Natural climate patterns. Improve knowledge of decade-to-century-scale natural climate patterns, their distributions in time and space, optimal. Climate system components. Address those issues whose resolution will most efficiently and significantly advance our understanding of decade-to-century-scale climate variability for specific components of the climate system. Anthropogenic perturbation. Improve understanding of the long-term responses of the climate system to the anthropogenic addition of radiatively active constituents to the atmosphere and devise methods of detecting anthropogenic phenomena against the background of natural decade-to-century-scale climate variability.
Extend the climate record back through data archeology and paleoclimate records for time series long enough to provide researchers a better database with which to analyze decade-to-century-scale patterns, specifically to achieve a better understanding of the nature and range of natural variability over these timescales.
Long-term observational system. Ensure the existence of a long-term observing system for a more definitive observational foundation to evaluate decade-to-century-scale variability and change.
Ensure that the system includes observations of key state variables as well as external forcings. Thus, one particular important concern is the interactions between natural variability and anthropogenic change. For greater predictive capability it is essential to understand those processes operating in the various components of the climate system that are relevant to dec-cen variability. Because of the difficulty of directly observing phenomena of interest in dec-cen studies, in contrast to weather or seasonal to interannual studies, the importance of component process understanding is magnified.
With respect to anthropogenic perturbation, it is particularly important to closely monitor the rate and distribution of source functions of the radiatively active gases being added to the atmosphere. These external forcings, which cannot be readily predicted, can then be properly introduced and diagnosed in the predictive model studies. Such models are the primary available means for forecasting anthropogenic change and for guiding diagnostic and attribution studies and sampling efforts.
It is therefore critical to adopt an incremental long-term. The importance of a comprehensive long-term observing system has been endorced by several international bodies, including the World Climate Research Program WCRP see Box 8.
Many of the issues defined here require observing systems that do not yet exist or to which no long-term commitment has yet been made. An example is the need to monitor solar irradiance: current data have come from relatively short-term satellite missions that have no operational long-term mandate see the case study later in this chapter.
Measurements from different missions observing simultaneously are in significant disagreement, and the magnitude of the offset is of the same order as greenhouse forcing. Addressing decadal-to-centennial solar variability, as discussed above, requires a plan for long-term calibrated solar irradiance measurements across the solar spectrum.
This is a serious threat to continuing progress in climate research, and to detection of climate change and attribution of its causes. Without action to reverse this decline and develop the Global Climate Observation System, the ability to characterize climate change and variations over the next 25 years will be even less than during the past quarter century.
In some regions, for example, drought-prone parts of Africa, climate change detection, prediction of seasonal and long term variations and reliable assessment of climate impacts could become impossible. Finally, as previously indicated, dec-cen research is in its early stages, with new insights, findings, and directions arising rapidly. The long-term sampling strategy and optimal measurement set is evolving with these advances as well. At this stage, then, it is imperative that we begin or in a few cases continue consistent monitoring of the most fundamental state variables e.
The physical state of the atmosphere, regardless of the mechanisms influencing this state, is at the very core of what we call climate. Atmospheric temperature and moisture content, pressure, winds, and cloud cover the main factor controlling the surface radiation balance must all be monitored. The spatial distribution of this monitoring can be improved with time to span the globe eventually at the relevant spatial scales, but initially a concerted effort must be made to monitor those variables at current weather station locations.
As the concentration of greenhouse gases increases in the atmosphere, the atmosphere clearly must respond in some manner to accommodate the change in radiative forcing. The atmosphere may respond by warming to some degree, it may change its vertical distribution of moisture and cloud cover, or some combination of these. All of the state variables must be monitored, including their vertical distributions through the troposphere and lower stratosphere, to evaluate the nature of anthropogenic and natural changes.
One of the most hotly debated topics in modern climatology is how atmospheric moisture distribution will change in response to the addition of greenhouse gases and therefore whether, or by how much, this moisture response will moderate the temperature response. Thus, it is not enough to measure temperature simply because temperature has been the initial focus of the greenhouse debate.
