PUBLIC REVIEW NOTICE
(Reviews requested by February 15)
A new U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan (Review Draft)
Lead authors: Anna M. Michalak, Robert B. Jackson, Gregg Marland,
Christopher Sabine
Carbon Cycle Science Working Group contributing authors: Bob
Anderson, Debbie Bronk, Kenneth Davis, Ruth DeFries, Scott Denning,
Lisa Dilling, Andy Jacobson, Steve Lohrenz, David McGuire, Galen
McKinley, Charles Miller, Berrien Moore, Dennis Ojima, Brian O'Neill,
Jim Randerson, Steve Running, Brent Sohngen, Pieter Tans, Peter
Thornton, Steve Wofsy, Ning Zeng
Understanding the Earth's carbon cycle is both a challenging
intellectual problem and an urgent societal need. The impacts of
human-caused changes in the global carbon cycle will be felt on the
Earth for hundreds to thousands of years. Direct observations and
process-based understanding of the global carbon cycle are needed to
determine how the cycle is being modified, what the responses are to
those modifications, and how best to develop sound climate change
mitigation and adaptation strategies. Recognition of the need for
better understanding and coordinated research on the global carbon
cycle led to the development of the U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan
about a decade ago (Sarmiento and Wofsy, 1999). Our reassessment of
the U.S. carbon cycle science priorities described here was initiated
by the U.S. Carbon Cycle Interagency Working Group (CCIWG) and Carbon
Cycle Science Steering Group (CCSSG) in 2008 who formed the Carbon
Cycle Science Working Group, consisting of members from the diverse
research communities that have traditionally comprised the U.S.
carbon cycle science program, along with members from research areas
needed to expand the research effort.
In outlining a new research agenda for the next decade, our group
chose to preserve the hierarchical structure adopted in the 1999
Carbon Cycle Science Plan. In Chapter 2, we provide a brief history
of the 1999 Science Plan, progress made since that plan was prepared,
and the context in which a new Plan has now been developed. We next
articulate overriding questions that guided a new research agenda in
Chapter 3. Within this agenda, we identify specific goals that define
achievable objectives for the next decade and beyond (Chapter 4), and
outline the primary research elements that we believe must be pursued
to achieve the stated goals (Chapter 5). In Chapter 6, we
characterize the complex interdisciplinary realm in which
carbon-cycle science needs to be pursued, and the collaborations and
cooperation necessary for success. Finally, in Chapter 7, we
summarize our vision of the priorities for ongoing research and offer
our recommendations for the scope and scale of needed research.
In this new Plan, we emphasize the long-lived, carbon-based
greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane and the other major pools
and fluxes of the global carbon cycle. Certain non-greenhouse-gases,
including carbon monoxide (CO) and ratios of oxygen to nitrogen
(O2:N2), provide important constraints on the global carbon cycle and
are part of the plan in that context only. Throughout this document,
we emphasized the importance of an integrated system to collect and
maintain the essential data that drive scientific understanding.
To vet this DRAFT Plan across our science communities, we offer a
public review period. All interested parties are encouraged to review
the full Plan and provide input during this public review period,
which closes Tuesday, February 15, 2011. The plan is a proposal for
priorities in carbon cycle science for U.S. funding agencies over the
coming decade.
The full DRAFT Plan (pdf) is available for download at
<http://www.nacarbon.org/nacp/announcements/CCSPlan_public_review_notice.htm>http://www.nacarbon.org/nacp/announcements/CCSPlan_public_review_notice.htm
and at <http://www.us-ocb.org/>http://www.us-ocb.org/
Please send reviews / comments to
<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]. Because Public Reviews
will be posted at
<http://www.carboncyclescience.gov/>http://www.carboncyclescience.gov,
we request that all reviewers state if they DO NOT want their reviews
to be made publicly available and/or they DO NOT want their names
associated with their reviews when they are posted publicly.
