NASA Research Strategy for Earth System Science: Climate Component

As part of its strategic plan, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) formulated the goal of “utilizing the knowledge of the Sun, Earth and other planetary bodies to develop predictive environmental, climate, and natural resource models to help ensure sustainable development, and improve the quality of life on Earth” (NASA 1998). We know now that, over geologic periods, the earth climate is governed by the interplay of two major cycles: the cycling of carbon through the earth atmosphere, terrestrial vegetation, oceans, sediments, and lithosphere, and the cycling of water through the atmosphere, rivers, and oceans. The recognition of multiple linkages between the earth’s physical environment and the biosphere is a discovery of the twentieth century, which led to the new concept of earth system science. This new scientific paradigm is founded on the notion that the global earth environment can be understood only as an interactive system embracing the atmosphere, oceans, and sea ice, glaciers, and ice-sheets, as well as marine and terrestrial ecosystems. The NASA Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) aims to obtain a scientific understanding of the entire earth system, on a global scale, by describing how the system’s component parts evolve, how they function and interact, and how they may be expected to change in the future. In its report Global Change Research Pathways for the Next Decade (NRC 1999), the National Research Council (NRC) highlighted the complexity of earth system science and the multiplicity of interactions between component processes. In drafting this scientific strategy for the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), the NRC identified a wide range of unsolved scientific questions, but also emphasized the need for a focused plan, concentrating research efforts and resources on critical scientific problems that are most relevant to economy and national policy NASA Research Strategy for Earth System Science: Climate Component