North American Carbon Budget and Implications for the Global Carbon Cycle: U.s. Climate Change Science Program Prospectus for Synthesis and Assessment

Publisher Marketing: The carbon cycle chapter of the Strategic Plan for the U. S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) describes a plan to produce ..".a series of increasingly comprehensive and informative reports about the status and trends of carbon emissions and sequestration," each to be called a State of the Carbon Cycle Report (SOCCR). The Carbon Cycle Interagency Working Group's (CCIWG) Terms of Reference (TOR)1 for a first SOCCR elaborated this in June 2003, saying that what is envisioned is ..".a series of reports on the state of the carbon cycle designed to provide accurate, unbiased, and policy-relevant scientific information concerning the carbon cycle to a broad range of stakeholders. The two broad objectives for a State of the Carbon Cycle Report are (1) to summarize scientific knowledge about carbon cycle properties and changes, and (2) to provide scientific information for decision support and policy formulation concerning carbon." The first SOCCR will be CCSP Synthesis and Assessment Product (SAP) 2.2. The carbon cycle chapter of the CCSP Strategic Plan describes a long-term vision to regularly produce a comprehensive report on the state of the global carbon cycle within 10 years and projects that a near-term, prototype report focused on North America can be produced within 2 years. SAP 2.2 will summarize substantive information about North America's carbon budget. It also will serve as a prototype for future enhancement and extension to a global report. Subsequent reports are expected to evolve based on the lessons learned in producing earlier reports. SAP 2.2 will provide a synthesis and integration of the current knowledge of the North American (including land, atmosphere, and adjacent oceans) carbon budget and its context within the global carbon cycle. In a format useful to decisionmakers, it will (1) summarize our knowledge of carbon cycle properties and changes relevant to the contributions of and impacts2 upon the United States and the rest of the world, and (2) provide scientific information for U. S. decision support focused on key issues for carbon management and policy. SAP 2.2 will address carbon emissions; natural reservoirs and sequestration; rates of transfer; the consequences of changes in carbon cycling on land and the ocean; effects of purposeful carbon management; effects of agriculture, forestry, and natural resource management on the carbon cycle; and the socio-economic drivers and consequences of changes in the carbon cycle. It will cover North America's land, atmosphere, inland waters, and adjacent oceans. It will include an analysis of North America's carbon budget that will document the state of knowledge and quantify best estimates (i.e., consensus, accepted, official) and uncertainties. This analysis will provide a baseline against which future results from the North American Carbon Program (NACP) can be compared. SAP 2.2 will be coordinated with other CCSP synthesis and assessment products as appropriate.