Carbon Emissions Update
Atmospheric Heating and Cooling
Global Change Master Directory
New WDC-A Director
New Data Sets
New NDPs form CDIAC
Recent and Relevant
Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowships
New Global-Change Journals
CDIAC Communications is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Environmental Sciences Division. It is published periodically by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831-6335, which is managed for the U.S. Department of Energy by Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc., under Contract No. DE-AC05-84OR21400. CDIAC Communications is distributed free of charge. ISSN 1053-1106.
Editor: Frederick M. O'Hara, Jr.
During 1991, CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel consumption, cement manufacturing, and gas flaring totalled 6188 million metric tons of carbon. This finding marks the eighth consecutive year that global emissions have increased, producing a significant rise in atmospheric CO2 releases since 1950. In fact, the 1991 estimate is the highest since the data record began in 1950. The 1991 estimate represents a 1.5% growth over 1990, reflecting a recent decline in the global emission growth rate. As a result, the current growth rate is roughly half that of the mid-1980s. Were it not for the Kuwaiti oil field fires, which accounted for 130 million metric tons of CO2 being emitted to the atmosphere, global emissions would actually have declined during 1991.
Globally, liquid and solid fuels accounted for about 80% of the emissions from fossil-fuel burning in 1991, and gaseous fuels (e.g., natural gas) accounted for 16.5% (1024 million metric tons). These figures reflect a gradually increasing global use of natural gas. Emissions from cement production increased slightly. Emissions from gas flaring rose almost 13% to 70 million metric tons but still remain well below the levels of the 1970s. This trend for gas flaring is not fully clear because of uncertainty about the gas-flaring data for the former USSR. Collectively, emissions from cement production and gas flaring contributed less than 4% to the total emissions for 1991.
These CO2 emission estimates were derived primarily from energy statistics published by the United Nations and were calculated with the methods of Marland and Rotty. Data from the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Mines were used to estimate the CO2 emitted during cement production. Values for emissions from gas flaring were derived primarily from United Nations data, supplemented with data from DOE's Energy Information Administration, the late Ralph Rotty, and a few national estimates provided by Gregg Marland.
We are witnessing the dawning of the information era. We are realizing an accessibility to information never before known. There is promise that the knowledge and experiences of the few, will instantly and effortlessly be available to the many. As this era progresses, the forms of information familiar to us all will become relics. I am amused when I think of the incredulous response we will receive from future generations when we reminisce of card catalogs, note-cards, and libraries containing thousands of books standing side by side, and some of them duplicates! If they actually believe us at all, I imagine they will wonder how we ever survived the "dark ages" of information.
Discussion of data highways, information infrastructures, worldwide networks, and national research networks is reaching epic proportions. These topics have captured interest and imagination unbounded by scientific discipline. There seem to be endless scenarios for the development of such ideals and as many opinions on what the end result of all of this will be. The fact is, it is too early to tell. No one knows with certainty what we will experience during the next decade as communication technologies, delivery schemes, processing capabilities, and storage media evolve. But of one thing we can be sure, we will all be affected. The ways we conduct research, do business, and spend recreational time (indeed, our very way of life) will be forever changed.
When I came to CDIAC in 1983, requests for information on 1/2-in. magnetic tape and in printed form comprised nearly all of our 50 data requests that year. Today, a single request for all of CDIAC's NDPs would fill more than 30 high-density 1/2-in. tapes. Filling requests in that manner required specialized computer code and consumed a tremendous amount of staff time. Last year, those media accounted for 15% of total data requests, and they constitute less than 1% of the 5700 data products requested this year. Today, more than 90% of our data requests are filled electronically via anonymous FTP or are distributed on CD-ROM. We have automated our record keeping so that electronic transfer poses comparatively little burden on our staff. As fewer of our resources are devoted to moving data from us to you, we hope to be able to reach newer and larger audiences and to investigate new delivery and visualization techniques. While we never intend to be on the cutting edge of information-delivery technology, we will continue to investigate new methods, such as multimedia and hypermedia data delivery while maintaining a high level of service to those customers with more modest resources and more basic needs.
You, the users of data, play a key role in the evolution of data delivery, visualization, and storage mechanisms, and we need your help. We depend on your input to help us maintain our effectiveness as an information center. While we will frequently solicit feedback through formal surveys and questionnaires, I encourage you to communicate your wishes not only when we ask but also when you see a need. Your feedback is critical to our planning and development processes. Help us to maintain an accurate understanding of what you do, how you do it, and how you expect to do it in the future.
