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. 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.

A participant using the GLOBE Observer app on their mobile device examines a magnified mosquito larva to determine if it is a disease-carrying species.

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...

As of 2010, urban areas are home to more than half of the world's population, produce at least 70% of carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, and emit a significant amount of anthropogenic methane, but represent a small fraction of the Earth’s land surface. Currently, greenhouse gas emissions estimates for many cities are either unavailable or are generated using self-reported data from particular sectors, and contain significant uncertainties. Although methods for comprehensive measurement of urban emissions have been tested in smaller cities with stable emissions, these techniques...

Scenarios are plausible alternative futures, each describing what might happen under a range of possible assumptions about policy decisions and the behavior of the Earth system. By illustrating possible future conditions, scenarios provide a basis for analyzing the potential impacts of and responses to global change. USGCRP is working to develop scenarios of change for the United States that can feed into the sustained-assessment process and support the needs of both scientists and stakeholders, focused on population, demographics, land-use change, sea-level rise and coastal flood risk,...

Recent evidence has revealed that the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are not as static as once thought. Accelerated ice loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet, disintegrating ice shelves around Antarctica, and signs that several marine-terminating glaciers in Antarctica have begun an irreversible retreat all signal that changes are taking place faster than was thought possible. Ice sheets are projected to contribute significantly to global sea-level rise, which poses dramatic risks for coastal communities and island nations worldwide. In response to these rapid changes, several USGCRP...

START (global change SysTem for Analysis, Research and Training) promotes research-driven capacity-building to advance knowledge on global environmental change in Africa and Asia-Pacific, through research grants and fellowships, knowledge assessments and syntheses, curricula development, advanced-training institutes, multi-stakeholder dialogues, and place-based strategic planning. In 2015, with support from USGCRP, START enhanced the ability of over 300 researchers selected as fellows and their partners to incorporate climate information...

Implementing Data Services for Development

SERVIR—meaning “to serve” in Spanish—combines NASA’s Earth-observations data and tools with USAID’s expertise in international development, supporting the use of geospatial technologies to help decision makers in developing countries respond to environmental change. Through the SERVIR network, experts at regional hubs in Eastern and Southern Africa, Hindu Kush-Himalaya, and the Mekong River Basin partner with local decision makers and U.S.-based scientists to create new datasets, maps, and decision-support tools related to climate...

Atmospheric composition and circulation over the tropical western Pacific Ocean play important roles in the Earth’s climate system. In this remote region, rising air heated by some of the warmest seawater in the world moves gases produced by ocean organisms and other chemicals to higher altitudes, where water vapor and ozone exert their strongest influence on the climate. As the climate warms, the intensity of this transport mechanism will increase and may contribute to large-scale changes in atmospheric composition. Details of these dynamics, including how they vary over time and space,...

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...

Tracking Earth's Carbon and Methane Budgets

Founded in 2001, the Global Carbon Project (GCP) is an international scientific collaboration investigating the biophysical and human components of the global carbon cycle, the interactions between them, and their response to a changing climate. The GCP tracks sources and sinks of carbon dioxide and methane, the two most important greenhouse gases directly emitted by human activities—providing annual updates on emissions trends, atmospheric concentrations, and sources of uncertainty, in a format accessible to policymakers....

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-...

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Highlights

Supporting responses to climate-sensitive diseases

Monitoring Urban Emissions Hotspots

Developing Scenarios of Change

Modeling Ice Sheets and Sea-Level Rise

Advancing Knowledge on Global Environmental Change in Africa and Asia-Pacific

Implementing Data Services for Development

Connecting the Remote Ocean to Global Climate

Studying Thunderstorms by Night

Tracking Earth’s Carbon and Methane Budgets

Improving Climate Predictability