2021 NACP Science Implementation Plan 5 6 Chapter 1: Introduction: Motivation, History, Goals, and Achievements (Lead: 7 Christopher A
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1 **** INTERNAL DRAFT **** 2 **** SOFT RELEASE FOR COMMENTS BY NACP COMMUNITY**** 3 4 2021 NACP Science Implementation Plan 5 6 Chapter 1: Introduction: Motivation, History, Goals, and Achievements (Lead: 7 Christopher A. Williams1) 8 Chapter 2: Program Elements and Key Priorities for the Future (Lead: Christopher A. 9 Williams1) 10 Chapter 3: Science Implementation Plan Elements 11 3.1. Sustained and Expanded Observations (Lead: Arlyn Andrews2) 12 3.2. Assessment and Integration (Lead: Eric T. Sundquist3) 13 3.3. Processes and Attribution (Lead: Christopher A. Williams1) 14 3.4. Prediction (Leads: Benjamin Poulter4, Forrest M. Hoffman5, Kenneth J. Davis6) 15 3.5. Communication, Coordination & Decision Support (Lead: Molly Brown7) 16 Chapter 4: Partnerships and Collaborations: Institutional and International (Leads: 17 Elisabeth K. Larson8, Gyami Shrestha9) 18 Chapter 5: Data and Information Management (Lead: Yaxing Wei10) 19 20 Forthcoming Additions Before Final Release 21 Executive Summary 22 Appendices 23 24 Affiliations 25 26 1School of Geography, Clark University, Worcester, MA 01610, USA; [email protected] 27 2NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory, Boulder, CO 80305, USA; [email protected] 28 3U.S. Geological Survey, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA; [email protected] 29 4NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Biospheric Sciences Lab., Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA; 30 [email protected] 31 5The Pennsylvania State University, Dept. of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science, University Park, PA, USA; 32 [email protected] 33 6U.S. Dept. of Energy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Computational Sciences & Engineering Division, ORNL, 34 Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA; [email protected] 35 7Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA; 36 [email protected] 37 8NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/SSAI, Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Office, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA; 38 [email protected] 39 9U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Program Office & UCAR, U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, D.C. 40 20006, USA; [email protected] 41 10U.S. Dept. of Energy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center (ORNL DAAC), 42 Environmental Sciences Division, ORNL, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA; [email protected] 43 1 44 45 **** INTERNAL DRAFT **** 46 **** SOFT RELEASE FOR COMMENTS BY NACP COMMUNITY**** 47 48 Chapter 1. Introduction 49 50 Lead Author: Christopher A. Williams; Contributing Authors: Arlyn Andrews, Molly Brown, 51 Kenneth J. Davis, Forrest M. Hoffman, Benjamin Poulter, Eric T. Sundquist 52 53 1.1 Motivation 54 55 Carbon is a building block of life, a central biogeochemical element in the earth system, and an 56 important constituent of Earth’s atmosphere as a greenhouse gas (GhG) that powerfully influences 57 global climate. Human activity has radically altered the global carbon balance in fundamental 58 ways, with severe consequences for Earth’s biosphere. Vast quantities of carbon have been emitted 59 as CO2 from oxidation of the primary carbon-containing fuels humans have used over the past two 60 centuries, and from the destruction of natural ecosystems for agriculture, resource extraction, 61 industry, transportation, and other human endeavors. Together these have significantly elevated 62 atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, leading to planetary warming and attendant climate 63 changes that are fundamentally altering ecosystems and environments worldwide. They have also 64 acidified the oceans, jeopardizing coral reefs, endangering fisheries, and threatening the extinction 65 of many species. Many of these impacts involve adverse natural feedbacks that release additional 66 greenhouse gases and accelerate climate change. There is a pressing need to understand these 67 changes to the global carbon cycle and their interactions with the climate system and biosphere, 68 so that we may stabilize and reverse their damaging impacts and safeguard human well-being and 69 life on planet Earth. The North American Carbon Program responds to continued and growing 70 urgency to understand the dynamics and drivers of the coupled carbon-climate system, and its 71 interactions with the health and sustainability of ecosystems, natural resources, and the provision 72 of goods and services. 73 74 1.2 The NACP 75 76 With a focus on sources and sinks of carbon for North America and its coastal waters, the North 77 American Carbon Program emphasizes diagnosis of the contemporary carbon cycle, scientific 78 understanding of how it responds to natural and human forcings, and skillful predictions of its 79 likely future dynamics. The program also aims to provide scientific assessments of a range of 80 policy and management options being considered to mitigate climate change and ocean 81 acidification by protecting and expanding land, aquatic, or oceanic carbon stocks. As such, the 82 NACP plays a vital role in global carbon cycle research and its applications in service to society. 