March 16, 2008
USC Climate Change Research Group (CCRG)
Introduction
Within the 21st century the Earth’s climate system will undergo changes as a result of rising atmospheric and ocean temperatures. Whether or not these climate changes arise primarily from increased radiative forcing associated with rising greenhouse gas concentrations or are mainly due to the natural dynamical behavior of the climate system, the environmental impacts associated with these changes will likely be far reaching and long-term. It is therefore an important challenge for universities to train scientists to undertake creative, interdisciplinary studies that will lead to improvements in our ability to understand and, ultimately, to control how the climate will behave in the future. In this context, Earth’s climate dynamics represents a “Global-scale System Problem” and as such requires cooperation and collaboration of scientists in many different disciplines. Universities are the ideal setting for such interdisciplinary endeavors because of the breadth and diversity of expertise that can be found at a first-rate research university such as USC. It is also a responsibility of universities to educate non-scientists about environmental variability in a way that will lead to better economic, social and political decision-making. Through such education, policy and planning efforts at the local, regional and national level will benefit from more informed assessments of the likelihoods of future climate variability.
Because of its breadth of essential climate change disciplines, the University of Southern California has an opportunity to be among the leading universities that are developing programs in climate system research. During the 20th century several major universities developed strong programs in modern oceanographic and atmospheric sciences. This resulted in comprehensive descriptions of the Earth’s oceans and the atmosphere. But in the 21st century the challenge is different, and the research must be significantly extended. The challenge is to understand how and why Earth’s climate undergoes changes and this will necessitate investments in new technologies and in new collaborative research efforts. At the cutting edge of this new science is climate system dynamics in which observations are coupled with computer models that simulate the complex behavior of the ocean, land and atmospheric systems on various time scales. Consequently, advanced cyber infrastructures are an essential element of these evolving inter-disciplinarily endeavors. This new science also requires new organizational structures that bring scientists from multiple disciplinary backgrounds and engineers together to work interactively and collaboratively. Traditional oceanographic or atmospheric programs are not necessarily well-equipped for such a challenge. USC is, however, well positioned to take a lead in this evolving science by building upon its existing strengths in cyber infrastructure and programs in climate research, physics and engineering.
Objective
We propose to formalize our interdisciplinary program in climate change research at USC into the USC Climate Change Institute. The framework of the Institute will revolve around national and California climate change research programs (see Appendix), which are the expected sources of funding for the institute’s various endeavors (the new U.S. Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Year 2009 and the details of PUC goals will be published soon).
A Road Map
We seek to establish a highly visible interdisciplinary program in climate science at USC that will undertake studies to understand the factors that govern the Earth’s climate and environmental variability on time scales that extend from the synoptic (short) to centennial time scales. To study the behavior of the climate system over such broad time scales will require us to establish collaborations between observational climate scientists and climate dynamicists. It also requires the collaboration of scientists and engineers who are developing new and innovative techniques for measuring and quantifying changing climate. Such collaboration will be an essential part of the Climate Change Research Group at USC.
Establishment of a research and teaching program in climate science and environmental variability at USC will promote interactions between and among various groups at USC, including engineers, physicists, earth scientists, applied mathematicians, marine biologists, geographers and social scientists. A Climate Change Research Institute and associated research and teaching program in climate science will give USC a competitive edge in recruiting top students who are increasingly interested in environmental careers. At the same time this will provide an important educational opportunity for students who are not necessarily career scientists but who may go on to careers that entail environmental and economic policy. Understanding how the climate change will affect our lives and economic conditions in the future will be important to all our students.
Organization of the CCRG:
At the present time climate change research at the University of Southern California is informally organized around the "USC Climate Change Research Group” (CCRG). The researchers involved in this multi-disciplinary effort are from the Division of Astronautical Engineering (ASTE), Earth Sciences Department, Information Sciences Institute (ISI), Physics and Astronomy Department, Space Engineering Research Center (SERC), Space Science Center (SSC), and has informal participation by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Three members of the Group are Fellows of the American Physical Society, one is former Chief Technologist of JPL, one was manager of national and international spacecraft programs, one is former Associate Director of a large Russian Observatory. The "USC Climate Change Research Group" has been organized and is currently coordinated by Prof. Joseph Kunc of ASTE. The Group meets regularly and invites world-class speakers for seminars on climate change (several such speakers have already visited the campus, visits of two more are now being organized). The Group welcomes all faculty and staff who have interest in work on climate change. The following teams contribute to the Group’s activities:
(1) College (LAS): space instrumentation research of solar radiation, atmospheric properties, earth albedo, SOHO mission, and the sounding rocket program in the Space Science Center (SSC) and Physics & Astronomy Department (Dr. Darrell Judge (Director of SSC and Professor of Physics and Astronomy), Dr. Leonid Didkovsky, Dr. Seth Wieman, Prof. Robert Wu).
(2) College (LAS): climate change research supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Nation Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is conducted by Prof. Lowell Stott and his group in the Department of Earth Sciences. His research focuses on Earth’s climate system response to variable forcing. The specific focus of his group’s ongoing research is regional-scale hydroclimatic response to variable forcings.
(3) Information Sciences Institute (ISI): microsatellite, spacecraft, space communications, and high-performance computing environment programs in the Aerospace Technology & Systems Center (ATSC) (David Barnhart (Director), Dr. Ann Chervenak, Prof. Peter Will).
