Recent and Relevant

Many CO2-related proceedings, reports, and other documents are available from CDIAC while supplies last. A complete list of these publications can be requested with the order form at the back of this newsletter. Documents that are no longer available from CDIAC may be purchased from the National Technical Information Service in microfiche or hard copy; prices may vary with the number of pages.

Global Change Acronyms and Abbreviations
(ORNL/CDIAC/WDC-A-83, May 1995, 77 pp.)

Cindy T. Woodard and Frederick W. Stoss

In the global-change community, acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms are abundant. Program names, instruments, agencies, geographic reference points, and administrative bodies are all represented by aggregations of letters. This list of acronyms and abbreviations and their definitions was compiled to provide a ready reference for deciphering such global-change-related abridgements. The items were selected from technical reports, policy documents, program announcements, newsletters, and other periodicals. The disciplinary interests covered include agriculture, atmospheric sciences, geology, environmental sciences, oceanography, geography, soil science, policy science, and others. Entries are ordered alphabetically. Non-English items are provided in the language of origin and the English equivalent when possible.

Graduate Student Theses Supported by DOE's Environmental Sciences Division
(DOE/ER-0649T, July 1995, 128 pp.)

Robert M. Cushman and Bobbi M. Parra, Compilers

This bibliography provides complete citations, abstracts, and keywords for 212 doctoral dissertations and master's theses supported fully or partly by the U.S. DOE's Environmental Sciences Division and its predecessor organizations. It covers the disciplines of marine science, soil science, hydrology, ecology, computer science, geology, mathematical modeling, information sciences, integrated assessment, plant science, limnology, atmospheric sciences, and many more. For each entry, information is provided on the subject matter, principal investigator, university, program area, and major professor; and the entire work is indexed by those categories.


Report of the International Workshop on Quality Control of Monthly Climate Data
(ORNL/CDIAC-69, 1994, 28 pp.)

Thomas C. Peterson, Coordinator

The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), CDIAC, and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) cosponsored an international quality-control workshop for monthly climate data on October 5_6, 1993, at NCDC. About 40 scientists from around the world discussed and compared various quality-control methods and drafted recommendations concerning the most successful systems.

The primary goal of this workshop was to produce improved quality-control software and an expanded quality-control system for the Global Historical Climatology Network, the North Atlantic Climatological Data Set, and the Monthly Climatic Data for the World data sets.

The near-term goal to improve quality control of CLIMAT messages for the NCDC/WMO publication Monthly Climatic Data for the World was successfully met by the establishment of an unmoderated electronic mail list of CLIMAT users on the Internet, allowing users to post errors and corrections.

Advanced quality-control algorithms were discussed, and improvements were suggested. A proposal was adopted for exchanging historical data from CLIMAT reporting stations; such exchanges will allow a more accurate assessment of what values should properly be considered erroneous outliers.

A list of quality-control procedures was compiled, and its use was recommended for all data sets. It should serve as a valuable checklist for people working on quality control of a new data set.

Proceedings of the Fourth Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Science Team Meeting (CONF-940277, April 1995, 396 pp.)

This document summarizes papers presented at the 1994 ARM Science Team meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, Feb. 28_Mar. 3, 1994.

The ARM program was designed (1) to improve the treatment of radiative transfer in climate models under all relevant conditions and (2) to improve the treatment of clouds in climate models, including the representation of the cloud life cycle and the prognosis of cloud radiative properties. The program was divided into groups that planned the detailed design and construction of the needed observational facilities (three such facilities are now completed or being implemented: the Southern Great Plains Site in Oklahoma, the North Slope Site in Alaska, and the Tropical West Pacific Site in Papua New Guinea) and that clarified the scientific foundations of the program (the Science Team).

At its annual meeting, the Science Team reviews the progress of each of its scientific projects, plans future scientific experiments, and explores the possibility of interagency and international cooperation to leverage the program's resources.


Five afternoon solar spectra showing absorption at 925 cm-1 caused by CFC-12; other absorbers include water, CO2, and nitric acid. From the Fourth ARM Science Team Meeting.

High-Resolution Model for Tropospheric Sulfate Driven by Observation-Derived Meteorology (DOE Research Summary No. 30, November 1994, 4 pp.)

