Some of our new research initiatives, that I will describe shortly, emerged from the enlightening results of these comparisons.

In the ocean research arena, DOE has been associated with the international research efforts such as the World Ocean Circulation Experiment and the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study and provides the funding for many of the ocean carbon dioxide measurements. We are also partners in the interagency effort to detect ocean warming using novel acoustic signatures, the so called Heard Island Experi

ment.

The largest individual component of the DOE program is the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program. Our GCM comparisons, the IPCC and the US/ GCRP have all identified the role of clouds as the principal source of uncertainty in predicting the magnitude and even the sign of climate change; GCMs exhibit a factor of three difference in the sensitivity to the cloud radiative forcing. From studies of NASA's Earth Radiation Budget Experiment we now know that, on the average, clouds cool the Earth, although the role of clouds in a changing climate remains unclear. ARM was designed to address this principal uncertainty. ARM is an observational and modeling program that will characterize the radiative balance from the surface to the top of the atmosphere and will identify the principal factors in this balance including the formation, evolution, and dissipation of clouds. ARM data will greatly improve how GCMs and weather models simulate the hydrological cycle in the atmosphere.

The ARM program will involve five sites around the world, chosen for their climatological significance. The first site will become operational this month near Lamont, Oklahoma, very close to the Kansas border, an area rich in climatological diversity and interesting weather. ARM data will be acquired with ground based remote sensing instrumentation and will be augmented with campaigns involving research aircraft and satellite observations. The next site is planned for the Western Tropical Pacific in FY 1994 where ARM can provide valuable insights into phenomena such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, as well as test the new theory of a tropical "thermostat," a hypothesized response of the ocean-atmosphere system which limits the ocean surface temperature by modulating the structure and extent of cirrus clouds. This may have serious implications to the overall climate change response of an enhanced greenhouse effect.

The ARM scientific team involves a broad spectrum of scientists from the academic community, the DOE Laboratories, other federal agencies and industry. ARM has also had the benefit of technical oversight by JASON, an independent group of distinguished scientists who have also provided the valuable interface with the extended scientific community not traditionally involved in climate change research. At the advice of JASON, ARM has proposed the use of unmanned aerospace vehicles (UAVs) to probe the upper troposphere where important climate related processes take place, yet the quality of both space based and ground based remote sensing observations is poor. We are requesting $10 million in FY 1993 to start the development of UAVs that can enhance the value of ARM and other components of the US/GCRP.

We are also requesting $10 million in FY 1993 for ARMsat, a small climate satellite initiative which will address critical climate observations from space and will extend the value of regional ARM observations to a global scale. One example is Earth radiation budget related measurements that have been identified as a high priority by the Engineering Review of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS). ARMsat will be a multiagency effort involving, for example, NASA, the Department of Defense, and DOE. The panoply of ARM, UAV, and ARMsat sensors will provide important data on crucial climate processes prior to the launch of EOS, thus bridging important gaps in our monitoring of the Earth's climate system and greatly accelerating the process of improving climate change prediction.

JASON has also provided technical oversight for our Computer Hardware, Advanced Mathematics, and Model Physics (CHAMMP) program. We launched CHAMMP in collaboration with the High Performance Computing and Communication program, another Presidential research initiative. CHAMMP is capitalizing on the emerging powerful computing architectures, particularly those involving massively parallel systems which contain thousands of microprocessors, compared to one or at most a few processors found in most supercomputers. These massively parallel computers substantially accelerate computing speeds for climate modeling. Climate modeling needs are taxing the most powerful of today's supercomputers with their demands for long time integrations and the incorporation of more detailed processes such as coupled ocean-atmosphere interactions and more sophisticated ocean circulations and terrestrial feedbacks. These demands will grow even further as programs, such as ARM, start developing more elaborate parameterizations of cli

mate processes. CHAMMP is already increasing climate modeling speeds by using massively parallel systems such as the Connection Machine, and is perfecting the algorithms to anticipate future computing advances. CHAMMP is also exploring theoretical aspects of climate modeling by addressing predictability issues of the underlying mathematical formulations.

