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11 Findings and Recommendations
Pages 517-536

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From page 517...
... For each field the committee discusses the character of the scientific problems; presents case studies associated with specific relevant transitions in our scientific understanding of the Earth system; defines the primary unanswered scientific questions; critically reviews lessons learned in the course of achieving scientific transitions; and extracts from the analysis a set of research imperatives that, together with the corresponding critical unanswered scientific questions address fundamental needs to know in health, public policy, economics, international relations, and national leadership. Observational priorities flow from the identified Research Imperatives and Scientific Questions, as do the required data and information systems to manage these observations as well as some of the fundamental modeling issues that must be addressed to link the observations with the questions.
From page 518...
... Resources have been most effectively utilized when applied in ways that strengthen the link between primary unanswered questions and the nation's intellectual resources, that improve the potential for technical innovations, that provide educational and public outreach opportunities, and that serve the vital information needs of decision makers. Finding 1.2: Within each of the six topical themes identified in this report to further understanding of global change, the specific central scientific issues listed below must be confronted.
From page 519...
... Finding 1.2d: Within Changes in the Chemistry of the Atmosphere, the following central scientific issues must be confronted: • Define and predict secular trends in the intensity of ultraviolet exposure that the Earth receives by documenting the concentrations and distribu tions of stratospheric ozone and the key chemical species that control its catalytic destruction and by elucidating the coupling between chemistry, dynamics, and radiation in the stratosphere and upper troposphere. • Determine the fluxes of greenhouse gases into and out of the Earth's subsystems and the mechanisms responsible for the exchange and distri bution between and within those subsystems.
From page 520...
... Finding 1.2f: Within Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, the following central scientific issues must be confronted: • Understand the major human causes of changes in the global environ ment and how they vary over time, across space, and between economic sectors and social groups. • Determine the human consequences of global environmental change on key life-support systems, such as water, health, energy, natural ecosys
From page 521...
... • Understand the underlying social processes or driving forces behind the human relationship to the global environment, such as human attitudes and behavior, population dynamics, institutions, and economic and tech nological transformations. Recommendation 1: Research priorities and resource allocations must be reassessed, with the objective of tying available resources directly to the major unanswered Scientific Questions identified in this report.
From page 522...
... This crosscutting initiative can clearly build on the progress made by the Global Energy and Water Experiment of the World Climate Research Program and the Biospheric Aspects of the Hydrological Cycle project of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme. Elucidating the climate system and possible anthropogenic changes, in addition to natural variability, is a paramount goal in these studies.
From page 523...
... Foremost among these themes are the following: • understanding the Earth's carbon and water cycles; • characterizing climate change, including the human dimensions component, on temporal and spatial scales relevant to human ac tivities; • and elucidating the links among radiation, dynamics, chemistry, and climate. The USGCRP must develop an approach that satisfies a number of critical objectives: • Improves the ability to establish accurate time series of spatially resolved flux measurements of carbon species and their isotopes and associated observations of molecular oxygen.
From page 524...
... • Provides the capability to resolve sharp nonlinearities within the Earth system that are triggered by chemical composition changes, which in turn lead to phase changes that markedly affect the transport of infrared radia tion. A Coherent Observational Strategy The Research Imperatives help identify preliminary emphases for required observations and data systems and focus the needed calculations and models; the Scientific Questions provide the specificity required to establish what must be done to advance our understanding.
From page 525...
... should be undertaken with the climate record and other research on relevant global change Scientific Questions clearly in mind. Documentation of decadal and longer-term change raises other basic issues of program management and decision structure.
From page 526...
... Nevertheless, these less glamorous activities may yield much more useable information for the foreseeable future about the natural processes leading to environmental fluctuations on such timescales and hence about the modifications induced by human activities. A coherent observational strategy is needed that builds on the identified Research Imperatives and Scientific Questions and on available national and international space and in situ networks.
From page 527...
... The second component may require additional funds for NOAA; it may require modification of NOAA's mission (e.g., a strong commitment by NOAA to addressing global environmental change as part of its mission) , and it definitely requires significantly improved coordination between NOAA and
From page 528...
... Consideration of these lessons demonstrates that the successful execution of global change research is closely tied to technical innovation. Investment in observational platforms to date has focused on a small number of large satellites, a limited number of marginally funded
From page 529...
... Indeed, space-based observations and their associated data management systems dominate the resources of the USGCRP, a trend that impinges on both the research and analysis support and the in situ observational networks. Recommendation 4: The restructured national strategy for Earth observations must more aggressively employ technical innovation.
From page 530...
... Although the scientific community has logically paid attention mainly to such government and academic backbones as vBNSc and Internet-2, the more important shift is occurring in the widespread distribution of high bandwidths (1 to 10 Mbps) to homes.
From page 531...
... Emphasis must be placed on designing and selecting flexible and innovative systems that appro priately reflect focused responsibility for data character, that provide open access to the scientific community and the public, and that rapidly evolve to exploit technological developments. In particular, the USGCRP must closely monitor the progress of the innovative "federa tion" concept for data systems.d As suggested in the last finding, it is likely that the government will continue to provide the primary long-term archive for space and Earth science data, but it must also maintain the capability to enable long-term reprocessing of these time series; archiving must not continue to be a burial ground for data.
From page 532...
... Recommendation 6: The USGCRP must foster the development and application of models at the scales of time and space needed to under stand and project the specific mechanisms controlling changes in the state of the Earth system, thus providing the information required to support important policy processes. The USGCRP must give increased emphasis to models that treat multiple stresses on systems; it must there fore secure adequate computing resources so that large scale, complex models can be rigorously tested under multiple forcings.
From page 533...
... Consequently, there must be a greater commitment to advanced computing resources, as well as human resources, by the USGCRP to ensure that global modeling is achieved at spatial and temporal scales appropriate to the needs of the policy community and the private sector. As the USGCRP enters this second critical decade of its existence, the scientific challenges it faces are heightened by the need to understand and foreshadow the regional as well as other impacts of global environmental changes.


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