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In this testimony
Summary
Background
information
Discussion Draft
Strategic Plan
December 2002 Workshop
Summer 2003 U.S.-led Earth Observation Summit
Closing
Comments
Attachments
A video file of the entire hearing is
available on the
C-SPAN
Technology/Science page. Additional statements and testimony
from the hearing is available from the
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
"The workshop was the most highly attended and
structured discussion of climate change issues held to date, and it was
conducted with a 100 percent commitment to open and transparent discussion
of the issues."
"The USGCRP is continuing its major role in the
exploration, discovery and analysis of global change phenomena, and is
sharing the results of this research with the entire world community."
"CCSP is designed to serve in a `credible fact
finder' capacity, providing a source of credible and useful
information..."
"The research activities sponsored by the CCSP
... will
involve both a focus on national and global level mitigation and
adaptation issues as well as a focus on regional and sectoral
adaptation responses to climate variability."
"CCSP has a policy of full transparency in
its plans, reports and data records. To maintain credibility among users
of the CCSP analyses and projections, CCSP draft and final plans,
reports of findings and projections of future outcomes will be posted on
publicly accessible web sites, and all comments communicated by
interested stakeholders also will be posted for public review."
"The status of the entire Earth and climate system
is a capstone issue for our generation and will continue to be so for
our children."
"The
workshop was a seminal event in the consideration of global climate change
issues..."
"The general response to the process of providing a
public draft plan prior to the workshop, encouraging fully open discussion
at the workshop, and accommodating written comments received after the
workshop was extremely positive. "
"An Earth Observation Summit...
will serve as a foundation for reinvigorating the Earth's observing
system."
"Comprehensive,
objective, transparent and well-reviewed scientific inquiry must be the
core methodology..."
|
 |
 Good
afternoon Senator McCain, Senator Hollings and members of the Committee.
I am James R. Mahoney,
Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Deputy Administrator of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). I am appearing today in my
capacity as Director of the United States Climate Change Science Program (CCSP).
CCSP integrates the federal research on global change and climate change,
as sponsored by thirteen federal agencies (the Departments of Agriculture,
Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health & Human Services, the Interior, State,
and Transportation; together with the Environmental Protection Agency, the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science
Foundation, the Agency for International Development, and the Smithsonian
Institution) and overseen by the Office of Science and Technology Policy,
the Council on Environmental Quality, the National Economic Council and
the Office of Management and Budget.
In February 2002 President Bush created a new
cabinet-level management structure, the Committee on Climate Change
Science and Technology Integration, to manage the over $3 billion annual
budget federal climate change research and technology development
programs. CCSP, which integrates the work of the
U.S. Global Change Research Program
(USGCRP) created by the Global Change Research Act of 1990 with the
Climate Change Research Initiative (CCRI) launched by the President in
June 2001, is a key element of the President's climate science and
technology development management structure.
In response to your invitation, I am very pleased to
have this opportunity to present testimony on the Administration's
November 2002 Discussion Draft
Strategic Plan for federal research on climate change, and on the
uniquely successful workshop
on the draft plan, held in Washington, DC, on December 3 to 5, 2002. The
workshop was designed to facilitate extensive discussion and comments on
the draft plan from all interested domestic and international groups and
individuals, including the scientific community, a wide range of
stakeholders, interested members of the public, and the media.
The open comment period begun before the workshop
continues until a deadline of January 18, 2003, for receipt of written
comments. We look forward to providing this Committee, as well as other
interested elements of the Congress, with a report on the comments and
their resolution -- and with the updated strategic plan -- by the end of
April 2003, as announced in the workshop documents. I note that all
elements of the strategic planning process, including the Discussion
Draft Strategic Plan, all of the workshop proceedings and all written
public comments, will be available at the web site
www.climatescience.gov .
Summary of this Statement
- "Credible Fact Finder": Responding to the
direction of President Bush that the best available scientific
information be developed to support decision making on global climate
change issues, CCSP has developed its strategic planning and public
review processes to facilitate "credible fact finding" on (a) key
climate science issues, (b) comprehensive, high quality climate and
ecosystem observing and data management systems, and (c) the
development of meaningful decision support resources in the form
of responses to "if ..., then ..." questions, which depends on achieving
significant progress under (a) and (b) above.
