The PAGES research community works toward improving our understanding of the Earth's changing environment. By placing current and future global changes in a long term perspective, they can be assessed relative to natural variability. Since the industrial revolution, the Earth System has become increasingly affected by human activities. Natural and human processes are woven into a complex tapestry of forcings, responses, feedbacks and consequences. Deciphering this complexity is essential as we plan for the future. Paleoenvironmental research is the only way to investigate Earth System processes that operate on timescales longer than the period of instrumental records.

The strong altitudinal gradients in mountain regions provide unique and sometimes the best opportunities to detect and analyse global change processes and phenomena. Meteorological, hydrological, cryospheric and ecological conditions change strongly over relatively short distances; thus biodiversity tends to be high, and characteristic sequences of ecosystems and cryospheric systems are found along mountain slopes. The boundaries between these systems experience shifts due to environmental change and thus may be used as indicators of such changes. The higher parts of many mountain ranges are not affected by direct human activities. These areas include many national parks and other protected environments. They may serve as locations where the environmental impacts of climate change alone, including changes in atmospheric chemistry, can be studied directly. Mountain regions are distributed all over the globe, from the Equator almost to the poles and from oceanic to highly continental climates. This global distribution allows us to perform comparative regional studies and to analyse the regional differentiation of environmental change processes as characterised above. Therefore, within the IGBP an Initiative for Collaborative Research on Global Change and Mountain Regions was developed, which strives to achieve an integrated approach for observing, modelling and investigating global change phenomena and processes …

The PAGES research community works toward improving our understanding of the Earth's changing environment. By placing current and future global changes in a long term perspective, they can be assessed relative to natural variability. Since the industrial revolution, the Earth System has become increasingly affected by human activities. Natural and human processes are woven into a complex tapestry of forcings, responses, feedbacks and consequences. Deciphering this complexity is essential as we plan for the future. Paleoenvironmental research is the only way to investigate Earth System processes that operate on timescales longer than the period of instrumental records.

This treaty allows organizations that are not governments of states to join the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Convention, and be subject to its conservation and management protocols.

The UNEP annual report provides an overview of UNEP's activities for the year of 2000. The report also reflects on the possible challenges that the new millennium "the Environment Millennium" may bring.

Researchers at NASA and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), studying changes in tropical precipitation patterns, have noted a higher frequency of El Niños and La Niñas over the last 21 years. In addition, when either of those events occur, the world can expect more months with unusually high or low precipitation with droughts more common than floods over land areas.

The degree to which carbon flows balance each other - human activities leading to carbon emissions into the atmosphere, vegetation and oceans soaking it up - is the subject of vigorous debate. It is not yet possible to define quantitatively the global effects of human activities such as forestry and agriculture, and may never be so. However, studies to determine these effects have emerged as critical for understanding how the earth's climate will evolve in the future. Global concern about the potential implications of the behaviour of the carbon cycle under anthropogenic stress includes concepts of system instability and large scale change. To contribute to understanding this behaviour, and our potential responses to it, requires a thorough investigation of both biophysical and social systems. Until recently, most scientific assessments of such risks focused on the anatomy of conceivable environmental changes themselves, devoting little attention to either the human driving forces or the ecosystems and societies that might be endangered by the changes. Recently, however, questions about the linkage and interaction of social, ecological, and biogeochemical systems are emerging as a central focus of policy-driven assessments of global environmental risks. The approach used here is to accept humans as an integral …

This document calls for major improvements to the United States transportation infrastructure. The vision includes improvements in energy independence, environmental compatibility, safety, cost, and performance.

This government report describes pollutants which are carried between continents by air currents. The report also addresses current and future research to better understand how these pollutants are transported.

Different speakers addressed the Panel, and some highlighted the importance of sound data for monitoring and predicting the climate system and noted with concern the decline in observational networks. Others emphasized the value of the scientific information provided by the IPCC for the Convention process and highlighted the need to integrate scientific assessments in sustainable development consideration and to communicate with a wider audience.