CDIAC Task Leader for Computer Systems Development
Stephen E. Schwartz
Brookhaven National Laboratory
The burning of fossil fuels produces not only carbon dioxide but also sulfur dioxide. Atmospheric oxidation converts this SO2 into sulfate aerosols that scatter solar radiation, increasing clear-sky planetary reflectivity. Increased concentrations of aerosol particles also lead to increased reflectivity of clouds. Both of these effects are thought to cool the atmosphere and to offset to some extent the warming from increased CO2.
A major difference between CO2 and sulfate aerosols is the residence time of the materials in the atmosphere: decades to centuries for CO2, days to weeks for sulfates. Another key parameter is the sulfur content in the fuel. The greater the sulfur content, the greater the climatic effect.
The global-warming potential (GWP) concept, which is used to compare the climatic influence of different greenhouse gases, was adapted to compare the globally averaged radiative forcing of sulfate aerosols to that of CO2. Because the two substances have very different atmospheric residence times, their greenhouse-warming integrals (GWIs) were evaluated independently. These integrals reflect the residence-time profiles of a substance by considering both
Because CO2 stays in the atmosphere for a substantial time, its GWI must be considered as a function of time. Figure 1 [in the newsletter] shows this time dependence for three exponential decay profiles (reflecting CO2 residence times of 70, 100, and 130 years) and for a multi-exponential profile that reflects the coupling of several reservoirs for CO2. The infinite-time value for the exponential profiles is 27 plus or minus 8 microjoules per square meter per kilogram of carbon emitted into the atmosphere as CO2. For the multi-exponential decay profile, the value is greater and may increase indefinitely, depending on the ultimate fate of the CO2.
In contrast, because of the short atmospheric residence time of sulfate aerosols, the GWI of those aerosols is the same as the total or "infinite-time" GWI. That value is -360 microjoules per square meter per kilogram of sulfur emitted into the atmosphere as SO2, uncertain to a factor of 2. The negative sign indicates that sulfate aerosol exerts a cooling influence.
The ratio of the infinite-time GWI for sulfur to that for CO2 is about 0.075. That value is roughly four times the mass ratio of sulfur to carbon in emissions from fossil-fuel combustion (0.019 for the period 1860 to 1987). Consequently, when CO2 forcing is considered for its entire residence time, the positive (warming) influence caused by CO2 substantially exceeds the negative (cooling) influence of the sulfate aerosol, and the net influence of emissions from fossil-fuel combustion is one of warming.
This conclusion does not hold, however, when one considers the CO2 forcing for shorter time horizons. In particular, the analysis indicates that, during the period of exponential growth in fossil-fuel combustion that has occurred since the beginning of the industrial era, the positive CO2 forcing has been essentially equal to the negative sulfate forcing produced by direct light scattering. Including the effects of cloud forcing further increases the sulfate forcing by a factor of about 2. If these estimates are accurate, the net radiative forcing resulting from fossil-fuel combustion over the industrial era has been one of cooling, not warming. However, this conclusion must remain tentative in view of the uncertainty in estimates of the radiative forcing of sulfate aerosol, and the issue can be resolved only by decreasing this uncertainty.
Several points should be noted:
This article is based on Issue No. 28 of the DOE Research Summary Series published by CDIAC. Readers may subscribe to the Series by contacting CDIAC.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has compiled a database of Earth science data holdings called the Global Change Master Directory (GCMD). It contains more than 3000 descriptions of available data sets and gives a point of contact for each. It describes global-change data held by NASA and other federal agencies, universities, and research centers. International holdings include data sets from Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Europe, Africa, Russia, Japan, and Australia. The descriptions provide such information as geographic and temporal coverage, spacecraft/sensor, investigator, data contact, storage medium, parameters measured and derived, discipline, location, summary, and data quality.
The GCMD client can be accessed via telnet at gcmd.gsfc.nasa.gov; login as gcdir. Dial-up access is provided at 301-286-4000 (9600 baud) or 301-286-9000 (2400 baud). Enter number: SISC; Call Complete ; Username: your name; Local: c gcmd; login: gcdir. The European node is accessible via NSI/DECnet ($set host 29628, USERNAME: esapid) or via Internet ($telnet 126.96.36.199, USERNAME: esapid). The Japanese node is accessible via NSI/DECnet ($set host 41950, USERNAME: nasdadir) or via Internet ($telnet 188.8.131.52, USERNAME: nasdadir).
The GCMD also hosts a home page on the World Wide Web at the uniform resource locator (url) http://gcmd.gsfc.nasa.gov/. It features direct querying via controlled fields and free-text searches of the GCMD, GCMD News, lists of data sources, and GCMD documentation. The home page also provides access to the Committee on Earth Observing Satellites' International Directory Network.
