By Frederick W. Stoss

Which human activities add to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), the greenhouse gas that may promote warming of the earth's climate?
How would CO2 emission restrictions change the use of fossil fuels?
How would increases in atmospheric CO2 likely affect climate?
Can we see any evidence that the world is getting warmer?
What coastal-zone areas are more sensitive to potential sea-level rise from an accelerated melting of glaciers?
What is El Niño and how does it affect the earth's climate?

Fred Stoss studies a poster showing the endangered earth. The dark areas on the land represent forest and vegetation, and the light areas represent desert.

These are among the thousands of questions to which ORNL data analysts respond every year. Recently, the topic of global environmental change, including climate change, has grown in importance. At ORNL we have improved our understanding of the science underlying this major environmental issue. At the same time the Laboratory is playing a pivotal role in directing the data and information management activities for what some researchers consider the most information-intensive science project ever undertaken.

Long one of the world's leading energy R&D facilities, ORNL has more recently emerged as one of the preeminent environmental research centers in the world. Within ORNL's Environmental Sciences Division, the Environmental Information Analysis Program was established to serve as a focal point for the assimilation of data related to global environmental change. The three major components of the program are the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Archive, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Earth Observing System Data and Information System Distributed Active Archive Center, and the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC). The World Data Center-A for Atmospheric Trace Gases is located in CDIAC.

The earth's climate is determined by the amount of solar radiation absorbed by its surface and the amount of infrared radiation (heat) reflected back into space. The balance of the earth's heat depends on the input energy deposited by the sun and atmospheric abundances of radiatively active trace gases (the greenhouse gases), clouds, and aerosols. Greenhouse gases, which result from both natural and man-made processes, include carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons, halogenated compounds, and water vapor. Heat from the earth and its atmosphere that ordinarily radiates into outer space is instead absorbed by the greenhouse gases. This process boosts the heat energy in the lower atmosphere and on the earth's surface. As a result, the temperature of the lower atmosphere and the earth's surface increases, causing the planet to be warmer than usual.

Scientific success in understanding global environmental change depends on integration and management of numerous data sources, extensive data holdings, and a number of data products. Achieving true success in this endeavor requires an information system that stimulates and enables cooperation among many researchers, empowering them to contribute to the overall effort. The U.S. Global Change Data and Information System (GCDIS) provides for the management of data, the sharing and harvesting of information, the dissemination of ideas, and the establishment of a widespread community of collaborators. Both the Department of Energy (DOE) and ORNL participate in the GCDIS.

DOE Global Change Research Program

The issue of global change is international in scope. In 1988, the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to develop a scientific response strategy to investigate global climate change. The Office of Science and Technology Policy's Committee on Environment and Natural Resources oversees the U.S. multidisciplinary research effort. This committee developed the U.S. Global Change Research Program (GCRP) to provide a better understanding of the integrated earth system. This national program examines the possible implications of global change from scientific and social perspectives.

Under this program, DOE's GCRP aims to

An information program in the DOE GCRP serves as a scientific interface through which technical information can be obtained, evaluated, quality-assured, and distributed. Such attention to these data and information requirements fosters a greater exchange of information across disciplines and reduces the uncertainties with which decisions are made.

Information programs established at ORNL help DOE meet those objectives. As data are acquired or data products generated, they are made available to the research community, policymakers, educators, and the general interested public. Most data represent a significant investment of public support for research, and holding these data is a public trust.

Data Archives

The Earth Observing System Data and Information System is NASA's portion of the U.S. Global Change Data and Information System. This system manages data resulting from NASA's earth science research satellites and field measurement programs and other data essential for the interpretation of these measurements. Accordingly, Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAAC) are located at U.S. institutions to ensure that data will be available indefinitely in an easily usable form. These centers serve as the primary user interface to NASA's global change database.

ORNL was designated in 1993 as NASA's archive center for biogeochemical dynamics. This center gathers, performs quality-assurance checks on, documents, archives, and distributes data and data products in support of NASA's field projects and other global change research and policy-making efforts. Biogeochemical research, as it relates to ecological modeling and global change, has been a long and fruitful pursuit of staff at ORNL. The establishment of the DAAC at ORNL enhances the abilities of researchers at ORNL and other research centers worldwide to study further the dynamics of critical biogeochemical cycles in support of the U.S. GCRP.

Production of numeric data packages, as shown in this flow chart,
has been a major achievement in environmental data management.