Powering America Myths vs. Facts in the US Energy and Global Warming Debates A Study for: World Wildlife Fund Tellus Institute Boston, . environmental regulations, and indefinitely postpone our obligation to protect the global climate – no matter the long-term impacts and costs. President. global warming later on. Indeed, had such demand-side efforts been underway sooner our current predicaments could have been avoided or lessened. Globally.. Today, the United States produces less than 12 percent of global oil supplies. Even with strenuous efforts by the Bush Administration.

This report provides a brief overview of the state of science of air quality forecasting. The report was composed to guide future federal research in air quality forecasting.

Average temperature has risen 1 degree F over the last century in the Mid-Atlantic Region as well as across the globe. Climate science is developing rapidly and many studies project additional warming. Although the future is uncertain and difficult to predict, our best science suggests the following changes are likely. The Mid-Atlantic Region will be somewhat warmer and perhaps wetter, resulting in a wide range of impacts on plants, wildlife, and humans. Human activities that release heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere will continue to accelerate the observed warming trend. Climate change will compound existing stresses from population density and development. The region's overall economy is quite resilient, but impacts will be more severe for some economic activities and localities.

What is the overall state of the Arctic environment? The aim of this report is to answer the many aspects of this seemingly straightforward question. Although several national and international efforts have looked at parts of the Arctic, this is the first attempt to assess the state of Arctic flora and fauna as a whole.

This report presents a study of policies and measures that could dramatically reduce US greenhouse gas emissions over the next two decades. It examines a broad set of national policies to increase energy efficiency, accelerate the adoption of renewable energy technologies, and shift energy use to less carbon-intensive fuels. The policies address major areas of energy use in residential and commercial buildings, industrial facilities, transportation, and power generation.

Recognizing the need for the region to provide leadership on the critical issue of climate change and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers established the regional climate change program in 2000. While the northeast represents a significant economic region with greenhouse gas emissions roughly equivalent to those of Spain, climate change is an international issue for which our states and provinces are only a relatively small part of the problem. However, through their leadership the Governors and Premiers have established our region as an internationally-recognized part of the solution.

New findings suggest that the deep ocean is teeming with organisms that produce essential natural fertilizers. A National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research team led by Jonathan Zehr, a marine scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has discovered a previously unknown type of photosynthetic bacteria that fixes nitrogen, converting nitrogen from the atmosphere into a form other organisms can use.

Scientific news article about Snowball Earth eras. These are times when ice periodically covered the globe, and the era called the Cambrian Explosion, which produced the first fossils of almost all major categories of animals living today.

This brief news article provides preliminary evidence that global warming may have sped up the pace at which grasslands are being overtaken by mesquite, creosote and other shrubs at desert sites around the world.

This press release summarizes the findings of a new study. Saharan dust clouds travel thousands of miles and fertilize the water off the West Florida coast with iron, which kicks off blooms of toxic algae. The research was partially funded by a NASA grant as part of ECOHAB: Florida (Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms), a multi-disciplinary research project designed to study harmful algae.

This Law was formulated in order to prevent desertification, to improve and reclaim desertified land, to protect the environment, and to promote a sustainable economy and society.

Bill introduced by the California Senate to revise the functions and duties of the California Climate Action Registry and requires the Registry, in coordination with CEC to adopt third-party verification metrics, developing GHG emissions protocols and qualifying third-party organizations to provide technical assistance and certification of emissions baselines and inventories. SB 527 amended SB 1771 to emphasize third-party verification.

Proceedings of a workshop to discuss coral reef research, monitoring, and marine protected area (MPA) management. It includes workshop summary information, specific papers presented during the event, and relevant appendixes.

This book is a series of reports summarizing discussions and recommendations from a series of forums about strategies to deal with natural disaster. The focus is on changing human behavior and development in order to coexist with natural phenomena rather than trying to control natural phenomena.