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and DOD in the spring of 1984 to design specific thrusts 

 appropriate to the early phases of an IGBP. The report of that 

 committee, "Global Change in the Geosphere-Biosphere" , is in the 

 final process of review and should be published very soon. 



In its initial draft document outlining the main features of 

 an international program, the ICSU Planning Committee has 

 endorsed the prescription of the NRC IGBP Committee for a 

 strongly focused interdisciplinary scientific approach to 

 studies of the connections between the biological, chemical and 

 physical processes that lead to changes in the global 

 environment with primary emphasis on biospheric interactions. 

 Workshops are planned including one sponsored by SCOPE and 

 INTECOL (International Association for Ecology) in the U.S. this 

 fall. In the discipline of solar-terrestrial physics SCOSTEP 

 has already strongly endorsed the ISTP program and views it as a 

 major component of an IGBP. In the community of earth 

 scientists, there also is a sense of how to fit those activities 

 into an IGBP. An expression of their thinking is emerging from 

 a Space Science Board study named "Scientific Research Mission 

 to Planet Earth." 



Although the philosophy of an IGBP has received warm 

 support, an observational program has not yet been initiated and 

 is not likely to be realized until near the end of this decade. 

 A great deal of planning must be accomplished in the next few 

 years to move it ahead. 



