Global Change Research Program

Introduction

The Global Change Research Program (GCRP) is a project of the U.S. government to coordinate research on all aspects of global change, including climate change. The GCRP began as a presidential initiative under President George H. W. Bush (1924–) in 1989 and was formally established by Congress by the Global Change Research Act of 1990. In 2001, President George W. Bush (1946–) ordered the establishment of a Climate Change Research Initiative and then, in 2002, placed both it and the GCRP under the auspices of a new program called the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP). The existing GCRP continued to conduct research on aspects of global change other than climate, such as the regular El Niño cycle, but its climate work was integrated with that of the new Climate Change Research Initiative.

Historical Background and Scientific Foundations

In the late 1980s, scientific agreement on the reality of human-caused global climate change was growing. In response, the first President Bush ordered the establishment of a U.S Global Change Research Program in 1989. The program was given an annual budget of $1.87 billion to be divided among eight participating federal agencies, namely the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Smithsonian Institution, and the Department of Health and Human Services. About three quarters of the budget went to NASA, which used much of the money to loft and operate Earth-observing satellites such as the EOS AM-1 satellite launched in 1999.

The existence of the GCRP was confirmed by Congress in 1990 through the Global Change Research Act, which declared that the GCRP was “aimed at understanding and responding to global change, including the cumulative effects of human activities and natural processes on the environment, to promote discussions towards international protocols in global change research, and for other purposes.” The GCRP had a complex task that involved gathering data, pulling together disparate scientific disciplines, and linking various government bureaucracies. Its successes in basic science included mapping ozone in the atmosphere, studying the effects of tropical forest fires on climate, and building a database on global plankton (which are essential to the oceans' removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere).

In February 2002, President George W. Bush established the Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) as a cabinet-level structure to improve government-wide management of climate science. The CCSP, which the administration particularly charged with characterizing uncertainties in climate science, brought together the existing GCRP with the new Climate Change Research Program. The CCSP integrates the efforts of 13 federal agencies. Its $1.7 billion annual budget is provided and managed by the agencies themselves.

Impacts and Issues

From 1989 to 1998, the U.S. government spent approximately $15 billion on the GCRP. The program was always unpopular with political conservatives, who tended to consider global warming unreal and saw the GCRP as a pet of the Democrats. (Senator Al Gore, who later served as vice president from 1993 to 2001, had supported it in the Senate and favored it while in the White House.)

In the late 1990s, the program was also criticized by scientists and members of the Clinton administration, but for different reasons. A panel of 15 scientists convened by the National Academies (the government's official advisory group on scientific questions) criticized the program for being too ambitious in its attempt to understand the whole climate system at once, an attempt that, the

scientists said, made the program too diffuse and left it vulnerable to budget cutbacks. The panel also said that the program had neglected key questions such as the nature of Earth's water and carbon cycles.

In 2007, another 15-member panel of the National Academies reviewed the new Climate Change Science Program. It found that the program had helped resolve the question of whether Earth's atmosphere is warming significantly—it is—and had achieved other scientific goals. However, it also reported that the CCSP had been hampered by Bush administration polices that reduced the number of Earth-observing satellites and stopped programs to monitor conditions on the surface. In particular, the National Academies panel noted that of the CCSP's $1.7 billion annual budget, only about $25–$30 million was spent each year on studying the impacts of climate change on human beings.

Numerous claims were made during the Bush years that the administration delayed or censored testimony from government scientists about the reality and dangers of climate change. In August 2007, a federal judge ruled in favor of several groups, including Greenpeace and the Center for Biological Diversity, that had sued the Climate Change Science Program for delaying the release of reports on climate change required by the Global Change Research Act of 1990. The judge found that the defendants had violated the law by failing to release a scientific assessment of global change that had been due in November 2004, and a national global-change research plan that had been due in July 2006. The Bush administration had claimed that the 1990 act allowed it to release the reports when it wished. “The defendants are wrong,” the judge ruled; “Congress has conferred no discretion upon the defendants as to when they will issue [the reports].”