- New, Integrated Management Structure: The
CCSP has implemented a comprehensive, interagency management structure
to assure effective and efficient deployment of approximately $1.7
billion (annual budget) in directly sponsored research and $1.3 billion
of related research conducted by the thirteen CCSP collaborating federal
agencies. During the past nine months this new management structure has
(a) completed a comprehensive strategic review of the ongoing research
programs in all CCSP collaborating agencies, (b) produced an interagency
integrated climate science budget request for FY 2004, to be included in
the President's budget request to be sent to Congress, and (c) prepared
the basis for operational interagency management of the
FY 2003 appropriated budgets when they become available.
- November 2002 Discussion Draft Strategic Plan:
The CCSP recently published an extensive "draft for discussion" of its
new 10-year strategic plan. The draft plan is structured around key
questions in the science, observations and decision support areas,
to encourage a focus on the information needed to underpin public
discussion of climate change issues. The Discussion Draft Strategic
Plan responds to the requirements for periodic updates as specified
by the Global Change
Research Act of 1990 (PL 101-606), and to the direction of President
Bush that climate change research activities be accelerated, so as to
provide the best possible scientific information that can be developed
in the near term. The Discussion Draft Strategic Plan (discussed
further below) is available on the web site
www.climatescience.gov
.
- December 3-5, 2002, Workshop on the Discussion
Draft Strategic Plan: The
workshop held last month here in
Washington was a key element in the process of developing the scientific
basis to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of a range of climate
change mitigation and adaptation options. The workshop was the most
highly attended and structured discussion of climate change issues held
to date, and it was conducted with a 100 percent commitment to open and
transparent discussion of the issues. The workshop is discussed
extensively later in this statement, and all of the documentation on the
workshop proceedings also appears on the web site
www.climatescience.gov
.
- Comprehensive Review by the National Academy
of Sciences: CCSP has requested that the
National Academy of Sciences -- National Research Council (NAS)
conduct a comprehensive review of the draft and final versions of the
CCSP Strategic Plan. The Academy appointed a special 17-member committee
of experts in the physical, biological, social and economic sciences,
and this committee reviewed the Discussion Draft Strategic Plan,
and participated throughout the recent workshop. The NAS committee will
provide preliminary public recommendations by February 2003 to assist in
the update of the strategic plan. The committee will provide a second
public report in September 2003, commenting on the updated strategic
plan as well as the open public review process being used to develop the
strategic plan and the subsequent findings to be reported by CCSP.
- Updated CCSP Strategic Plan Scheduled for
April 2003: CCSP will publish its updated strategic plan for the
climate science program by the end of April 2003, after consideration of
all of the workshop discussions and the full range of the written
comments received by the January 18, 2003, deadline for comments. The
plan, which will be subject to future modification as warranted by the
emergence of key science findings and key public questions to be
addressed, will guide the conduct of the federal research activities
during the critical next few years of public discussion about climate
change.
- Shift to the Reporting of Findings After the
Strategic Plan is Completed: As described in the Discussion Draft
Strategic Plan, CCSP will focus on the development of structured,
climate science findings after the updated strategic plan is completed
in April 2003. Future reports will address the three principal foci of
the strategic plan: (a) reducing key scientific uncertainties,
(b) designing and implementing a comprehensive global climate and
ecosystem monitoring and data management system, and (c) providing
decision support resources to support public evaluation of
climate change response options, based on evaluation of a wide range of
scenarios and response options.
- Integration of Scientific and Technological
Developments: One of the principal themes of the workshop was the
likely need for breakthrough technology options to address the long-term
challenge of global climate change. The only effective approaches to
long-term global stabilization and ultimate reduction of net greenhouse
gas emissions, if found necessary, will require major new technologies,
not simply incremental improvements of current technology. The likely
growth of global population and economic output in the upcoming decades
will only amplify this need. CCSP is working closely with the Climate Change Technology Program to assure that: (a) science drives the
definition of technology needs, and (b) science is used to evaluate both
the intended and the unintended consequences of proposed
technology innovations.
