Research Program

The United States Department of Energy and the People's Republic of China Academy of Sciences signed an agreement on August 19, 1987, to carry out a joint research program to study possible global warming due to the enhanced greenhouse effect. The joint study is a first step toward providing opportunities for scientists in both countries to share climate information, leading to an improved understanding of the Earth's climate system and to reliable regional climate prediction based on the use of large-scale general circulation models (GCMs). GCMs are the best scientific tool for climate prediction and for assessing regional climate changes. It is important to validate and evaluate GCMs not only for present climate, but also for past (historical) climates so that confidence in a reliable model prediction can be increased.

The agreement includes four tasks:

Analysis of general circulation models;

Preparation and analysis of proxy and instrumental data;

Study of the relationship between large- and regional-scale climates; and

Measuring and analyzing methane emissions from rice paddy fields in China.

The uniqueness of the joint project includes: (1)the reconstruction of 2000 years of historical climate records that can be used to validate GCMs; and (2)long-term measurements of emissions of methane (an important greenhouse gas) from rice paddy to understand the global methane budget.

Significant progress is being made since 1985, including two years of scientist-to-scientist collaboration. Overall, there are over 120 publications documenting project research. A summary of project progress is documented in Riches, M. R., Zhao J., W.-C. Wang, and Tao, S., 1992: The United States' Department of Energy and the People's Republic of China's Academy of Sciences joint research on the greenhouse effect: 1985-1990 research progress. Bull. Amer. Meteoro. Soc. 73, 585-594.