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In his June 11 speech at the Rose Garden President Bush announced the establishment of the U.S. Climate Change Research Initiative to study areas of uncertainty and identify priority areas where investments can make a difference. The President directed the Secretary of Commerce to set priorities for additional investments in climate change research, review such investments and, to improve coordination among federal agencies. He also committed to providing resources to build climate observation systems and proposed a joint venture with the EU, Japan and others to develop state-of-the-art climate modeling that will improve our understanding of the causes and impacts of climate change.

Furthermore, the Administration requested the National Academy of Sciences to review the Third Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and recommend research priorities to reduce uncertainties in climate science. The Academy report, entitled "Climate Change Science: An Analysis Of Some Key Questions", recommends the following:

1. Reducing the uncertainties in climate change projections by pursuing major advances in the understanding and modeling of:
    

   1. The factors that determine atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols; and

   2. The so-called "feedbacks" that determine the sensitivity of the climate system to a prescribed increase in greenhouse gases.

2. Ensuring the existence of a long-term monitoring system that provides a more definitive observational foundation to evaluate decadal- to century- scale changes, including observations of key state variables and more comprehensive regional measurements of greenhouse gases.

3. Enhancing the research enterprise that deals with environmental-society interactions, including:

   1. Interdisciplinary research that couples physical, chemical, biological and human systems;

   2. Capability to integrate scientific knowledge, and its uncertainty, into effective decision support systems; and

   3. Research at the region and sector level that promotes analysis of the response of human and natural systems to multiple stresses.

The CCRI was developed in collaboration with the U.S. agencies involved in climate and global change research. Agency program administrators served as focal points and lead the development of the framework of this document. Approximately one hundred scientists, both in government and academia, contributed materials and participated in working group discussions. Five working groups were formed along thematic research areas. The proposed research initiatives emerged from a common sense of priority actions. Furthermore, the research initiatives reflect the priority areas that have already emerged in the draft U.S. Global Change Research Program 10-year strategic plan. The USGCRP began as a Presidential Initiative in 1989 and was codified by Congress in the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-606).

The vision promoted in the CCRI planning is the effective use of scientific knowledge in policy and management decisions, and continual evaluation of management strategies and choices. Thus, the facilitation of adaptive management processes will be achieved by means of science products and tools developed to monitor the outcome of these processes. For example the improved climate models and future scenarios, together with information on carbon sources and sinks may be used to plan water resource needs and power plant locations in given metropolitan areas. The model products will be used to project the results of management options, such as economic and demographic input to the integrated models, in terms of the environment, the economy and human health. The monitoring system that will be in place will continually evaluate and assess the projected climate and ecosystem impacts and will lead to improvement in both management strategies and the decision support tools.