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Climate Projections Based on Emissions Scenarios for Long-Lived and Short-Lived Radiatively Active Gases and Aerosols

Description: This report focuses on the Climate Projections Based on Emissions Scenarios. The influence of greenhouse gases and particle pollution on our present and future climate has been widely examined. While both long-lived (e.g., carbon dioxide) and short-lived (e.g., soot) gases and particles affect the climate, other projections of future climate, such as the IPCC reports focus largely on the long-lived gases. This U.S. Climate Change Science Program Synthesis and Assessment Product provides a diffe… more
Date: September 2008
Creator: U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Impacts of Climate Change and Variability on Transportation Systems and Infrastructure: Gulf Coast Study, Phase I

Description: This document, part of the Synthesis and Assessment Products described in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) Strategic Plan. Climate affects the design, construction, safety, operations, and maintenance of transportation infrastructure and systems. The prospect of a changing climate raises critical questions regarding how alterations in temperature, precipitation, storm events, and other aspects of the climate could affect the nation's roads, airports, rail, transit systems, pipelin… more
Date: March 2008
Creator: U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Uses and Limitations of Observations, Data, Forecasts, and Other Projections in Decision Support for Selected Sectors and Regions

Description: This Synthesis and Assessment Product (SAP), Uses and Limitations of Observations, Data, Forecasts, and Other Projections in Decision Support for Selected Sectors and Regions. This is part of a series of 21 SAPs produced by the CCSP aimed at providing current assessments of climate change science to inform public debate, policy, and operational decisions. This SAP focuses on the use of climate observations, data, forecasts, and other projections in decision support.
Date: August 2008
Creator: U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Best Practice Approaches for Characterizing, Communicating, and Incorporating Scientific Uncertainty in Decision Making

Description: This report discusses the current state of understanding about the characteristics and implications of uncertainty related to climate change and variability to an audience of policymakers, decision makers, and members of the media and general public with an interest in developing a fundamental understanding of the issue.
Date: January 2009
Creator: U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Reanalysis of Historical Climate Data for Key Atmospheric Features: Implications for Attribution of Causes of Observed Chan

Description: This Climate Change Science Program Synthesis and Assessment Product addresses current capabilities to integrate observations of the climate system into a consistent description of past and current conditions through the method of reanalysis. In addition, the Product assesses present capabilities to attribute causes for climate variations and trends over North America during the reanalysis period, which extends from the mid-twentieth century to the present. This Product reviews the strengths an… more
Date: 2008
Creator: U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Scenarios of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Atmospheric Concentrations

Description: This and a companion report constitute one of twenty-one Synthesis and Assessment Products called for in the Strategic Plan for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. These studies are structured to provide high-level, integrated research results on important science issues with a particular focus on questions raised by decision-makers on dimensions of climate change directly relevant to the U.S. One element of the CCSP's strategic vision is to provide decision support tools for differentiati… more
Date: 2007
Creator: U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Strategy for Climate Change Stabilization Experiments with AOGCMs and ESMs

Description: This report outlines a strategy for the new AOGCM/ESM modeling components in terms of aerosols/atmospheric chemistry and carbon cycle/dynamic vegetation components that are under development and implementation in ESMs that involves a proposed experimental design that integrates impacts and scenarios (represented in IPCC WG2 and WG3, respectively) and physical climate science (WG1). We summarize with a suite of recommendations for the joint WGCM, AIMES and IPCC communities.
Date: May 2007
Creator: International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Future Climate Change Research and Observations: GCOS, WCRP and IGBP Learning from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report

Description: Learning from the authors of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report and its findings to help guide future strategies for climate change observations and research was the key objective of a workshop organised jointly by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) in Sydney, Australia, 4-6 October 2007.
Date: 2008
Creator: International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

NOAA Reports Potent Greenhouse Gas Levels Off

Description: This document provides a summary of a study by NOAA researchers and National Institute for Space Research in the Netherlands. According to the study, one of the atmosphere's most potent greenhouse gases, methane, may now have leveled off. Scientists aren't sure yet if this "leveling off" is just a temporary pause in two centuries of increase or a new state of equilibrium.
Date: November 17, 2003
Creator: NOAA News Online
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

NOAA Sets the El Niño Prediction Straight

Description: El Niño is an abnormal warming of the ocean temperatures across the eastern tropical Pacific that affects weather around the globe. El Niño episodes usually occur approximately every four-five years. NOAA researchers and scientists are presently monitoring the formation of a possible weak El Niño and predict that the United States could experience very weak-to-marginal impacts late winter to early spring 2002.
Date: September 7, 2001
Creator: NOAA News
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Climate Change: State of Knowledge

Description: This brief report describes that the Earth's climate is predicted to change because human activities are altering the chemical composition of the atmosphere. The buildup of greenhouse gases-primarily carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons-is changing the radiation balance of the planet. The basic heat-trapping property of these greenhouse gases is essentially undisputed. However, there is considerable scientific uncertainty about exactly how and when the Earth's climate … more
Date: March 1995
Creator: Environmental division, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Revised Research Plan for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program