- Major US-Led Earth Observation Summit
Announced: Building on the need for a truly integrated global
climate and ecosystem observing and data management system as documented
in the CCSP Discussion Draft Strategic Plan and discussed
extensively during the December workshop, the Administration is taking
the initiative to host an Earth Observation Summit to be held in
Washington, DC, during the summer 2003 time frame. The meeting will
bring together senior international government and nongovernment leaders
in climate science, technology and environment, to develop a commitment
to a new level of comprehensive, climate-quality global monitoring, and
to initiate the planning to implement this commitment. The meeting
(further described later in this statement) will target the Science
Advisors and the Science or Technology Ministers of the G-8 nations and
other nations, and will serve as a foundation for reinvigorating
comprehensive observation of the Earth's climate system, which will be a
focus of the December 2003 Conference of the Parties of the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
- Request for Congressional Dialog and Input to
the Strategic Plan: The climate change science strategic planning
process has already benefited from a wide range of review and comment
(before, during and after the recent workshop) by the domestic and
international climate science community, by a large group of
stakeholders representing diverse interests on climate change issues,
and by the rapidly increasing group of users of climate change
information and projections. We invite comments and questions by members
and staff of the Senate and the House of Representatives so that the
question-based strategic plan can be fully responsive to the public
interest. We have already engaged in briefings with a number of members
and staff, and we are prepared to respond promptly to other requests for
briefings or written responses to questions.
The remainder of this statement provides further
details in four of the key areas mentioned above: (1) background
information on the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the Climate
Change Research Initiative; (2) the November 2002 CCSP Discussion Draft
Strategic Plan; (3) the December 2002 Workshop on the draft strategic
plan, including its purpose, structure, operations and feedback to date;
and (4) the summer 2003 U.S.-led Earth Observation Summit planned to
promote a new level of state-of-the-science measurement and data
management capability to support decision making about global change.
I. Background on the U.S. Global Change
Research Program and the Climate Change Research Initiative
The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP),
well known to many in this audience, was launched as a series of research
initiatives in 1987, and was codified by the Global Change Research Act,
which was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush in 1990. To date,
over $20 billion of research funding has supported the USGCRP, which has
contributed significantly to the international body of research,
monitoring and computer modeling of global change over the past 15 years.
The USGCRP is continuing its major role in the exploration, discovery and
analysis of global change phenomena, and is sharing the results of this
research with the entire world community.
In May 2001, the Bush Administration asked the
National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council to provide an
updated evaluation of key questions about climate change science, in view
of the body of research developed by the international climate science
community, with specific reference to the recently completed
Third
Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The findings of the NAS Committee on the Science of Climate Change,
reported in June 2001, continue to guide the development of the focused
climate research and technology programs announced by President Bush also
in June 2001:
"Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's
atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air
temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures
are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades
are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that
some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural
variability."
"Because there is considerable uncertainty in
current understanding of how the climate system varies naturally and
reacts to emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, current estimates
of the magnitude of future warming should be regarded as tentative and
subject to future adjustments (either upward or downward). Reducing the
wide range of uncertainty inherent in current model predictions of
global climate change will require major advances in understanding and
modeling of both (1) the factors that determine atmospheric
concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols, and (2) the so-called
'feedbacks' that determine the sensitivity of the climate system to a
prescribed increase in greenhouse gases. There is also a pressing need
for a global system designed for monitoring climate."
"Making progress in reducing the large
uncertainties in projections of future climate will require addressing a
number of fundamental scientific questions relating to the buildup of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the behavior of the climate
system. Issues that need to be addressed include: (a) the future usage
of fossil fuels; (b) the future emissions of methane; (c) the fraction
of the future fossil fuel carbon that will remain in the atmosphere and
provide radiative forcing versus exchange with the oceans or net
exchange with the land biosphere; (d) the feedbacks in the climate
system that determine both the magnitude of the change and the rate of
energy uptake by the oceans, which together determine the magnitude and
time history of the temperature increases for a given radiative forcing;
(e) details of the regional and local climate change consequent to an
overall level of global climate change; (f) the nature and causes of the
natural variability of climate and its interactions with forced changes;
and (g) the direct and indirect effects of the changing distributions of
aerosols. Maintaining a vigorous, ongoing program of basic research,
funded and managed independently of the climate assessment activity,
will be crucial for narrowing these uncertainties."
