National Research Council Recommends Climate Change and Other Research Plans for the Oceans

The National Research Council (NRC), part of the National Academies of Sciences, has issued a report recommending several actions related to ocean research.  According to the report, "the United States has jurisdiction over 3.4 million square miles of ocean in its exclusive economic zone," which "represents a prime national domain for activities such as maritime transportation, national security, energy and mineral extraction, fisheries and aquaculture, and tourism and recreation." But the NRC notes that "the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami are vivid reminders that ocean activities and processes have direct human implications both nationally and worldwide, understanding of the ocean system is still incomplete, and ocean research infrastructure is needed to support both fundamental research and societal priorities."

The report, Critical Infrastructure for Ocean Research and Societal Needs in 2030, "identifies major research questions anticipated to be at the forefront of ocean science in 2030 based on national and international assessments, input from the worldwide scientific community, and ongoing research planning activities." It "defines categories of infrastructure that should be included in planning for the nation's ocean research infrastructure of 2030 and that will be required to answer the major research questions of the future."

Ocean research infrastructure supports both fundamental and applied scientific research that addresses urgent societal concerns such as climate change, human health, domestic offshore energy production, national security, marine shipping, tsunami detection and severe storm tracking, sustainable fisheries and aquaculture growth, and changes in marine ecosystem services. However, significant components of national infrastructure are aged, obsolete, or insufficient to meet growing societal demand for scientific information to enable safe, efficient, and environmentally sustainable use of the ocean. A comprehensive range of ocean research infrastructure will be needed to overcome these challenges, and more interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research will require a growing suite of infrastructure.

The report can be ordered from the National Academy Press.  A summary and a "report in brief" can also be read online or downloaded as a PDF file.

National Research Council releases Climate Stabilization Targets report

As promised last week, the National Research Council of the US National Academy of Sciences has released a new report where they state that "emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels have ushered in a new epoch where human activities will largely determine the evolution of Earth's climate." In short, human activity is causing climate change, and we need to do something about it.

The full (243 page) report, called "Climate Stabilization Targets; Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts Over Decades to Millenia" can be downloaded for free on the National Academy Press web site.

The NRC is concerned that "because carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is long lived, it can effectively lock the Earth and future generations into a range of impacts, some of which could become very severe."

According to the report, "important policy decisions can be informed by recent advances in climate science that quantify the relationships between increases in carbon dioxide and global warming, related climate changes, and resulting impacts, such as changes in streamflow, wildfires, crop productivity, extreme hot summers, and sea level rise." The report takes the tack that "one way to inform these choices is to consider the projected climate changes and impacts that would occur if greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were stabilized at a particular concentration level." The report tries to do just that using data from the literature. NRC intends the report to be "a useful resource for scientists, educators and policy makers, among others."

National Research Council to Release New Report on Climate Stabilization Targets Tomorrow!

On Friday, July 16th, at 2 pm EDT, the National Research Council will release a new report called Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts over Decades to Millennia, which draws on the most current science available to quantify the relationships between emissions, concentrations, warming, and future impacts. The report examines the implications of a range of different greenhouse gas emission levels being discussed, including likely impacts and the potential for serious or irreversible climate changes.

According to the NRC announcement, the public is invited to join a web seminar and teleconference highlighting the report's findings presented by Dr. Susan Solomon, chair of the report's authoring committee and senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colorado. Following Dr. Solomon's presentation, there will be a brief question and answer session.

Though separate from their previous series of reports, tomorrow's report is related to the America's Climate Choices program.