Organization: Department of Energy (DOE)

Research Title: Information and Integration

Funding Level (millions of dollars):

FY94	2.1
FY95	1.9
FY96	2.3

Committee on Environment and Natural Resources (CENR) Component:
(a) Subcommittee: Global Change Research Subcommittee (100%)
(b) Environmental Issue: Climate change (70%); Natural variability (20%); Large-scale changes in land-use (10%)
(c) Research Activity: Data management (100%)

Organizational Component:
Environmental Sciences Division
Office of Health and Environmental Research
Office of Energy Research; ER-74
U.S. Department of Energy
Washington, DC 20585

Point of Contact:
Bobbi Parra
Phone: 301-903-3316
E-Mail: bobbi.parra@oer.doe.gov

Research Goals:
To acquire or compile, quality assure, document, archive and distribute data and other information concerning CO ₂, other greenhouse gases, and climate change, in support of DOE's Global Change Research Program (GCRP).

Research Description:
The Information and Integration component of the DOE/GCRP serves as the scientific interface through which technical information can be obtained, evaluated, quality- assured, documented, and distributed; the exchange of data among scientists, educators, students, policymakers, corporate officials, and the public can be promoted and facilitated; and high-quality analyses of complex data can be performed to synthesize information used in evaluating global-change issues. Specific objectives of the Information and Integration component include promotion of networking among members of the global-change community, preparation of technical and informational reports, and sponsorship of scientific conferences. The scope of the Information and Integration component covers the many dimensions of the issue of climate change induced by greenhouse gases, including biogeochemical cycles, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, effects of elevated atmospheric CO ₂ on vegetation, coastal vulnerability to rising sea level, and climate.

The DOE/GCRP provides access to current global-change data and information through the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), which quality-assures, fully documents, distributes, and archives critical global-climate-change-related numeric data bases and computer models, distributes technical publications, and produces newsletters and research summaries. CDIAC also responds to inquiries from an audience representing broad interests for information on a wide variety of global-change topics. Since it was established in 1982, CDIAC has responded to more than 52,000 requests for information; it distributes products to individuals and institutions in more than 110 countries. CDIAC works with other national and international data centers, special libraries, and individual researchers to promote and facilitate the exchange of data and information.

Program Interfaces:
The Information and Integration component is part of the DOE/GCRP, which includes research on climate modeling, measurement of atmospheric radiative fluxes, the global carbon cycle, ocean physics and chemistry, the effects of elevated atmospheric CO ₂ on vegetation, the economics of global climate change, and integrated environmental assessment. DOE maintains related research programs in the Atmospheric Sciences and Ocean Margins. CDIAC includes the World Data Center-A for Atmospheric Trace Gases, a component of the World Data Center System of the International Council of Scientific Unions. Furthermore, CDIAC has been selected to serve as the archive for global- change data and model output from several major international efforts, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory global greenhouse-gas monitoring network, and the carbon-cycle modeling component of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Program Milestones:
1994: Publication of Trends '93: A Compendium of Data on Global Change provides ready access to some of the most requested global-change data. 1994: Update of global, regional, and national CO ₂ emissions from fossil-fuel combustion and cement manufacture through 1992. 1995: Standard input and output data sets for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's carbon cycle modeling exercise made available electronically by CDIAC. 1996: CDIAC data and metadata fully accessible via the interoperable Global Change Data and Information System.

Policy Payoffs:
Accurate and fully documented global-change data and information is necessary to provide the scientific basis for decision-making for local, state, regional, national, and international scales, such as in the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Such decisions have profound technological, energy, political, and economic effects. The Information and Integration component conveys the most current and useful scientific information from the research program to the policy-based end user. For example, CDIAC's data on CO ₂ emissions were included in America's Climate Change Strategy: An Action Agenda, prepared by the Office of the President of the United States for the first negotiating session of the United Nations Climate Convention (Chantilly, Virginia, February 1991).