Atmospheric observations must be collocated with those stations established to monitor surface conditions. This need directly follows from the fact that most, if not all, dec-cen atmospheric variability and change are in response to changes in slower components of the climate system, such as land, ice, and ocean.
These components represent the lower boundary of the atmosphere. In many cases, atmospheric changes strongly covary with changes at the surface. To evaluate, diagnose, and attribute dec-cen change, such covariation must be captured in a manner that facilitates analysis and evaluation of hypotheses that describe the coupled mechanisms driving and modulating long-term variability.
Process studies and related field efforts must be directed to improving our understanding and parameterization of surface-atmosphere interaction. Obviously, it is through this boundary interaction that slower-scale components communicate their influences to the atmosphere. Appropriate parameterization of these phenomena is therefore essential, since modeling efforts are the primary tool we have for forecasting future change.
We also need better parameterization of clouds, including their distribution and feedback processes, because their treatment in models may prove crucial in predicting long-term climate responses to changes in radiative forcing, as well as other feedback influences associated with variability and change.
These parameterizations are currently a primary limitation in existing models. The radiative effects of aerosols, direct and indirect, are poorly constrained.
Cloud processes, although they occur on far shorter than decadal timescales, are a major uncertainty in predicting future radiation balances. Parameterizations need to be improved. Carbon cycle questions require a CO 2 measurement strategy that accounts for the hierarchy of scales, both temporal and spatial, inherent in ecosystem processes and their controls.
Atmospheric concentration data must allow the identification and quantification of regional sources and sinks and their responses to climate fluctuations and human perturbations. This information will permit integration over regional scales of fluxes and feedback processes that can be measured, understood, and modeled on smaller spatial and temporal scales.
Isotopic data allow distinguishing between oceanic and biospheric sinks on regional scales and have provided significant insight into the regional carbon balance. Ratios of O 2 to N 2 in the global atmosphere provide an independent constraint on the balance between net terrestrial and oceanic sinks.
The same scaling and measurement issues are almost identical for N 2 O and CH 4 , and their biogeochemical budgets can be tackled together with a measurement program suitable for CO 2. Enormous progress in assessing trace gas budgets could be achieved if a method could be developed or refined to directly measure air-sea gas exchange rates. Such measurements would eventually lead to a realistic understanding of the processes controlling the rate of gas exchange and therefore to a parameterization that could be applied with confidence worldwide.
Existing climatologies of the partial pressure differences between the air and the water for many gases could then be turned into maps of gas exchange, making oceanic data into a much more compelling constraint on the atmospheric budget and closing the open boundary of surface oceanic gas budgets.
Various types of ocean observations are needed to study the dec-cen variability associated with the primary known patterns of atmospheric climate variability: periodic decadal temperature, salinity, oxygen, and tracer sections; velocity profile surveys and repeat sections starting with World Ocean Circulation Experiment sections ; and higher-frequency time series stations starting with past and present weather ship stations. These measurements will allow better quantitative description of the ocean's participation in dec-cen variability, especially in light of the slowly propagating SST and subsurface anomalies that have revealed the ocean's dec-cen variability as more than stationary patterns.
We must extend these surveys into southern hemisphere regions as the nature of the deccen variability begins to be revealed. These sections and time series stations provide the baseline against which the long-term response and change of the ocean can be measured, and they provide the basic observational set from which serendipitous discoveries about the ocean's role in climate change have been realized.
In addition, the time series data have been invaluable in studying the ocean's response to atmospheric forcing and its feedback to the atmosphere.
These findings are of particular importance because surface layer interaction and response dictate the volume of water in direct communication with the atmosphere. Even a small change in this volume can lead to a significant change in SST, given the same magnitude of surface forcing.
The time series stations are the only series available that allow appropriate development, diagnosis, and improvement of these parameterizations. Continued satellite data are needed for global coverage of sea surface height, SST, winds, and ocean color, but for these data to be useful, corresponding ground-truth ocean observations also are needed.
Particular data of interest concern the heat budget. A concerted effort is required to improve estimates of heat flux divergence and heat storage and their variabilities from subsurface ocean data, eliminating disparities between those estimates and air-sea heat exchange estimates. Various subsurface floats and moorings are particularly helpful to supplement shipboard measurements for this study.