DOE has recognized the need to develop the next generation of scientists that will tackle the complex environmental problems of the future, including climate change. Our climate change educational initiative provides fellowships at both the graduate and postgraduate level and encourages collaborations with the scientists at the federal laboratories to promote multidisciplinary skills.

In conclusion, DOE is pursuing an aggressive research effort to quickly reduce the scientific uncertainties of global change with a strong emphasis on acquiring the data and building the models that will improve the capability to predict global and regional climate change. The DOE research, in concert with other US/GCRP efforts, is providing the scientific underpinning for sound policymaking on this important environmental issue.

This concludes my prepared testimony. I would be happy to answer your questions.

The CHAIRMAN. By the way, if I may interrupt for just a moment, on the question of ozone depletion, are we doing enough now? Do the models predict that we will stabilize ozone depletion based on policies now at play?

Dr. HAPPER. Well, I think so far the Department of Energy has not been a very big player in looking at the ozone depletion. Probably that was a mistake. Maybe we should do more of that in the future. But I think that there is still, even with ozone depletion, some uncertainties. As you know, there were press reports very early this year of a possible ozone hole in the northern hemisphere. The CHAIRMAN. Over Kennebunkport.

Dr. HAPPER. Yes, that's right. Well, fortunately, it didn't occur. It may have been because it was unusually warm. We really don't know for certain yet.

There are other puzzles there. For example, we are most concerned about ozone because of the ultraviolet light that comes to the surface of the earth, and that is something that you could easily measure. There was a network measuring ultraviolet light, but it sort of fell into decay and people essentially abandoned it. It was run by dermatologists because they are interested in skin cancer. It really is a great shame that we did not maintain that network. The data that we have from that extended over more than a decade, and it showed essentially no change of UVB at the surface of the earth. So, we are in the dark now about what is really happening with the thing that we fear, which is the ultraviolet light. Some of the instruments at our ARM site will be looking at the UVB.

The CHAIRMAN. You say we are in the dark about ultraviolet light?

[Laughter.]

Dr. HAPPER. Well, that's right. You can't see it anyway. If it is really bright, your eyeballs fluoresce and you notice it.

The CHAIRMAN. We had testimony earlier that it will be 1 to 4 decades before we will have more real confidence in the global climate change effect of greenhouse gases. Would you agree with that time scale?

Dr. HAPPER. Yes, I would certainly agree with that unless there is some dramatic change, but it seems to me if you look at the past record, the fluctuations are so large, that if you assume the future

will be like the past, it certainly will take on the order of decades to get a trend out of that.

Dr. PATRINOS. I would like to expand on this because I presume that you also imply whether our scientific understanding will grow sufficiently so that we can be in a better position to predict climate change.

Within the Federal Government, and specifically within the Committee on Earth and Environmental Sciences, we have developed the U.S. Global Change Research program that represents the coherent interagency effort. About 19 agencies of the Federal Government are cooperating on this. We have developed a very integrated program. The reference was made earlier about $1.2 billion this year and a request for $1.4 billion next year.

Along with the planning, we have also come up with a set of milestones in terms of what we can expect to deliver in scientific understanding over the next 10 to 30 years. We demonstrate, or at least we hope we can demonstrate, that with the investment that we are making in this research, we can start yielding better and better answers that would be translated into information products that could help the policymaking both in the administration and in the Congress.

The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Do you have any final words to add to this extraordinarily good day of hearings? Dr. HAPPER. No, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. All right. Thank you very much for your testimony.

We will meet next Tuesday at 9 a.m. to consider the policy implications of global warming.

[Whereupon, at 12:28 p.m., the hearing was recessed, to reconvene Tuesday, May 12, 1992.]

GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

TUESDAY, MAY 12, 1992

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES,

Washington, DC. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:07 a.m., in room SD366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. J. Bennett Johnston, chairman, presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. J. BENNETT JOHNSTON, U.S. SENATOR FROM LOUISIANA

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order.