Primary Source Connection

The Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) was established by the U.S. government in 2002 to marshal the resources of thirteen separate federal agencies in order to address global climate change. CCSP's goals include scientific study of global climate change and the use of that scientific data to formulate a strategy to address global climate change on both national and international levels. CCSP issues reports to policymakers discussing the scientific, societal, and economic impacts of global climate change. This source from the United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), which has been integrated into CCSP, details the goals of CCSP and the steps that CCSP has taken toward achieving those goals.

PREVIEW OF OUR CHANGING PLANET: THE U.S. CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE PROGRAM FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008

Climate plays an important role in shaping the environment, natural resources, infrastructure, economy, and other aspects of life in all countries of the world. Therefore, variations and changes in climate can have substantial environmental and socioeconomic implications. The Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) was established in 2002 to empower the Nation and the global community with the science-based knowledge to manage risks and opportunities of change in the climate and related environmental systems. CCSP incorporates and integrates the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) with the Administration's U.S. Climate Change Research Initiative (CCRI). The USGCRP was mandated by Congress in the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-606, 104 Stat. 3096-3104) to improve understanding of uncertainties in climate science, expand global observing systems, develop science-based resources to support policymaking and resource management, and communicate findings broadly among scientific and stakeholder communities. Thirteen departments and agencies of the U.S. Government participate in CCSP. These departments and agencies are listed in Appendix A of this report….

WORDS TO KNOW

CARBON CYCLE: All parts (reservoirs) and fluxes of carbon. The cycle is usually thought of as four main reservoirs of carbon interconnected by pathways of exchange. The reservoirs are the atmosphere, terrestrial biosphere (usually includes freshwater systems), oceans, and sediments (includes fossil fuels). The annual movements of carbon, the carbon exchanges between reservoirs, occur because of various chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes. The ocean contains the largest pool of carbon near the surface of Earth, but most of that pool is not involved with rapid exchange with the atmosphere.

CARBON DIOXIDE: Odorless, colorless, non-poisonous gas, chemical formula CO₂. Carbon dioxide is released by natural processes and by burning fossil fuels. A minor but very important component of the atmosphere, carbon dioxide traps infrared radiation. Atmospheric CO₂ has increased dramatically since the early 1800s. Burning fossil fuels is the leading cause of increased CO₂ levels with deforestation the second major cause. The increased amounts of CO₂ in the atmosphere enhance the greenhouse effect, blocking heat from escaping into space and contributing to the warming of Earth's lower atmosphere.

EL NIÑO : A warming of the surface waters of the eastern equatorial Pacific that occurs at irregular intervals of 2 to 7 years, usually lasting 1 to 2 years. Along the west coast of South America, southerly winds promote the upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water that sustains large fish populations, that sustain abundant sea birds, whose droppings support the fertilizer industry. Near the end of each calendar year, a warm current of nutrient-poor tropical water replaces the cold, nutrient-rich surface water. Because this condition often occurs around Christmas, it was named El Nin˜o (Spanish for boy child, referring to the Christ child). In most years the warming lasts only a few weeks or a month, after which the weather patterns return to normal and fishing improves. However, when El Nin˜o conditions last for many months, more extensive ocean warming occurs and economic results can be disastrous. El Nin˜o has been linked to wetter, colder winters in the United States; drier, hotter summers in South America and Europe; and drought in Africa.

OZONE: An almost colorless, gaseous form of oxygen with an odor similar to weak chlorine. A relatively unstable compound of three atoms of oxygen, ozone constitutes, on average, less than one part per million (ppm) of the gases in the atmosphere. (Peak ozone concentration in the stratosphere can get as high as 10 ppm.) Yet ozone in the stratosphere absorbs nearly all of the biologically damaging solar ultraviolet radiation before it reaches Earth's surface, where it can cause skin cancer, cataracts, and immune deficiencies, and can harm crops and aquatic ecosystems.