To list data sets in the GCMD, contact:
John N. Scialdone
7701 Greenbelt Road, Suite 400
Greenbelt, MD 20770
Bob Cushman, CDIAC Director
On October 1, 1993, Tom Boden succeeded Paul Kanciruk as Director of the World Data Center-A for Atmospheric Trace Gases. I thank Paul for his diligence in turning our dream of this World Data Center into a reality and for remaining on as the first Director of the new Center. Without Paul's efforts (and, of course, without the efforts of CDIAC's friends at the National Academy of Sciences and on the Academy's Committee on Geophysical and Environmental Data and without the support of our colleagues at our sister data centers), the World Data Center-A for Atmospheric Trace Gases would not have come into being.
Most of CDIAC's user community are already familiar with Tom Boden. Tom came to CDIAC in 1984 and played a key role in developing CDIAC's approach to documenting databases. In CDIAC's early days, Tom was CDIAC's strength in quality-assuring and documenting global-change data. Since then, CDIAC built up a staff of global-change scientists (Rich Daniels, Dale Kaiser, Alex Kozyr, Bob Sepanski, Tammy Beaty, and Russ Vose); Tom, as CDIAC's Task Leader for Data Systems, heads that group. It was Tom Boden, primarily, who developed CDIAC's rapport with the global-change scientists who so generously contribute their data to CDIAC. Without this close relationship with global-change researchers, of course, CDIAC could not function.
I welcome Tom as the new director of the WDC-A/ATG.
CDIAC and the WDC-A/ATG encourage visits to our facilities. To help us prepare for your visit, all visitors should call or write in advance. Because visits by foreign nationals or representatives of foreign institutions require Department of Energy approval, foreign visitors should plan at least a month in advance to ensure that proper approvals will be arranged. All visitors entering Oak Ridge National Laboratory are required to register at the Visitor Reception Area. Some form of photo identification is required, such as a driver's license or passport. When you register as a visitor, you will receive a temporary badge to permit you to enter unclassified Laboratory areas. CDIAC will be more than happy to provide foreign visitors with any assistance they will need. For details, contact CDIAC.
We welcome visitors to East Tennessee and would suggest your planning a day or two to visit some of the other attractions in the region, including the American Museum of Science and Energy and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Fred Stoss, CDIAC
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Information Policy Committee of the Information Infrastructure Task Force are establishing a U.S.-agency-based Government Information Locator Service (GILS). GILS is a proposed component of the evolving National Information Infrastructure. It is intended to help a broad-based community of information users locate and access public information resources throughout the U.S. government, including program overviews, directories, public notices, organizational charts, regulations, policies, and archival information. GILS will have a major impact on information- and data-intensive enterprises, such as global-change research.
Information providers participating in GILS will use formal standard processes to promote the interoperability of search and retrieval mechanisms, network communications, user authentication, resource identifiers, document identifiers, and server descriptions. While GILS itself will address information resources from the U.S. government, other government entities (state, local, foreign, and international) and non-government agencies will be strongly encouraged to develop locators compatible with the standards adopted by GILS. GILS itself will accommodate the needs of other government organizations where practical.
The design of GILS is based on work conducted by Charles McClure in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University (see the OMB report, Identifying and Describing Federal Information/Locator Systems: Design for Network-Based Locators), supported by the National Archives and Records Administration and the General Services Administration.
Eliot Christian (U.S. Geological Survey) has drafted an informal document based on the preliminary recommendations of the Interagency Public Access Conference, Locator Subgroup. This document provides a vision statement on how GILS may operate and reflects the deliberations and recommendations of the Locator Subgroup.
Eliot Christian's draft report is available from the FedWorld electronic bulletin board at 703-321-8020 and by anonymous FTP via the Internet at 184.108.40.206 as
/pub/gils.doc for MS Word for Windows
/pub/gils.txt for ASCII text
Comments on the draft report should be sent to:
Government Information Locator Service
U.S. Geological Survey
802 National Center
Reston, VA 22092
The International Energy Agency and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development have jointly organized the Greenhouse Gas Technology Information Exchange (GREENTIE) to improve the transfer of knowledge about the mitigation and abatement of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Opportunities to reduce such emissions exist in industry, commerce, transport, government, and the private home. But information is not always readily available about current or future technologies and techniques, the costs of those options, or their potential economic and environmental benefits. Therefore, GREENTIE is maintaining a directory of institutions and expertise in the field of GHG technologies, from measures to reduce CO2 output from power stations to the replacement of CFCs in manufacturing processes.
GREENTIE will use that directory to respond to users' inquiries, identifying suitable sources of information and providing users with a printed report of names and addresses of organizations that can supply the needed technology, information, or technical advice.
