Frontier issues on climate change science for supporting Future Earth

Abstract

To confront the rapid climatic and environmental changes since the Industrial Revolution and to promote the sustainable development of human society, the international science community launched a new research programme called "Future Earth" in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 2012. The programme integrates the following existing international programmes from the realms of natural science, social science, the humanities and engineering: the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), and DIVERSITAS (biodiversity-science programme). The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), which has been guiding climate-change research globally in the recent three decades, is one of the most important cooperative partners with the Future Earth. The WCRP Joint Scientific Committee has developed seven Grand Challenges identifying the critical climate-change issues for human society that should be high-priorities for the research community in the coming decades. The seven Grand Challenges are: "Melting Ice and Global Consequences", "Clouds, Circulation and Climate Sensitivity", "Carbon Feedbacks in the Climate System", "Weather and Climate Extremes", "Water for the Food Baskets of the World", "Regional Sea-Level Change and Coastal Impacts", and "Near-term Climate Prediction". Consistent with the aims of Future Earth, the Grand Challenges call for transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary cooperation to produce "actionable information" for decision makers. Addressing these scientific frontier issues brings the best minds to the table, to overcome barriers to progress in climate science and support actions to mitigate climate change. After concisely introducing the Grand Challenges of WCRP, we shed light on feasibility of transdisciplinary cooperation by taking global warming and carbon reduction targets as an example. Based on a specific warming target and carbon emission inventory collected from industrial sector, the climate-change community provides carbon-reduction lists for different energy departments to decision makers in government. Policies are then made to encourage the industrial sector to reduce its consumption of fossil fuels and invest in the development of clean energy. Climate scientists and policy makers can also modify the suggested carbon-reduction lists and corresponding policies based on updated carbon emission inventories from the industrial sector. Meanwhile, the scientific community should communicate the facts and impacts of climate change and the scientific basis of energy policies to the public via media and schools, which is critical to the implementation of carbon reduction in practice. Based on current research, to achieve a 2°C warming target by the end of 21st century, atmospheric CO2 concentrations should be controlled to below 450 ppm if considering a 3 K equilibrium climate sensitivity, which means only 240 GtC emission space left. Therefore, promoting transdisciplinary cooperation within the Future Earth framework to realize sustainable development goals is an urgent task. Climate research in China should take active measures to implement the Future Earth goals through effective cooperation with relevant communities. Aiming at the seven Grand Challenges, by focusing on the solution of the frontier issues of climate change, will promote sustainable socio-economic development.