Last Updated:
February 28, 2007

GCRIO Program Overview

Library 
Our extensive collection of documents.

Privacy Policy

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

FROM VOLUME 11, NUMBER 4, APRIL-MAY 1998

REPORTS...
OF GENERAL INTEREST

Item #d98may66

Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade—Overview, Comm. on Global Change Res., Natl Res. Council., pre-publication summary, 60 pp., May 1998 (NAP). Full text available on the NAP Website.

Summarizes a full report to be published soon. A review of the U.S. Global Change Research Program over the past decade shows that as budgets began to contract, the Program was not well integrated enough to scale back in a logical way and establish priorities. A new strategy based on answering specific, central scientific questions is needed, because our current inability to answer these questions is blocking progress in critical policy development. Sets forth pathways for research, observations, data systems and modeling.

Item #d98may67

Our Changing Planet: The Fiscal Year 1999 U.S. Global Change Research Program, 1998 (GCRIO). Full text available at http://gcrio.ciesin.org/.

An annual report to Congress supplementing the President's fiscal year 1999 budget, which reviews progress in research, outlines key issues and integrative activities of the Program, discusses new challenges in research, and gives details of the Program's 1999 budget.

Item #d98may68

State of the Climate Report—A World in Perspective, P.J. Michaels, Ed., 28 pp., Apr. 1998, no charge (Western Fuels).

Contains contributions from five experts who debunk the conventional wisdom that global warming accounts for spreading tropical diseases, insurance losses, and increased storm activity. One discusses why satellite measurements do not support a warming trend.

Item #d98may69

Human Choice and Climate Change, S. Raynor, E.L. Malone, Eds., 4 vols., April 1998, $100 (Battelle).

This assessment seeks to merge the realms of the natural and social sciences, exploring how emissions-producing activities are imbedded in social institutions and ways of life and suggesting suitable alternatives for the future. The editors summarized the publication in Nature, pp. 332-334, Nov. 27, 1997 (Global Climate Change Digest, Prof. Pubs./Climate Change Policy, Dec. 1997).

Item #d98may70

From Berlin to Kyoto, M. Grubb, D. Brack, Eds. A collection of briefing papers from the Energy and Environ Prog. of the Royal Institute of Intl. Affairs (RIIA). Entire collection £15; contact RIIA for individual prices. Each is typically 4-6 pp.

1. The Berlin Climate Conference: Outcome and Implications, June 1995.
2. Climate Change: A Summary of the Second Assessment Report of the IPCC, July 1996.
3. Liberalizing European Electricity: Impacts on Generation and Environment, Nov. 1996.
4. Emissions Trading and the Control of Greenhouse Gases, May 1997.
5. The Use of Economic Models in Climate Change Policy Analysis, Oct. 1997.
6. International Trade and Energy Efficiency Standards, Nov. 1997.
7. Joint Implementation, AIJ and "Technology Transfer," Oct. 1997.
8. Energy and Emission Projections in Eastern Europe, Nov. 1997.
9. International Trade Effects of Industrialized Country CO₂ Abatement, Nov. 1997.
10. The Kyoto Conference: Outcome and Implications, Jan. 1998.
11. Special Kyoto Supplement: Defining and Trading Emission Commitments, Dec. 1997.
12. Climate after Kyoto: RIAA Conference Summary, Feb. 1998.

Item #d98may71

Climatic Change—Modelling and Measurement (IEAPER/38), I. Smith, D. Adams, Dec. 1997, $135/£85 in IEA Coal Res. member countries; educational price $70/£42.50 (IEA Coal Res.)

Summarizes coal's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and 1996-97 studies on climate modeling, observations, and detection of climate change. There is confidence that a warming trend is in progress, but there is little confidence in the regional effects predicted by models.

Item #d98may72

Our Changing Climate, D. Hartmann et al., 25 pp., Fall 1997, no charge (UCAR/JOSS). Multiple copies available for classroom use. Available in full at http://www.ogp.noaa.gov/OGPFront/Edoutrch.html

The fourth in a series of educational publications produced by NOAA and UCAR, this booklet is intended to raise public awareness on topics such as the greenhouse effect, El Niño, and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

Item #d98may73

IPCC Technical Papers. These are initiated at the request of the Conference of Parties of the Climate Change Convention, are based on material already in IPCC Assessments and Special Reports, and undergo expert and government reviews. Paper copies are available from the IPCC Secretariat; or see its Web site (IPCC).

Implications of Proposed CO₂ Emissions Limitations, Oct. 1997.

Stabilization of Atmospheric Greenhouse Gases: Physical, Biological and Socio-Economic Implications, Feb. 1997.

An Introduction to Simple Climate Models Used in the IPCC Second Assessment Report, Feb. 1997.

Item #d98may74

Global Deception: The Exaggeration of the Global Warming Threat (Policy Brief 187), P.J. Michaels, 19 pp., Dec. 1997 (CSAB).

Argues that the Clinton Administration is exaggerating the threat from global warming in an attempt to convince Americans of the need to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Counters the Administration's two major scientific arguments with other research.

Item #d98may75

The Changing Face of the Apocalypse, P.J. Michaels, Nov. 1997, no charge (Western Fuels).

Examines how the rationale for climate change policies began with predictions of climatological disaster based on extreme warming of global temperature, and over a decade has shifted to fostering fears of "climate change" even as evidence mounts that the direction in which climate is heading is benign or even beneficial.

Item #d98may76

The Terrestrial Biosphere and Global Change: Implications for Natural and Managed Ecosystems—A Synthesis of GCTE and Related Research (IGBP Science No. 1), B. Walker, W. Steffen, Eds., 32 pp., 1997, no charge (IGBP). Full text to be published as a book by Cambridge Univ. Press.

Summarizes a synthesis of the first six years of the Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems (GCTE) Core Project of the IGBP. Deals with both basic research and with issues of policy relevance, such as the future capacity of ecosystems to provide food for the world's growing population, and their ability to absorb the carbon emissions resulting form fossil fuels.

Item #d98may77

Renewing the United Nations: A Program for Reform, K. Annan (U.N. Secy.-General), July 1997. Available on the Internet at http://www.un.org/reform/.

This overall review of U.N. operations is notable in affirming the value of the U.N. Environment Program, which recently has come under severe criticism. (See "UNEP Crisis," Global Climate Change Digest, News, Mar. 1997, and discussion of this report in Intl. Environ. Rptr., pp. 705-706, July 23.) Recommends that UNEP concentrate on its GEMS and GRID monitoring programs, and drop project implementation, which should be left to the U.N. Development Program. Further improvements of UNEP are being explored.