GREENTIE will not charge for putting users in contact with sources of knowledge, but suppliers of information and services may charge for some of their products.
GREENTIE is managed by Novem, the Netherlands Agency for Energy and the Environment, based in Sittard. If you have a program that you wish included in the directory, forward it to your national liaison. The GREENTIE liaison for the United States is:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
P.O. Box 2008
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6070
The Bulletin, published by the Centre for Our Common Future, has been redesigned and improved to provide comprehensive followup coverage of the Rio Earth Summit. Its new focus is on sustainable development and the implementation of the Framework Convention on Climate Change that resulted from the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio De Janeiro. Research and policy issues are discussed, and important contact names and information resources are provided. In addition to being available in hard copy, The Bulletin is now also available on Word for Windows (3.5-in. or 5.25-in. high-density diskettes) and Macintosh diskettes.
One-year-subscription costs are:
The Bulletin -
Individual: SFr 140 -
Library/institution/business: SFr 210
The Bulletin-on-Disk -
Individual: SFr 225 -
Library/institution/business: SFr 350
Centre for Our Common Future
Palais Wilson - 52 rue des Paquis
1201 Geneva, Switzerland
+41 22 732 50 46 voice
+41 22 738 50 46 FAX
e-mail commonfuture (Greennet)
Thomas A. Boden, Dale P. Kaiser, Robert J. Sepanski, and Frederick W. Stoss, CDIAC
Trends '93, the third in the Trends series provides synopses of frequently used global-change data. It presents historical and modern records of atmospheric concentrations of CO2, CH4, N2O, the chlorofluorocarbons CFC-11 and CFC-12, the hydrochlorofluorocarbon HCFC-22, and the two halons
New in Trends '93 are:
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
Precise records of past and present atmospheric CO2 concentrations are critical to studies attempting to model and understand the global carbon cycle and possible CO2-induced climate change. Trends '93 provides two historical CO2 records derived from ice cores; 58 modern records of monthly and annual atmospheric CO2 concentrations from 63 globally distributed sites, which include 49 land-based and 14 shipboard sites; and three atmospheric delta-14C records. Collectively, these records document the atmospheric record during the past 160,000 years. The figure represents monthly atmospheric CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa, showing a 12.8% increase in the mean annual concentration from 1959 to 1992.
Methane is one of the most important radiatively active atmospheric trace gases. A large body of evidence suggests that the concentration of CH4 in the atmosphere has risen rapidly in recent years and that present levels are perhaps twice as high as those of even a few hundred years ago in the preindustrial era. Trends '93 provides historical and modern CH4 records, including data on CH4 concentrations from ice cores drilled at eight sites, global monthly averages derived from two different globally distributed monitoring networks, and monthly atmospheric CH4 concentrations for 52 globally distributed sites, which include 38 land-based and 14 shipboard records. This figure shows the global monthly mean mixing ratios for atmospheric CH4 estimated by Dlugokencky and coworkers from data taken at 23 fixed sites and 14 shipboard Pacific Ocean latitudes for the period 1983-1992.
Other Trace Gases and Atmospheric Aerosols
Understanding the dynamics of global change requires an examination of trace gases other than CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere and an analysis of the role played by aerosols suspended in the atmosphere. Trends '93 presents monitoring data for five man-made halocarbons and N2O and historical N2O from ice cores. These six gases were selected because they are radiatively important and they are potential depletors of stratospheric ozone. Estimates are provided for the release of CFC-11 and CFC-12 into the atmosphere. Data are presented for atmospheric solar transmission and aerosol optical depth. The figure shown here shows the release estimates for CFC-12 as reported by the Alternative Fluorocarbons Environmental Acceptability Study for 1931-1992.
Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Atmospheric CO2 is produced from both natural sources and from human activities. Of human activities, the most important source of CO2 is the release during the combustion of fossil fuels. Trends '93 presents C. D. Keeling's 1860■1949 global CO2 emission estimates and more recent global and regional estimates provided by G. Marland, R. J. Andres, and T. A. Boden from 1950-1991. For emphasis and brevity, national estimates from Marland et al. are provided only for the 20 highest CO2-emitting countries in 1991. This figure shows global CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring for 1950-1991 with the 1991 estimate for emissions, 6188 million metric tons of carbon, marking the eighth consecutive year that global CO2 emissions have increased.
To isolate the "greenhouse signal" (the part of climate change indicative of increased concentrations of greenhouse gases) researchers must have long-term observational records to identify the climate changes that have already occurred. Fortunately, many climatic variables (e.g., surface air temperature) have been measured at a large number of meteorological stations for the past century. Trends '93 provides nine records of surface air temperature anomalies. Spatial coverage ranges from the globe to an individual Arctic site and from the Earth's surface to the lower stratosphere. Temporal coverage ranges from monthly to annual records.