PLANKTON: Floating animal and plant life.

WATER CYCLE: The process by which water is transpired and evaporated from the land and water, condensed in the clouds, and precipitated out onto Earth once again to replenish the water in the bodies of water on Earth.

CCSP Goals and Analysis of Progress Toward These Goals

At the highest conceptual level, five goals have been identified to provide focus and facilitate programmatic integration. These goals encompass the full range of climate-related issues.

The program's detailed objectives, milestones, and products and payoffs complement these overarching goals, and are articulated in the program's Strategic Plan. CCSP-participating agencies and departments coordinate their work through discipline-related “research elements,” which together support scientific research across a wide range of interconnected issues of climate and global change.

The goals address the most common questions concerning climate change which include:

• To what extent and how is the climate system changing?
• What are the causes of these changes?
• What will the future climate be like and what effects will a changed climate have on ecosystems, society, and the economy?
• How can we best apply knowledge about ongoing and projected changes to decision making? …

The primary focus of U.S. climate research has historically been on Goals 1 through 3, which emphasize improvements in fundamental understanding of the climate system, its driving forces, and the tools to make predictions of short-term climate variability and potential long-term climate change more reliable. As the science matures and its societal utility becomes more evident, the importance of Goals 4 and 5 has become more significant. Examples of progress provided under each of the goals are often the result of coordinated research activities from many disciplines conducted or supported across the participating CCSP agencies.

Goal 1: Improve knowledge of the Earth's past and present climate and environment, including its natural variability, and improve understanding of the causes of observed variability and change.

Analyses based on observations provide a solid foundation for the program. These analyses contribute to improved understanding of Earth system processes, help determine the extent of climate variations, and provide true comparisons to test and advance model veracity. In the past year, analyses have enabled several important advances in understanding the nature and variability of the Earth system. The illustrative examples of progress toward CCSP's Goal 1 are drawn from and integrate a variety of different CCSP research elements.

One example of these integrated analyses is illustrated by the progress made in understanding climate change at high latitudes. Temperature and moisture patterns over North America and Europe are experiencing an earlier transition from winter to summer. The warmer spring temperatures produce earlier springtime green-up of vegetation and longer growing seasons. Satellite, airborne, and ground based observations suggest significant changes occurring in the mass balance of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets that are inferred to be caused by warming at high latitudes. Climate model simulations suggest that the global pattern of regional temperature and moisture trends is more readily explained by estimated human activity and natural climate forcing than by internal variability alone. These wide-ranging sets of analyses tie together findings from traditionally disparate disciplines including hydrology, glaciology, and ecology.

Progress has been made in understanding changes in atmospheric ozone through observations and comparisons with models of the atmosphere. Satellite observations have shown that the large ozone decreases over Antarctica have been accompanied by significant but smaller summertime ozone increases at higher levels of the Antarctic atmosphere. A chemical-climate model confirms these observations. Other related modeling research has shown that warming of the tropical lower atmosphere due to increased greenhouse gases may accelerate the large-scale motions of the stratosphere and thus alter the global distribution of ozone….

Goal 2: Improve quantification of the forces bringing about changes in the Earth's climate and related systems.

In making long-term climate projections, an understanding of the factors responsible for global environmental change is necessary. These forcing factors include greenhouse gases, land cover changes, tiny airborne particles (aerosols), and solar variability. As in the previous Goal, the following examples of progress toward CCSP Goal 2 result from the integrated focus of multiple CCSP research elements.

IN CONTEXT: IMPROVING CLIMATE MODELS

“More than a dozen federal agencies are involved in producing and using climate change data and research. The first efforts at a coordinated government research strategy culminated in the creation of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (GCRP) in 1989. The GCRP coordinated research at these agencies with the aim of ‘understanding and responding to global change, including the cumulative effects of human activities and natural processes on the environment.’ GCRP made substantial investments in understanding the underlying processes of climate change, documenting past and ongoing global change, improving modeling, and enhancing knowledge of El Nin˜o and the ability to forecast it.”