Sea level change is another important observational challenge. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that sea level in the year will be 46 to 72 cm higher than today 36 to 53 cm when the effects of sulfate aerosols are included.
A range is given because each projection presumes a specific scenario for increase in greenhouse gasses. To validate these predictions, better monitoring of global sea level change and its components will be needed.
The prospects for sea level monitoring are good. Land movements will be measured at some of these stations with satellite geodesy and gravimetric techniques. Satellite altimetry is another important tool coming into use to measure global sea level rise.
Critical cryosphere-related observations for climate patterns on decadal to centennial timescales include long-term monitoring of surface salinity along with SST, since salinity represents the dominant control on the density of seawater in high-latitude regions. Also, measurements of the sea ice fields themselves, including motion fields and ice thickness, are required to determine the freshwater transports and buoyancy fluxes associated with the ice fields.
This freshwater transport has been implicated in driving major changes, even mode shifts in the global thermohaline circulation. Finally, consistent monitoring of iceberg calving and an observational system for determining ice basal melt or growth e. Both field and satellite studies are needed to refine the mass budgets of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Onsite studies that have focused on ice flow, melting, and calving should be continued and extended.
Water vapor flux divergence observations will help pin down the source of the ice sheets' mass. A laser altimeter on a polar-orbiting satellite is needed to augment existing radar altimetry. These satellite data will provide accurate estimates of ice sheet volume and give early warning of possible ice sheet collapse. As in the case of ice, the distribution of snow fields, including thickness and spatial extent, must be monitored. The response of snow distribution to climate change has been hypothesized as being important in surface-climate feedbacks as well as in climate change diagnostics.
Finally, the ocean-atmosphere-ice interaction, particularly the ice or snow surface energy balance including surface albedo and ocean-ice, ice-cloud, and snow-cloud feedbacks , must be addressed through detailed process studies to improve parameterizations of these processes in climate models. Observations of changes in land surface characteristics, including surface vegetation, are essential for research goals in both ecosystems and dec-cen climate.
Observational requirements are discussed in detail in the section on ecosystems earlier in this chapter. Changes in land surface properties alter not only the distribution of surface reservoirs and the surface-atmosphere exchange of radiatively active gases but also albedo and even surface stress and evapotranspiration efficiency, and the last two both influence the hydrological cycle. This serves as an external forcing to the planet that cannot be predicted and must be introduced into the models as they occur to properly maintain the models' surface forcing conditions.
Long-term monitoring of near-surface aerosol distributions is also needed; these distributions may induce stationary changes in the surface radiation bal-. Precipitation is the key hydrological variable. For most studies of dec-cen variability and its effects, global fields of precipitation over timescales of 10 to years are essential. We have no such global instrumental records currently. TRMM is an important first step, but global data are needed.
To relate precipitation to global boundary conditions, it is necessary to simultaneously measure SST, vegetative ground cover and soil moisture, and sea and land ice and snow.
Nearly every theory of anthropogenic warming finds an increased rate of the hydrological cycle and possible alteration of atmospheric distributions of moisture and of the frequency, intensity, and distribution of rainfall including severe rainfall events. Thus, monitoring of the surface distribution of precipitation and evaporation must begin. This monitoring includes that over the oceans, where changes in the precipitation minus evaporation balance alter the surface salinity budget, which in high latitudes has been implicated in altering the thermohaline circulation and driving internal oscillations on dec-cen timescales in ocean models.
Four primary Research Imperatives set the observational demands for this area:. Secular trends in the intensity of ultraviolet radiation that the Earth receives. A central issue of atmospheric chemistry is to define and predict fluctuations and secular trends in the intensity of ultraviolet radiation that the Earth receives. Along with temporal trends in ultraviolet intensity reaching the ground, it is also imperative to address the mechanisms and processes responsible for controlling the transport, photochemical production, and catalytic loss of ozone in the global stratosphere.
The issue of tropospheric ozone is treated below. The observational priorities in this area, therefore, are observed changes in column ozone itself, transport of chemical species, photochemical transformations, and fundamental laboratory diagnostics of molecular processes. These observations must have a precision adequate to detect a trend of 1.
