Climate, Water, and Carbon Program
A PROPOSAL IN RESPONSE TO THE PROVOST’S CALL FOR
TARGETED INVESTMENTS
From
THE COLLEGES OF MATHEMATICAL & PHYSICAL SCIENCES,
FOOD, AGRICULTURAL, & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES,
AND SOCIAL & BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES; THE BYRD POLAR
RESEARCH CENTER; AND THE JOHN GLENN INSTITUTE
In cooperation with
A CLUSTER OF INTER-DISCIPLINARY RESEARCH ON
INTERNATIONAL THEMES: CLIMATE CHANGE (CIRIT-CC)
Submitted by Deans Freeman, Moser, and Beck
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Executive Summary
The future of humanity and the quality of our daily lives necessitate a deeper understanding of Earth’s
climate system, which sustains all life and is now threatened and compromised by human activities
(population growth, economic development and unsustainable resource use). For example, the melting of
Kilimanjaro’s ice fields has progressed from the time of Hemingway’s writings in 1938, when the ice cap
was thick and covered the mountain, to an expected extinction in 2020. Glacier National Park will soon
lose its namesake. The loss of major alpine glaciers in our lifetimes is one of the strongest indicators of an
abruptly changing climate that is happening now because of drastic perturbations in the global carbon
cycle. The impact on water resources of this sudden shift in global temperatures can most easily be
understood by the loss of snowfields that annually supply water to a billion people in the basins
surrounding the Himalaya Mountains. We propose the OSU Climate, Water, and Carbon Program
(CWCP) as OSU’s scientific and policy-oriented response to these critical issues.
We are not alone in our view, which suggests the potential to leverage our proposed investment
against ample external funding. The U.S. Presidential Cabinet recognizes the significance of these issues
and has called for executive departments and federal agencies to focus funds on our “ability to measure,
monitor, and forecast U.S. and global supplies of fresh water” [OSTP and OMB memos]. Significant
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