FAPESP expands research into climate change

The FAPESP Research Program on Global Climate Change seeks to increase the number of projects supported through March 2012 from 40 to 60

Agência FAPESP – The FAPESP Research Program on Global Climate Change (RPGCC), which has already invested US$ 30 million in research projects that last up to six years, seeks to increase the number of projects supported through March 2012 from 40 to 60. The research will be conducted by researchers associated with Brazilian institutions and in collaboration with organizations like the United Kingdom’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), one of the bodies that make up the UK Research Councils (that have had an agreement with the FAPESP since September 2009), Agence Nationale de La Recherche (ANR), and the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI), an international governmental organization supported by 9 countries in the Americas.

The announcement was made by RPGCC Coordinator Reynaldo Victoria during the first day of the symposium FAPESP Week, which promotes the debate on advanced topics of scientific and technological research between Brazilian and US scientists in Washington DC, October 24-26.

The Professor from the Center for Nuclear Energy Applied to Agriculture (Cena-USP) and RPGCC Coordinator states, “We are trying to adjust the project topics to cover areas not yet included, leading to research on health, paleoclimates, and the role of the South Atlantic in climate change.”

Victoria described the goals of the 21 projects underway since early 2009 as well as the efforts to increase the number of agreements with international organizations. Today, the Program works in coordination with 21 global research institutions as well as the Research Foundations of the states of Rio de Janeiro and Pernambuco.

“One of the main goals is to implement the Brazilian Model of the Global Climate System focused on the Amazon and the South Atlantic by 2014,” says Victoria. “We want to respond to the challenge of how countries can sustainably develop in the 21st century,” he concluded.

FAPESP launched the RPGCC in 2008 in order to advance scientific knowledge of the consequences of global climate and environmental changes. With an emphasis on biodiversity, the topics of interest of the projects that may be developed in collaboration include the effects of the changes on human health, the balance of radiation in the atmosphere, greenhouse gas emissions and their mitigation, and the functioning of ecosystems.

Transparency of data

Brazil is considering the possibility of including an international convention on environmental information concerning the transparency of environmental information in Rio+20. The information was released by Gilberto Câmara, Director of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). Brazil will seek to share its experience and propose that countries assume responsibility for full disclosure of global environmental data.

According to Câmara, a project proposed by the INPE and the JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA), still under analysis, will allow a change in environmental monitoring through use of the GTEO (Global Terrestrial Ecosystem Observatory), built with the investment of US$ 100 million from Brazil and US$ 150 million from the United States. Brazil would be responsible for creating the body of the satellite, solar panel, and the onboard computer to collect and transmit data.

The environmental monitoring currently conducted in Brazil uses satellite cameras that collect photos along discreet swaths of the spectrum. The new technology will allow different species to be distinguished.

For Robert Green from the JPL, the project is the fingerprint of planet Earth and for the first time will allow information to be collected about the existing species of plants, where they live and how healthy they are. He says, “This will be the first global measurement of the ecosystems with images collected from every point of the planet.”