Report: Cutbacks threaten climate study - AP

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Source: Associated Press

Report: Cutbacks threaten climate study

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
2 hours, 24 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The government's climate change research
is threatened by spending cuts that will reduce scientists'
observations from space and on the ground, a study says.

A major problem, the National Research Council said Thursday,
is the program director's lack of authority to organize
spending and research among the 13 different agencies that
study the impacts of climate.

Nonetheless, the report said, the U.S. Climate Change Research
Program has made good progress "in documenting the climate
changes of the past few decades and in unraveling the (human)
influences on the observed climate changes."

In contrast, the report said progress in combining research
results and supporting decision making and risk management
"has been inadequate."

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070913/ap_on_sc/climate_research

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Source: New York Times

Panel Faults Emphasis of U.S. Climate Program

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: September 14, 2007

A government-wide climate research program started five years
ago by the Bush Administration has clarified some scientific
questions, an independent scientific panel has found. But in its
report released today, the panel said the the program has been
plagued by delays, and that it has not devoted enough money or
effort to studying the effects of climate change, or to
disseminating the findings to those who would be most affected.

The Climate Change Science Program, created in 2002 by
President Bush to improve climate research across 13
government agencies, has also been hampered by priority shifts,
the panel found. Those shifts have led to the grounding of earth-
observing satellites and the dismantling of programs to monitor
environmental conditions on earth, concluded the report,
issued by the National Academies, the nation’s preeminent
scientific advisory group.

In a printed statement, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, the panel’s
chairman, said that the program’s basic scientific efforts have
constituted “an important initiative that has broadened our
knowledge of climate change.”

-snip-

But the report cited more problems than successes in the
government’s research program. Of the $1.7 billion spent by the
program on climate research each year, only about $25 million
to $30 million has gone to studies of how climate change will
affect human affairs, for better or worse, the report said.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/science/13cnd-climate.html?ref=science