Search Results

open access

Our Changing Planet: The U.S. Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Year 2008

Description: This report describes the activities and plans of the Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), which incorporates the U.S. Global Change Research Program, established under the Global Change Research Act of 1990, and the Climate Change Research Initiative, established by the President in 2001. CCSP coordinates and integrates scientific research on climate and global change supported by 13 participating departments and agencies of the U.S. Government. The document describes a wide range of advanc… more
Date: 2007
Creator: Climate Change Science Program (U.S.)
open access

Global Wetland Distribution and Functional Characterization: Trace Gases and the Hydrologic Cycle

Description: The IGBP Wetlands workshop (Santa Barbara, CA, USA,16-20 May 1996) was held for the purpose of identifying data and research needs for characterizing wetlands in terms of their role in biogeochemical and hydrologic cycles. Wetlands cover only about 1% of the Earth's surface, yet are responsible for a much greater proportion of biogeochemical fluxes between the land surface, the atmosphere and hydrologic systems. They play a particularly important function in processing methane, carbon dioxide, … more
Date: 1998
Creator: Sahagian, Dork & Melack, John
open access

Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics: Implementation Plan

Description: This document describes plans for the implementation of the Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) programme element of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP). This Implementation Plan is an international response to the need to understand how global change, in the broadest sense, will affect the abundance, diversity and productivity of marine populations comprising a major component of oceanic ecosystems. The Plan describes the consensus view, developed under the auspices of … more
Date: 1999
Creator: GLOBEC International Project Office
open access

Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC): Implementation Strategy

Description: The Implementation Strategy of the Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC) project specifies in greater detail the activities and projects that will fulfil the mandate outlined in the LUCC Science/Research Plan published in 1995. The project, a joint initiative of IGBP and IHDP, is addressing important global change questions on the local, regional and global scale. The planned and ongoing activities involve a wide community of natural and social scientists. The new understanding of land-use and … more
Date: 1999
Creator: Scientific Steering Committee and International Project Office of LUCC
open access

Global Change and Mountain Regions: The Mountain Research Initiative

Description: The strong altitudinal gradients in mountain regions provide unique and sometimes the best opportunities to detect and analyse global change processes and phenomena. Meteorological, hydrological, cryospheric and ecological conditions change strongly over relatively short distances; thus biodiversity tends to be high, and characteristic sequences of ecosystems and cryospheric systems are found along mountain slopes. The boundaries between these systems experience shifts due to environmental chan… more
Date: 2001
Creator: Bekcer, Alfred & Bugmann, Harald
open access

The Surface Ocean - Lower Atmosphere Study: Science Plan and Implementation Strategy

Description: SOLAS (Surface Ocean - Lower Atmosphere Study) is a new international research initiative that has as its goal: To achieve quantitative understanding of the key biogeochemical-physical interactions and feedbacks between the ocean and the atmosphere, and of how this coupled system affects and is affected by climate and environmental change. Achievement of this goal is important in order to understand and quantify the role that ocean-atmosphere interactions play in the regulation of climate and … more
Date: 2004
Creator: Broadgate, Wendy & Young, Bill
open access

The Kalahari Transect: Research on Global Change and Sustainable Development in Southern Africa

Description: The Kalahari Transect is proposed as one of IGBPs Transects (see Koch et al. 1995 [IGBP Report 36]). It is located so as to span the gradient between the arid subtropics and the moist tropics in southern Africa, a zone potentially susceptible to changes in the global precipitation pattern. Its focus is the relationships between the structure and function of ecosystems and their large-scale biophysical and human drivers (climate, atmosphere and land use). The Kalahari Transect spans a strong cli… more
Date: 1997
Creator: Scholes, R.J. & Parsons, D.A.B.
open access

Predicting Global Change Impacts on Mountain Hydrology and Ecology: Integrated Catchment Hydrology/Altitudinal Gradient Studies: A workshop report

Description: Documentation resulting from an international workshop in Kathmandu, Nepal, 30 March - 2 April 1996. The following themes were addressed by the working groups: 1. "Role of ecology and hydrology for the sustainable development in mountain regions" (the "human dimensions"). 2. "Coupled ecological and hydrological studies along altitudinal gradients in mountain regions", with a sub-group dealing with the "Assessment of the spatial distribution pattern of basic water balance components." 3. "Imp… more
Date: 1997
Creator: Becker, Alfred & Bugmann, Harald
open access

START Implementation Plan 1997-2002

Description: The primary goals of the SysTem for Analysis, Research and Training in global change science (START), which is co-sponsored by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP); the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP); and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) are to promote regional global change science and to enhance the capacity of individuals, institutions and developing regions to undertake such research. START capacity building initi… more
Date: 1998
Creator: Fuchs, Roland; Hassan, Virji & Fleming, Cory
open access

Past Global Changes (PAGES) Status Report and Implementation Plan

Description: This document summarizes progress made thus far by the Past Global Changes (PAGES) programme element of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP). The document also outlines the implementation plans for most of the Foci, Activities and Tasks currently within the PAGES remit. The plan first introduces the scope and rationale of PAGES science and explains how PAGES is organized structurally and scientifically to achieve its goals. For all of the palaeosciences relevant to IGBP goals,… more
Date: 1998
Creator: Oldfield, Frank
open access

Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences

Description: This Synthesis and Assessment Product is an important revision to the conclusions of earlier reports from the U.S. National Research Council and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Previously reported discrepancies between the amount of warming near the surface and higher in the atmosphere have been used to challenge the reliability of climate models and the reality of human-induced global warming. Specifically, surface data showed substantial global-average warming, while early vers… more
Date: April 2006
Creator: U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research
open access

NOAA Makes New Tree Ring Data Available

Description: New data from tree rings from 500 sites around the world are now available from NOAA. These data are important because they provide climate scientists and resource managers with records of past climatic variability extending back thousands of years.
Date: October 17, 2001
Creator: NOAA News
open access

Decision-Support Experiments and Evaluations using Seasonal-to-Interannual Forecasts and Observational Data: A Focus on Water Resources

Description: This Synthesis and Assessment Product focuses on the connection between the scientific ability to predict climate on seasonal scales and the opportunity to incorporate such understanding into water resource management decisions. It directly addresses decision support experiments and evaluations that have used seasonal-to-interannual forecasts and observational data, and is expected to inform (1) decision makers about the relative success of experiences of others who have experimented with these… more
Date: January 2009
Creator: Beller-Simms, Nancy; Ingram, Helen; Feldman, David; Mantua, Nathan; Jacobs, Katharine L. & Waple, Anne M.
open access

The Terrestrial Biosphere and Global Change: Implications for Natural and Managed Ecosystems

Description: From the perspective of terrestrial ecosystems, the most important component of global change over the next three or four decades will likely be land-use/cover change. It is driven largely by the need to feed the expanding human population, expected to increase by almost one billion (109) people per decade for the next three decades at least. Much of this increase will occur in developing countries in the low-latitude regions of the world. To meet the associated food demand, crop yields will ne… more
Date: 1997
Creator: Walker, Brian & Steffen, WIll
open access

Ocean Biogeochemistry and Global Change

Description: From the perspective of terrestrial ecosystems, the most important component of global change over the next three or four decades will likely be land-use/cover change. It is driven largely by the need to feed the expanding human population, expected to increase by almost one billion (109) people per decade for the next three decades at least. Much of this increase will occur in developing countries in the low-latitude regions of the world. To meet the associated food demand, crop yields will ne… more
Date: 1997
Creator: Joint Global Ocean Flux Study
open access

Environmental Variability and Climate Change

Description: The PAGES research community works toward improving our understanding of the Earth's changing environment. By placing current and future global changes in a long term perspective, they can be assessed relative to natural variability. Since the industrial revolution, the Earth System has become increasingly affected by human activities. Natural and human processes are woven into a complex tapestry of forcings, responses, feedbacks and consequences. Deciphering this complexity is essential as we… more
Date: 2001
Creator: Past Global Changes (PAGES)
open access

Summary for Policymakers:Scientific-Technical Analyses of Impacts, Adaptations and Mitigation of Climate Change - IPCC Working Group II

Description: This summary of assessment provides scientific, technical and economic information that can be used, inter alia, in evaluating whether the projected range of plausible impacts constitutes "dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system," as referred to in Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and in evaluating adaptation and mitigation options that could be used in progressing towards the ultimate objective of the UNFCCC
Date: 1995
Creator: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
open access

Japan's Initiative on Climate Change

Description: Japan's Initiative on Climate Change defines the current state of climate change, summarizes diplomacy related to international environmental cooperation, and international climage change policy, with an outlook to the future.
Date: May 2009
Creator: Japan. Gaimushō.
open access

Annual Report on the Environment, the Sound Material-Cycle Society and the Biodiversity 2009

Description: The white paper on comprehensive environmental policy describes the role of Japan's economy in a sound global environment. In the first part, the report describes current the environmental conditions of the Earth and of Japan, human activities in Japan and overseas, their environmental impacts, and the pathway to the environmental century. The second part of the white paper reports on various measures.
Date: November 2009
Creator: [Japan] Ministry of the Environment
open access

Emissions Scenarios

Description: This Report describes climate change scenarios that extend to the end of the 21st century and how they were developed. The scenarios cover a wide range of the main driving forces of future emissions, from demographic to technological and economic developments. The set of emissions scenarios is based on an extensive assessment of the literature, six alternative modeling approaches, and an "open process" that solicited wide participation and feedback from many groups and individuals. The SRES sc… more
Date: 2000
Creator: Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
open access

The ozone hole

Description: Discovery of the hole in the ozone layer showed that human activity can have major, and often unexpected impacts on the planet. The destruction of ozone in the stratosphere high above the planet's surface has been brought about as the result of the widespread use of chemicals which under normal conditions are chemically inert and harmless
Date: 2003
Creator: British Antactic Survey
open access

Ozone

Description: Although it represents only a tiny fraction of the atmosphere, ozone is crucial for life on Earth. Depending on where ozone resides, it can protect or harm life on Earth.
Date: 2002
Creator: NASA Earth Observatory
open access

Ozone

Description: In the stratosphere, ozone is created primarily by ultraviolet radiation. When high-energy ultraviolet rays strike ordinary oxygen molecules (O2), they split the molecule into two single oxygen atoms, known as atomic oxygen. A freed oxygen atom then combines with another oxygen molecule to form a molecule of ozone. There is so much oxygen in our atmosphere, that these high-energy ultraviolet rays are completely absorbed in the stratosphere.
Date: 2002
Creator: NASA Earth Observatory
Back to Top of Screen