Description: This Revised Research Plan is an update to the 2003 Strategic Plan of the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), a document that was developed via a thorough, open and transparent multi-year process involving a wide range of scientists and managers. The Strategic Plan has long-term value to CCSP, but like any strategic plan, it must be supplemented by shorter-term revisions that take into account both advances in the science and changes in societal needs, and CCSP has an ongoing long-range … more
Date: May 2008
Creator: US Climate Change Science Program
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Clouds in the Balance

Description: This feature article provides a summary of study about the role of clouds in the balance. Until recently, scientists were uncertain whether clouds had an overall net cooling or heating effect on the Earth's climate. But recent studies show that, in the tropics, a "near cancellation" between shortwave cooling and longwave warming exists, which indicates that the amount of incoming radiant energy is roughly equal to the amount of outgoing radiation. However, small changes in tropical cloudiness c… more
Date: October 11, 2001
Creator: Schmidt, Laurie J.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Policy Statements on Data Management for Global Change Research

Description: This document is the final version of the "Data Management for Global Change Research Policy Statements." The overall purpose of these policy statements is to facilitate full open access to quality data for global change research. They were prepared in consonance with the goal of the U.S. Global Change Research Program and represent the U.S. Government's position on the access to global change research data.
Date: July 2, 1991
Creator: Bromley, Allan
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Declaration of the Earth Observation Summit

Description: This single page document is a declaration of the participants of the Earth Observation Summit held in Washington DC, adopted on July 31, 2003. An affirmation for the need for timely, quality, long-term, global information as a basis for sound decision making. Also establishes an ad hoc Group on Earth Observations aimed at developing a global observing strategy.
Date: July 31, 2003
Creator: [Earth Observation Summit]
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Definitions and Methodological Options to Inventory Emissions from Direct Human-induced Degradation of Forests and Devegetation of Other Vegetation Types

Description: This report on Definitions and Methodological Options to Inventory Emissions from Direct Human-Induced Degradation of Forests and Devegetation of Other Vegetation Types is the response from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)1 to an invitation from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)2 . The report was prepared in cooperation with the preparation of the other report under the IPCC National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme (IPCC-NGGIP), on Good … more
Date: 2003
Creator: Penman, Jim; Wagner, Fabian; Tanabe, Kiyoto; Ngara, Todd; Miwa, Kyoko; Krug, Thelma et al.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Floods and Drought, USGCRP Seminar, 8 May 1995.

Description: In this USGCRP seminar, issues about the impact of drought and floods in the news and feel it in the cost of goods and services would be discussed. Each year seems to bring with it droughts or floods that cause billions of dollars in economic losses and untold societal disruption to major parts of our nation. (Drought in the Midwest in 1988 and in the Southeast in 1989. Floods in the Mississippi River Basin in 1992 and in California in 1994). Around the world the situation is the same, even wor… more
Date: May 8, 1995
Creator: Sarachik, Edward & Leetma, Ants
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Climate Models: How Certain are their Projections of Future Climate Change? USGCRP Seminar, 12 June 1995.

Description: This document provide a brief overview of Dr. Eric J. Barron's talk on the results of the USGCRP-sponsored forum to evaluate the results of model simulations of climate change, a cross-section of leading climate and Earth system modelers and skeptics considered what is known with certainty, what is known with less certainty, and what remains uncertain.
Date: June 12, 1995
Creator: Barron, Eric J.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Climate Change and Human Health, USGCRP Seminar, 10 July 1995.

Description: In this USGRP Seminar, Dr. Epstein discusses the implications of climate change and the emergence of diseases and viruses such as the hantavirus, dengue fever, ebola, cholera, malaria, and eastern equine encephalitis. These signals of global change can be costly to health, commerce, tourism, and transportation.
Date: July 10, 1995
Creator: Epstein, Paul R.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Ice Core Records of Past Climate Changes: Implications for the Future, USGCRP Seminar, 18 September 1995.

Description: This document provides a brief overview of Dr. Thompson's talk on records of changes in climate in general and the most significant implications of the ice core records of past climate changes in particular. Because climate processes that have operated in the past continue to operate today, ice core records are providing very valuable insights. Within the last two decades, long cores of glacial ice have been used to establish and improve the record of past changes in climate. Analysis of ice co… more
Date: September 18, 1995
Creator: Thompson, Lonnie G. & Bender, Michael
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Signals of Human-induced Climate Warning, USGCRP Seminar, 10 October 1995.

Description: There is increasing evidence that the global climate is changing: global temperatures have risen about 1 F over the past century, mountain glaciers are melting back, sea level is rising. But how is the climate of the United States changing? Are these changes like others being experienced around the world? Is the US climate becoming more or less variable? Are we having more or fewer climatic extremes? This USGCRP seminar addresses these questions in the context of the anthropogenic influences on… more
Date: October 10, 1995
Creator: Karl, Thomas
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Anthropogenic Ozone Depletion: Status and Human Health Implications, USGCRP Seminar, 13 November 1995.

Description: In this USGRP Seminar, speakers answer the following questions: what is the status of the Earth's ozone layer? Is the Montreal Protocol working? How much time will be necessary for nature to restore the ozone layer? What are the human health effects of increased ultraviolet radiation associated with depletion of the ozone layer? Who is at risk?
Date: November 13, 1995
Creator: Albritton, Daniel & Kripke, Margaret
Partner: UNT Libraries
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