I am pleased to welcome you to this morning's hearing regarding domestic and international policies to address global climate change. We are fortunate to have with us today several of the key negotiators of the framework global climate convention scheduled to be signed next month at the Rio Summit. I understand these witnesses have been working within the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for over a year to draft an agreement for addressing greenhouse gas reductions. I look forward to details of the agreement itself, as well as elaboration on some of the mechanisms for achieving international compliance.

I applaud your efforts to forge a compromise that both the industrialized and the developing nations could agree on. And I hope that Congress is supportive of the administration's position to provide guidelines for stabilization of greenhouse gases. I strongly disagree with those who claim that no agreement on language to address greenhouse emissions would have been better than the current agreement. This framework convention provides the United States with a first step toward a national policy for stabilization of greenhouse gases. Should future events warrant an reexamination of our commitment, we can take appropriate actions. Updates of the Montreal Protocol on CFC's provide us with a good model of how such an adjustment policy can work.

The scientists at last week's hearing differed on their interpretation of the data and its implications for global climate change. However, they showed surprising agreement on how to deal with the scientific uncertainties surrounding the issue. All stressed continued research on the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases. All emphasized the importance of looking at all of the greenhouse gases, and all advocated actions that provide multiple benefits such as the phase-out of CFC's.

There may be a similar potential for consensus among diverse organizations who testify today. Each of you can make an important

contribution to an effective policy. The World Resources Institute and the Union of Concerned Scientists, for example, provide important information on options for reducing energy use. Their research on energy efficiency and renewable energy help to guide policymakers in the implementation of the programs in the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. These programs not only save money by saving energy, but they offer real hope for significant reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases. The administration has endorsed this type of no regrets policy in its recent memorandum entitled U.S. Views on Global Climate Change.

The role of the business and industrial community is equally important in devising policies to address potential global climate change. The ultimate success of a concerted no regrets strategy rests with groups and organizations like the National Association of Manufacturers. Such groups and their member companies play an important leadership role in developing energy efficiency and waste minimization policies that are justifiable in their own right, yet address the greenhouse gas emission goals that the United States negotiated last week in New York. In addition, the business community must be ready to continue its many programs to provide innovate environmental and energy technologies to the developing countries.

We should be looking for policies that not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also provide considerable environmental and economic benefits. If global climate change proves less a threat than some have predicted, then we will have erred on the side of caution while building a more efficient economy and a cleaner environment. If global climate change proves as grave a force as others predict, then measures to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases will hopefully help prevent environmental catastrophes. [The prepared statement of Senator Johnston follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. J. BENNETT JOHNSTON, U.S. SENATOR FROM
LOUISIANA

I am pleased to welcome you to this morning's hearing regarding domestic and international policies to address global climate change. We are fortunate to have with us today several of the key negotiators of the framework global climate convention scheduled to be signed next month at the Rio Summit. I understand these witnesses have been working within the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for over a year to draft an agreement for addressing greenhouse gas reductions. I look forward to details of the agreement itself as well as elaboration on some of the mechanisms for achieving international compliance.

I applaud your efforts to forge a compromise that both the industrialized and developing nations could agree on. And I hope that Congress is supportive of the Administration's position to provide guidelines for stabilization of greenhouse gases. I strongly disagree with those who claim that no agreement on language to address greenhouse gas emissions would have been better than the current agreement. This framework convention provides the U.S. with a first step toward a national policy for stabilization of greenhouse gases. Should future events warrant a reexamination of our commitment, we can take the appropriate actions. Updates of the Montreal Protocol on CFCs provide us with a good model of how such an adjustment policy can work.

The scientists at last week's hearing differed in their interpretation of the data and its implications for global climate change. However, they showed surprising agreement on how to deal with the scientific uncertainties surrounding the issue. All stressed continued research on the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases. All emphasized the importance of looking at all of the greenhouse gases. And all advocated actions that provide multiple benefits, such as the phase-out of CFCs.