CIA Teams Up With Scientists To Monitor Climate

MikeChino writes "The CIA has just joined up with climate researchers to re-launch a data-sharing initiative that will use spy satellites and other CIA asets to help scientists figure out what climate change is doing to cloud cover, forests, deserts, and more. The collaboration is an extension of the Measurements of Earth Data for Environmental Analysis program, which President Bush canceled in 2001, and it will use reconnaissance satellites to track ice floes moving through the Arctic basin, creating data that could be used for ice forecasts." Even though the program is "basically free" in terms of CIA involvement, the Times notes: "Controversy has often dogged the use of federal intelligence gear for environmental monitoring. In October, days after the CIA opened a small unit to assess the security implications of climate change, Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, said the agency should be fighting terrorists, 'not spying on sea lions.'"

Comments

Climate change is a security threat

[riverat1]

Well, considering that anthropogenic climate change is probably a bigger threat in the long run than terrorism it's good that the CIA is helping.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[spun]

Seeing as how the scientific consensus is that there is a link between CO2 and global warming, YOU are the one who needs to prove there isn't one (and I seriously doubt you can show me any good evidence that there ISN'T a link, as 'a definite link' is what the facts show.)

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rockoon]

Please tell us about this warming threat.

Remember that you implied some sort of danger, so you cannot possibly be talking about sea level rise: IPCC gives lowball of 19cm and highball of 59cm over 100 years, or between 0.19cm/year and 0.59cm/years. Might happen, but its not a threat to human life. Just walk away, folks.

Maybe you are talking about drought? No, rainfall will increase if it gets significantly warmer.

Heat stroke? OK maybe, but offset by less hypothermia.

So tell us, what THREATS are there that are comparable to terrorists?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

Yeah, who cares what those rubes at the science academies of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, India, Japan, Russia, Sweden, the UK, the US, and many others have to say? (every national science academy statement being in agreement, none opposed)

Yes, you are right. I don't care what their opinion is, I want to see the evidence. Scientific opinion is known to be inaccurate, wildly so at times.

Let's be honest here: when a scientific academy 'endorses' global warming, what are they saying? Have they done their own research? Usually not. What they are saying is that they agree with what the IPCC report says, which is reasonable. And frankly, the IPCC report draws no connection between CO2 and world calamity.

I'll repeat that again, because some people have trouble with this concept: the IPCC report draws no connection between CO2 and world calamity. If you've heard of New York being flooded when the glaciers melt, it wasn't based on any real scientific research. It was some weird propaganda that you picked up somewhere.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rei]

Remember that you implied some sort of danger, so you cannot possibly be talking about sea level rise: IPCC gives lowball of 19cm and highball of 59cm over 100 years, or between 0.19cm/year and 0.59cm/years. Might happen, but its not a threat to human life. Just walk away, folks.

The next IPCC report will almost certainly have a higher forecast, as the research that's come out since then has shown those numbers to be significant underestimates. Expect a median forecast of about 1m in the next report. And the rate speeds up over time; the equilibrium rise for a 2C warming, historically, appears to be 6-9 meters.

Maybe you are talking about drought? No, rainfall will increase if it gets significantly warmer.

Both flooding *and* drought are forecast to increase (on average) in a warming world. Which you're likely to get depends on where you are; some regions will get both. Yes, you're absolutely right that warmer SSTs = more precipitation. But warmer surface temperatures also mean faster evaporation (dessication of soil, plants, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, etc). It also means less snow pack, meaning river flows will vary more dramatically between seasons (ice keeps many important rivers from drying out during the summer).

Heat stroke? OK maybe, but offset by less hypothermia.

Heat stroke, hypothermia, drought, and sea level rise -- that's all you've got? How about greater range for malaria and dengue-fever carrying mosquitoes? The spread of pine bark beetles? The loss of almost all of the world's coral? The loss of keystone species of calcium carbonate-shelled microorganisms? The complete loss of habitat for arctic sea ice-dependent species? Increased risk of extinction for 20-30% of species studied? More rapid intensification of hurricanes (i.e., less warning)? Increased risk of wildfire? Increased growth of ragweed? Increased spread in seaborne pathogens like V. parahaemolyticus? Increasing risk of drought and flood causing more crop failures (and the consequences of that)? Radical changes in ecosystems, including thousands of species of plants and animals already found by studies to be migrating poleward? Seriously, I could spend all day on this.

It's not that a warmer climate is somehow a "worse" climate; it's a climate that neither life on this planet nor the way we've laid out our non-mobile infrastructure is adapted to.

Humans will adapt, esp. us in the first world who have the resources for it. But this will come at the cost of economic growth; we'll be spending our resources to break even (for a random example, to get water to the increasingly-dry and already water-unsustainable desert southwest). Humans in poorer regions will have a harder time of it, and non-human species will suffer the most. We're basically recreating the PETM.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

I'll repeat that again, because some people have trouble with this concept: the IPCC report draws no connection between CO2 and world calamity. If you've heard of New York being flooded when the glaciers melt, it wasn't based on any real scientific research. It was some weird propaganda that you picked up somewhere.

