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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999

FROM VOLUME 2, NUMBER 10, OCTOBER 1989

REPORTS...
EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE

Item #d89oct30

Effects of Atmospheric and Climate Change on Terrestrial Ecosystems (Rep. No. 5), B.H. Walker, R.D. Graetz, 61 pp., July 1989. Request from the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP) Secretariat, Royal Swedish Acad. Sci., Box 50005, S-104 05 Stockholm, Swed. (tel: +46-8 16 64 48).

Presents findings of a workshop (Canberra, Australia, Feb. 1988) intended to develop a research program on one of the four primary IGBP areas: terrestrial biosphere-atmosphere interactions. Research will focus on predicting the effects of changes of climate and atmospheric composition on terrestrial ecosystems. Forty specific research needs and recommendations are given under the categories landscape and soils, vegetation function, vegetation dynamics and distribution, higher trophic levels (insects and animal species), maintenance of biological diversity, agricultural and managed forest crops, animal production from rangelands, and scaling of process representation and field results for application to predictive general circulation models.

Item #d89oct31

U.S. WOCE Implementation Plan--The U.S. Contribution to the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (U.S. WOCE Implementation Rep. No. 1), 176 pp., Mar. 1989. Available from U.S. WOCE Off., Dept. Oceanog., Texas A&M Univ., College Sta. TX 77843.

WOCE will attempt to describe and understand the ocean circulation and its relationship to climate change over periods of decades and longer. During the 1990s, an unprecedented program of world-wide ocean observations and associated numerical modeling will be undertaken. In addition, the resulting information will be used to design a permanent, financially feasible observation system capable of defining the long-term behavior of oceanic circulation.

The U.S. role in WOCE was developed through workshops involving hundreds of scientists over the past five years. Three criteria were developed for selecting projects for implementing the U.S. contribution to WOCE: 1) they must contribute to and be included specifically in the international implementation plan; 2) priority is given to completing global descriptions; and 3) sufficient resources should be concentrated in one ocean to address the critical processes needed to improve global circulation models. Annual updates and modifications to the plan will be issued beginning in 1990. Scientific rationale for the plan has been published in a series of U.S. WOCE Planning Reports.

Item #d89oct32

Report of the ISY Mission to Planet Earth Conference, H. Meyerson, Ed., 38 pp., 1988. US-ISY Assoc., 600 Maryland Ave. SW, S. 600, Washington DC 20024. (202-863-1734; fax: 202-863-5240).

Report of the Planning Meeting for the International Space Year (1992) (Apr. 29-May 1, 1988, Durham, New Hampshire). The ISY, an initiative of the U.S. Congress and NASA that has gained international support, consists of globally coordinated space missions and public activities, emphasizing global environmental monitoring through the theme, "Mission to Planet Earth." The conference was held to: 1) establish coordinated activities to be carried out well into the 21st century to answer global environmental threats; 2) encourage and coordinate space exploration and development among all nations.