Observe the concentration of ozone with altitude resolution of 3 km between 10 and 25 km, such that secular trends in upper-tropospheric and lower-stratospheric ozone can be tracked with an accuracy of 3 percent per decade. Priority: Determine the mechanisms responsible for exchange of material between the troposphere and stratosphere. Understanding of the exchange of mass and chemical constituents between the stratosphere and troposphere is essential for identifying the relevant chemical processes and relationships among chemistry, dynamics, and radiation that dominate processes in both the stratosphere and the troposphere.
Significant progress has occurred in the theory of stratospheretroposphere exchange in the past several years, 13 but this advance has served primarily to clarify what must be done to analyze this key transitional region scientifically and to demonstrate that further progress will depend largely on critical observations, particularly in the tropics. Such observations will require high spatial resolution 0. These observations must be focused first in the tropics, using long-duration to hour trajectories that span the altitude.
Priority: Determine the destruction rates for ozone in the stratosphere as a function of altitude, latitude, and season by observation of the rate-limiting radicals NO 2 , NO, HO 2 , OH, CIO, BrO and determine the response of the atmosphere to imposed changes by obtaining the derivative of each rate-limiting radical with respect to changes in nitrogen, hydrogen, chlorine, bromine, aerosol reactive surface area, water vapor, and temperature through 80 percent of the ozone column i.
As described in Chapter 5 , these observations must be obtained with a spatial resolution of 0. It is critical to extend these observations to extreme conditions, such as the polar winter and tropical tropopause. Grid size should be the same as spatial resolution. Priority: Make observations of the Arctic. This observed behavior is similar to that of the Antarctic in the early s. Analysis of the cause of this rapid erosion requires high-resolution observations 0. The trajectories of the experiments are critical.
The platform must operate for long durations 24 to 40 hours in regions of very cold temperatures down to K under nighttime conditions and must follow Lagrangian trajectories through the cooling and warming cycles of the volume element on surfaces of constant potential temperature.
The data analysis must be executed in real time and used to direct the aircraft trajectory. Priority: Determine by a combination of laboratory and in situ observations the mechanisms and rates for the homogenous and heterogeneous chemical reactions and the photolysis processes that dictate the rates of chemical transformation in the stratosphere.
A dominant issue for global change is to characterize the origin, transformation, and removal of infrared active species in the atmosphere, the source molecules for climate change, requiring the following observations.
Priority: Determine the flux of CO 2 from the primary systems ocean, tropical, temperate, high-latitude terrestrial, Arctic, Antarctic, industrial, agricultural as a function of season, with spatial resolution of 0. Grid density is a function of region. Over oceans, ice sheets, and arid regions, resolution should be 50 km in the horizontal, with monthly sampling, except for over the oceans, which should be sampled weekly.
Tropical regions should be sampled at km horizontal resolution monthly, except during transition seasons. Industrial regions should be sampled at 5-km horizontal resolution twice monthly.
Vertical resolution should be 1 km in all regions. Priority: Determine the concentrations of CO 2 , CH 4 including its carbon isotopes , O 2 , and tracers from ground level to the tropopause as a function of latitude, altitude, and season over each of the primary regions of the globe oceans, jungles, industrial, agricultural, arid, polar, etc. Resolution of these measurements would vary from 1 km in tropical, industrial, and agricultural regions to 5 km over the oceans and arid regions to 10 km over the ice sheets.
The vertical resolution required would be 0. Priority: Pursue a consistent strategy for observations of O 3 from the ground to the lower stratosphere as a function of altitude, season, and characteristic region. Required resolution of these measurements should be 0. Vertical resolution required would be 1 km throughout. Priority: Establish the distribution of H 2 O and, through tracers that include the isotopes of water, the mechanisms that control the distribution of H 2 O in the middle to upper troposphere as a function of altitude, season, and characteristic region.
