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Pages 1-16

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From page 1...
... , reviews the current scientific evidence regarding climate change and examines the status of the nation's scientific research efforts. It also describes the critical role that climate change science, broadly defined, can play in developing knowledge and tools to assist decision makers as they act to respond to climate change.
From page 2...
... " The panel was asked to provide a concise overview of past, present, and future climate change, including its causes and its impacts, then to recommend steps to advance our current understanding,including new observations,research programs,next-generation models, and the physical and human assets needed to support these and other activities. The panel was instructed to consider both the natural climate system and the human activities responsible for driving climate change and altering the vulnerability of different regions, sectors, and populations as a single system, and to consider the scientific advances needed to better understand the ef fectiveness of actions taken to limit the magnitude of future climate change and to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
From page 3...
... The burning of fossil fuels -- coal, oil, and natural gas -- for energy is the single largest human driver of climate change, but agriculture, forest clearing, and certain industrial activities also make significant contributions. • Natural climate variability leads to year-to-year and decade-to-decade fluctua tions in temperature and other climate variables, as well as substantial re gional differences, but cannot explain or offset the long-term warming trend.
From page 4...
... Several factors contribute to this uncertainty: • Projections of future climate change depend strongly on how human societies decide to produce and use energy and other resources in the decades ahead. • Human-caused changes in climate overlap with natural climate variability, especially at regional scales.
From page 5...
... A NEW ERA OF CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH Conclusion 2: The nation needs a comprehensive and integrative climate change science enterprise, one that not only contributes to our fundamental understanding of climate change but also informs and expands America's climate choices. Research efforts over the past several decades have provided a wealth of information to decision makers about the known and potential risks posed by climate change.
From page 6...
... Crosscutting Themes for Climate Change Research This report identifies seven crosscutting research themes, grouped into three general categories, that collectively span the most critical research needs for understanding climate change and for informing and supporting effective responses to it. Research to Improve Understanding of Human-Environment Systems 1.
From page 7...
... Some examples include advanced models for analysis and projections of climate forcing, responses, and impacts, especially at regional scales; and integrated assessment models and approaches -- both quantitative and nonquantitative -- for evaluating the 3The term "geoengineering" refers to deliberate, large-scale manipulations of Earth's environment designed to offset some of the harmful consequences of GHG-induced climate change. Geoengineering encompasses two very different classes of approaches: CO2 removal and solar radiation management.
From page 8...
... Climate change involves many aspects of the Earth system, as well a wide range of human activities, and both climate change and actions taken to respond to climate change interact in complex ways with other global and regional environmental changes. Understanding climate change, its impacts, and potential responses thus inherently requires integration of knowledge bases from many different scientific disciplines, including the physical, social, biological, health, and engineering sciences, and across different spatial scales of analysis, from local to global.
From page 9...
... To meet these evolving needs, the nation's climate research enterprise will itself need to be flexible and adaptive, and to practice "learning by doing" as it provides decision makers with the information they need to make effective decisions. 5 Adaptive (or iterative)
From page 10...
... Stemming this decline should be a top priority. Responding effectively to climate change will also require new observational capabilities to monitor and evaluate progress in limiting climate change and adapting to its impacts, as well as to monitor known risks and identify new or emerging risks as climate change unfolds.
From page 11...
... The federal climate research program is the obvious entity for leading the development of such a coordinated, comprehensive, and integrated climate observing system, and ensuring that the system facilitates both improved understanding and more effective decision making. However, other relevant partners, including the domestic and international research communities and action-oriented programs at all spatial scales, also need to be engaged in system design, deployment, and maintenance.
From page 12...
... The federal climate change research program should lead the development of a strategy for dramatically improving and integrating regional climate modeling, global Earth system models, and various integrated assessment, vulnerability, impact, and adaptation models. To ensure the success of this strategy, the program and its partners should take steps to increase the computational and human resources available to support a wide range of modeling efforts and ensure that these efforts are linked with both the national observing system strategy and with efforts to support effective decision making.
From page 13...
... Recommendation 6: The federal climate change research program should be formally linked with action-oriented response programs focused on limiting the magnitude of future climate change, adapting to the impacts of climate change, and informing climate-related actions and decisions, and, where relevant, should develop partnerships with other research and decision-making entities working at local to international scales. The engagement of institutions at all levels and of all sorts -- academic, governmental, private-sector, and not-for-profit -- will be needed to meet the challenges of climate change.
From page 14...
... However, the more integrative and decision-relevant research program described in this report will require expanded intellectual capacity in several previously neglected fields as well as in interdisciplinary research areas. Responding effectively to climate change will also require new interdisciplinary intellectual capacity among state, local, and national government agencies, universities, and other public and private research labs, as well as among science managers coordinating efforts to advance the science of climate change.
From page 15...
... Further discussion of the actions needed to educate and train future generations of scientists, engineers, technicians, managers, and decision makers for responding to climate change can be found in the companion report Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change (NRC, 2010b)


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