SOURCE:Staudt, Amanda, Nancy Huddleston, and Sandi Rudenstein. Understanding and Responding to Climate Change. National Academy of Sciences, 2006.

Recent climate warming has been particularly intense in boreal and Arctic regions, leading to concern that increasing air temperature in these ecosystems may indirectly increase the incidences of forest fires. Beyond the emission of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other greenhouse gases from fires, understanding the consequences of large-scale fires on climate is challenging due to the many additional ways in which they influence the atmosphere and surface. A recent study in Alaska found that there was intensification in the climate warming in the first year after a major fire but a slight decrease in the climate warming when averaged over the 80 years of the study. The long-term result, which was primarily due to plant re-growth increasing the summertime reflectivity of the burn-scarred surface, appears to be more significant than the fire-emitted greenhouse gases. The result implies that future increases in boreal fires may not further intensify long-term climate warming.

CCSP's interdisciplinary research on the carbon cycle has produced a set of analyses utilizing long-term observations of several new and mature forests. Results from this work show that forest carbon storage has been increasing in these ecosystems and is not in balance with the carbon lost by respiration and decay. This result is contrary to the contemporary concept of near balance of carbon sources and sinks in mature forests. The gain in forest carbon is typical of findings from the U.S.-based large-scale networks, as well as observations made in mature forests in China. Evidence is therefore mounting that these sinks for atmospheric CO₂ offer significant potential for modulating the rate of atmospheric CO₂ increase.

Incorporation of the sub-surface water table into regional climate models is important since land cover changes produce significant effects on the water table and the hydrologic cycle. Shallow water tables can be either a sink or source of water to the surface soil depending on the relative balance of infiltration versus evaporation. Recent studies using detailed observations and regional climate models have found that the fraction of rainfall that either recharges groundwater or ends up as stream flow tends to decrease when the fraction of land devoted to agriculture increases. This result suggests that intense agriculture can amplify surface water stresses, particularly during drought conditions….

Goal 3: Reduce uncertainty in projections of how the Earth's climate and related systems may change in the future.

The accuracy of estimates of future Earth system conditions at time scales ranging from months to centuries and at spatial scales ranging from regional to global has been significantly improved by CCSP research. The primary tools for Earth system prediction and projection are computer models that reflect the best available knowledge of Earth system processes. The following examples demonstrate the integration of observations and modeling necessary to contribute to the progress being made in CCSP Goal 3.

For a model to produce a realistic climate requires that it include realistic representations of physical processes such as cloudiness, precipitation, and solar energy. Recent innovative studies using newly developed, detailed models of cloud processes that are coupled with a global climate model provide results that are significantly more consistent with observations. The incorporation of improved cloud representation in climate models is expected to reduce the uncertainty in predictions of the global and regional water cycle and surface climate.

Sunlight not reflected back to space provides the driving energy to Earth's weather and climate systems. Clouds are a major component in the global reflectance of sunlight. Year-to-year variability in the global reflectance is dominated by the variability of cloudiness in the tropics. On the other hand, scientists have recently found that the year-to-year variability of reflectance at middle and high latitudes has had little change despite decreases in the highly reflective snow and sea-ice cover. This fascinating result appears to be due to the compensating increase in cloud cover balancing the decreasing surface level reflectance. Clouds continue to provide the largest source of uncertainty in model estimates of climate sensitivity, although a recent study finds evidence that in most climate models used in the Working Group I contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) clouds provide a positive feedback….

Goal 4: Understand the sensitivity and adaptability of different natural and managed ecosystems and human systems to climate and related global changes.

