全球变化研究是国际上地球系统综合研究的重大跨学科研究领域。随着全球环境问题的日益突出，国际上先后组织发起了全球环境变化研究的四大科学计划WCRP、IGBP、IHDP、DIVERSITAS及其组成的地球系统科学联盟ESSP，开展对全球变化和地球系统科学的研究。当前，全球变化问题不仅是科学界关注和研究的问题，也是政治界、经济界都关注的重大问题。科技文献能够反映科学前沿的发展动态。对SCIE和SSCI数据库收录的全球变化研究文献进行统计，从文献计量学的角度，分析国际全球变化研究领域的发展态势，了解中国全球变化研究的国际影响力。可以看出：国际上全球变化研究的论文数量一直呈增长趋势，以地球科学多学科、生态学、环境科学、自然地理学、植物学等学科领域为主。中国自2000年以来在该领域的发文数量增长较快，特别是中国科学院的发文量已进入国际前列，但中国在该研究领域尚缺少高影响力的论文。

Global change study is an important and interdisciplinary research area regarding Earth system noticed by international scientific community. Four major international scientific programmes, World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), International GeosphereBiosphere Programme (IGBP), International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), and DIVERSITAS (an International Programme of Biodiversity Science), were successively performed to study the phenomenon of global change, and the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) was founded by the four major programmes, which aimed at promoting the study of global change of Earth system. The tendency of scientific development could be reflected by bibliometrical analysis. Based on the databases of the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and bibliometrical methods, the international competitive situation on global change research was quantificationally analyzed in this paper. The results indicate that the quantity of international papers on global change research has been continually increasing since 1990. The research contents refer to subject areas mainly including multidisciplinary Geosciences, ecology, environmental sciences, physical geography, and plant sciences. The number of papers on this area published by Chinese researchers has been increasing rapidly since 2000.Especially,the Chinese Academy of Sciences has entered into international top ranking.However, China is still lacking in great influence and highly cited papers in this field. 