Synthesis: A US Forest Service Global Change Research Strategy for the Coming Decade 2009-2019

The Objective.

A century of wildland policy and management has created large ecosystem commons in the US. These large commons produce a wide variety of goods and services enjoyed by all Americans; but they are threatened by several global forces including: climate change, land use change, invasive species, and changes in the global competitiveness of the US forest sector. In addition to traditional forest roles in supplying wood products, clean water and air, wildlife habitat, recreation, and so on; forests also play an important role in reducing the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by sequestering carbon. Now, they are also being viewed as potentially important sources of biomass energy feed stocks. Forest, woodland and grassland health and productivity are increasingly vulnerable to climate change, and can become unintended sources of carbon to the atmosphere when large wildfires and insect infestations arise, or land is converted to developed uses. For example, recent estimates are that about 10% of annual US fossil fuel emissions are sequestered in US forest growth every year, but increased wildfires are releasing some of that carbon back into the atmosphere.

Land managers are being asked to address the challenges of climate change with inadequate and often conflicting information. Decisions being made today by public and private land and resource managers will have implications through the next century, especially as it relates to the adaptation of ecosystems.

The Forest Service (FS) Global Change Research Strategy will help identify best management practices for urban and rural forests, woodlands and grasslands to sustain ecosystem health and a wide range of ecosystem services ("adaptation"); while also increasing carbon sequestration ("mitigation")--all under changing climate conditions. The fundamental research focus of the FS Global Change Research Strategy is to increase understanding of forests, woodlands, and grasslands ecosystems so that they can be managed in a way that sustains and provides ecosystem services for future generations.

This document describes the current and future FS research strategy for climate change. It describes the basic functions the research must serve and the strategy needed to fulfill this. Research defined herein will support the needs of the broad range of stakeholders we serve including National Forest and Grassland (NFS) managers, other federal, state and local land managers, private landowners, industry and others.

The Basis. The climate of the earth is changing and will continue to change for many decades in response to the buildup of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere. The "fingerprint" of GHGs has been known for some time: warming in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) while cooling in the upper atmosphere (stratosphere); warming more at the poles than at the equator; more over land than over the sea; more in winter than in summer; more at night than in daytime; less rain in the subtropics and more in high latitudes; and increasing climate variability producing more large storms and longer, more intense droughts, etc.

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