DURHAM, N.C. – A new 10-year plan for U.S. climate research places increased emphasis on humans’ role in Earth’s carbon cycle, as both agents and managers of climate change and as a species affected by it.

“The new plan will help us better understand – and communicate – how greenhouse gases and climate change affect people, species, and ecosystems,” says Robert B. Jackson, Nicholas Professor of Global Environmental Change at 91. “We need to know who, and what, is most vulnerable.” Jackson is one of four principal authors of the new U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan, published this week in a report by the University Consortium for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).

Other principal authors are Anna Michalak of the Carnegie Institution for Science; Gregg H. Marland of Appalachian State University; and Christopher Sabine of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA).

The report is online at . In addition to its expanded focus on humans, the new plan – which was developed with input from hundreds of scientists – establishes two other national research priorities for the coming decade.

They are: increased study of the direct impact of greenhouse gases on ecosystems, including changes in biodiversity and ocean acidification; and greater emphasis on making scientific findings relevant and accessible to policymakers and the general public.

UCAR is supported by NASA, the National Science Foundation, NOAA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and U.S. Department of Agriculture; and the U.S. Department of Energy.

In an era of tight budgets and public skepticism about the value of science, Jackson and his fellow authors hope their new plan will lead to an expanded role for careful, integrated and clear science in the decision-making process, and help support common objectives for a sustainable environment.

“Over the last decade, we’ve learned a lot about how carbon winds its way through nature and society. We have to show why this research matters,” Jackson says, “and how people, corporations and governments will benefit from it.”

The new 10-year plan was written with assistance from UCAR’s Carbon Cycle Science Working Group.