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US Climate Change Science Program

Updated 11 October, 2003

Strategic Plan for the
Climate Change
Science Program
Review draft, November 2002
 

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Overview of the Climate Change Research Initiative

In May 2001, the Administration requested the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to review the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2001) and recommend research priorities to reduce uncertainties in climate science. The resulting report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions (NRC, 2001a), includes the following (summarized) recommendations:

  • Reduce the range of uncertainty in climate change projections by pursuing major advances in the understanding and modeling of:
  • The factors that determine atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols; and
  • The so-called "feedbacks" that determine the sensitivity of the climate system to a prescribed increase in greenhouse gases.
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  • Ensure the existence of a long-term monitoring system that provides a more definitive observational foundation to evaluate decadal- to century-scale changes, including observations of key state variables and more comprehensive regional measurements of climate and greenhouse gases.
  • Enhance the research enterprise that seeks to improve our understanding of the interactions between the environment and society, including support of:
  • Interdisciplinary research that couples physical, chemical, biological and human systems;
  • An improved capability to integrate emerging scientific knowledge, and its significant uncertainty, into improved decision support systems; and
  • Research at the regional and sectoral level that promotes analysis of the response of human and natural systems to multiple stresses.
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    • Following this request to the NAS, on June 11, 2001, President Bush announced the establishment of the US Climate Change Research Initiative (CCRI) to study areas of uncertainty and identify priority research areas where investments could make a difference. The President directed the Secretary of Commerce to set priorities for additional investments in climate change research, review such investments, and to improve coordination among federal agencies. He committed resources to build climate observation systems and proposed joint ventures with international partners to develop state-of-the-art climate models to improve our limited understanding of the causes and impacts of climate change.

    The CCRI was developed in collaboration with the US agencies involved in climate and global change research, taking into account the NRC recommendations, and is meant to enhance the ongoing research activities of the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). The proposed CCRI research initiatives emerged from a common understanding of key research needs, including those priority areas already identified by the USGCRP.

    The resulting CCRI represents a focusing of resources and enhanced interagency coordination of ongoing and planned research into those elements of the USGCRP that can best support improved public discussion and decisionmaking in the near term. In particular, the goal of the CCRI is to measurably improve the integration of scientific knowledge, including measures of uncertainty, into effective decision support systems and resources. Whereas the USGCRP represents an important long-term investment, the CCRI programs will produce deliverables useful to policymakers in a short time frame (2-4 years). To meet these goals, the CCRI aims to:

  • Supplement ongoing USGCRP elements where additional effort would rapidly lead to critical decision support information;
  • Enhance and integrate observation, monitoring, and data management systems to support climate process and trend analyses; and
  • Provide structured information that can inform policy and decisionmaking, including the use of best available models to address important uncertainties about climate change and development of the range of plausible scenarios for drivers of climate change.
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    To be included in the CCRI, a program must both produce significant decision or policy-relevant deliverables within a short timeframe; and contribute substantively to one or more of the following activities:

  • Address key and emerging climate change science areas that offer the prospect of significant improvement in understanding of climate change phenomena, and where accelerated development of decision support information is possible.
  • Optimize observations, monitoring, and data management systems of "climate quality data" ("Climate quality data" are required for historical perspective, trend analysis, process evaluation, and model development and calibration. These data have particular characteristics including high quality, homogeneity, and continuity; and the availability of full documentation with respect to their technical characteristics).
  • Develop decision support resources including scenarios and comparisons; quantification of the sensitivity and uncertainty of the climate system to natural and anthropogenic (human-caused) forcings through the implementation and application of models; and structured information for national, regional, and local discussions about possible global change causes, impacts, benefits, and mitigation and adaptation strategies.
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    References:

    IPCC, 2001.   Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,  Climate Change 2001.  Third Assessment Report of the IPCC.  (Cambridge, United Kingdom, and New York: Cambridge University Press).  Includes:

    NRC, 2001a.  National Research Council, Committee on the Science of Climate Change, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions (Washington, DC: National Academy Press).

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