"Because of the large and still uncertain level
of natural variability inherent in the climate record and the
uncertainties in the time histories of the various forcing agents (and
particularly aerosols), a causal linkage between the buildup of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the observed climate changes
during the 20th century cannot be unequivocally established.
The fact that the magnitude of the observed warming is large in
comparison to natural variability as simulated in climate models is
suggestive of such a linkage, but it does not constitute proof of one
because the model simulations could be deficient in natural variability
on the decadal to century time scale."
I also quote from a February 2002 statement of
President Bush, responding to the NAS report:
"Addressing global climate change will require a
sustained effort, over many generations. My approach recognizes that
sustained economic growth is the solution, not the problem - because a
nation that grows its economy is a nation that can afford investments in
efficiency, new technologies, and a cleaner environment."
President Bush took several steps to address climate
change issues in June 2001, including issuing a new challenge to the
climate change scientific and technological communities. He created the
Climate Change Research Initiative (CCRI) and the parallel National
Climate Change Technology Initiative (NCCTI), and asked federal science
and technology specialists to take on new responsibilities to accelerate
the development of policies to respond to climate change issues.
Specifically, a short-term focus (defined as covering 2 to 5 years) was
assigned to CCRI, to speed the development of information that can improve
science-based decision-making.
In February 2002 President Bush further strengthened
the climate change science and technology programs by creating a new
cabinet-level management structure, placing responsibility and
accountability for the $3+ billion annual budget science and technology
programs in the relevant cabinet departments. In September 2002, Commerce
Secretary Evans and Energy Secretary Abraham reported to the President on
the first six months of climate change science, technology and emission
reduction activities achieved under the new cabinet level management
structure. The report from Secretaries Evans and Abraham, which includes
the organization chart for the federal program, is attached to this
statement. Implementation of the President's new management structure has
resulted in several actions that have strengthened the federal programs in
climate change science and technology development. For example:
A thorough reevaluation of the climate change
science programs in all 13 participating federal agencies was completed
in August 2001. This has created a substantial new basis for interagency
collaboration, and has provided the essential background for preparation
of the interagency CCSP Discussion Draft Strategic Plan.
A full interagency crosscut of the FY 2004
climate change research budget request was prepared in September 2002.
This integrated interagency budget crosscut will facilitate efficiency
and effectiveness in the commitment of future budget resources to the
climate change science program.
The interagency science and technology programs
are now being reviewed on a frequent basis by high-level appointees of
President Bush. For example, the President has designated an operating
review committee composed of deputy cabinet level officials representing
each of the collaborating agencies. This review committee has held a
full agenda meeting nearly every month since the President designated
its oversight responsibility in February 2002, and has been responsible
for achieving a substantially improved level of integration among the
federal climate science and technology programs, together with the
voluntary emission reduction programs and the several international
collaborative programs in which the United States participates.
CCSP is designed to serve in a "credible fact
finder" capacity, providing a source of credible and useful information in
three broad categories:
-
Science: The causes
and projected effects of global climate change, including the
understanding of both individual processes and multiple-factor
interactions.
-
Observations and data:
Observing system design and measurement methodologies for climate and
ecosystem parameters, including high quality data archives, to
facilitate trend analyses and other measurement-based scientific
studies.
-
Decision support resources:
Evaluation of "If ..., then ..." questions, which depends on
achieving significant progress under (1) and (2) above.
The research activities sponsored by the CCSP are
designed to provide critical information about a number of the natural
resource issues affected by climate variability and change. This will
involve both a focus on national and global level mitigation and
adaptation issues as well as a focus on regional and sectoral
adaptation responses to climate variability.
II. The Discussion Draft Strategic Plan
for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program
The CCSP Discussion Draft Strategic Plan
outlines a comprehensive, collaborative approach for developing a more
accurate understanding of climate change and its potential impacts. It
builds upon the significant investments we have already made in climate
change science, and it is guided by the priority information needs
identified by stakeholders and scientists, both nationally and
internationally.
