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.
USGCRP plays a vital coordinating role in international scientific assessments that provide policymakers with regular updates on the state of global change science on a planetary scale.
The United States is a substantial contributor to the intellectual content of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, with well over 100 writing team members serving during the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) cycle. The U.S. Government routinely provides comprehensive reviews of the draft...
As part of its international mandate, USGCRP builds and sustains partnerships to promote knowledge-sharing that supports research, data collection, and assessment capabilities in developing countries.
In 2021, USGCRP initiated a new regional engagement effort, the Initiative for Enhancing Capacity for Climate Risk Assessment and Catalyzing Partnerships to Inform Decisions in Latin America and the Caribbean, or LACI. Its overarching vision is to provide opportunities for partnerships among Caribbean, Latin American, and...
SilvaCarbon leverages state-of-the-art science and technology to advance the generation and use of information in managing forest and terrestrial carbon.
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New data products integrate multiple sources of soil moisture information to improve drought monitoring and prediction.
Drought is one of the most destructive and costly natural disasters, resulting in diminished agricultural production, reduced water resources, and deadly heatwaves. NOAA and the National Integrated Drought Information System have supported interagency activities to develop a national-scale drought product that integrates multiple sources of soil moisture...
Interagency observations and analyses show that emissions of the second-most important ozone-depleting substance are back on the decline after a recent surge.
Atmospheric measurements show that concentrations of ozone-depleting gases are declining in response to global controls on their production and use enacted under the Montreal Protocol of 1987 and its amendments. The decline since the early 1990s in the atmospheric concentration of trichlorofluoromethane (CFC-11), once widely used as a foaming agent and refrigerant, has been an important component of ozone layer...
Climate-sensitive infectious diseases, including vector-borne diseases (such as dengue, West Nile Virus, and Chikungunya), waterborne diseases (such as those caused by Vibrio species), soil- and dust-borne diseases (such as Valley Fever), and zoonotic diseases (such as plague and avian influenza) pose threats to the health of Americans living at home and abroad. These threats are anticipated to change in distribution and severity as climate change progresses in the coming decades. Improving U.S. capacity to predict and communicate changes in risks of climate-sensitive diseases,...
Interagency efforts are engaging citizens in forecasting and observation of mosquito threats.
Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) is an international science and education program that provides students and the public worldwide with the opportunity to participate in data collection and the scientific process and contribute meaningfully to our understanding of the Earth system and global environment. In 2017, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) partnered with NASA to leverage GLOBE in engaging hard-to-reach populations in...
Like many developing countries, India faces a disproportionate share of adverse impacts from climate change, including the exacerbation of its already substantial public-health challenges. The government of India has recognized health as a priority area in its climate-adaptation strategy, and many states now include initiatives related to health in their climate action plans; however, internal public-health capacity for climate-change adaptation is limited. The National Institutes of Health, with support from NOAA and the Department of State, collaborated with organizers in India to host a...
Building on 2013’s working group report on the physical science basis for climate change, the IPCC released two additional installments of its Fifth Assessment Report in spring 2014—this time focused on climate impacts, risks, and responses.
The first of these two 2014 installments dealt with impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability, finding that the effects of climate change are already occurring worldwide; that the world, in many cases, is ill-prepared for the associated risks; and that there are opportunities to respond with effective action, though