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.
Interagency collaboration supports predictions of Arctic sea cover used by the U.S. Navy and other operational and research organizations.
Summer sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean shrunk significantly since the early 1980s, with particularly rapid declines in recent years[1]. Arctic sea ice plays a key role in regulating weather and climate in and beyond the region[2], and projections of how sea ice cover will change in the coming years are critical for...
Modeling efforts provide new data on the effects of climate change in Antarctica.
Between 1998 and 2016, warming in Antarctica has been rapid and significant. Recent observations also reveal increases in snowfall in western Queen Maud Land, East Antarctica that are unprecedented over the past two millennia. To investigate these changes, a team of NSF-sponsored researchers and NASA scientists merged observation-based NSF-funded research with global modeling efforts that benefited from NASA satellite and airborne-based data[1]...
Over the Great Plains region of the United States, summertime thunderstorms often occur after sunset. Much of this nighttime rainfall is caused by large, organized storm systems and plays a critical role in the hydrology and agriculture of the region, especially over the more arid western Great Plains. During the summer months, these nighttime storm systems provide 30-70% of the region’s precipitation and can also cause severe weather, including flash floods, intense damaging winds, and large hail. Current weather and climate models have difficulty predicting the onset, location, frequency...
As climate change increasingly impacts society and ecosystems, demand for reliable information about climate conditions now and in the future is growing. Climate research is conducted by two distinct communities, one working on climate forecasts for the near-term future and the other on climate-change projections over decades to centuries. Despite these different foci, the boundaries between these two communities increasingly overlap, and they share many common methods and challenges. Enhanced collaboration across modeling centers and communities can help create more valuable climate-...
Vast quantities of carbon—twice the size of the current amount in the atmosphere—are stored in frozen permafrost soils in Arctic regions. The Arctic climate is warming much more rapidly than the global average, leaving these carbon pools highly vulnerable to release into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and methane as soils thaw and decompose, leading to a feedback cycle of further warming and increasing carbon release. The potential for these carbon stocks to increase global-warming rates, and the rapid changes already observed in the permafrost region, have captured the attention of...
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
Modeling Earth’s climate furthers priorities of national interest, from experimental research to understand the Earth system to operational forecasts and projections that inform decisions. Coordination among the Nation’s premier modeling centers—particularly between experimental and operational programs (see also Highlight 31)—has the potential to advance forecasting capabilities, yield more robust predictions, and bridge models of near-term weather and longer-term climate that currently are separated by high-uncertainty gaps in coverage.
Thunderstorm clouds play an important role in regional atmospheric dynamics, modulating such factors as air pollution, acid deposition, and—critically for climate models—precipitation and the balance of heat throughout the atmosphere. To date, in part because of the computing power constraints associated with running models at high resolutions, it has proved challenging to model in detail the effects of thunderstorm clouds on the solar radiation that drives the climate system.
Recognizing this opportunity for improvement, scientists with EPA, NOAA, and
Predicting climate on a seasonal basis can benefit decision makers in key sectors like energy, water resources, and agriculture, among others. A number of USGCRP agencies are working to improve the Nation’s seasonal forecasting capacity through major investments in innovative climate models that can bridge the needs of atmospheric research and operational forecasts. As one example, a new model developed by NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, known as
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The severe, sustained drought affecting the Central Valley of California has caused a shortage of water for irrigation and crop production. The effect of this shortage is most immediately evident as an increase in the extent of fallowed farmland (or land taken out of agricultural production), which in turn serves as a proxy for socioeconomic impacts. Decision makers can use information about fallowed land to better understand the severity of drought impacts and to support requests for USDA drought disaster designations or emergency proclamations. USDA