The Discussion Draft Strategic Plan, the
comprehensive workshop discussions and written comment processes, and the
ongoing review by the National Academy of Sciences were all designed to
support the "credible fact finder" role of CCSP. The following guidelines
are being used to advance the CCSP "credible fact finder" strategy:
-
Question-based strategic plan:
The draft plan was developed from a series of key questions in each of
the principal climate change science topic areas. For each question the
draft plan summarized the current state of knowledge; described the
improved information expected within the next 2 to 4 years and beyond;
and reviewed the uncertainties unlikely to be resolved within 2 to 4
years. This question-based approach fosters agreement on the appropriate
questions to be addressed, and it enhances communication among the large
number of contributors to and users of the strategic plan.
-
Integration of Long Term USGCRP and Short Term
Focused CCRI Studies: USGCRP has largely
focused on long-term studies in key science areas, including atmospheric
composition, climate variability, the carbon cycle, the water cycle,
climate-ecosystem interactions, human dimensions of climate change, land
use/land cover interactions with regional climate change, and climate
model development and evaluation. CCRI has a short-term focus on
reducing scientific uncertainty where possible, developing integrated
global observing systems for oceans, atmosphere and ecosystems, and
developing decision support resources to enhance public and policy-maker
evaluation of climate change response options. The CCSP integrated
management of the USGCRP and CCRI helps bridge between the discovery
and characterization focus of USGCRP and the differentiation and
strategy investigation focus that President Bush called for in the
CCRI.
-
Combined scientific community and stakeholder
review: All of the strategic plan review
actions (including the workshop, the written comment period and future
opportunities to comment on CCSP draft findings) are intended to
encourage review, comments, challenges, questions and alternative
recommendations from both the international scientific community and the
various interested stakeholder communities.
-
Policy relevant but policy neutral analyses:
The CCSP studies are intended to be policy
relevant (i.e., focused on the range of climate change outcomes and
response options of interest to the United States and other governments)
while remaining policy neutral to assure credibility among all
interested stakeholders. The CCSP studies and reports do not recommend
specific policy options; instead, the studies address "If ..., then ..."
questions that explore the projected outcomes of various policy options.
-
Transparency and comprehensiveness guidelines:
CCSP has a policy of full transparency in
its plans, reports and data records. To maintain credibility among users
of the CCSP analyses and projections, CCSP draft and final plans,
reports of findings and projections of future outcomes will be posted on
publicly accessible web sites, and all comments communicated by
interested stakeholders also will be posted for public review. CCSP will
aim to make its analyses comprehensive (i.e., covering the range of
plausible policy options) within the limits of the resources available
for analysis. Moreover, CCSP will facilitate comparison with other
studies whenever possible.
-
Reporting of the basis for findings and the
degree of certainty in findings: CCSP aims
to describe the basis for each of its key findings and projections, with
sufficient detail to allow independent reviewers to replicate the
underlying analyses. CCSP will also characterize the degree of certainty
associated with its each of its key findings and projections. Where
appropriate, "confidence level" descriptions will be used to communicate
these characterizations. The introduction of uncertainty is not intended
to imply a basis for inaction. In cases where the uncertainty of
analyses or projections is so large as to make the discrimination
between options impractical, this finding will be reported directly.
III. The U.S. Climate Change Science
Program Strategic Plan Workshop
A. Themes for the Workshop
Two important themes were used to guide the workshop
deliberations:
The status of the entire Earth and climate system
is a capstone issue for our generation and will continue to be so
for our children. The Administration fully embraces the need to provide
the best possible scientific basis for understanding the complex
interactions that determine the constantly changing nature of our
Earth's life support systems. Ultimately a new generation of
technology, not yet developed or commercially demonstrated in most
cases, will likely be needed to achieve a long-term balance between the
lifestyle aspirations of the global population and the protection of
essential Earth systems.
The 13 federal agencies sponsoring the Climate
Change Science Program, together with the Administration's senior
science and policy leaders, intended that the workshop serve to
accelerate the application of basic climate research to address the
"fundamental uncertainties" identified by the National Academy of
Sciences and to evaluate response strategy options. This is consistent
with the President's call to focus on the profoundly important -- and
challenging -- range of fundamental scientific uncertainties, technology
development and public policy questions that we need to address.
B. The Workshop Experience
The workshop was a seminal event in the
consideration of global climate change issues, attended by a very large
group of United States and international climate specialists and
stakeholders.