Atmospheric Radiation Measurements

DOE designated the Laboratory as the archive for data generated by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program. A major goal of DOE is to improve predictive climate models for the earth and use these improved computer models to generate more nearly accurate predictions of the climate's response to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases. Thus, the primary objective of this program is to improve the treatment of radiation and clouds in models used to predict climate changes, particularly general circulation models.

Achieving this goal entails measuring radiative fluxes, temperature, atmospheric composition, and wind velocity at five highly instrumented sites worldwide. These sites constitute the Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART). Each site covers a geographic extent of 200 km on a side—about the current size of a grid cell in a general circulation model. It is estimated that each site will produce as many as 3 gigabytes of observation data per day.

Each site has a variety of instruments capable of measuring the radiative spectrum from near infrared through microwave frequencies. Such instruments vary in their tasks from scanning the radiative spectrum with a very narrow window to measuring total irradiance (direct and diffuse). Each site also has an extensive capability of characterizing the physical dynamic structure of the atmosphere column directly above. These capabilities range from simple meteorological measurements, such as surface temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed, to more complex vertical and horizontal wind profiles and vertical profiles of the amount and species of water in the column over each site. Finally, image data on clouds will be provided by CART instruments on the earth's surface and instruments aboard observational satellites orbiting the earth.

The computing facility at each site gathers data from CART instruments. The data are transferred to the ARM Archive at ORNL. The ARM Archive provides the scientific community with the data taken from the sites, data developed from the merger of site data with information describing the quality-assurance checks, and contextual information. The ARM Archive can be accessed in a number of ways, and the data can be provided to users through a number of physical and electronic media.

CO2 Information Analysis Center

When the Carbon Dioxide Information Center (CDIC) began in 1982 (the name was changed in 1986 to the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center), greenhouse warming was a topic still primarily in the research arena and the center's role was, for the most part, one of distributing data from researchers to researchers. By the 1990s, however, when greenhouse warming was the subject of front-page newspaper articles, newsmagazine cover stories, congressional attention, and international conferences, CDIC's role—and its user community—had broadened considerably. The center has been fielding information requests from congressional staffers drafting or evaluating legislation; public-school students working on science fair projects; science reporters compiling data for stories; and researchers working in the applied, life, physical, political, and social sciences.

The center was established by DOE to support its carbon dioxide research program. Initially, CDIAC's mission was to identify, collect, quality-assure, document, and distribute information on the biogeochemistry of carbon dioxide and the effects of carbon dioxide on the earth's climate. As this research area matured, so did the center's scope. It now includes related global-change topics (e.g., other greenhouse gases and the effects of climate change on the environment).

CDIAC's principal information products are its fully documented numeric packages on which quality-assurance checks have been performed. Ready access to landmark (benchmark) data sets provides researchers, policymakers,and educators with information to increase the certainties(or decrease the uncertainties) with which environmental decisions are proposed. Photograph by Tom Cerniglio and Curtis Boles.

The primary focus of CDIAC is the production and distribution of numeric data packages and computer model packages. The center has produced more than 50 numeric packages, which have had quality-assurance checks and are documented databases on various global-change topics. These packages cover a wide variety of data, including long-term temperature and precipitation trends, changes in atmospheric and oceanic concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, distribution of ecosystem complexes, intensity and frequency of occurrence of storms, vulnerability of coastal regions to rising sea level, and effects of elevated carbon dioxide levels on plant growth. The center makes its data available in a variety of formats including hard copy and diskette. More recently, the center has initiated the delivery of its numeric data in other electronic formats including compact disc and on the Internet.

In addition to producing and distributing data packages, CDIAC performs a number of other important information functions. For example, its newsletter CDIAC Communications is distributed to more than 10,000 subscribers in approximately 150 countries. The center publishes Trends '93: A Compendium of Data on Global Change, a Catalog of Data Bases and Reports, a Catalog of Numeric Data Packages and Computer Model Packages, Glossary: Global Change Acronyms & Abbreviations, Carbon Dioxide and Climate, and the DOE Research Summary (a four-page newsletter, each issue highlighting a specific DOE-sponsored research project). The center also produces ARM Outreach, a newsletter for DOE's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program.

Since 1985, the center's staff has responded to more than 60,000 requests for information and has distributed more than 100,000 technical reports and other information products. Staff is available to discuss both general and technical aspects of issues related to the carbon cycle; carbon dioxide, methane, and other trace gas emissions; and other climate change topics, including data and information management issues. CDIAC responds to requests from telephone calls, letters, and facsimile messages. However, in this new era of electronic communications, the center receives queries from a variety of electronic networks, including the Internet.

