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.

A farmer works a plot in Accra, Ghana. Agriculture in urban and peri-urban (or urban–rural transition) zones can contribute to food security for cities in the developing world, but UPA systems face pressure from the impacts of urbanization and climate cha

Food security is a critical challenge in rapidly urbanizing, low-income regions of the world. Climate change is likely to increase disruptions to food availability and prices, further exacerbating food insecurity for the urban poor. Urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) can serve as an important food source for cities in the developing world, contributing to dietary diversity and economic activity. However, UPA systems are stressed by factors such as rapid urban growth, weak governance over land and water allocation, and pollution. Moreover, the potential of

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Students gather around Science on a Sphere, an educational tool that displays and animates Earth data on a globe. The Climate Education and Literacy Initiative will harness innovative approaches like this one to build awareness and understanding among the

USGCRP agencies are at the center of a new initiative to advance climate education, literacy, and training in the United States. Led by OSTP, the interagency Climate Education and Literacy Initiative aims to connect students and citizens with the best-available scientific information about climate change. Agencies will apply their individual expertise to this unified Federal effort—for example:

The National Park Service will develop a

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The educational guides are tailored to each region of the country shown above, as well as coasts and oceans. (Source: The Third National Climate Assessment, 2014)

Although global climate change can be challenging to grasp as a seemingly abstract concept, connecting it to concrete impacts that are recognizable within a familiar region can be an effective approach for understanding and learning. The Third National Climate Assessment offers a wealth of accessible information about climate effects, risks, and response strategies at the regional scale. Capitalizing on this, NOAA, the NCAnet Education Affinity Group, and members of the

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Citizen science refers to the engagement of non-professional volunteers in scientific investigations—asking questions, collecting data, or interpreting results. This approach can be especially useful in tracking environmental changes. (Source: NPS)

Citizen science—or the engagement of volunteers in scientific investigations—is a fast-growing field. By collecting data on natural phenomena such as the timing of bird migrations and plant flowering—sometimes from their own backyard—citizen scientists provide essential baseline information about key environmental indicators, in addition to strengthening their own awareness of and connection to their local environment. Citizen science has long been an important component of scientific endeavors and public engagement at USGCRP agencies such as DOI (particularly NPS and

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USGCRP has become a crossing ground for Federal health communities considering the risks of climate change. To expand the reach of this engagement within and beyond the Federal Government, USGCRP agencies supported a number of outreach events over the past year focused on climate and health (see related Highlight 13). As one example, USGCRP engaged a broad spectrum of health stakeholders around the release of the Third National Climate Assessment, disseminating key messages about health impacts through various networks, sharing supplementary resources, and

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Philanthropic organizations can play a pivotal role in how communities strategize around education, housing, transportation, public health, and other social issues that link to the environment. These organizations are in a unique position to build synergy between Federal, local, and private efforts to improve climate literacy and help communities minimize and prepare for the consequences of climate change. As part of an ongoing tri-agency collaboration, program managers from NSF, NOAA, and NASA have been acting as government liaisons in bi-monthly meetings

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This map shows projected changes in the annual frequency of tropical cyclone formation, averaged from the output of seven models, under the combined conditions of 1) a 2°C increase in sea surface temperatures, and 2) a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxi

Tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons) generate serious costs to human life, property, and the economy. Understanding how the behavior of tropical cyclones may change in a warmer climate is important for long-range coastal planning and infrastructure investments to minimize impacts. To help address this prediction challenge, NASA, NOAA, NSF, and DOE have cosponsored a Hurricane Working Group (HWG), organized through the interagency

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The left panel shows an image of clouds over the United States captured by the weather satellite GOES-13 (20:45 UTC, July 29, 2010). The other two panels show model simulations of cloudiness for the same date and approximate time, first excluding (middle)

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

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Warm colors on this map show where output from NOAA's GFDL-FLOR model correlates positively (yellow = strongest correlation) with seasonal observations of tropical cyclone activity, demonstrating the model's capacity for predicting such phenomena. (Source

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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POLARCAT measured short-lived atmospheric pollutants, such as black carbon, which affect regional climate in the Arctic.

The Arctic is facing rapid climate and environmental change relative to many other parts of the world. In addition to long-lived greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, short-lived climate forcers—in the form of pollutants such as black carbon and trace gases— contribute to warming in this region. A new synthesis, recently published in BAMS, highlights the key results emerging from POLARCAT—an international effort initiated during the most recent International

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Highlights

Urban Agriculture and Food Security: A Nine-City Assessment

Toward a More Climate-Literate America

Teaching Climate Where We Live

Crowdsourcing Climate: Citizen Science and the National Climate Assessment

Connecting With the Public Health Community of Practice

Engaging the Philanthropic Sector to Meet Climate Challenges

Tropical Cyclones in a Warmer World

Modeling Thunderstorm Clouds for Better Regional Climate Predictions

Seasonal Prediction Systems: From Research to Operations

Tracing Short-Lived Climate Forcers in the Arctic