More than 1,300 climate specialists participated
in the workshop, including individuals from 47 states and 36 nations.
This appears to be the largest-ever participation in a focused climate
science review program. Participants included substantial representation
from all of the climate science areas, as well as extensive
representation from each of the principal domestic and international
stakeholder groups dealing with climate science issues.
The workshop set a high standard for open and
transparent proceedings -- which was the goal of the Administration. The
Discussion Draft Strategic Plan was published for review by all
participants prior to the workshop; all plenary sessions (including all
keynote addresses) were recorded and posted on the web site for public
review and use; findings of all 24 specialty sessions were documented
for public use; all invited commenter presentations are currently being
posted on the web site; and all written comments received up to January
18, 2003, will be posted on the web site.
The principal science leaders and the relevant
cabinet-level agency leaders in the United States government all
participated in the workshop, along with the principal international
climate science leaders. These included:
The Honorable Spencer Abraham, Secretary of Energy
Dr. Bruce Alberts, President of the National Academy of Sciences
Dr. Samuel W. Bodman, Deputy Secretary of Commerce (on behalf of
Secretary Donald L. Evans, who was out of the country during the
workshop)
The Honorable Robert Card, Undersecretary of Energy
Dr. Rita R. Colwell, Director of the National Science Foundation
The Honorable David Garman, Assistant Secretary of Energy
VADM Conrad C. Lautenbacher, USN (Ret), Administrator, National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Dr. John H. Marburger, Director, Office of Science and Technology
Policy
Professor G.O.P. Obasi, Secretary General, World Meteorological
Organization
The Honorable Sean O'Keefe, Administrator, National Aeronautics
and Space Administration
Dr. R. K. Pachauri, Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change
The Honorable Christine Todd Whitman, Administrator, Environmental
Protection Agency
Approximately 225 climate specialists were
invited participants during the specialty sessions of the workshop,
including presenters of the plan elements, invited review panelists,
moderators and rapporteurs. More than 300 other individuals provided
comments during the specialty sessions. The specialty sessions focused
on specific themes of the strategic plan as well as crosscutting themes
in the plan. The 24 specialty discussion sessions during the workshop
were:
Emerging Climate Science Issues
Observations and Monitoring Systems
Atmospheric Composition
Carbon Cycle
Climate Modeling
Climate -- Land Use/Land Cover Interactions
Climate Variability and Change
Water Cycle
Human Contributions and Responses to Climate
Change
Climate-Quality Data Management Systems
Scenario Development to Support National-Scope
Decisions
International Collaboration
Climate Variability and Change (second session
of topic #7)
Climate -- Ecosystem Interactions
Resolution of Disparities in Tropospheric
Temperature Records
Stabilizing Greenhouse Gases in the Earth's
Atmosphere: Opportunities for Technology and Innovation
Resource Management Decision Support
Grand Challenges in Observations, Modeling and
Information systems
Crosscut: Climate Variability -- Atmospheric
Composition -- Water Cycle
Crosscut: Carbon Cycle -- Ecosystems -- Land
Use/Land Cover
Interactions Between Data, Observations and
Modeling
Scenario Development and Risk -- Based Decision
Support
Applied Climate Modeling
Reporting and Outreach Plans
We have invited all interested persons, whether
they attended the workshop or not, to submit written comments on the
draft strategic plan to be posted on the web site, up to the cutoff date
of January 18, 2003. We will consider all comments in developing the
updated version of the strategic plan, scheduled for April 2003.
At the request of CCSP, the National Academy of
Sciences - National Research Council has appointed a 17-member expert
committee, including physical, biological and social scientists and
economists. The NAS committee reviewed the Discussion Draft Strategic
Plan prior to the workshop; they participated in the workshop; they
will review the public comments posted on the web site; and they will
issue two reports during 2003 expressing their conclusions and
recommendations regarding the objectivity, quality and comprehensiveness
of the draft and final versions of the new strategic plan, and regarding
its implementation.
C. Feedback from the Workshop
The general response to the process of providing a
public draft plan prior to the workshop, encouraging fully open discussion
at the workshop, and accommodating written comments received after the
workshop was extremely positive.
