PREFACE ix The Committee on Global Change Research will then prepare a comprehensive review of the U.S. Global Change Research Program for release early in 1996. The workshop brought together a broadly constituted group including members of the Committee on Global Change Research and the Board on Sustainable Development; chairs or representatives of other relevant NRC units concerned with elements of the USGCRP; leaders of the major international global change research programs; and other invited scientists and technologists from academia and industry selected for their expertise and experience in relevant technical areas. In order to ensure the required level of expertise, scientists currently active in the USGCRP and supported by the agencies participating in the program were invited to take part. We also want to point out that some members of the Committee on Global Change Research also receive funding from USGCRP agencies. However, to foster a balanced and objective review, the workshop also included experts outside the USGCRP research community, as well as individuals who have been critical of the USGCRP and of NASA's MTPE/EOS program in the past. The workshop also benefited from the presence of representatives of USGCRP agencies (Appendix G). These representatives were invited to make formal presentations and to serve as liaisons to provide workshop participants with the background information and programmatic details required to support their deliberations. We appreciate greatly their contributions of time, expertise, and experience over the week and a half of the workshop. As workshop co-chairs, we worked closely with the Subcommittee on Global Change Research of the interagency Committee on Environment and Natural Resources in planning the workshop, to develop appropriate background information, and to identify the appropriate level of agency participation. We are very grateful to the many individual federal officials associated with these organizations for their contributions to this effort. Finally, we wish to express our appreciation to the NRC staff--John Perry and Claudette Baylor-Fleming of the Board on Sustainable Development and volunteer staff members from other NRC units--Frank Eden, Mary Hope Katsouros, and Anne Linn, who worked long hours to bring this project to fruition. In addition, we are grateful for the contributions provided by Eileen Shea of the Center for the Application of Research on the Environment (CARE), who served as study director for this first phase of the USGCRP review and for the La Jolla workshop. We are sure that the many participants share our appreciation of the staff of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for their unstinting and uniformly effective support of this demanding enterprise. Berrien Moore III, Chairman Committee on Global Change Research Edward A. Frieman, Chairman Executive Summary Assessing accurately the current state of the global environment and increasing our predictive capabilities to aid in anticipating how this environment may evolve are enduring challenges to science. The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) seeks to advance scientific understanding of the global environment, assist federal agencies in their missions, and provide reliable information for decision making. The scientific and societal motivations of the program remain compelling, and it should be aggressively pursued. Future development of the USGCRP should be based on a set of guiding principles: · Science is the fundamental basis for the USGCRP and its component projects, and that fundamental basis is scientifically sound. The balance of activities within the program must reflect evolving scientific priorities. • In addition to observational systems and data streams implemented as explicit components of the usgcrp, the program should make use of existing observational systems and data products implemented in support of related environmental monitoring and earth science programs (e.g., the ground-based and satellite observations that support operational weather forecasting). The USGCRP must utilize advancing technology in addressing these evolving priorities. · An open and accessible program will encourage broad participation by the government, academic, and private sectors. · Success in attacking the long-term scientific challenges of the USGCRP requires an adequate and stable level of funding that promotes management efficiencies and encourages rational resource allocation. 2 A Review of the USGCRP and NASA's MTPE/EOS Successful implementation of the USGCRP and the realization of its benefits require informed leadership and collaboration among the government, academic, and private sectors. The USGCRP, furthermore, must be implemented as an integrated program of observations, process research, modeling, prediction, information management, and assessment. In order to achieve this, enhanced collaboration and cooperation are required among the scientific community, the Congress, federal agencies, and the Executive Office of the President to ensure that all elements of the program are considered in the context of the integrated program as a whole. The program should focus on priority issues in four mature areas of Earth system science that are of great scientific and practical importance. Each area will require the contribution of a variety of traditional Earth science disciplines: 1. Seasonal to interannual climate prediction: Improve prediction skills related to El Niño and expand predictive skills beyond the tropics to the extent possible; enhance understanding of land-atmosphere interactions; and establish an international research prototype prediction capability to garner multinational support and to provide benefits to participating countries where usable predictive skill has been demonstrated. 2. Atmospheric chemistry: Enhance research and scientific assessment on tropospheric chemistry, including tropospheric ozone and its precursors; characterize global distributions of aerosols; monitor biogenic gases especially over continental areas; and continue monitoring and scientific assessment of ozone in the stratosphere, including links to climate. 3. Ecosystems: Improve documentation, assessment, and understanding of the global carbon cycle; investigate the relationships among vegetation, climate, and land use; study the role of managed and natural ecosystems in the exchange of water, carbon dioxide, and biogenic gases; and provide for the inclusion of surface atmosphere processes and ecosystem dynamics in integrative models and scientific assessments. 4. Decadal to centennial climate: document, investigate, and assess changes in forcing factors that influence climate; incorporate ocean, land, atmosphere, and ice processes and feedbacks in coupled models; document change through long-term monitoring and assessment of primary climate system characteristics; and investigate economic, technological, and demographic trends that affect the ability of natural and human systems to respond to climate variability and change. |