Preview of Our Changing Planet:
The U.S. Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Year 2008

A Report by the Climate Change Science Program and The Subcommittee on Global Change Research
A Supplement to the President's Budget for Fiscal Year 2008

Coordinating Research Elements

Efforts to foster integration occur on many levels. One is improving coordination of scientific research and the flow of information through interdisciplinary and interagency working groups focused on each of seven main research elements of the program plus a number of cross-cutting activities or themes. CCSP’s research elements include atmospheric composition, climate variability and change, the global water cycle, land-use and land-cover change, the global carbon cycle, ecosystems, and human contributions and responses to environmental change. Chapters 3 to 15 of the CCSP Strategic Plan contain more detailed discussions of the discipline-specific research elements, as well as elements that cut across all areas of the program. A brief summary of each of these research and cross-cutting elements is provided below, as well as a few highlights of planned activities. These and other activities will be described in more detail in the full volume of Our Changing Planet FY 2008 – Annual Report.

Integrating research and observational approaches across disciplinary boundaries is essential for understanding how the Earth system functions and how it will change in response to future forcing. This is due to the interconnectedness among components of the Earth system, which often relate to each other through feedback loops. Interdisciplinary interactions in CCSP are scaled to the nature of the problem. In some cases, the necessary science may be conducted within a small set of disciplines, such as those required to improve understanding of soil biogeochemical processes. In other cases, highly interdisciplinary approaches are required, such as in the case of making projections about the future state of the Earth system and analyzing their implications. In the latter example, expertise ranging from the social sciences to atmospheric dynamics and chemistry to oceanography to the biological sciences is required.

Interdisciplinary research is only one aspect of the integration facilitated by CCSP. Integration in CCSP also refers to the steps being taken to create more seamless approaches between the theory, modeling, observations, and applications that are required to address the multiple scientific challenges being confronted by CCSP. Finally, integration in CCSP also refers to the enhancement of cooperation across agencies toward meeting the objectives articulated in the CCSP Strategic Plan.

Atmospheric Composition

The composition of the atmosphere on global and regional scales influences climate, air quality, stratospheric ozone, and precipitation. Consequently, this impacts human health and the vitality of ecosystems. Research and observational activities coordinated and supported by CCSP are being used to assess how human activities and natural processes affect atmospheric composition, and how that understanding may be used to inform decisionmaking in the United States and abroad. In FY 2008, emphasis will be given to studies of interactions between aerosols and non-CO2 gases, enhanced measurements of atmospheric water vapor, and interactions of pollutants with climate change. Special emphasis will be given to the climate impacts of pollutants associated with aviation.

Climate Variability and Change (including Climate Modeling)

Global Water Cycle

Research associated with this element involves studies of the crucial role the water cycle plays both in climate variability and change, and climate and variability have on aspects of the global water cycle upon which society and nature critically depend. The ultimate goal of this water cycle research is to provide a better foundation for decisions and investments by policymakers, managers, and individuals. Achieving this goal requires a program of activities that test predictions and data products in real decision contexts, demonstrate techniques and their effectiveness to potential users, and provide tools and strategies to transfer the science from the experimental realm to operations.

Land-Use and Land-Cover Change

Land use and land cover are linked to climate and weather in complex ways and are critical inputs for modeling greenhouse gas emissions, carbon balance, and ecosystems. Land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) studies have provided critical inputs to large-scale biomass and forest cover assessments; future LULCC goals include reducing uncertainties in biomass estimates, understanding regional heterogeneities in changes, and quantifying linkages and feedbacks between LULCC, climate change, and other human and environmental components. Research that examines historic, current, and future LULCC, its drivers, feedbacks to climate, and its environmental, social, economic, and human health consequences is therefore of utmost importance and often requires interagency and intergovernmental cooperation. Research plans focus on how management practices may change as climate and conservation policies change, and feedbacks among these systems.