The following lists illustrate some of the general
and specific comments received at the workshop. These comments are not
priority ranked, because the open comment period is still under way.
Illustrative general comments
General recommendations voiced at the workshop
included:
Prioritize and sequence the scientific research
needs and identify the resources required to carry out the high-priority
science.
Create a more holistic strategic plan; the
individual chapters in the discussion draft were not adequately
cross-linked.
Provide realistic timelines for the science
goals.
Clarify the interagency process for implementing
the plan.
Note that resource limitations are not only
financial, but also include hardware capabilities and human capital.
Balance short-term and long-term science goals
and activities, with reasons for each.
Increase the attention to the detection and
attribution of climate change impacts.
Encourage accelerated development of climate
models, especially for applied analyses of scenario projections.
Facilitate stakeholder communication with the
scientific community, including international stakeholders.
Develop requirements and guidelines for regional
climate change analyses.
Build on the lessons learned from the National
Assessment, particularly in terms of researcher-stakeholder interactions
and the need for objective analysis.
Develop a strategy for studying and forecasting
potential nonlinear and abrupt climate changes.
Designate focused research programs that address
specific, significant, known scientific uncertainties about climatic
change, and that assign agency responsibilities for quantifying the
degree and nature of scientific uncertainties.
Illustrative
specific comments
The following list is a sample of the many hundreds of specific
recommendations voiced during the workshop:
To reduce the uncertainty in the estimates of
climate sensitivity, the uncertainties in radiative forcing must be
reduced, and observations and analyses of Earth's surface temperature
must be continued.
There should be a major focus on aerosols,
emphasizing the regional nature of aerosol emissions and impacts and the
importance of Asia, Africa, and Amazonia.
An increased focus on the global hydrologic
cycle, particularly water vapor and water budgets, is needed.
The high prioritization of aerosol effects on
climate was endorsed, but stratospheric and tropospheric ozone issues
also need to receive a high prioritization.
Effective study of climate feedbacks from polar
regions will require a substantial integrated observation field program.
A coordinated combination of scientific research,
observations, and modeling will improve understanding of climatic
change.
Many communities will need to be involved in
prioritizing and implementing studies of land-use change, including
local stakeholders and international partners.
Linkages between the water cycle, carbon cycle,
ecosystems, and land-use change should be emphasized.
The importance of economics and technology in
predicting future land-use change should be emphasized.
It is essential that funding of basic scientific
research that may lead to unanticipated insights, results, and
breakthroughs be continued.
Missing items in the plan include the need for
improved greenhouse gas emissions inventories and the effects of
aviation on climate.
The plan should more fully address ecosystem and
social science data and research linked to global change.
Sophisticated systems should be planned (and then
implemented) to enable all users to search and retrieve global change
data via the internet, including delivery of near-real time global
temperature data sets.
Climate variability should be cast in a
probabilistic context.
Guidelines for monitoring the effects of climate
change on ecosystems, both on land and in the ocean, should be provided.
A greater emphasis is needed on how feedbacks are
changing and how they could play out in the future.
Dynamic performance monitoring of an integrated
climate observing system is needed with resources to address and fix
problems in near-real time.
Providing decision support is not only a 2-4 year
problem -- the need will continue indefinitely in the future.
Uncertainty analysis is key to providing
meaningful decision support resources.
Regional analyses are particularly needed by
resource managers dealing with climate variability for design
applications.
Resources are limiting the rate of progress in
applied computer modeling.
Scenarios must integrate science insights and
knowledge from other sources (e.g., indigenous perspectives).
The computational requirements for climate
modeling could easily make use of a million-fold increase in computing
power over the time period of the CCSP.
There is not enough emphasis on impacts and
adaptation analysis.
Continuous scientific evaluation of technology
options (especially breakthrough technologies) is needed.
The context of the 2-center climate modeling
strategy must be defined within the overall CCSP strategy.
An outreach strategy is needed for "multiple
publics" and stakeholders.
Seasonal-interannual timescales should serve as
test beds for elucidating the processes and mechanisms important to
climate change.
Higher resolution (regional) models are needed
for both better simulations of regional climates and users/customers who
want regional details.
Make
GCOS Upper-Air Network (GUAN) into an Upper
Air Climate Reference Network.