83 84 85 1.3 Program Foundation and Developmental History 86 87 The North American Carbon Program (NACP) is a principal activity of the US Carbon Cycle 88 Science Program (USCCSP), a Federal interagency partnership that operates under the aegis of the 89 U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). Born out of the 1999 US Carbon Cycle 2 90 Science Plan (Sarmiento and Wofsy 1999) (Figure 1), the NACP was established in 2002 in 91 response to the NACP Report (Wofsy and Harris 2002). Since its inception, the NACP has become 92 an essential venue for coordinated U.S. measurement and research concerning terrestrial, aquatic, 93 and coastal ocean carbon fluxes, their importance as sources and sinks of atmospheric greenhouse 94 gases (primarily CO2 and CH4), and the extent to which they both affect and are affected by natural 95 processes and human activities. While the NACP emphasizes U.S. contributions to global carbon 96 cycle science along with partners across North America including Canada, Mexico, and 97 Indigenous Nations, the program’s observations, analyses, and findings have relevance and impact 98 at the global scale. 99 100 Shortly after the program’s establishment, a 2005 NACP Science Implementation Strategy 101 (Denning et al. 2005) outlined an initial phase of activity that emphasized diagnostic studies to 102 uncover carbon source and sink trends, and attribution studies to identify the processes responsible 103 for these trends. The 2005 strategy document also identified activities needed to advance 104 predictive capability and to support decision makers, with an anticipated developmental 105 progression to expand the program’s scope in these areas over time. 106 107 In 2011, the US Carbon Cycle Science Plan revisited the USCCSP science goals (Michalak et al. 108 2011), reiterating broad research priorities and new directions. As a follow-on effort, this NACP 109 Science Implementation Plan (NSIP) revises and updates the 2005 NACP strategy document. It 110 responds to new scientific capabilities, the program’s developmental progression, and emergent 111 priorities. 112 113 114 Figure 1. Establishment of, and updates to, the North American 115 Carbon Program (NACP), from its origins in the US Carbon Cycle 3 116 Science Plan to its design laid out in science implementation 117 documents. 118 119 120 1.4. The 2021 NACP Science Implementation Plan 121 122 This 2021 NACP Science Implementation Plan highlights key gaps and offers strategies for 123 program implementation. The intention is to facilitate coordinated, complementary, and 124 comprehensive science research activities that address the major goals of the NACP (Chapter 2). 125 This new plan builds on the foundation of the 2005 NACP Science Implementation Strategy to 126 design an up-to-date research program that responds to emerging research needs, recent 127 discoveries, and new capabilities. 128 129 The plan reviews key activities needed for a full implementation of the NACP’s broad science 130 goals, and highlights selected activities deemed to be of highest priority. The plan’s activities are 131 organized among five overarching program elements that are introduced in Chapter 2 and given 132 more detail in Chapter 3. Highest priority is based upon three main criteria: the largest 133 uncertainties, the weakest understanding, and the greatest public need. 134 135 The plan also reviews major achievements of the program to date (Chapter 2), provides a vision 136 for sustaining and strengthening collaborative linkages to diverse partners and institutions (Chapter 137 4), and identifies data and information management capabilities needed to support the overall 138 program (Chapter 5). An Executive Summary underscores the most important aspects of the 139 implementation plan. 140 141 142 1.5 Comments on Procedure, Audience, and Distribution 143 144 The NSIP was developed by a leadership team consisting of leads or co-leads for each of the major 145 implementation themes (Program Elements), and an overall chair who guided the activity, with 146 logistical support provided by the NACP Coordinator located in the Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems 147 Office at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Together, this team led the plan’s development to 148 design a balanced science program that considers advances in research and technology, program 149 gaps, and emerging issues while highlighting new activities of the highest priority. The team 150 engaged in discussions with the NACP Science Leadership Group (SLG), sought input from the 151 broad NACP community, assembled writing teams to draft the plan, facilitated public review by 152 the NACP community, and revised the plan in response to these reviews. As such, the NSIP 153 document has been prepared principally by the diverse community of scientists engaged with the 154 NACP. 155 156 The NSIP has been developed to guide the research science community of the NACP. It is also 157 available to provide information for interested government agencies including those participating 158 in the Carbon Cycle Interagency Working Group (CCIWG), the US Global Change Research 159 Program (USGCRP) science community and associated executive branch entities. and other 160 institutions in the private sector, NGOs, and science organizations.