Our Changing Planet: The U.S. Global Change Research Program for Fiscal Year 2010

This Fiscal year 2010 edition of Our Changing Planet highlights recent advances and progress supported by participating agencies in each of the program’s research and observational elements, as called for in the Strategic Plan for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program released in July 2003. A new strategic plan reflecting President Obama’s priorities is in preparation. The document describes a range of activities including examples of the USGCRP’s contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as well as progress in understanding Earth system components of the global climate system, how these components interact, and the processes and forces bringing about changes to the Earth system. It provides details of efforts to understand the ongoing and projected effects of climate change on nature and society, such as the relationship between climate change and shifts in storm tracks and how this may affect water availability in the southwestern United States. The document also describes how observational and predictive capabilities are being improved and used to create tools to help support decision making at local, regional, and national scales to cope with environmental variability and change. It also describes the program’s 21 scientific synthesis and assessment products and its recently completed state of knowledge report: Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States.