MIT has several entities involved in climate research. The Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change is a cross-cutting program that melds work from MIT's Center for Global Change Science and the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
A major research institute with over 200 scientists focusing on all earth sciences, especially strong on climate-related topics.
NCAR is perhaps the greatest U.S. climate research institution. It draws not merely post-docs, but prominent researchers from around the U.S. and around the globe. It is federally funded via the National Science Foundation and administered by a consortium of universities (UCAR).
This comprehensive study of the vulnerabilities and potential impacts of climate change on the U.S. was mandated by the Global Change Research Act of 1990. It includes studies looking specifically at 19 different U.S. regions. Assembled by hundreds of experts from academia and elsewhere, it was completed in the late Clinton administration and partly suppressed by the Bush administration.
The US Geological Survey offers information on various climate change topics, publications, news, FAQs, related links, briefings, podcasts, and more.
The US is required by a 1990 law to maintain the GCRIO to disseminate scientific research and other information useful in preventing, mitigating, or adapting to the effects of global change. Unable to disband the office, the Bush administration has given it little funding support. Its online library of key studies and documents from past years is still valuable.
USFS has an extensive ongoing R&D program regarding climate change. The program provides long term research, scientific knowledge, expertise, regional resources and tools that can be used to manage, restore, and conserve forests and rangelands.
An arm of the Energy Dept.'s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the CDIAC focuses on research and data collection about carbon dioxide and the Earth's carbon cycle. It also tracks other greenhouse gases through its World Data Center for Atmospheric Trace Gases.
This research component of NOAA conducts all kinds of basic monitoring programs to compile long-term series of measurements and observations of the conditions that may be involved in climate change. The CMDL has now been merged into the Global Monitoring Division of the Earth System Research Laboratory.
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