(4) Viterbi School of Engineering (VSoE): rocketry, spacecraft and microsatellite teaching, research and development programs at the Division of Astronautical Engineering (Prof. Daniel Erwin (Chair), Prof. Mike Gruntman and Prof. Joseph Kunc).
(5) Viterbi School of Engineering (VSoE): studies of molecular and radiative processes in gas phase, chemical reactions, microsatellites and spacecraft technology in the Space Engineering Research Center (SERC) (Prof. Joseph Kunc (Director), Prof. Sergey Gimelshein, Prof. Mike Gruntman, Dr. Donald Rapp, and Prof. Peter Will).
(6) Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC): SCEC scientists conduct a wide array of geosystem studies. Professor Thomas Jordan oversees the large multi-institutional program in system science and geoinformatics at USC and collaborates with CCRG members.
(7) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL): Two researchers from JPL (Robert Easter and Samantha Infeld involved with NASA’s applied Earth Science program) are now with the CCRG, and exploring the possibility of a more formal collaboration with the Group.
Expertise:
Two members of the CCRG are directly involved in national and international “climate change research” activities. These two are Dr. Donald Rapp of the Space Engineering Research Center (former Chief Technologist of JPL, and the author of the books “Solar Energy” and “Assessment of Global Warming”), and Prof. Lowell Stott of LAS Earth Sciences Department (the chair of a national climate change science steering committee supported by the National Science Foundation. He is also involved in establishing a Virtual Climate Change Research Institute that will promote collaborations among climate scientists, engineers, information scientists and social scientists located at institutions throughout the west).
Each researcher involved in CCRG is experienced and accomplished in their respective fields of science and/or technology and brings an important component to USC’s climate change research endeavor. The fields currently represented include quantum molecular physics, particle and radiation instrumentation, spectroscopy, atmospheric physics, solar energy, satellite technology, high-performance computing environment, and paleoclimatology. Professor Thomas Jordan, Director of the Southern California Earthquake Center in the Department of Earth Science contributes additional expertise in geosystems science and geoinformatics to the CCRG endeavor. Each of CCRG participants contributes to the stated goals of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Year 2008 (see Goals 1-5 and items (a)-(j) in Appendix).
One of the special and rather rarely seen strengths of the Group is its expertise and access to satellite technology, and its existing cooperation between ASTE, ISI, SERC and SSC with the Northrop Grumman Corporation – the world leader in satellite technology. As a result of the cooperation, USC is now building Cube-Satellites in a specially design “clean room”. The Group also has experience in building and operating space-based instrumentation (SERC, SSC and the two experts from JPL). Results of satellite-based measurements of properties of the atmosphere, land and sea should be readily available in a user friendly format. This emphasizes the importance of creating a “USC Climate Change Data Center”, for deposition of satellite observations. Such a depository would help advance USC’s visibility as a center for the national effort in climate observations and would be a strong stimulant for additional growth of the USC Program on Climate Change and an Energy and the Environment Initiative.
Educational component
It should be added that the faculty of ASTE and ISI have been carrying on well-established educational programs where undergraduate students build, test, and launch low-altitude (up to 20 mls) sounding rockets, microsatellites and their instrumentation. In addition, students from the College and the Viterbi School of Engineering participate in design, development and fabrication of instruments for the high-altitude (up to 200 mls) sounding rockets program of the Space Science Center. Thus, CCRG is capable of coordinating a USC undergraduate hands-on program where atmospheric, land and and/or sea measurements can be made by student-built instruments loaded on student-built satellites. This would be a significant improvement not only of our present teaching programs, but also of the USC potential for research funding since practically all federal and state agencies require having educational components in research proposals.
APPENDIX
The U.S. Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Year 2008
[http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/Library/ocp2008/ocp2008-analysis.htm]
The program has identified the following main goals, that encompasses the full range of climate-related issues, to provide focus and programmatic guidance for the Climate Change community:
Goal 1: Improve knowledge of the Earth’s past and present climate and environment, including its natural variability, and improve understanding of the causes of observed variability and changes;
Goal 2: Improve quantification of the forces bringing about changes in the Earth’s climate and related systems;
Goal 3: Reduce uncertainty in projections of how the Earth’s climate and related systems may change in the future;
Goal 4: Understand the sensitivity and adaptability of different natural and managed ecosystems and human systems to climate and related global changes;
Goal 5: Explore the uses and identify the limits of evolving knowledge to manage risks and opportunities related to climate variability and change.
At the lower conceptual level, the goals address a broad range of the following problem areas:
(a) Quantifying observations and coupled ocean/atmospheric model investigations of Earth’s large and abrupt climatic changes (e.g. glacial terminations, stadial/interstadial transitions,etc).
(b) Monitoring the earth’s climate with instrumentation (satellite observations, surface stations).
(c) Measuring and modeling the output of the Sun, as well as the solar irradiance reaching Earth.
(d) Modeling of the Earth’s heat balance, effect of greenhouse gases, clouds, albedo, etc.
(e) Greenhouse gas production, exchange with biosphere.
(f) Forward and retrospective global climate change modeling.
(g) Impacts of climate change on humanity and related public policy.
(h) Depository of data on climate change.
(i) Overview and system analysis of the above activities to summarize their states of knowledge.
(j) Geoinformatics and geosystems research.