These observations should have a spatial resolution of 0. Horizontal grid scale should be 5 km in the tropics, 10 km in the subtropics, 50 km in the midlatitudes, and km in the high latitudes. Vertical resolution should be 1 km in all regions, with weekly sampling. There are three types of pressing problems about the photochemistry of oxidants in the troposphere.
The first is the problem of fundamental oxidation pathways. Critical unanswered questions concern the oxidation of organic compounds to stable products, the oxidation of reduced sulfur to sulfates that are central to acidity and to particle formation and growth, the oxidation of nitrogen compounds to nitrates, the direct oxidation of organisms and subsystems of organisms, and the oxidation of biomass.
The second issue is the production of infrared active gases that control the Earth's climate. A significant component of this problem centers on ozone in the troposphere, but because of the coupling between chemical and dynamical time constants in this region, the problem involves other species, such as water in all its phases and isotopes, aerosols the subject of the fourth research imperative immediately below , methane, and nitrous oxide.
We address the three categories in order. Priority: Establish the sources, photochemical transformations, meteorological control, and deposition of trace oxidants notably OH, NO 3 , O 1 , Cl, O 3 , Br in various regions of the troposphere e. Priority: Analyze the sources, photochemical transformations, meteorology, and deposition of the chemical species that control the relationships among volatile organic compounds VOCs , NO x , and ozone in the major urban centers of the United States.
Data on aerosol chemical composition are essential and must include particle carbon, particulate matter, sulfate, organic carbon, and elemental carbon. The requirements for spatial and temporal resolution will be specific to a given urban area because they are a sensitive function of topography and chemical composition, but diurnal data must be routinely secured as a function of altitude from the ground to above the boundary layer, with airborne platforms that are guided by real-time observations and the associated trajectory calculations defining air mass motion and residence times.
Ozone is recognized to be an important component in the radiative balance of the Earth in the critical region of the tropopause. From the perspective of scientific strategy, the upper troposphere is ideally suited for critical photochemical experiments because it provides an in situ laboratory with chemistry representative of the troposphere and yet is simple enough to reach closure on a range of experiments testing key hypotheses.
There are several regions that should receive particular attention in the selection of trajectories. For example, the region that lies between Africa and Brazil, dominated by biomass-burning products, constitutes a profoundly different source region than the largely pristine region of the western tropical Pacific. The polluted continental regions and their wake regions in the Pacific rim are distinct from the Arctic upper troposphere.
It has been clearly demonstrated that using the large dynamic range in species afforded by these regional differences, with the proper complement of tracers and careful real-time analysis of the meteorological fields, provides decisive causal links to be tested and established. Priority: It is currently hypothesized 1 that ozone is catalytically produced in the upper troposphere via cycles involving radicals in the nitrogen and hydrogen families; 2 that NO x is supplied by organic nitrates PAN, etc.
These hypotheses must be tested. These observations are required with a spatial resolution of 0. The observations must track specific air masses linking the source regions to the upper-tropospheric domain.
This need demands supporting dynamical calculations that set the meteorological context and real-time analysis of the simultaneously obtained data to locate the boundaries of the air mass. This experimental strategy is Lagrangian but also contains an Eulerian component for vertical transections. Companion studies in the laboratory are a critical component of this research. A broad class of both homogeneous and heterogeneous molecular processes must be studied over the temperature range of to K in the to Torr pressure range.
Priority: These observations in the upper troposphere must be extended downward, first to include the midtroposphere and then to tie the analysis to the boundary layer. These observations require a spatial resolution of 0. International relations are increasingly entangled in disputes over the transfer of airborne pollutants across boundaries, transfers that initiate profound changes in oxidant, aerosol, acidic, and particulate deposition rates as a function of economic development, economic cycle, season, meteorological, and other conditions.
These disputes are both acute and complex, involving the coupling of chemical, biological, and physical processes and demanding a high level of scientific proof under legislative or judicial scrutiny. Priority: The high concentrations of ozone, sulfur, reactive nitrogen, VOCs, soot, PAN, and so forth are created both in focused urban regions and in more. The observational requirements are specific for the species and the trajectories, though the specifics may vary for specific national boundaries.
