Chairman WALKER. Thank you. Dr. MacCracken, you're next. STATEMENT OF DR. MICHAEL MacCRACKEN, OFFICE OF THE U.S. GLOBAL CHANGE RESEARCH PROGRAM, WASHINGTON, DC. Dr. MACCRACKEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Michael MacCracken. I'm director of the interagency office of the U.S. Global Change Research Program. As indicated in the biography in my testimony, I've been developing, testing and working with climate models for 30 years, and I'm proud to say I'm a climate-modeler, probably the only one up here given all the criticism that's going on. And I'm certainly willing to speak about the model results and comparisons to observations. In this brief oral presentation, I want to make two basic points. First, with respect to the program as a whole, it's a broadlybased program, as was said by Dr. Frieman earlier, looking at a full range of global environmental issues-seasonal to interannual variations, atmospheric chemistry, ecosystem change. We're talking in this panel about one aspect of it, climate change, and actually, we're talking about the part of how the physical system will change and not how the ecosystems change and other things. So that we have within the USGCRP a broad charter that comes from the legislation and what we are talking about today is a particular aspect of it. The second point I want to make, and I'll expand on these both briefly, is that along with the vast majority of scientists that have been involved in this IPCC process, there's a strong indication that there's a discernible human influence on climate. There are these apparent inconsistencies and uncertainties. That's how science advances, by identifying such things. But I do not believe that any of them fundamentally alter the consensus position of the IPCC that human activities are changing climate and will do much more so in the future. Well, as I indicated, with respect to the program, there are four major areas-seasonal to interannual, where our goal is to improve predictions, which will be of great benefit to farmers for water resources and other purposes, to understand stratospheric ozone changes, which is vital for human health and how it affects the lower atmospheric chemistry, to understand changes in land cover and marine ecosystems. They supply many resources for society. It's important to understand those. And to understand how climate is changing, because people have to live within this climate as they work toward the future. Now you're hearing a number of disagreements today and I want to say there are some things that I think we all agree on. The first is that observations are critical to understanding the Earth system. As indicated on the viewgraph, the EOS measurements they're taking are going to be absolutely vital for research in each of the four areas. So it's really important. The scientific community is starved for data. I am not worried about there not being enough investigators for that to happen. It's important to understand that NASA is supplying data for the program as a whole, not just for the NASA scientists. Well, we'll skip that one. Let me say a second thing we agree on. We agree on that process-based research is important. We also agree that models are an important activity, I believe, for predicting the future. We certainly have to use empirical approaches, as has been discussed. But ultimately, we have to make sure that theory and empirical evidence agree. We also have to understand the consequences of climate change and how they will be beneficial and detrimental, and how human systems will be affected by us. Well, let me move to the second point just briefly. We certainly want to have an open research program. We have an ongoing process of questioning. All of the research activities that we have have questions that they're trying to address. That's how science advances. It looks at conflicts of various kinds. We have a very open process. We invite proposals. They're peerreviewed. And that all goes on in an important, open way. IPCC is the way we try and draw all of this together. The scientists do the best they can to try and come to some conclusions. Science will always be contentious. That's the way scientists are. But we really believe we have a responsibility to all of you to try and deliver our best coherent answer as we can on a periodic basis, and it's for that reason that we highly commend the IPCC to you. I want to emphasize that we focus on research. Dr. Michaels mentioned that something was going from being dangerous interference to moderate interference. That is not a judgment that science makes or the research program makes. That's a judgment that has to be made in other ways by the policy community. Now there are a few things I just want to say with respect to the comments that have been made. The first is human climate change is discernible if I can have the next one. The human activities are dramatically modifying atmospheric composition and this is going to change the climate. There's no doubt about that. The second, the next viewgraph shows data for the full year of 1995, how the surface temperature are changing, and it has indeed risen to, about, or even the warmest year that we have on record. This is also the warmest since about 1400. The final point I will make is that sulfate aerosols do exert cooling in the southern hemisphere. Forcing and response are not in the same place, even though the aerosols are mostly in the northern hemisphere. So I'm more than willing to address a number of these other issues in the questions, but in conclusion, let me just emphasize, it's a broad-based program, it's open for comments and participation. We're passing on this world to our children and grandchildren and this is a very important issue to address. Thank you, sir. [The prepared statement and attachments of Dr. MacCracken follow:] Prepared statement of Michael C. MacCracken, Ph.D. Director, Office of the U. S. Global Change Research Program to the U.S. House of Representatives Hearing on U.S. Global Change Research Programs: March 6, 1996 Personal Background Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, my name is Michael C. MacCracken and I have served as Director of the interagency Office of the U. S. Global Change Research Program since 1993. I am on assignment from the National Science Foundation (NSF), where I report to Dr. Robert Corell, Assistant Director for Geosciences, who is chairman of the interagency Subcommittee on Global Change Research that oversees the U. S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). I have in turn been on an assignment to the NSF since 1993 from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where I was most recently the division leader for atmospheric and geophysical sciences and then of global climate research, working for more than 25 years on the development, testing and application of global climate system models. Prior to that, I was involved in modeling the climatic effects of greenhouse gases, of nuclear war, and of supersonic aircraft, in modeling the air quality of the San Francisco Bay Area (which led to a plan that has helped the Bay Area become one of the few regions in the country to meet the national oxidant air quality standard), and in leading interagency Department of Energy efforts on sulfate air pollution and massively parallel computing. A biographical statement is attached. It is my pleasure to appear before the Committee to describe the interagency U. S. Global Change Research Program and its scientific priorities. Program Organization The USGCRP was established as a Presidential Initiative in the FY 1990 Budget, and was codified in the Global Change Research Act by Congress in 1990. The USGCRP is currently administered by the Subcommittee on Global Change Research (SGCR), which currently reports