Climate change is a reality and is driven mostly by human activity – chiefly the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation – the U.S. leading scientific body states in its most comprehensive study on the subject to date, released this week.

The National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, issued three reports on human activity driving climate change and arguing for strong immediate action to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The reports were commissioned by Congress in 2008.

The creation of a carbon pricing system is one of the suggested options for how the U.S. could immediately move to reduce emissions, one reports says. It urges for the identification of an emissions ‘budget’ that limits overall U.S. emissions and provides a measurable goal for policy makers and industry.

A report focused on adaptation urged the U.S. and others to begin planning for effects like rising sea levels and more severe storms and droughts. Increasing preparedness can be viewed as “an insurance policy against an uncertain future,” the report said, while inaction could impose large costs on future generations.

“These reports show that the state of climate-change science is strong,” Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, said in a statement accompanying the reports. “But the nation also needs the scientific community to expand upon its understanding of why climate change is happening and focus also on when and where the most severe impacts will occur and what we can do to respond.”

The academy recommends that an interagency group be given the authority and the resources to coordinate national research and response. It notes that previous efforts have fallen short of providing the kind of action-oriented research that policy makers need.

Proponents of climate change action embraced the reports.

“These studies clearly demonstrate the urgency for Senate action,” said Senator John Kerry, one of the sponsors of a climate bill introduced in the Senate this month. The bill calls for cutting emissions by about 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.