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USGCRP
Program Elements
Atmospheric Composition
Ecosystems
Global Carbon Cycle
Land Use
/ Land Cover Change
Human
Contributions & Responses
Climate Variability
and Change
Global
Water Cycle
USGCRP Recent Accomplishments |
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Agencies participating in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program
(CCSP) coordinate scientific research through a set of seven linked interdisciplinary
research elements, which together support scientific research across a wide
range of interconnected issues of climate and global change. These research
elements pertain to major components of the Earth’s environmental and
human systems, which are undergoing changes caused by a variety of natural
and human-induced causes. The
CCSP Strategic Plan (Chapters 3-9) contains a more detailed discussion
of the research elements and the set of strategic research questions
associated with each element. This report will focus primarily on highlights
of recent research and program plans for FY 2004 and FY 2005. The research
elements include:
CCSP-supported research focuses on how the composition of the global
atmosphere is altered by human activities and natural phenomena, and
how such changes influence climate, ozone, ultraviolet radiation, pollutant
exposure, ecosystems, and human health. Specific objectives address processes
affecting the recovery of the stratospheric ozone layer from reduced
ozone levels observed in recent decades; the properties and distributions
of greenhouse gases and aerosols; long-range transport of pollutants
and implications for regional air quality; and integrated assessments
of the effects of these changes. Atmospheric composition issues involving
interactions with climate variability and change—such as interactions
between the climate system and stratospheric water vapor and ozone, or
the potential effects of global climate change on regional air quality—are
of particular interest at present.
CCSP-supported research on climate variability and change focuses on
how climate elements that are particularly important to human and natural
systems—especially temperature, precipitation, clouds, winds, and
storminess—are affected by changes in the Earth system. Specific
objectives include improved predictions of seasonal to decadal climate
variations (such as predictions of El Niño and La Niña
events); improved detection, attribution, and projections of longer-term
changes in climate; the potential for changes in extreme events at regional
to local scales; the possibility of abrupt climate change; and development
of approaches (including characterization of uncertainty) to inform national
dialogue and support public and private sector decisionmaking.
- Paleoenvironment & Paleoclimate. As
of October 2000, this category is mostly covered under the broad "Climate
Variability and Change" research element. However categorized
on this web site, paleoenvironment and paleoclimate continues to be
an important element of global change research and is essential
to our understanding not only of the past but of future climate change.
CCSP-supported research on the global water cycle focuses on how natural
processes and human activities influence the distribution and quality
of water within the Earth system, whether changes are predictable, and
on the effects of variability and change in the water cycle on human
systems. Specific areas include: identifying trends in the intensity
of the water cycle and determining the causes of these changes (including
feedback effects of clouds on the global water and energy budgets as
well as the global climate system); predicting precipitation and evaporation
on timescales of months to years and longer; and modeling physical/biological
and socioeconomic processes to facilitate efficient water resources management.
CCSP-supported research on land-use and land-cover change will focus
on: (1) the processes that determine the temporal and spatial distributions
of land cover and land use at local, regional, and global scales, and
how and how well land use and land cover can be projected over time scales
of 5-50 years; and (2) how changes in land use, management, and cover
may affect local, regional, and global environmental and socioeconomic
conditions, including economic welfare and human health, taking into
consideration socioeconomic factors and potential technological change.
Specific foci will identify and quantify the human drivers of land-use
and land-cover change; improve monitoring, measuring, and mapping of
land use and land cover, and the management of these data; and develop
projections of land-cover and land-use change under various scenarios
of climate, demographic, economic, and technological trends.
CCSP-supported research on the global carbon cycle focuses on identifying
the size, variability, and potential future changes to reservoirs and
fluxes of carbon within the Earth system; and providing the scientific
underpinning for evaluating options to manage carbon sources and sinks.
Specific programs and projects focus on North American and oceanic carbon
sources and sinks; the impact of land-use change and resource management
practices on carbon sources and sinks; projecting future atmospheric
carbon dioxide and methane concentrations and changes in land-based and
marine carbon sinks; and the global distribution of carbon sources and
sinks and how they are changing.
CCSP-supported research on ecosystems focuses on: (1) how natural and
human-induced environmental changes interact to affect the structure
and functioning of ecosystems (and the goods and services they provide)
at a range of spatial and temporal scales, including those ecosystem
processes that in turn influence regional and global environmental changes;
and (2) what options society may have to ensure that desirable ecosystem
goods and services will be sustained, or enhanced, in the context of
still uncertain regional and global environmental changes. Among the
specific focus areas are the cycling of nutrients such as nitrogen and
how these nutrients interact with the carbon cycle; key processes that
link ecosystems with climate; and options for managing agricultural lands,
forests, and other ecosystems to sustain goods and services essential
to societies.
CCSP-supported research on human contributions and responses to global
change focuses on the interactions of changes in the global environment
and human activities. The current focus of this research is on the potential
effects of climate variability and change on human health and welfare;
human influences on the climate system, land use, and other global environmental
changes; analyses of societal vulnerability and resilience to global
environmental change; decisionmaking under conditions of significant
complexity and uncertainty; and integrated assessment methods.
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Focus Areas 
