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. Highlights describe the state of science at the time of publication of each yearly report, and may not reflect more recent advances in understanding. The date of publication of the source report is noted on each highlight page.
The carbon cycle—or the continual flux of carbon through the atmosphere, oceans, soil, and living organisms—is a foundational component of the Earth system that interacts with climate change and human activities. Through USGCRP and its U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Program, Federal agencies are working together and with the scientific community to advance fundamental and applied research in this critical field. Some examples are highlighted below:
In 2014, NASA, USDA, DOE, and NOAA
Climate change is expected to increase the number of extremely hot days, posing health risks to vulnerable populations such as the elderly, children, and those with existing cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. To streamline prediction of and adaptation to these events, HHS’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and NOAA held a Heat Health Summit in Silver Spring, MD, in October 2014. The Summit drew participants from across NOAA, CDC, EPA, DOE, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration; state and local health departments;
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
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
...![The NASA CARVE and DOE NGEE-Arctic projects are combining airborne and ground-based campaigns to understand the importance of natural emissions from the Alaskan tundra. (Source: J. B. Curtis, LBNL [main photo and left inset]; S. Wullschleger, ORNL [right](https://www.globalchange.gov/sites/globalchange/files/styles/landing_feature_image/public/HL33_Arctic-quantifying-emissions-NASA-CARVE-DOE-NGEE.png?itok=vTJGy7to)
In addition to emissions from human activities, natural emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane can affect the climate system, and vice versa. Quantifying these natural fluxes, especially in Arctic ecosystems, is critical to understanding how they may interact with human-driven changes to affect future climate. Some research has shown increased emissions of greenhouse gases from tundra and boreal forests during warming in the spring, but little is known about what causes this or whether its occurrence is widespread enough to influence
Although the volume and surface extent of Arctic sea ice varies between seasons and years, observations show a long-term down-ward trend over the last three decades. Variability in Arctic sea ice is an important indicator of global climate change, and also has implications for increasing human activity in the Arctic. In an effort to improve forecasts of Arctic sea ice on seasonal to interannual time scales, the Sea Ice Prediction Network (SIPN) was recently created with support from several USGCRP
The Nation’s energy infrastructure is vulnerable to a range of climate impacts, particularly in areas prone to severe storms or water shortages. These impacts may be exacerbated or mitigated by other systemic factors, such as increasing energy demands, infrastructure interdependencies, and changes in technology, demographics, land use and land cover, and regional industries and economies. Although existing models can capture some of these factors, there is a growing need for modeling frameworks and tools that can explore their collective behaviors.
Apart from serving scientists studying global change, output from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP; see related Highlight 7) can be useful to decision makers confronting regional and local climate impacts. A number of USGCRP agencies have supported the “downscaling” of CMIP output to provide climate information on scales of space and time that are relevant to decisions facing resource managers and planners. Downscaled data permit a range of analyses, such as evaluation of uncertainty in
Advancing science in the Arctic is crucial to understanding global climate dynamics, supporting policy decisions, and managing nationally and internationally important resources. In coordination with the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC) and USGEO, USGCRP member agencies observe and monitor the Arctic environment to understand the impacts of global change on this ecologically, culturally, and economically significant region. Polar orbiting satellites provide data that are combined with information from surface-based measurement networks, airborne and
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The continual cycling of carbon through the atmosphere, oceans, soil, and living organisms is an essential function of the Earth system. The U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Program (under the auspices of USGCRP; carboncyclescience.us) and USGCRP agencies are working to understand how climate change and human activities are altering this foundational component of the environment, and how these alterations feed back to affect climate change. Some examples are highlighted below:
At least two thirds of the world’s land-based organic carbon is stored in