Global climate models suggest that significant changes in global precipitation will accompany the predicted increase in global mean temperature. As with temperature change, the various parts of the globe are expected to differ with respect to the type of change (i.e., increased vs. decreased precipitation) and the relative magnitude of change. In assessing the validity of model forecasts, researchers must examine past precipitation records for clues to determine which factors may be associated with observed regional fluctuations.
Trends '93 summarizes ten analyses of surface-based precipitation observations for regions representing much of the world's land area.
A copy of Trends '93 will be mailed to each recipient of this newsletter. If you would like a second copy or a copy directed to a colleague, please contact CDIAC. All data presented in Trends '93 are available without charge on 8-mm tape, 9-track magnetic tape, and IBM-formatted floppy diskettes. They may also be downloaded over the Internet from CDIAC's anonymous FTP area.
Bob Sepanski and Debbie Shepherd, CDIAC
Typically, CDIAC checks all files that it receives and fully documents these files in the form of numeric data packages or computer model packages (NDPs and CMPs) before making them available to the general public. CDIAC is beginning to offer files that have not been checked in order to make these files available more quickly. The three abstracts that follow describe databases now available from CDIAC. Because of their size, these databases are available only from CDIAC's anonymous FTP area through Internet and on 8-mm tape. Files describing the contents of each database have been furnished by the researchers. No additional documentation is available from CDIAC. Questions about accessing the databases should be directed to CDIAC. Technical questions (e.g., methodology or accuracy) should be directed to the researchers listed for each database.
S. B. McLaughlin, D. J. Downing, T. J. Blasing, B. L. Jackson,
D. J. Pack, D. N. Duvick, L. K. Mann, and T. N. Doyle
Environmental Sciences Division
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
P.O. Box 2008
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6352
The Forest Responses to Anthropogenic Stress (FORAST) project was designed to determine whether evidence of alterations of long-term growth patterns of several species of eastern forest trees was apparent in tree-ring chronologies from within the region and to identify environmental variables that were temporally or spatially correlated with any observed changes. The project was supported principally by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with additional support from the National Park Service.
The FORAST project was initiated in 1982 as exploratory research to document patterns of radial growth of forest trees during the previous 50 or more years within 15 states in the northeastern United States. Radial growth measurements from more than 7000 trees are provided along with data on a variety of measured and calculated indices of stand characteristics (basal area, density, and competitive indices); climate (temperature, precipitation, and drought); and anthropogenic pollutants (state and regional emissions of SO2 and NOx, ozone monitoring data, and frequency of atmospheric-stagnation episodes and atmospheric haze). These data were compiled into a single database to facilitate exploratory analysis of tree growth patterns and responses to local and regional environmental conditions.
The database files are divided into three groups. Two of the groups (FORASTR and FORASTS) contain the same tree-ring chronology information (ring-width and basal area increments); one is sorted by region, and the other by tree species. The third group (FORASTEC) is a collection of miscellaneous background data including climate, air quality, and tree and site characteristics.
The database consists of 99 data files. The original 48 SAS files are provided and require approximately 111 MB of disk space. In addition, CDIAC has created 48 ASCII files of the same data, a README file, a region file, and a species file. The region and species files merge all the files in the respective subdirectory. Hardcopy documentation describing the experimental protocols used and the format of the database files is available from CDIAC.
Portions of the FORAST database have been incorporated into the International Tree Ring Data Base (ITRDB), a large collection of tree-ring data archived by and available from the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC). For further information about the ITRDB, contact Bruce Bauer at NGDC (303-497-6280 or firstname.lastname@example.org).
R. G. Prinn
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
R. F. Weiss
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
La Jolla, CA 92093
F. N. Alyea and D. M. Cunnold
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanata, GA 30332
P. J. Fraser and L. P. Steele
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
Aspendale, VIC 3195, Australia
P. G. Simmonds
University of Bristol
Bristol, England BS8 1TS
A. J, Crawford and R. A. Rasmussen
Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology
Portland, OR 97291
R. D. Rosen
Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc.
Cambridge, MA 02139
In the ALE/GAGE/AGAGE global network program, continual high-frequency gas-chromatographic measurements of two biogenic/anthropogenic gases (methane and nitrous oxide) and five anthropogenic gases (chlorofluorocarbons CFC-11, CFC-12, and CFC-113; methyl chloroform; and carbon tetrachloride) are carried out at globally distributed sites. The program, which began in 1978, is divided into three parts, each one associated with specific instrumentation: the Atmospheric Lifetime Experiment (ALE) used Hewlett Packard HP5840 gas chromatographs; the Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (GAGE) uses HP5880 gas chromatographs; and the recently initiated Advanced GAGE (AGAGE) uses a fully automated system with a custom-designed sample module and HP5890 and Carle Instruments gas chromatographs.
