies to improve understanding of earth system pro-
cesses, and recommend specific research initiatives in five areas that should
be given priority attention. These initiatives focus on the interdisciplinary
research required to improve understanding of the interactions between the
oceans, atmosphere, land, and human activities, and assume effective sup-
port for more disciplinary-oriented research to further understanding for
relevant processes. In chapter 8, the committee recommends specific ef-
forts to establish an integrated, comprehensive long-term program of docu-
menting the earth system on a global scale.
The interdisciplinary initiatives recommended for priority attention and
discussed in chapters 3 through 7 are as follows:
earth system history and modeling to document changes in atmospheric
composition, climate, and human activities to improve and validate models
of global change.
· human interactions with the geosphere-biosphere to analyze changes
in human land use, energy use, and industrial processes that drive changes
in the earth system.
water-energy-vegetation interactions to develop global models of the
response of terrestrial ecosystems to changes in climate, land, and water use
and to determine the reciprocal effects of such changes in terrestrial ecosys-
tems on the climate system on regional and global scales.
· fluxes of materials from terrestrial ecosystems to improve understand-
ing of the processes most important for determining fluxes of radiatively
active gases between the land and the atmosphere, in order to predict how
changes in climate and land use alter gas emissions, and to improve under-
standing of the effects of land use changes on nutrient transfer to river,
estuarine, and ocean systems.
biogeochemical dynamics in the ocean interactions with climate in
order to predict effects of climatic change on oceanic biogeochemical cycles
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14
RESEARCH STRATEGIES FOR THE USGCRP
and the interactions of such cycles with climate via tl~^ release and absorp-
tion of radiatively active gases.
Each of these inii~ai~ves includes process studies, modeling efforts, and
data collection relevant to the particular issues under study.
Figure 1.1 shows the relationship between the initiatives recommended
in this report, He elements of the USGCRP, and projects of the IGBP and
ICSU
International
Geosphere - Biosphere
Program Coordinating Committee on Global Elements of the World Climate
Panels, Working Groups, Change Recommended U. S. . Global Change Research Program
& Scientific Steering Initial Foci Research Program Streams
Committees
| Global Geosphere
|Biosphere Modeling ~| System Models l
| Data Management ~ L| Earth System l
| Information Systems | I Measurements
Earth System
Measurements
& Data
| Global Changes of :|Earth System
|the Past history & Modeling
Terrestrial Biosphere -
Atmosphere Chemistry
Interactions
~ _
J _
| Marine Biosphere - L
|Atmosphere Interactions r
| Biospheric Aspects of L
| the Hydrological Cycle ~7
l
Effects of Climatic
Change on Terrestrial
Ecosystems
| Geosphere-Biosphere |
I Observatories l
Stream I:
Monthly/Seasonal
Time Scale
Stream II:
Seasonal/Interannual
(Tropical Ocean
Global Atmosphere)
Terrestrial Trace
Gases & Nutrient
Fluxes
Biogeochemical
Dynamics in the
Ocean
by I Human
Interactions
Biogeochemical |
\ / Dynamics |
_~
-/
Water- Energy- / Climate and
Vegetation ~Hydrological _
Interactions Systems
Ecological
Systems &
Dynamics
it_
Interactions
_
| Solid Earth |
| Processes l
Solar
Inf luences
Stream III:
Decades to Centuries
(World Ocean Circula-
tion Experiment,
Global Energy Water
Experiment )
FIGURE 1.1 Relationships of scientific themes for research programs on global
change.
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INTRODUCTION
15
WCRP. The initiatives recommended in this report should be viewed in the
context of the full suite of scientific invesi~gai'ons required by the USGCRP.
Thus the recommendations presume the effective support of global change
investigations across a broad spectrum including physical climate and hy-
drological systems, solid earth processes, and solar influences. As scien-
tific understanding evolves, new priorities will emerge and be refined and
incorporated into specific projects.
REFERENCES
Committee on Earth Sciences (CES). 1989a. Our Changing Planet: A U.S. Strategy
for Global Change Research. Federal Coordinating Council for Science, En-
gineering, and Technology. Office of Science and Technology Policy, Wash-
ington, D.C.
Committee on Earth Sciences (CES). 1989b. Our Changing Planet The FY 1990 Research
Plan. Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology.
Office of Science and Technology Policy, Washington, D.C.
Committee on Earth Sciences (CES). 1990. Our Changing Planet: The FY 1991 U.S.
Global Change Research Program. Federal Coordinating Council for Science,
Engineering, and Technology. Office of Science and Technology Policy,
Washington, D.C.
International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU>. 1986. The International Geosphere-
Biosphere Program: A Study of Global Change. Report No. 1. Final report
of the Ad Hoc Planning Group. ICSU Twenty-first General Assembly, Sept.
14-19, 1986, Bern, Switzerland.
International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP). 1988. The International Geosphere-
Biosphere Program: A Study of Global Change. A Plan for Action. A report
prepared by the Special Committee for the IGBP for discussion at the First
Meeting of the Scientific Advisory Council for the IGBP, Oct. 1988, Stockholm,
Sweden. Rep. 4. IGBP Secretariat, Stockholm.
Intemational Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP). 1990. The Initial Core Projects.
Report to the Second Scientific Advisory Council for the IGBP. In preparation.
National Research Council (NRC). 1988. Toward an Understanding of Global Change:
Initial Priorities for U.S. Contributions to the International Geosphere-Biosphere
Program. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
World Climate Research Program. 1990. Global Climate Change: A Scientific Re-
view. Presented by the World Climate Research Program. World Meteoro-
logical Organization and International Council of Scientific Unions.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
change research
