Highlights

Since 1989, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) has submitted annual reports to Congress called Our Changing Planet. The reports describe the status of USGCRP research activities, provide progress updates, and document recent accomplishments.

In particular, Our Changing Planet highlights progress and accomplishments in interagency activities. These highlights represent the broad spectrum of USGCRP activities that extend from Earth system observations, modeling, and fundamental research through synthesis and assessment, decision support, education, and public engagement.

Improving Predictions of Changing Arctic Ecosystems

A key challenge for Earth System Models is accurately representing land surface and subsurface processes and their complex interactions in a warming climate. This is true for ecosystems across the globe, but particularly critical for Arctic ecosystems, which are projected to warm at a rate twice that of the global average by the end of the 21st century. The Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments in the Arctic (NGEE-Arctic) project is addressing this challenge by integrating process studies, ecosystem observations, and computational...

Much of the precipitation along the U.S. West Coast is delivered by phenomena known as “atmospheric rivers”—narrow bands of moist air that may extend for thousands of miles across regions outside of the tropics, and play a critical role in regional water supply and storm activity. Atmospheric-river events play a beneficial role in building up Western water supply and snowpack but are also the source of a large majority of floods in the region. Many uncertainties about key processes that affect storm development...

On February 11, 2016, workers in California ended the largest reported natural gas leak in U.S. history. The Aliso Canyon leak released methane and other gases into the atmosphere from an underground-storage facility for over three months, causing the evacuation of more than 5,000 households. Researchers from NOAA, NASA, Scientific Aviation, the University of California, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the California Air Resources Board, and South Coast Air Quality Management District mobilized rapidly to assess the environmental impacts of the leak,...

Tracking Methane Emissions from Arctic Tundra

The Arctic tundra is a cold, desert-like biome, with a layer of permanently frozen soil and organic matter below the surface containing vast stocks of carbon. As Arctic tundra soils warm in response to climate change, methane emissions from decomposing organic material could increase dramatically, representing a potentially significant positive feedback on climate warming. However, seasonal and climatic influences on methane emissions from these systems are not well understood outside of the summer months, representing a major uncertainty for the Arctic methane budget. To help address a...

This map shows largely warmer temperatures (shades of red) in 2013 relative to average temperatures between 1981 and 2010. (Source: NOAA NCDC)

In 2013, the vast majority of worldwide climate indicators—including greenhouse gas concentrations, sea levels, and global temperatures, among others—continued to reflect evidence of a warming planet. That was the conclusion of the State of the Climate in 2013, a report published in July 2014 by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS). Scientists from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) served as the lead

...

Flooding from heavy rains damaged Boulder, Colorado, in September 2013—one of several extreme events examined in the collaborative report. (Source: S. Zumwalt, FEMA)

Extreme events such as heavy rains, severe storms, drought, and heat waves can have devastating effects on infrastructure, the economy, and vulnerable segments of the population. A growing field of climate science seeks to understand the drivers behind extreme events and how they connect to broader climate trends. Building on efforts to monitor the global climate (see Highlight 1), a recent report published in BAMS integrates findings from 20 different research

...

The observational campaign in the Amazon Basin measures key environmental variables, including light and temperature, that drive biogenic emissions of volatile organic compounds from the canopy. (Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

In addition to being hotbeds of biodiversity, tropical forests are important to Earth’s water, energy, and carbon cycles—but they are increasingly impacted by climate change and human activities. Atmospheric chemistry in the once-pristine Amazon Basin, for example, is rapidly changing with deforestation, biomass burning, and pollution related to development in the region.

Like other forests, tropical forests naturally generate and emit volatile organic compounds that can react with other elements to form aerosols, or fine particles suspended in the

...

This graph shows the number of days by which the start of spring in each year differs from the average start of spring during the 20th century. The spring of 2012 (circled) set a record for earliest start. (Source: Adapted from the USGCRP indicators pilot

In 2012, spring came earlier for the contiguous United States than in any year since 1900, according to recent research by a team of scientists with the USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN). This research used the USA-NPN suite of “spring indices”—or algorithms based on the accumulated warmth needed to initiate growth in temperature-sensitive plants, which are validated by nationwide historical

...

The 2012–2021 Strategic Plan emphasizes the need for synergy between Earth observations and Earth system modeling—two cor- nerstones of global change research. Obs4MIPs (or Observations for Model Intercomparison Projects) is an emerging activity that uses observations to better support the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP), an international effort under the

...

NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 satellite (above) was a landmark 2014 addition to the U.S. portfolio of Earth observing systems. (Source: NASA)

Civil Earth observations support key public services, long-term research, scientific discovery, and technological innovation. The Federal Government makes significant investments each year in civil Earth observations and data across multiple agencies, in addition to utilizing investments made by academia, industry, and state, local, and tribal governments. Planning and evaluation are critical to ensure that these investments lead to Earth observations that are streamlined, effective, and immediately useful.

...

GlobalChange.gov

Utility

Global search

Share

Highlights

Improving Predictions of Changing Arctic Ecosystems

Understanding Atmospheric Rivers and West Coast Precipitation

Measuring the Largest Methane Leak in U.S. History

Tracking Methane Emissions from Arctic Tundra

Monitoring the State of the Global Climate

Explaining Extreme Events from a Climate Perspective

Natural and Human Emissions in the Tropical Canopy

The Record-Setting Early Spring of 2012

Observations to Improve Climate Models

Evaluating U.S. Earth Observation