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.
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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