Significant advances have been made in understanding the potential impacts of climate change. One of the characteristics of CCSP research is the use of many different sources of information, including analyses utilizing prehistoric information, direct observations, and model-based projections. Recent research also accounts for the dynamic nature of the response of human and natural systems to climate change. This research encompasses a wide range of potential impacts on societal needs such as water, health, and agriculture, as well as potential impacts on natural terrestrial and marine ecosystems. The integrated approach to developing the understanding sought in CCSP Goal 4 is illustrated in the following examples.

Tools and research resulting from carbon cycle science are highly relevant to carbon management as demonstrated by a recent study that estimated the spatial variability of net primary production and potential biomass accumulation over the conterminous United States. This study's model-based predictions indicate a potential to remove carbon from the atmosphere at a rate of 0.3 GtC yr^-1 through afforestation of low production crop and rangeland areas. This rate of carbon sequestration would offset about one-fifth of the annual fossil fuel emissions of carbon in the United States.

The changing adaptability of coastal marshes is illustrated by a study of a coastal ecosystem. In a Chesapeake Bay marsh ecosystem, rising sea level, increasing CO₂, and high rainfall were shown to interact and improve the growth of a relatively tall bulrush at the expense of a hay-like cordgrass that grows in thick mats. Such changes in species composition, caused by interacting global change factors, may influence the capacity of coastal marshes to rise in elevation at the pace required to keep abreast of sea-level rise because of species-specific differences in their ability to trap sediment and organic material….

Goal 5: Explore the uses and identify the limits of evolving knowledge to manage risks and opportunities related to climate variability and change.

A substantial investment in basic research focused on global environmental variability and change has provided a significant set of opportunities for applying this knowledge in local and regional planning. To explore and communicate the potential uses and limits of this knowledge, CCSP is taking the following three approaches: the development of scientific syntheses and assessments; exploration of adaptive management and planning capabilities; and development of methods to support climate change policy inquiries ….

Appendix A. Climate Change Science Program

The Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) integrates federally supported research on global change and climate change, as conducted by 13 U.S. Government departments and agencies:

• Department of Agriculture (USDA)
• Department of Commerce (DOC)
  —National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
  —National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
• Department of Defense (DOD)
• Department of Energy (DOE)
• Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
• Department of the Interior / U.S. Geological Survey (DOI/USGS)
• Department of State (DOS)
• Department of Transportation (DOT)
• Agency for International Development (USAID)
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
• National Science Foundation (NSF)
• Smithsonian Institution (SI).

“preview of our changing planet: the u.s. climate change science program for fiscal year 2008.”climate change science program and the subcommittee on global change research. april2007. < http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/library/ocp2008preview/ocp08-preview.pdf> (accessed november30, 2007).

See Also Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); United States: Climate Policy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Periodicals

Lawler, Andrew. “Global Change Fights Off a Chill.” Science 280, no. 5730 (June 12, 1998): 1682–1684.

Revkin, Andrew C. “Panel Faults Emphasis of U.S. Climate Program.” The New York Times (September 14, 2007).

Schiermeier, Quirin. “China Struggles to Square Growth and Emissions.” Nature 446, no. 7139 (April 26, 2007): 954–955.

Streets, David G., et al. “Recent Reductions in China's Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” Science 294, no. 30 (November 30, 2001): 1835–1837.

Web Sites

“Preview of Our Changing Planet: The U.S. Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Year 2008.” Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research, April 2007. < http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/Library/ocp2008preview/OCP08-preview.pdf> (accessed November 30, 2007).

Sandell, Clayton. “Court Rebukes Bush Administration on Global Warming.” ABC News, August 21, 2007. <http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/story?id=3508197&page=1> (accessed October 26, 2007).

“U.S. Global Change Research Act of 1990.” U.S. Global Change Research Information Office. < http://www.gcrio.org/gcact1990.html> (accessed October 26, 2007).

U.S. Global Change Research Program (homepage), October 2007. < http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/default.php> (accessed October 26, 2007).

Larry Gilman