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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.

Cities & Infrastructure

Building infrastructure resilience

A NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) dust warning to motorists traveling along Interstate 10 near Lordsburg, New Mexico, tweeted in November 2017.

Interagency efforts are supporting preparedness and safety measures for critical transportation infrastructure.

Dust storms in the Southwest can create dangerous and deadly driving conditions, reducing visibility to near zero with very little warning. Interstate 10 is especially vulnerable to dangerous dust-related driving conditions as it passes through a dry lake bed west of Lordsburg near the Arizona border. To help reduce dust-related risks, the NOAA Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program and the DOT Federal Highway Administration coordinated with...

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Cities & Infrastructure

Monitoring Urban Emissions Hotspots

Monitoring Urban Emissions Hotspots

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...

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Cities & Infrastructure

Building a Climate-Resilient National Capital Region

The Washington, DC metropolitan region holds a unique concentration of Federal buildings, irreplaceable cultural and historic resources, nationally significant monuments and landscapes, and diverse communities. This region is already experiencing the effects of climate change, including more frequent extreme weather events, rising temperatures, and recurring flooding. As these impacts intensify, they will affect residents and workers, real estate assets, businesses, government, and natural resources.

Federal, regional, and local organizations have an

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Cities & Infrastructure

Understanding Global Urbanization and Environmental Change

With more than half the world’s population living in cities, urban areas are at the core of many global environmental change issues and their solutions. Through its funding of the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP), USGCRP supports the Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC) project, an international leader in research on the interactions and feedbacks between environmental change and urbanization at the local, regional, and global scales. UGEC provides a multidisciplinary forum for researchers to share expertise and address knowledge

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