to the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources (CENR) of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC). Within this scientific framework, the USGCRP oversees the scientific research concerning global change. I want to point out that the policy aspects of global change research are completely separate from the research effort and report through separate channels--the USGCRP focuses on providing support for the fundamental inquiry and developing the underpinning scientific information concerning global change. The SGCR includes representatives of a dozen agencies and several Executive branch offices. The sizes of the contributions are closely matched to their specific interests and capabilities. Thus, NASA leads efforts relating to satellite observations of the Earth, NOAA leads efforts relating to its interests in improving predictions of atmospheric and oceanic behavior for the benefit of society, the Department of Energy focuses on research relating to critical uncertainties involving projecting the effects of the emissions of carbon dioxide from combustion of fossil fuels for energy, NSF focuses on carrying out broadly based research to improve understanding of the Earth system, USDA focuses on the potential roles of and consequences for agriculture, food production, and forests, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) focuses on potential health-related impacts, DOI focuses on climate system history, water resources, and impacts on public lands, EPA focuses on impacts relating to ecosystems and societal impacts of global change, DoD focuses on prediction of seasonal climate anomalies affecting its national security operations, Department of Transportation (in a cooperative effort with NASA) participates in studies on the potential effects of aircraft on atmospheric ozone concentrations, the Smithsonian Institution focuses on global ecosystems, and the Department of State has responsibility for issues relating to international cooperation and assessments. While this may seem like a lot of agencies to be involved, global environmental issues are very complex and have many aspects. Overcoming what might seem like barriers to cooperation among agencies is well worth the effort because of the wide range of challenges and the many interests and capabilities of each agency. We very much need the best that each agency can offer, sometimes large and sometimes small, sometimes working closely on these issues and sometimes adding consideration to studies of related issues that are of even more importance to the agency. Weakening or losing the participation of the various agencies would be detrimental to the overall program. USGCRP Program Goal With so many agencies involved, it has been important to have an underlying scientific approach to investigating global change. The administration of President Bush presented the first scientific plan for the USGCRP in October 1990 and it has served as an important guide to research efforts over the past several years. We are currently in the process of preparing a new plan that is responsive to the advancing of scientific understanding and to the very helpful comments of the National Academy of Sciences in their review last summer. Under the original plan, the goal of the program has been to "establish the scientific basis for national and international policy-making relating to natural and human-induced changes in the global Earth system." The means for accomplishing this was to achieve a greater understanding of the Earth system "through the mutually reinforcing global change research activities of all nations and many organizations and programs ..." The programs that have developed since this goal was established reflect its striving for a better predictive understanding of the world around us through a large measure of interagency, bilateral, and multilateral cooperation. With the new plan, we have moved to make our goal statement more clear and better defined. Pending review this spring by the National Academy of Sciences and the broader scientific and stakeholder community, the proposed update to the USGCRP goal is: • To observe and record what is happening to the Earth's environment, • To understand why changes are occurring, • To improve predictions of what is likely to happen, • To evaluate the environmental and human consequences of change, and • To develop capabilities for assessing the human health, and resource and economic implications of changes. Scientific Approach To meet the original goal for the USGCRP, the SGCR identified seven broad disciplinary areas of scientific uncertainty relating to global environmental change and within each area identified the highest priority areas for research. I have included a schematic showing these priorities as Figure 1. The seven areas, all of which have important elements, are: • Climate and Hydrologic Systems (including especially research on clouds, oceans, water and energy fluxes, feedbacks, and interactions); Biogeochemical Dynamics (including especially research on fluxes and processing of trace species such as carbon, ocean biogeochemistry, cycling of nutrients and carbon in the biosphere, and terrestrial inputs to marine ecosystems); Ecological Systems and Dynamics (including especially research on the functioning of ecosystems, their response to stresses, interactions between biological and physical processes, and models of natural and resource systems); • Earth System History (including especially work on past climates and ecosystems, the past composition of the atmosphere and circulation of the ocean, etc.); • Human Interactions (including especially assembling information on the driving forces behind climate change, including population growth, energy demands, changes in land use, and industrial production and the impacts of climate change on people and nations); • Solid Earth Processes (including especially those relating to coastlines, volcanic eruptions, permafrost, and other natural geological processes affecting the global environment); and • Solar Influences (including especially monitoring of UV radiation from ozone depletion, the response of the atmosphere to solar variations, monitoring current variations in solar radiation, and establishing the historical record of changes in solar radiation). Within this broad framework priorities were established leading to greater resources in the most important areas. Research, however, was sustained across each of these broad areas so as to encourage scientific exploration and investigation and so as not to submerge or prematurely dismiss uncertainties. For most of these areas, the program provided for both coordinated programs that involved scientists working together (which can really help to improve overall understanding of a process) and support for individual investigators (who are effective at identifying new areas and uncovering weaknesses)--both types of activity are essential to a vigorous scientific program. Like all major research activities, the USGCRP requires a range of approaches for accomplishing its goal. The original USGCRP plan can be grouped the activities into the following categories: • Documentation of Earth System change through observational programs and use of • Focused studies on controlling processes and improved understanding; and These efforts remain clearly identified in today's programs and closely match the first three elements in the new program goal statement. To better be able to provide estimates of the potential importance to our nation and the world of global environmental change, we are currently striving to build-up research in two additional areas, namely: • Environmental and human consequences of change, and • Assessment of the health, resource, and economic implications of changes. |