The canonical suite of simultaneous in situ observations obtained with 0. This imperative requires definition of the production and loss mechanisms, distribution, and optical properties of aerosols. Observations must be directed at processes that control aerosols from the fine scale to the global scale. Specifically, observations must clarify the following: 1 mechanisms controlling the rates of production of aerosols from those gases that are relevant to both direct and indirect forcing; 2 processes controlling the evolution of aerosols, including growth, activation to cloud drops, and wet and dry removal; 3 relations between aerosol optical depths and aerosol properties; 4 roles of specific chemical classes of aerosols, such as organics, in direct and indirect forcing; and 5 cloud-activating properties of different classes of ambient aerosols.
The character of scientific analysis in addressing the aerosol problem is critical to achieving progress because of the close but complex linking among chemical, biological, and physical processes. In particular, a critical strategy is to establish the relationship between key dependent variables such as aerosol light scattering and absorption coefficients, number concentration of cloud condensation nuclei [CCN], etc.
This strategy shares much in common with the approach of analyzing the structure of stratospheric ozone photochemistry, taking the form of the systematic analysis of partial derivatives linking dependent and independent variables. The explicit observation of these derivatives, or response function, provided the key evidence that overturned central tenets in ozone chemistry; it is the approach required in the field of aerosol chemistry. This approach requires fundamental restructuring of both the observations and the architecture of the modeling effort.
The key point is that, through a sequence of these analyses comparing calculated and observed variables and their associ-. Priority: Develop closure experiments with selected temporal and spatial resolution. For example, point measurements of aerosol number concentration and chemical composition as a function of particle size can be used to calculate simultaneously observed aerosol light scattering and absorption coefficients and the number concentration of CCN; and column measurements of the vertical profile of aerosol light scattering and absorption coefficients with simultaneously observed radiative fluxes that can be tested against measurements of aerosol optical thickness of the entire column and aerosol optical properties and with radiative fluxes at the top of the atmosphere.
Priority: Development of the Lagrangian approach to testing closure between dependent and independent variables, where the observing platform moves with the volume element under analysis. Specifically, the evolution of aerosols in an air mass tagged with inert chemical tracers should be tracked with defined initial conditions, boundary conditions, and reaction rates, with the dependent variables being the time-dependent chemical and microphysical properties of the aerosol particles.
Obtain simultaneous in situ observations of deviations of aerosol size, surface area, and chemical composition, SO 2 , DMS dimethyl sulfide , OCS carbonyl sulfide , OH, HONO 2 , H 2 O, temperature, infrared and visible radiation field at 1 cm -1 resolution in selected trajectories that define the evolution of aerosols, from the source region to regions characterized by large and small aerosol optical depths, such as biomass burning, pristine, and industrial regions.
Priority: Obtain aerosol fields on a global basis from orbit, including the tropospheric distribution. These observations should be obtained in a Lagrangian reference frame. Priority: Use multiplatform field campaigns that can effectively span the required dependent and independent variables in question, for example, the link between sources of anthropogenic SO 2 and sulfate aerosol or between organic aerosols and soot from biomass burning and radiative forcing—subjects also addressed by another NRC report.
The oxidation rates and conversion efficiencies of SO 2 should also be observed. The necessary measurements include the following:.
SO 2 and H 2 SO 4 , nitrates, soot, organics, and trace metal concentrations. Short-timescale measurements of both sub- and supermicron nonsea salt sulfate and organics. Dynamic factors such as entrainment rates, turbulent transport to and from the surface, and mixing depths see NRC, Priority: Marine sulfur chemistry is directly tied to the formation of global-scale aerosol fields. A nested set of hypotheses constitute the foundation of our understanding of marine sulfur chemistry:.
The radiation budget is substantially influenced by atmospheric aerosols, both directly by scattering and indirectly by the influence of condensation nuclei on cloud radiative properties. The source of natural marine aerosol is the oxidation of reduced sulfur species.
New particle formation occurs mainly in convective outflow regions above the marine boundary layer MBL. While these tenets are plausible, they must be tested to establish the foundation of marine sulfur aerosol chemistry, its coupling to climate, and thus its link to human activity. Critical observations include the following:. Direct spectrally resolved measurements of the flux divergence in the atmosphere, coupled with simultaneous aerosol and condensation nuclei measurements in clear air, cloudy air, and regions of cloud formation.
