Program Description

Rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide measured on Mauna Loa by C.D. Keeling (SIO, Scripps Oceanographic Institute) and the NOAA Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory.  The green line indicates what the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration would have been had all the carbon dioxide emitted by fossil fuel combustion had remained in the atmosphere.

Biological processes play key roles in the dynamics of the Earth system, modulating global and local carbon, nitrogen, trace-gas, water, and energy cycles. In turn, ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles are sensitive to physical and chemical forcing and the growing influence of human activities. The interactions of humans, natural and managed ecosystems, and the chemical and physical environment are complex, multidirectional, and nonlinear, and their study increasingly requires an integrated multidisciplinary approach.

The BGS Program takes advantage of the breadth of science undertaken at NCAR to build an integrated science program that crosses spatial scales from process to global studies incorporating both models and measurements to address the interactions among biogeochemical cycles.

The BGS is aggressively pursuing scientific and methodological research on four projects each of which addresses the three questions posed below in the program goals section from a different perspective.

• Understanding the role of biological processes in the dynamics, chemistry and evolution of the climate system on time scales from days to millennia.
• Identification and understanding of the processes in the physical/chemical climate system that most strongly impact the functioning of biological systems.
• An improved understanding of the interactions of human society and biogeoscience dynamics at multiple scales, and analysis of the implications of that coupling for assessments, policy decisions, environmental management and education
• Develop methods that effectively communicate data, information and results from Biogeoscience program investigations to collaborators, colleagues, stakeholders and citizens in timely, useful and usable forms, taking advantage of modern information management, analysis and visualization techniques.

Historical Background

In its infancy, this program started out as the Biogeosciences Initiative which focused on improving our understanding of the relationship between biological and physical climate processes, investigating the interaction of human society and biogeoscience dynamics at multiple scales, and analyzing the implications of such interactions for assessments, policy decisions, environmental management, and education. For additional information about BGS' beginnings please visit the following sites:

• The NCAR Biogeoscience Initiative - presentation by E. Holland
• Initiatives in Brief: Biogeosciences - UCAR Quarterly summer 2004
• Report of the First Biogeosciences Strategic Initiative Advisory Committee Meeting - June 2004
• Session 2. Biogeosciences - October 2003 UCAR Members meeting

A Grand Collaboration

NCAR’s Biogeosciences Program is a multidisciplinary collaboration housed in TIIMES that includes participants from ACD, ASP, EOL, CGD, ISSE, GSP, MMM, and SCD in an effort that combines intellectual challenge with great practical significance in the areas of climate, air quality, ecosystem health, and water resources. The initiative directly addresses the carbon cycle, a research priority in the administration’s Climate Change Research Initiative and as well as in the research agendas of the U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan. It goes well beyond to tackle the interactions among the carbon, nitrogen, water and aerosol cycles called for in the NSF Geosciences Beyond 2000, and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program.  

Overall Goals

The overall goal of the Biogeosciences Program is to incorporate the relevant aspects of the biological sciences into geophysics and atmospheric research. Key research areas include the carbon, nitrogen, and aerosol cycles which address three broad questions:

• How does biogeochemical coupling of carbon, nitrogen, iron and sulfur cycles affect climate, air quality, radiative forcing and ecosystem function on regional to global scales?

• How does heterogeneity in terrestrial landscapes interact with physical processes in the atmosphere to influence ecosystem processes, land-atmosphere exchange and local climate?

• How will human impacts and biogeochemical cycles evolve under a future climate, and what are the feedbacks and interactions among global and climate change, land management, urbanization, technological development, economics, and decision-making?

Addressing these questions requires the development of novel approaches to multidisciplinary research as well as a new set of tools, including sensors, platforms, data analysis techniques, and models.