At the present time, data are available only from ALE and GAGE for the gases CFC-11, CFC-12, methyl chloroform, carbon tetrachloride, and nitrous oxide. The current station locations are Cape Grim, Tasmania; Point Matatula, American Samoa; Ragged Point, Barbados; and Mace Head, Ireland. The Mace Head station replaced a previous station at Adrigole, Ireland; and a station is planned at Trinidad Head, California, to replace a previous station at Cape Meares, Oregon.
The data for the complete set of ALE/GAGE measurements are contained in 771 files (395 files for ALE and 376 files for GAGE), ranging in size from 0.12 kB to 37.5 kB and totaling 13.0 MB. Each file contains the data for all ALE or GAGE measurements for one month at a particular site. An additional 20 files, ranging in size from 5.1 kB to 12.3 kB and totaling 159 kB, contain monthly summary data covering the entire record period at each site.
For each site and each experiment (i.e., ALE or GAGE), two sets of monthly summary data are available. In one set, averages encompass all measurements made during a given month; in the second set, averages encompass only those measurements not influenced by pollution events. The data and accompanying descriptive material are available in digitized form only; hard-copy documentation is not available.
T. R. Karl, R. G. Baldwin, M. G. Burgin, D. R. Easterling, R. W.
Knight, and P. Y. Hughes
National Climatic Data Center
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Asheville, NC 28801
This database is a companion to the Historical Climatology Network (HCN) database for the contiguous United States (CDIAC NDP-019/R1). This new database contains monthly temperature (minimum, maximum, and mean) and total monthly precipitation data for 47 Alaskan stations. These data were derived from a variety of sources, including the National Climatic Data Center archives, the state climatologist for Alaska, and published literature. The period of record varies by station. The longest record (beginning in 1828) is for the Sitka Magnetic Observatory, and most records extend through 1990.
Unlike the HCN database that is available for the contiguous U.S., adjustments have not been made to these climate records for time-of-observation differences, instrument changes, or station moves. The data are in two files, a 1.64-MB data file containing all four climate variables and a 148-kB station-history file.
CLIMATOLOGICAL DATA FOR CLOUDS OVER THE GLOBE FROM SURFACE OBSERVATIONS, THE TOTAL CLOUD EDITION
C. J. Hahn, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental
Sciences, Boulder, Colorado
S. G. Warren, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of
J. London, Department of Astrophysics, Planetary, and Atmospheric
Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado
CDIAC NDP-026A, ORNL/CDIAC-72 (1994)
Routine, surface synoptic weather reports from ships and land stations over the entire globe for the ten-year period December 1981 through November 1991 were processed for total cloud cover and the frequencies of occurrence of clear sky, precipitation, and sky obscured because of fog. Archived data, consisting of various annual, seasonal, and monthly averages, are provided in grid boxes that are typically 2.5 x 2.5 degrees for land and 5 x 5 degrees for ocean. Day and nighttime averages are also given separately for each season. Several derived quantities, such as interannual variations and annual and diurnal harmonics, are provided as well. This data set incorporates an improved representation of nighttime cloudiness by using only those nighttime observations for which the illuminance from moonlight exceeds a specified threshold. This reduction in the night-detection bias increases the computed global average total cloud cover by about 2%. The impact on computed diurnal cycles is even greater, particularly over the oceans, where it is found (in contrast to previous surface-based climatologies) that cloudiness is often greater at night than during the day.
The data are in 15 files ranging from 0.25 to 53.2 MB and totalling almost 400 MB. They are available on 9-track tape and 8-mm tape and from CDIAC's anonymous ftp area; they will be included in the next issue of the CDIAC NDP CD-ROM.
D. W. Chipman, T. Takahashi, D. Breger, and S. C. Sutherland, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades,New York
CDIAC NDP-045, ORNL/CDIAC-55 (1994)
This NDP, compiled at CDIAC by A. Kozyr and A. F. Gaslightwala, contains the carbon dioxide, hydrographic, and chemical data gathered during the R/V Meteor Expedition 11/5, conducted as part of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE). The cruise started from Ushuaia, Argentina, on January 23, 1990, and ended at Capetown, South Africa, on March 8, 1990. Samples were collected at 78 stations that covered the Drake Passage (56-63 degrees S); the Northern Weddell Sea (45-35 degrees W); a section along the 58 degrees W parallel (25 degrees W prime meridian); and two segmented south-north sections between the Northern Weddell Sea and Capetown, South Africa. Measurements taken along WOCE sections A-12 and A-21 included pressure, temperature, and salinity measured by the conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD) sensor; bottle salinity; oxygen; phosphate; nitrate; nitrite; silicate; total carbon concentration (TCO2); and partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2). In addition, potential density at 0 decibar and potential temperature were calculated from the measured variables. The TCO2 in seawater samples was measured with an estimated precision of approximately plus or minus 1 micromol/kg. The precision of the pCO2 measurements has been estimated to be approximately plus or minus 0.1%.
