The impetus for the workshop that resulted in this book was the deliberations in many national and international forums about the research areas to be addressed in a decade-long international programme to study global environmental change. At the request of the Executive Committee of ICSU's Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), the US National Committee for SCOPE of the US National Research Council (NRC) began discussions to organize an international workshop intended to identify the contributions to the upcoming International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme: A Study of Global Change (IGBP) that could be made by biological and physical scientists working together. Discussions with a number of scientists led to the consensus that a useful focus for the workshop would be on an issue of extreme concern in conducting the interdisciplinary research required to understand the processes controlling the global environment-how to overcome the disparities in spatial and temporal scales used in different scientific disciplines. The transfer of information between these disciplines is severely constrained by disparities in scale. Thus, a workshop to identify the research needed to deal meaningfully with these scaling problems and with the spatial and temporal variability in biospheric and geospheric processes was organized.
To carry out the organization of the workshop and the identification of participants, an international Steering Committee was formed under the chairmanship of R. G. Woodmansee with T. Rosswall and P. G. Risser serving as co-chairmen. This committee included representatives of SCOPE, ICSU's International Association for Ecology (INTECOL), and members of the US National Committee for SCOPE and its parent body, the Environmental Studies Board of the US NRC. A mix of ecologists, other biological scientists, atmospheric scientists, geomorphologists, and marine scientists from 17 countries were invited to participate.
At the workshop, participants met in a plenary session and in working groups to explore the research needs for understanding interactions between the atmospheric, aquatic, and terrestrial components of the biosphere at different scales. A report authored by P. G. Risser (Risser, 1986) describes the research priorities identified for dealing with the scaling problems and for possible inclusion in the research agenda for a programme on global change. Papers presented at the workshop are published herein.
The workshop was organized with the intention that it be one of several planning efforts toward the elucidation of research priorities for an International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme. We look forward to further discussion and refinement of the topics outlined in Risser (1986) and this volume, as well as other research approaches, in other international forums.
The Steering Committee and the workshop participants wish to acknowledge with gratitude the financial support for the workshop from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the US National Science Foundation, the US Department of Energy, ICSU, and SCOPE. Ruth DeFries, of the US NRC, was especially helpful in all aspects of the workshop, and her invaluable assistance was appreciated by all the participants. Joële Dallancon of SCOPE provided excellent logistical support during the workshop.
We also wish to acknowledge the previous efforts of our colleagues in setting forth the broad perspectives and challenges of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme: A Study of Global Change. These efforts stimulated and assisted the deliberations of the workshop. We also thank the many reviewers of papers contained in this volume.
THOMAS ROSSWALL
PAUL G. RISSER
ROBERT
G. WOODMANSEE
Co-Chairmen,
Workshop
Steering Committee
Risser, P. G. (1986). Spatial and Temporal Variability of Biospheric and Geospheric Processes: Research Needed to Determine Interactions with Global Environmental Change. Report of a Workshop. International Council of Scientific Unions Press, Paris: 53 pages.
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