Expand Climate Research, NRC Urges

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) needs to turn its attention to the impacts of climate change and to do more social science research on human actions and behavior as the climate changes, according to a National Research Council (NRC) report. To do this, an improved climate-observing system needs to be developed with the capability to forecast regional and long-term vulnerabilities. The knowledge gained from this integrative approach would guide the nation in choices it needs to make in order to reduce the costs and risks of climate-change impacts, the report contends. "CCSP has created a robust infrastructure for observations and modeling," Veerabhadran Ramanathan, professor of atmospheric and climate science at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and chairman of the NRC committee that prepared the report, said in a statement. "Now we need to know how to respond to climate change, while working closely with policymakers on mitigation and adaption strategies."