The National Research Council on Wednesday issued a weighty three-part report covering climate science, mitigation and adaptation. In addition to reinforcing the current body of science and issuing a call to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for global warming’s unavoidable impacts (AP), the council advocated for a broader, more integrated and ultimately more relevant climate science enterprise.

“The scientific community needs to enter a new era of climate research,” said Stanford University’s Pamela Matson, who headed the panel on climate science. “We need to do what the panel calls ‘fundamental, use-inspired research.’”

For a definition of this concept, the NRC report harks back to a 1997 Brookings Institution report by Donald Stokes. The basic idea is that two questions need to be answered when evaluating any given research: “Does it contribute to fundamental understanding? Can it be expected to be useful?” If the answer is yes to both, the NRC says, it “warrants special priority.”

In practice, Matson said this kind of approach could put a premium on research into an area such as regional impacts, which involve not only refining basic science but also working with local and regional governments that need answers on how to prepare. It might also involve creating tools and metrics to inventory vulnerable habitats and populations or assess the trade-offs, unintended consequences and co-benefits of a given policy decision.

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Along similar lines, the council called for more interdisciplinary research that brings the full range of physical and social scientists together to help policymakers evaluate challenges and solutions. Similar work should be done internationally, and the report underscored the need for more basic data to enable such activities. The NRC called on US science agencies to work with international partners to “develop, deploy and maintain a comprehensive observing system that can support all aspects of understanding and responding to climate change.”

The current reports come just as Democrats are preparing a new push for global warming legislation in the Senate, and environmental groups – who like scientists have spent much of their time of late dealing with climate scandals – wasted no time in spreading the good word on Capitol Hill. Later in the year, the council will release two additional volumes, one focused on recommendations for policymakers and finally an executive summary of sorts.