Priorities, People! GOP House Bill Slashes NASA Funds For CO2 Monitoring, Ocean Acidification Work
Congress is considering spending bills that would significantly cut funding for key climate change research by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2017. Among the losers: the oldest carbon dioxide observatories on the planet, the ability to track fossil fuel emissions in the United States and a program to study ocean acidification.
“We are asking for a small amount of money to do all the right things,” said James Butler, director of global monitoring at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL). The spending bill passed by the House Appropriations Committee last week allocates $128 million for NOAA’s climate research, a 20 percent cut from the previous year. The bill allocates $1.7 billion for NASA’s earth science division, a 12 percent cut from 2016.
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Since the 1950s, NOAA has been tracking CO2 and other gases in the atmosphere at six observatories located in Mauna Loa, Hawaii; Summit, Greenland; Trinidad Head, Calif; the South Pole; Barrow, Alaska; and American Samoa. Thousands of scientists use the data generated at these iconic observatories to study the climate system. The observatories are in dire need of updates. Congress has, in effect, kept funding flat since the 1970s, which has put them at operational risk, according to NOAA. ESRL is beginning to dip into its research funding pot to pay for things like new electrical wiring to deal with corrosion, said Butler. Without adequate funding, two of the six observatories might be affected next year, he said.
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But scientists who track CO2 with their boots firmly on the ground are skeptical about the utility of satellite data, which scientists have to tinker with to resolve biases in the data stream that can overwhelm the signals. Ultimately, satellites would have to detect changes of 0.1 part per million of CO2 in an atmosphere containing 400 ppm. That’s a level of accuracy that no satellite has so far accomplished, Tans said. It may take more than a decade for OCO-2’s data to be useful, he said. The same goals could be accomplished using the proposed ground-based system. NOAA would like to track U.S. emissions by collecting 5,000 samples per year and analyzing them at a dedicated center in Colorado. Tans estimates the program would cost $5 million annually to operate.
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http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-congress-aims-to-cut-climate-science/
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