The NDP consists of seven data files and printed documentation, which describes the contents and format of all data files as well as the procedures and methods used to obtain the data.
Many CO2-related proceedings, reports, and other documents are available from CDIAC while supplies last. A complete list of these publications can be requested from CDIAC. Documents that are no longer available from CDIAC may be purchased from the National Technical Information Service in microfiche or hard copy; prices may vary with the number of pages.
Direct Effects of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment on Plants and Ecosystems: An Updated Bibliographic Data Base (ORNL/CDIAC-70, June 1994, 299 pp.)
Boyd R. Strain and Jennifer D. Cure, Duke University, Durham, N.C.
CDIAC is pleased to offer an updated old friend in a new format. Back in 1986, CDIAC published Direct Effects of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment on Plants and Ecosystems: A Bibliography with Abstracts (ORNL/CDIC-13) by Boyd R. Strain and Jennifer D. Cure of Duke University. An update to the Strain-Cure bibliography, covering the more recent literature on that topic, is now available. Direct Effects of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment on Plants and Ecosystems: An Updated Bibliographic Data Base (ORNL/CDIAC-70, 299 pp.), again by Strain and Cure, has just been published. The report provides complete citations, abstracts, keywords, and common and scientific plant names for 800 references published between 1980 and 1994 (with half the cited references published in 1990 or later).Many of the papers included in this volume, particularly papers from Europe, reflect a renewed interest in growth analysis as a way of studying allocation of mass and energy to the various organ systems. A large proportion of the recent research has focused at a level of organization beyond the individual organism.
What is new with the update is not only the added content but also the availability of the bibliography as a machine-readable database. The bibliographic database is available from CDIAC in a variety of formats: as Pro-Cite and Papyrus bibliographic databases and as WordPerfect and ASCII-character files. Additionally, CDIAC can provide to its users limited versions of bibliographic database software for use with the bibliography, opening up new possibilities of database management for the user (e.g., searching by author-keyword-year combinations).
Translated Abstracts of Russian-Language Climate-Change Publications: II. Clouds (ORNL/CDIAC-64; Proceedings of RIHMI-WDC, Issue 159, January 1994, 106 pp.)
Carolina B. Ravina, All-Russian Research Institute of Hydrometeorological Information, Obninsk, Russia
Marvel D. Burtis, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge, Tenn.
An international survey of selected global-change researchers indicated a special interest in the Earth's surface energy budget, clouds, aerosols, and general circulation models. In response to the interest in these four areas, CDIAC and the All-Russian Research Institute of Hydrometeorological Information■World Data Center (RIHMI-WDC) in Obninsk, Russia, began a collaborative series of dual-language bibliographies of Russian literature that had not previously been translated into English. The first report from that project, published in 1992, was Selected Translated Abstracts of Russian-Language Climate-Change Publications: I. Surface Energy Budget (ORNL/CDIAC-57; Proceedings, RIHMI-WDC 158).
This second report in the series presents English-language abstracts of important Russian-language literature, which had not previously been translated into English, concerning clouds as they relate to climate change. In addition to bibliographic citations and abstracts in English, it presents the original citations and abstracts in Russian. Author and title indexes are included.
In the course of our work at CDIAC, we have many books and announcements cross our desks. Many of these are highly specialized and may not get a broad announcement to the worldwide scientific community. So we share our familiarity with them in this feature of CDIAC Communications. CDIAC will not be stocking or distributing these publications. The availability of each one is listed at the end of the respective entry.
Our Changing Planet: The FY 1995 U.S. Global Change Research Program (Committee on Environment and Natural Resources Research, Washington, D.C., 1994, 132 pp.)
This supplement to the budget submitted to Congress by the Executive Office of the President describes the global-change related activities funded by that budget and presents the budget figures by federal agency and by program.