Carmen M. Benkovitz, Seth Nemesure, Richard Wagener, and Stephen E. Schwartz, Brookhaven National Laboratory
Carl M. Berkowitz and Richard C. Easter, Pacific Northwest Laboratory

Sulfate aerosols, especially those caused by fossil-fuel sulfur emissions, are of interest because they may offset global warming. This research summary describes a model that traces sulfur emissions from their sources; accounts for their transport by meteorological processes and their transformation by chemical reactions in the atmosphere; and predicts the resulting aerosol burdens of the atmosphere as a function of latitude, longitude, height, and time. The model was derived from the Pacific Northwest Laboratory Global Chemistry Model, modified to be driven by observation-derived meteorological data. The latitude-longitude grid is 1.125° , and the model has vertical 15 levels, extending from the surface to about 100 hPa.

Anthropogenic emissions used by the model were obtained from global and regional inventories. Gas-phase chemical reactions represented in the model are the OH-induced oxidation of SO2 to sulfate and of dimethylsulfide to SO2 and methanesulfonic acid. Aqueous-phase reactions include the oxidation of SO2 to sulfate by H2O2 and O3.

Model results include concentrations of all tracked species as functions of longitude, latitude, vertical height, and time and are captured every 6 hours. The model also permits attribution of sulfate to formation mechanism. The use of observation-derived meteorology to drive the model allows sulfate concentrations and column burdens to be compared to observations at specific times and locations. Model results closely track the magnitudes, temporal episodicity, and absolute magnitudes of the observations. Those results show:


Diagram of the high-resolution model for tropospheric sulfate. From the DOE Research Summary No. 30.

Handbook of Methods for the Analysis of the Various Parameters of the Carbon Dioxide System in Sea Water (ORNL/CDIAC-74, Sept. 1994, varied pagination)

Andrew G. Dickson and Catherine Goyet, Editors

Extensive, reliable, oceanic carbon data is being collected during the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) Hydrographic Program, a component of the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS). This handbook was prepared to provide standard operating procedures (SOPs), together with an appropriate quality-control plan, for the measurements made as part of this survey. These procedures represent the current state of the art for shipboard measurements of the oceanic carbon system. On occasion, some lack of consensus about the best approach still remains; these areas of discussion are identified in the footnotes among other hints and tips.

In addition to the written procedures, general information about the solution chemistry of the carbon dioxide system in seawater is provided together with recommended values for the physical and thermodynamic data needed for certain computations. General advice about appropriate quality-control measures is also included.

The SOPs include procedures for sampling and analysis, calibration, computations, and quality control. Each of the procedures has been marked with a date of printing and a version number. This handbook will be expanded and updated, and the version number will allow a researcher to identify the exact procedure used or cited.


Closed titration cell for the determination of alkalinity. From the Handbook of Methods.

Global Change Research: Summaries of Research in FY 1994 (DOE/ER-0641T, April 1995, 236 pp.)

F. M. O'Hara, Jr., Compiler

This annual report describes the year's activities funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Global Change Research Program (GCRP). Each project funded by the GCRP is identified by title, principal investigator, institutional affiliation of the principal investigator, funding history, and period of performance. Also described are the objective of each project (containing a statement of the problem), the product(s) expected from the research, and the approach used to address the problem. Where appropriate, a summary of results obtained to date is also included. The project descriptions are grouped by subject matter:

The back matter contains the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of the principal investigators; a list of acronyms used in global-change research; and indexes to the subjects, investigators, and institutions referred to in the text. In addition, a special section describes the National Institute for Global Environmental Change and provides writeups of the projects funded under this congressional initiative.

Atmospheric Science Program: Summaries of Research in FY 1994 (DOE/ER-0650T, June 1995, 71 pp.)

F. M. O'Hara, Jr., Compiler

This annual report describes on the activities funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Atmospheric Science Program. It parallels the global-change-research volume in content, style, and layout. The subject matters covered by this publication are

Appendixes and indexes similar to those in the global-change report are also included for the atmospheric sciences and scientists.


Back to CDIAC Home Page

kng 02/15/96