Decade-to-Century-Scale Climate Variability and Change A Science Strategy (1998) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-5
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. Certainly the physics of climate change extend across all these time scales.
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Consequently, responses to climate changes on decade-to-century time scales may involve investments in infrastructure and changes in policy. For example, if it becomes clear that midwestern floods like those of 1993 and 1997 will occur more often in the next few decades, or that E1 Nino events will continue to be as frequent as in the 1990s, or that sea level will keep rising, then efforts to mitigate such effects will certainly involve both policy (e.g., modifications of building codes)
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In addition to answering these specific questions, it is clear that we must determine the longevity of the current patterns, as well as their spatio-temporal variability; identify the best ways of characterizing the patterns; identify new patterns, especially in data-poor regions such as the Southern Hemisphere; determine which ones are statistical products of our analysis tools, rather than true dynamic modes; and determine the mechanisms and underlying physics that control the patterns, their sensitivities, and their evolution in space and time, including their interaction with anthropogenic and natural changes in radiative forcing, and their interaction amongst themselves. 3 Radiative Forcing The redistribution of greenhouse gases between the ocean, atmosphere, and biosphere, and the manner in which these fluxes influence tropospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations on dec-cen time scales, are of central importance to dec-cen climate change.
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Climate variability and change on dec-cen time scales involve all of the elements of the U.S. Global Change Research Program: natural and anthropogenic variability and change; past, present, and future observational networks and data bases; modeling; and the physical, chemical, and biological sciences, with their implications for society.
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It proceeds too slowly to be perceptible to our ! s senses, but its cumulative effects ultimately define the life prospects of future generations.
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