World Data Center at the Laboratory

CDIAC operates World Data Center-A for Atmospheric Trace Gases. The World Data Centers were established by the International Council of Scientific Unions in 1956. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences oversees World Data Center-A, which includes 12 data centers throughout the United States. As a World Data Center, CDIAC's ability to obtain and disseminate information is enhanced. The center shares responsibility with ORNL's Central Research Library for operating a regional information center established by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program. This program, which has 50 information centers in 37 countries, expands the information services for the international global change community.

In 1993, CDIAC received an Exceptional Public Service Award from DOE during the center's annual program review, which recognized the center's significant achievements in support of DOE. The award citation, signed by Energy Secretary Hazel R. O'Leary, reads: "For exceptional service to the global change research community worldwide, creative innovations in the field of numerical data and information exchange, development of a model data center, achievement of international acclaim and recognition in the area of atmospheric trace gases, and significant contribution to the success of the Department of Energy's Global Change Research Program."

CDIAC was again given a high honor at its 1995 annual program review, when its DOE program manager, Bobbi Parra, presented each member of the CDIAC staff a Certificate of Achievement for "outstanding contributions in the collection, analysis, coordination, and dissemination of global change information, and specifically for the efforts being made in the electronic exchange of information." Certificates were signed by Martha A. Krebbs, director of DOE's Office of Energy Research.

To maintain its proactive position in global change information management activities, ORNL strives to keep informed about current research policy and information developments and needs at the international, national, and local levels. In addition to the exchange of data among researchers, ORNL has taken an active role in the networking of information among government agencies, industries, businesses, special libraries and information/data centers, academic institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and special and public interest groups. Maintaining close professional contacts with individuals and organizations, CDIAC's networking capabilities include the dissemination of research results, policy initiatives, and education developments; objective technical interpretations and discussions of the technical aspects and information management related to carbon dioxide and climate change; referrals to other individuals or organizations; and access to resources relevant to individuals' information needs.

ORNL's networking capabilities have been further enhanced by active participation in the programs and organizational administration of professional societies, associations, and interagency and intergovernmental panels and working groups. Through these networking activities, ORNL can monitor the information needs of the broad global-change community and develop specific information products and services to help meet those needs.

ORNL Offers Information on CO2

Just for You

Want to find out more about global warming, its potential effects, and the role that future emissions of carbon dioxide might play? The information can be easily obtained, thanks to a highly accessible staff at ORNL that serves DOE's Global Change Research Program. Just ask your questions by calling, faxing, or sending postal or electronic mail messages.

For more information contact:

Environmental Information Analysis Program

Paul Kanciruk, Program Manager
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
P.O. Box 2008, MS 6407
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6407
Phone: (423) 574-7817
Fax: (423) 574-4665
E-mail: pkk@ornl.gov

EOSDIS Distributed Active Archive Center

Larry D. Voorhees, DAAC Manager
ORNL DAAC
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
P.O. Box 2008, MS 6407
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6407
Phone: (423) 574-7309
Fax: (423) 574-4665
E-mail: ornldaac@ornl.gov

Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Archive

Paul T. Singley, Director, ARM Archive
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
P.O. Box 2008, MS 6407
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6407
Phone: (423) 241-5914
Fax: (423) 574-4665
E-mail: sin@ornl.gov

Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center

Robert M. Cushman, Director, CDIAC
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
P.O. Box 2008, MS 6335

Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6335
Phone: (423) 574-0390
Fax: (423) 574-2232
E-mail: cdiac@ornl.gov

World Data Center-A

Thomas A. Boden, Director, WDC-A
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
P.O. Box 2008, MS 6335
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6335
Phone: (423) 241-4842
Fax: (423) 574-2232
E-mail: tab@ornl.gov

Global Change Data and Research

CDIAC has recently assisted the U. S. Global Change Data and Information System by constructing the GCDIS Home Page for the World Wide Web.

BIOGRAPHICAL Sketch

FRED STOSS is employed by the University of Tennessee's Energy, Environment, and Resources Center. He has served as coordinator of outreach for ORNL's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC). He holds an M.S. degree in zoology from State University of New York at Brockport and a master of library science degree from the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. He is a member of the editorial boards of The Electronic Green Journal and of Environmental Abstracts. He currently serves as editor of ES&H News (Society for Technical Communication, Environmental, Safety, and Health Communicators Professional Interest Committee) and as chair of the American Library Association's Task Force on the Environment. Since 1991 he has represented CDIAC on the Library Information Subgroup of the U.S. Global Change Data Management Group.

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