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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 7, NUMBER 9, SEPTEMBER 1994

REPORTS... SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMS: U.S., CANADA AND NGO

Item #d94sep48

Solar Influences on Global Change, Natl. Res. Council, Board on Global Change (E.A. Frieman, Scripps Inst. Oceanog., Chair), 163 pp., 1994. Order from Natl. Academy Press, 2101 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington DC 20418 (800-624-6242 or 202-334-3313).

The primary recommendation of a group of scientists, headed by Judith Lean, is a program for determining solar influences on global change that would "monitor the total and spectral solar irradiance from an uninterrupted, overlapping series of spacecraft radiometers employing in-flight sensitivity tracking." However, there are no firm plans at this time to implement this recommendation because radiometric techniques are not sufficiently accurate, and there may be a dearth of access to space.

Item #d94sep49

Canadian Critical Environmental Zones: Concepts, Goals and Resources (No. 94-1), T.C. Meredith (McGill Univ.), C. Moore et al., 42 pp., 1994. Contact Canadian Global Change Program Secretariat, Royal Soc. Can., POB 9734, Ottawa ON K1G 5J4.

A report from the Critical Zones Panel concerning those ecosystems that are so degraded that the health or well-being of human inhabitants are threatened. This report presents the concept of critical zones, central scientific and policy questions, and an inventory of relevant national and international activities, many of which relate to global climate change.

Item #d94sep50

Bio-Optics in U.S. JGOFS (U.S. JGOFS Planning Rep. 18), T.D. Dickey, D.A. Siegel, Eds., 180 pp., Dec. 1993. Contact US JGOFS Planning Off., Woods Hole Oceanog. Inst., Woods Hole MA 02543.

From a U.S. Joint Global Ocean Flux Study workshop (Boulder, Co., 1991), this report discusses how in situ and remote bio-optical determinations can be used to address variations in planktonic community abundance and structure; determine net community and gross photosynthetic production; and drive models of the upper ocean ecosystem and carbon cycle.

Item #d94sep51

Global Change Research and NASA's Earth Observing System (S/N 052-003-01358-4), Off. Technol. Assess., 1993. Available through New Orders, Superintendent of Documents, POB 371954, Pittsburgh PA 15250 (tel: 202-783-3238; fax: 202-512-2250).

Concludes that the current structure of the U.S. Global Change Research Program does not allow it to provide information that policy makers need. It is overwhelmingly a physical sciences program, but policy makers need other information, including the consequences of the loss of ecosystems and biodiversity, changes in land use, and increases in population. The current program works largely through NASA's Mission to Planet Earth, but potentially cost-effective but less glamorous programs outside NASA have languished. Suggests broadening the research to include studies of stratospheric ozone depletion, changes in the distribution of biodiversity and forests, the spread of deserts, and changes in ocean and coastal ecosystems.

Item #d94sep52

1993 EOS Reference Handbook, G. Asrar, D.J. Dokken, Eds., 145 pp., 1993. Published by NASA. Order from Earth Sci. Support Off., Document Resour. Facility, 300 D St. SW, S. 840, Washington DC 20024 (tel: 202-479-0360; fax: 202-479-2566).

The Earth Observing System of satellites, the centerpiece of NASA's Mission to Planet Earth, is being used with other ground-based and satellite systems from the U.S. and other countries to form the International Earth Observing System. The EOS Program has seen major revisions, as described in a chronology section. Other sections address the interdisciplinary focus on climate change, current data, instrumentation, interagency cooperation, and international cooperation.

Item #d94sep53

Monitoring Coral Reefs for Global Change, J.C. Pernetta, 102 pp., Oct. 1993, £6. Reviews interagency efforts to establish pantropical reef monitoring to examine responses to predicted global warming. Published by IUCN (Gland, Switz.); available through NHBS (Natural History Book Service Ltd.), 2-3 Wills Rd., Totnes, Devon TQ9 5XN, UK (tel: +44 0803 865913; fax: +44 803 865280).