Global Carbon Cycle

Increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 and methane (CH4) are major drivers of climate change. The global carbon cycle element of the CCSP seeks to better quantify and understand the dynamics of the global carbon cycle that determine CO2 and CH4 fluxes and carbon storage in terrestrial and oceanic ecosystems. Carbon cycle processes depend on climate, and thus linking carbon cycle and climate change analyses is critical. Carbon cycle research involves multiple disciplines and extends over a broad range of spatial and temporal scales. Major multi-agency activities include the North American Carbon Program (NACP), an effort to describe and reduce uncertainties about the North American carbon budget and underlying processes, and the Ocean Carbon and Climate Change (OCCC) Program, an effort for oceanic research aimed at determining how climate change will affect the future behavior of the oceanic carbon sink. In FY 2008, NACP will address key gaps and uncertainties in the synthesis developed previously (Synthesis and Assessment Product 2.2), and aspects of OCCC and NACP will be coordinated to better quantify and understand the roles of adjacent ocean basins in the North American carbon budget. NASA will launch the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) to provide for the first time consistent atmospheric carbon observations globally from space, and carbon data assimilation systems will begin to derive estimates of carbon sources and sinks from these measurements.

Ecosystems

This research element studies the potential effects of global change on goods and services provided by aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, using observations, experiments, modeling, and syntheses to focus on critical emerging questions. Newly initiated projects in terrestrial ecosystems are addressing cause-and-effect relationships between climatic variability and change, and the distribution, abundance, and productivity of native and invasive organisms. Further, research is continuing into understanding how increasing CO2 levels affect plants and microorganisms. Research in a Chesapeake Bay ecosystem is generating data to evaluate and forecast effects of warming, changes in fishing pressure, and eutrophication on economically important estuarine ecosystems. In the ocean, coral reef research is helping scientists and managers identify climatic and non-climatic stressors and thereby better manage these important ecosystems.

Decision-Support Resources Development and Related Research on Human Contributions and Responses

Decisionmakers and other interested citizens need reliable science-based information to make informed judgments regarding policy and actions to address the risks and opportunities of variability and change in climate and related systems. A wide variety of CCSP decision-support resources and related research on human contributions and responses is targeted at that objective. The outcomes of these activities are intended to inform public discussion of climate-related issues and scientifically assess and expand options for mitigation of and adaptation to climate variability and change. The most prominent of CCSP’s ongoing decision-support activities is its synthesis and assessment process that involves the generation of 21 different products intended to support public discussion of climate science issues of particular importance to U.S. decisions. CCSP’s research on human contributions and responses to global environmental variability and change includes analyses of human drivers of change and their potential impact, societal resilience and ways of reducing vulnerability, approaches for improving the ability of decisionmakers to utilize scientific information, and the effects of global environmental change on human health. CCSP’s research is paying particular attention to aspects of global change that have greatest relevance to society including drought and extreme or abrupt climate events.

Observing and Monitoring the Climate System

CCSP provides active stewardship for observations that document the evolving state of the climate system, allow for improved understanding of its changes, and contribute to improved predictive capability for society. Some of these observations however are not part of the CCSP budget (such as operational satellites) but are crucial to its success. A core CCSP activity is U.S. participation in the broad-based strategy of the international Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) in monitoring atmospheric, oceanic, and terrestrial domains with an appropriate balance of in situ and remotely sensed observations. In 2007-2008, GCOS-related observing activities by CCSP agencies will focus on observing the polar climate as part of the International Polar Year (IPY) series of international cooperative studies. IPY plans to advance polar observations by establishing a variety of new multidisciplinary observatories using the latest technologies in sensor web (network of spatially distributed sensor platforms that wirelessly communicate with each other) and power-efficient designs. Data from these as well as more traditional surface- and space-based observatories will provide high-quality records needed to detect potential future climate change. The United States plans to increase its efforts on observations of the polar atmosphere, ice, and ocean, as well as leverage its investments in polar research with international partners. A continuing challenge to CCSP agencies is ensuring the long-term integrity and understandability of data products provided by remote-sensing and in situ observing systems.

Communications

CCSP’s member agencies support a broad array of communications initiatives. CCSP has developed a strategy and implementation plan for helping to coordinate and facilitate these activities. These efforts are intended to improve public understanding of climate change research by disseminating the results of CCSP activities credibly and effectively, and by making CCSP science findings and products easily available to a diverse set of audiences. CCSP facilitates communication of the results of individual agencies, as well as providing coordination in communicating the results of climate activities of the Federal Government.

International Research and Cooperation

CCSP, through its working groups including the Interagency Working Group on International Research and Cooperation, participates in and provides input to major international scientific and related organizations on behalf of the U.S. Government and scientific community. CCSP also provides support to maintain the central infrastructure of several international research programs and international activities that complement CCSP and U.S. Government goals in climate science.