USGCRP Home Library Our Changing Planet FY2009 The U.S. Climate Change Science Program for FY2009 Integrating Climate and Global Change Research | | Search |
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Integrating Climate and Global Change ResearchThirteen departments and agencies of the U.S. Government participate in CCSP, including:
In addition, the Executive Office of the President and other related programs have designated liaisons who participate on the CCSP Interagency Committee, including:
CCSP is responsible for coordinating and integrating scientific research on global environmental variability and change sponsored by these agencies to take advantage of their unique approaches and missions, and to encourage research that leads to expanded and new results. Thus, the program helps to catalyze research that goes beyond individual agency missions to address overarching national objectives and to achieve results that no single agency, or small group of agencies, could attain. A significant challenge that arises from working across many agencies is integrating climate and global change research to develop a comprehensive view of climate change and its potential significance. CCSP relies not only on the agency programs stated in its budget cross-cut, but also on agency activities that are not formally included in the CCSP budget. Examples of these directly related activities are surface hydrologic and satellite land-cover observations from USGS; and future satellite measurement programs including the tri-agency (NOAA, DOD, NASA) National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) and the planned implementation of a Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM).a Without input from activities such as these, CCSP would be unable to fulfill its mission. CCSP is closely allied with other major interagency programs that observe and study particular aspects of the Earth system and related societal dimensions. Foremost among these is the CCTP, which develops and studies technological options for responding to climate change. CCSP is also closely linked to ongoing Federal ocean science and technology strategic planning under the auspices of the Joint Subcommittee on Ocean Science and Technology, which recently released a set of integrating decadalscale national research priorities in key areas of interaction between society and the ocean.2 A key observational linkage is with the U.S. Integrated Earth Observation System, which is part of the international Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). Connections to programs such as these allow CCSP and its partners to leverage their resources to derive mutual benefits from advances in any one program. In May 2008, CCSP released a Revised Research Plan for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. This updated plan is required in order to reflect both scientific advances since the publication of CCSP’s 2003 Strategic Plan, and the evolving needs of society. It provides direction for addressing remaining uncertainties in climate science, including impacts at regional scales and adaptation options. The Revised Research Plan also emphasizes the need for strengthened communication of scientific studies to decisionmakers across the United States. The updated plan focuses on near-term (1-3 year) planning needs, and specifically addresses research plans for the period 2008-2010. The release of the plan is part of ongoing extensive strategic planning in the Climate Change Science Program that began in 2007. The Revised Research Plan addresses the research plan requirements in Sec. 104(a) of the Global Change Research Act of 1990.
Program ManagementCCSP’s coordination of scientific research is accomplished through the research Coordinating Research ElementsEfforts 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 herein, as well as a few highlights of planned activities. 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 and multi-scale approaches are required, such as in the case of making projections about the future state of the Earth system and analyzing their implications. In this case, expertise ranging from the social sciences to atmospheric dynamics and chemistry to oceanography to the biological sciences is required. Examples of interdisciplinary research are the coordinated planning and operation of two intensive field experiments in the Arctic region and in the tropics. The first concerned the climate impacts of aerosols and clouds in the Arctic as part of the International Polar Year (see <www.polarcat.no>). The second focused on expanding the scientific understanding of climate-cloud-chemistry interactions in the highly active and climate relevant region of the tropical atmosphere (see <www.espo.nasa.gov/tc4>). These campaigns, involving several different agencies, were designed to address interdisciplinary science questions spanning three CCSP research elements—global water cycle, atmospheric composition, and global carbon cycle. 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.
Integrated Program AnalysisIn a highly distributed program such as CCSP, it is often a challenge to develop and maintain a cohesive perspective, ensuring that key components or interactions of the integrated Earth system are not overlooked. To help address this challenge, the program has often sought guidance from the National Academies. CCSP is funding a National Research Council (NRC) committee to provide high-level, independent, integrated advice on the strategy and evolution of the program. Specific topics follow:
At the request of CCSP, the NRC recently produced a report on global change assessments that is briefly described in a later section. CCSP will continue to rely on other mechanisms for scientific guidance and advice, including other NRC committees that focus on particular components of the climate system (e.g., the Climate Research Committee and the Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change). CCSP will continue to rely on scientific advisory groups that support individual agencies, scientific steering groups organized to coordinate different CCSP research elements, and open dialog with the domestic and international scientific and user communities interested in global change issues. Footnote:a As a result of the recent review and reformulation of its CCSP contributions, NASA considers 33% of its Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) budget and 100% of its National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project budget to contribute to CCSP. NASA budget figures provided in this report reflect the inclusion of this funding. |
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