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"The U.S. Climate Change Research Initiative (CCRI): Survey of Research Strategies to Reduce Scientific Uncertainties" was presented to the President and the Cabinet by Secretary of Commerce Donald L. Evans in August, 2001. The document was prepared by the Department of Commerce as a first technical response to the President's June 2001 directive to develop improvements in science-based decision support methods for addressing climate change issues, supplementing the ongoing substantial body of basic research conducted by the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) during the preceding decade. The survey drew upon the draft of the ten-year USGCRP strategic plan developed in 2001, the 2001 climate research priority recommendations developed by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in an analysis requested by the President, and the broadly-noted research needs identified by the scientific community.

A technical working group principally composed of government scientists from the USGCRP participating agencies, and including assistance from several scientists in the academic community, prepared this document. The technical working group was convened to initiate the evaluation of options aimed at reducing scientific uncertainties and improving the information available for decision support related to climate change. Although this document provides a valuable record of potential strategies for research and observations, it was not edited for general publication, and it did not undergo interagency or independent scientific community peer review. Therefore the document should not be viewed as a completed or stand-alone statement of CCRI planning priorities. Instead, it is a first step in an iterative process aimed at the preparation of a widely reviewed CCRI/GCRP integrated planning summary that will involve substantial dialog with the scientific community and other stakeholder communities.

The ongoing development of the combined CCRI/GCRP program includes the following steps: (1) compilation and evaluation of a comprehensive inventory of climate- and global-change research programs currently being sponsored by the federal government agencies; (2) identification of criteria to prioritize current and proposed CCRI and GCRP programs; (3) identification of gaps and overlaps in current programs; (4) interagency prioritization of proposed research, monitoring and decision support initiatives that will best inform future climate and global change policy determinations, (5) publication of a comprehensive draft plan for the CCRI/GCRP program, for scientific and stakeholder review, and (6) publication of a final version of the CCRI/GCRP implementation plan that incorporates consideration of scientific and stakeholder reviews, and that includes schedules, deadlines and tracking metrics for the entire program.