Biospherics Research 



capabilities of any single organization. No single funding agency can sponsor a 

 study of global change to be carried out for decades to centuries, based on topics 

 ranging from the Earth's core to the stratosphere. The research community has 

 concluded that a complex and long-term study of the Earth will require 

 cooperation among many scientific disciplines. The agencies that fund scientific 

 research must develop a similar spirit for national and international cooperation. 



The principal domestic agencies that fund Earth science research now include 

 NASA, NOAA, and the National Science Foundation (NSF). NASA has the pri- 

 mary responsibility for Earth science research missions from space, including 

 studies that investigate the Earth as an integrated system. NOAA is responsible for 

 operational weather and ocean satellites and for the development required to 

 improve these capabilities. NSF is responsible for basic research in all areas of 

 Earth and global biological science and plays an especially important role in 

 funding ground-level studies. In addition to these main players, the Department 

 of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Department of 

 Agriculture (USDA), and others are developing programs directed to the study of 

 global change. Contacts among these agencies and incipient programs for studying 

 global change have developed rapidly during the period of our Committee review. 

 It is important that NASA remain a committed participant in these efforts and in 

 this area of research. 



Funding. The Program Plan for Biospherics Research published in 1983 called for 

 an investigation of global cycles of energy, water, and major biological elements. 

 This strategy was developed by the research communities and has been reaffirmed 

 by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) (1,2,3), the NASA Advisory Council 

 (NAC) (4), and by special reports to NASA's Administrator (6,7). It is also a 

 substantial part of the current IGBP effort. Unfortunately, NASA's Biospherics 

 Research Program budget for the past 5 years has never exceeded $1.6 million 

 annually, and discretionary funding levels have not been sufficient to support all 

 objectives of the Program Plan for Biospherics Research. Given this situation, the 

 program funds have been distributed among several interdisciplinary research 

 projects. As a central theme, these projects focus on the production of biogenic 

 gases of global importance. They concentrate on modeling and on ground-level 

 investigation of tropical, wetland, and temperate forest ecosystems. The objectives 

 of this approach are to contribute to global biological studies and to maintain a 

 broad constituency of investigators, even if the level of support for each project is 

 relatively small. 



The Terrestrial Ecosystems and Biospherics Research Programs. Two programs 

 within NASA have primary responsibility for developing and funding global 

 biogeochemical studies: Terrestrial Ecosystems, which is part of the Earth Science 

 and Applications Division, and Biospherics Research. These programs are 

 responsible for essentially the same disciplines. This has led to some confusion in 

 program management and to the perception by outside investigators that the two 

 programs are competitive rather than cooperative. This perception is not 

 completely justified since the program managers have, on occasion, funded 

 research projects jointly. The perception does, however, have a basis in reality. 



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