Observations of new particle formation and identification of the major regions of new particle formation. Observations of reduced sulfur oxidation, including key intermediates and radical species, demonstrating quantitatively the coupling between DMS and aerosol precursors.
Laboratory observations of the DMS oxidation mechanism, including direct observation of key radical intermediates under the conditions of temperature, pressure, and composition covering the range found in the marine atmosphere. In addition, continued developments in observational technology are critical to advancing the understanding of atmospheric chemistry see Box 8.
Developments in technology cut across the observational needs for atmospheric chemistry. Aircraft platforms are critical. Individual platforms or combinations of platforms must be capable of finding and following air masses over the timescale of the chemical processes under study about one day. Lightweight fast-response instruments will be key components, as will fast data analysis to permit real-time decisions about flight trajectories. Observations of both radical and molecule species are essential to put limits on the rate of oxidation.
Develop parallel architectures for calculations that include aerosol size distributions in global-scale models. Develop lightweight sensors that significantly reduce the cost of deployment and enlarge the number of critical variables observed from a given platform.
Develop small, rapid-response, low-cost satellites that attack specific scientific questions. Develop robotic techniques for obtaining data from ground-based, ocean-based, and airborne deployments.
Develop instruments for in situ measurement of aerosol light absorption, angular scattering function, and asymmetry factor. Develop a compact, robust instrument to measure CCN spectra in a monitoring network or airborne mode.
Paleoclimate research over the past several decades has been essential in establishing the context of global changes observed during the course of the instrumental record.
It has also pointed to the following research streams. Global changes of the past. Document how the global climate and the Earth's environment have changed in the past and determine the factors that caused the changes.
Explore how this knowledge can be applied to understand future climate and environmental change. Anthropogenic influences. Document how the activities of humans have affected the global environment and climate and determine how these effects can be differentiated from natural variability. Describe what constitutes the natural environment prior to human intervention. They are often used for medical reasons. However, Trish has scanned soil cores both with and without earthworms to observe physical changes in the soil structure.
The burrows stay intact so Trish can observe how they develop and change with time. The downside is cost. CAT scans are expensive for humans and earthworms alike! Farmers and others use earthworms as a simple way to monitor soil health.
Nicole has developed an identification guide that offers advice on when and how to sample for earthworms. Photos help the user to identify the earthworms from the soil samples. Different species provide different soil services like organic matter incorporation or creating soil pores so it is useful for farmers to know how many and what types of earthworms live in their soil.
For many students, one earthworm probably resembles the next as it struggles across the footpath on a rainy morning. Hopefully, this perception will change as students learn about how useful these creatures are to the soil ecosystem and spend some time observing their physical characteristics and movement!
Why not use one or more of these observation activities in your class. Add to collection. Nature of science Observations may be the catalyst to scientific investigations. Activity ideas Why not use one or more of these observation activities in your class. Observing earthworms Observation: learning to see Observation in science — three-level reading guide Titiro — observing my environment.
Go to full glossary Add 0 items to collection. Put ideas into practice to enhance learning and relationships. Verify questions and concerns about a child. Talk to families and staff about him. Follow up if development or behavior is not typical. Be aware of the quality of interactions with each child. Step back and consider how and why you and other staff interact with her. Do all interactions nurture relationships and learning? Make tweaks , or small changes, while observing and afterwards.
Use information from observations to inform program practices and policies. Take a broad look at how the program supports all children and learning.
Use the information for CQI plans. Make observation an ongoing practice, a part of all interactions and activities, and watch for small changes and individual traits. Ongoing observation offers a chance to be proactive, to prevent problems. Take notes , either during activities or shortly afterwards. Notes also make it easier to identify patterns and growth.
Interaction, relationships, and connections offer the deepest support to learning. Observation connects many pieces of information to give ECE professionals a better picture of each child.
Observation is an ongoing, integral part of a quality ECE program, and professionals play an important part. Download this article as a PDF.
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