Independent measurements (e.g., GPS, Lidar, proxy
measurements, biological and new technologies) and multiple independent
analysis groups are needed to resolve disparities in tropospheric
temperature records.
Long-term funding, access to dedicated
supercomputers, full and open access to data, and stewardship of
historical data are all major challenges to observations, modeling, and
information systems.
D. Next Steps After Completion of the CCSP Strategic
Plan
Following the April 2003 completion of the new
strategic plan, CCSP will focus on the reporting of findings and "if ...,
then ..." analyses to the interested national and international communities.
We plan to report findings using the same open and transparent approach as
adopted for the Discussion Draft Strategic Plan and the workshop.
The goal is for the Climate Change Science Program to serve as "credible
fact finder" on the challenging issues associated with characterizing and,
where necessary, mitigating and adapting to climate change.
IV. Announcement of a Summer 2003 Earth
Observation Summit
As part of the Administration's plan to enhance the
use of sound science, credible decision support methods, and high quality
observations on oceans, climate, and ecosystems, the Administration is
taking the initiative to host an Earth Observation Summit in
Washington, DC, in the summer of 2003. The CCSP workshop provided the
starting point for this high level event, which will serve as a foundation
for reinvigorating the Earth's observing system. This activity is being
coordinated through the National Science and Technology Council's
Committee on Environment and Natural Resources.
Although our capability to provide global
observations of the Earth system is at an all-time high, the requirements
for comprehensive, integrated climate and ecosystem observations are also
demanding. The investments made by the United States over the past decade
through the USGCRP, as well as by our foreign partners (notably in Europe
and Japan), have provided unprecedented global views of the Earth as a
complex, interacting system. However, such advances do not limit the need
for highly calibrated and well-distributed in-situ measuring systems,
especially in developing countries and countries with economies in
transition.
The Earth Observation Summit will be significant at
the international level, particularly for meeting the needs of
sustainable development and international environmental conventions
such as the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The expected applications for a fully integrated
Earth observation system are many, including natural resource management,
daily weather prediction, El Niño prediction, and evaluation of climate
models. The ultimate goal is transparency in the global acquisition and
use of climate and ecosystem information, and better international
coordination in creating the measurement and data management resources.
Seamless acquisition and long-term storage of data on the Earth's
biological, physical and chemical cycles -- water, carbon, open ocean
nutrients, atmospheric chemistry, energy balance, etc. -- are
essential to fill in the data gaps for more accurate modeling. Global data
collection will provide earlier and better forecasts of extreme natural
events that can lead to major benefits in energy use, and in food and
water management.
To achieve an integrated global observing system, a
significant number of developed countries and organizations must be
willing to commit the necessary resources to make it happen. The Earth
Observation Summit will bring together senior international governmental
and nongovernmental leaders for science, technology and the environment
involved in global Earth observation. We plan to invite the Science
Advisors or Science and Technology Ministers of the G-8 and other
developed nations to participate in the summit. We aim to join the
participants in a renewed evaluation of the benefits an integrated global
observing system. We believe this summit is especially timely as all
nations prepare to review the adequacy of the Earth's climate observing
system at the Ninth Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework
Convention on Climate Change in December 2003.
Comprehensive, objective, transparent and
well-reviewed scientific inquiry must be the core methodology used to
evaluate the highly complex relationships between natural and
anthropogenic influences on Earth systems, and to project potential
outcomes of the many different investment and action strategies that have
been proposed to mitigate or adapt to potential changes in global
conditions. If we fail to fully evaluate the scientific information
bearing on global change, we would be subject to the justifiable criticism
that our strategy to cope with potentially our largest-ever investment in
environmental management would be seen as a "ready-fire-aim" approach.
CCSP will provide substantial, credible information to inform the public
search for effective and efficient strategies responsive to the challenges
of global climate change.
The
original announcement
and invitation to participate in the climate science workshop (one
page) is attached.
The September 2002
letter report from Commerce Secretary Evans and Energy Secretary Abraham
to President Bush is also attached. It provides an update on the
progress on the climate change science and technology programs and the
voluntary emission reduction program under the new cabinet -- level
management structure initiated by President Bush in February 2002.
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