Washington

Clouded issue: can the United States' plan for climate research get to the heart of the problem? Credit: NASA

A plan proposed by the Bush administration to research climate change is as likely to obscure important questions on the subject as to answer them. Such was the prevailing view of scientists who met last week to discuss the project.

The meeting of 1,300 scientists and officials was held in Washington on 3–5 December to deliver feedback on the draft Climate Change Science Program, which was released by the Bush administration last month (see Nature 420, 110; 200210.1038/420110a).

The plan will direct the US government's $1.7-billion annual research programme on climate change, but its critics say that it lacks the clear priorities and detailed objectives needed to drive the programme forward.

Jim Anderson, an atmospheric scientist at Harvard University, said the draft was filled with “generalizations” that would serve the interests of “neither the public nor the scientific community”.

Some climate scientists, including Anderson, hope that administration officials will take note of the feedback from the meeting so that the final version of the plan, due to be published next April, will be more specific. But others fear that the administration has no real interest in supporting research that might highlight either the causes or the dangers of global climate change.

Specialists at the meeting who had been asked to review the plan said that its main elements — nine broad research programmes, plus some big initiatives such as a global climate observation system — might fail through a lack of clearly stated objectives.

The scientists also called for more research on the impact of climate change on specific regions of the United States, more study of the relationship between the water cycle and climate change, and more computer power for running climate models. But environmental groups dismissed the consultation exercise as window-dressing.

James Mahoney, director of the programme, which coordinates the research activities of 13 federal agencies, says that the final plan will accelerate federally sponsored research and focus it on key policy questions.

“It's difficult to provide political leaders with a mandate to give people medicine that will have major impacts — it's like asking, 'Who wants to raise taxes?',” says Mahoney, who is assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere. He emphasizes the need to reduce the scientific uncertainties surrounding global warming so that policy-makers can make better decisions.

The plan would allow for an extra $40-million annual initiative to tackle three areas of uncertainty: the role of aerosols in climate change, the size and location of carbon sources and sinks in North America, and how natural feedback processes influence climate change.

But some observers question the plan's emphasis. “More research doesn't necessarily decrease uncertainty,” says Benjamin Preston of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. “And levels of uncertainty are not necessarily preventing decision-making right now.”

Researchers are now hoping that Mahoney will produce a final version of the plan that is more to their liking.

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