This funding is coordinated by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), which supports research on a range of important issues, including climate change and greenhouse warming, ozone depletion and ultraviolet radiation, and predicting significant variations of the seasonal to interannual climate. This research is organized in a multidisciplinary framework designed to observe and document the state of the Earth system and its changes, understand the processes that contribute to change, improve predictions of future change, analyze the societal and environmental consequences of global change, and support the needs of decision makers by developing tools for assessing the policies and choices for responding to change.
The proposed budget would allocate $1.8 billion for research in
FY 1995 to
Energy Use and Carbon Emissions: Some International Comparisons (DOE/EIA-0579, U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, Washington, D.C., March 1994, 61 pp.)
Energy use and economic welfare are closely intertwined. But nations with similar levels of per capita economic output vary widely in per capita energy consumption, and nations with similar levels of energy consumption may have significantly different rates of carbon emissions. These historical variations in energy-use growth rates and differences in international energy-use patterns indicate a flexibility in the relationship among energy consumption, economic activity, and carbon emissions.
This study analyzed energy use and carbon emissions in economically developed and developing areas of the world since 1970. It paid particular attention to the data for the "Group of Seven" (G-7) industrialized countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and examined sectoral energy-use patterns within each of those countries.
In looking at the past two decades, the study found that:
Transportation and Global Climate Change (American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Washington, D.C., 1993, 357 pp.)
David L. Greene and Danilo J. Santini, Editors
The transportation sector is a major and growing source of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. What impacts those emissions will have on the global environment, how urgently we must act to curb them, and how effectively and efficiently we can do so are often controversial questions. In the summer of 1991 leading transportation experts from around the world met to address these questions. The conference participants recognized that global climate change has no "quick fix" but requires a long-run strategy that addresses growing global demand, energy efficiency and alternative, noncarbon energy sources.
This book, a result of that conference, attempts to put the
problems of the U.S. transportation system into perspective among
worldwide systems. Some of the theses propounded by the
A Research Needs Assessment for the Capture, Utilization and Disposal of Carbon Dioxide from Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Plants (DOE/ER-30194, U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, D.C., 1993, 2 vols.)
The Department of Energy commissioned the Energy Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to identify and assess system approaches to rank research needs for the capture and nonatmospheric sequestering of a significant portion of the CO2 emitted from fossil-fuel-fired electric power plants. The study considered capture technologies that might be commercially available within the next twenty years. It specifically excluded techniques related to efficiency improvements, fuel switching, increased conservation, or atmospheric capture, which are being addressed through other programs.
The study concluded that:
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has established the Global Change Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowships to support research related to the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). Fellowships are tenable at DOE or other USGCRP-agency laboratories as well as at qualifying university laboratories.
The program is open to U.S. citizens and permanent-resident aliens who have received a doctoral degree in an appropriate discipline (e.g., the life, physical, earth, environmental, economic, social, and computer sciences as well as engineering and supporting scientific fields) after March 31, 1992. The starting date of the appointment must be between April 1 and September 30, 1995. Participants receive an annual stipend of $35,000 the first year and $37,000 the second year. Certain expenses are reimbursed within limits. Appointments are for one year, may be renewed for a second year, and are subject to the availability of funds. Completed applications must be received by December 15, 1994.
For more information and application material, contact:
Global Change Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowships
Science/Engineering Education Division
Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education
P.O. Box 117
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-0117
Global Change Biology
Global Change Biology, will start publication in February 1995. It will publish research on biological interactions of all aspects of current environmental change affecting all or large portions of the globe: predicted climate change, rising tropospheric CO2 and O3 concentrations, and loss of biodiversity. Articles may approach problems at any level of organization from the molecule to the biome to the Earth system. Studies may be experimental, observational, theoretical, or model-based and may concern aquatic or terrestrial systems and managed or natural ecosystems.
The managing editor will be Harry Smith, Department of Botany, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, England; telephone/FAX: +44 (0)509 856822; e-mail: email@example.com. Subscription information may be requested from Anna Rivers, Blackwell Scientific Publications, Osney Mead, Oxford OX2 0EL, England; telephone: +44 865 206206; FAX: +44 865 721205.
Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change
Kluwer Academic Publishers has announced a new international journal, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change. The new journal is to be published quarterly starting in 1995 and will be devoted to the scientific, technical, socioeconomic, and policy aspects of global environmental change. It will cover climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, acidic deposition, and other environmental-change issues. The publication will be designed to stimulate and sustain development, critical examination, understanding, and debate of environmental-change response options. Instructions for authors and further information about the journal are available from the editors: Joe Wisniewski, 703-534-3005, FAX: 703-534-0462; and Robert K. Dixon, 202-426-0011, FAX: 202-426-1540. Manuscripts should be sent to Kluwer Academic Publishers, Journals Editorial Office, Box 17, NL-3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands; FAX +31 78-334254.