Okay, something we can agree on. The estimates at the 2009 AGU Fall Meeting placed an estimate of ~1.2 meters of sea level rise by 2100, though it varies around the globe due to factors like the gravitational attraction of the glaciers that are melting. People who quote estimates of ~20 meters are simply calculating the volume of the glaciers as a whole, which is absurd because even our most pessimistic estimates don't allow glaciers to completely melt in less than ~500 years.

But even a 1.2 meter increase in sea level would bring substantial economic hardship. For example, a storm surge in New York up to a level that would now be considered "once in 100 years" would happen every ~5 years.

While this doesn't sound as melodramatic, it's a real threat, and it's not the only one. I worry that the most damaging impact of abrupt climate change will be unpredictable changes in precipitation patterns. If a substantial fraction of the world's farmlands experience droughts because water is falling in areas that are currently deserts, serious disruptions of the global food supply could result.

If people are willing to kill for territory and nationalism now, imagine how much more aggressive starving people will be. This is what worries me. Not the immediate effects of climate change, but their secondary effects on international relations.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[joocemann]

I have an alternative question.... how serious is the threat of terrorism?

The chances of you dying from heart disease is way higher. The chances of you dying from eating a peanut is higher.

But, I can throw around numbers and give ignorant analysis too.

AGW will produce a 4 degree net increase (no source cited) --- but will yield a 15 degree local increase in the middle east. This will drive the terrists from their homes and they will have no choice but to end up on the freedomland. God bless it. And then since they will be here, the terrism goes up 100 fold! OH NOES!

Also, the warm temperatures inspire Obama to relax enough to let it slip that he's a muslim... and then, not only that, but that he's a terrist! Then the hussein obama nukes us all!
OH NOES!

Go eat some peanuts.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[dangitman]

No, the onus is on the scientists to provide evidence to support their claims, as it always is.

And that's what they've been doing.

Global warming has become a kind of a scare in the mind of the public that is detached from the scientific reality.

I'd say that's more the case with denialists and conspiracy theorists like yourself.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khallow]

The issue I take with that approach is that there seems there should be a point when a person or group of people should drop their self-interest and think about everyone, or in the AGW case, everything else.

You're making the unwarranted assumption that doing something to prevent AGW is more beneficial to everyone and everything than not doing so. That has not been established.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rockoon]

I didnt imply any such thing, and the fact that changes at location X will be different than at location Y does not support the notion of a "threat" on par or greater than terrorism. The movie The Day After Tomorrow was fiction, folks. People wont be running for their lives away from gradual warming.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rockoon]

I have an alternative question.... how serious is the threat of terrorism?

Eventually a radical group will get their hands on a nuke (either from a supporting nuclear power, or made in a basement somewhere), so you tell me.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

I'm going to ignore the rabid conspiracy theories you're presenting. As a scientist who sees a lot of evidence that our CO2 emissions are changing the climate, you'd probably just dismiss me as lying scum with a political agenda anyway.

But just in case someone else reads this, greenhouse warming models predict cooling and contraction of the stratosphere. The cooling is predicted to be strongest between altitudes of 40 and 50km.

The quick explanation is that greenhouse warming shifts the effective radiating layer of the planet to a lower altitude. As a result, the surface warms but the stratosphere cools. In fact, I consider this good evidence for the link between CO2 and increasing global temperatures. No other single cause warms the Earth from the surface like a greenhouse gas. (For example, an increase in solar illumination wouldn't have this effect.)

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[mevets]

Mod parent up. Do you know how much money oil companies have had to pay to break up this global warming conspiracy. Thanks to their tireless efforts we can now see what a charade it all is.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

While this doesn't sound as melodramatic, it's a real threat, and it's not the only one. I worry that the most damaging impact of abrupt climate change will be unpredictable changes in precipitation patterns. If a substantial fraction of the world's farmlands experience droughts because water is falling in areas that are currently deserts, serious disruptions of the global food supply could result.

This is exactly the problem. People think about climate change, and then they get into scenarios like this that have no scientific backing. Just like with Y2K when they worried about power plants exploding and planes falling out of the sky. Everyone has a scenario to worry about.

Of course global warming is something to keep our eye on, but lets not go insane over it.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Nefarious Wheel]

Yeah, I have to say I'm surprised anyone would object to CIA involvement

I certainly don't, and I can be as paranoid as anybody. For years I've enjoyed the amount of geographical information you can get from their World Factbook on their public web site. It includes such things as a country's crops and other products. If they keep historical data behind that (I can't imagine them throwing any of it away) you have the ability to mine economic indicators over time for trends.

However you judge the organisation, they do have a rather large database of facts. It's a lot of data, and with data you can do science.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

OK, what you have done is linked to a modern estimate (if by modern you mean 2006) made by two people. You tried to do this to show consensus.

The paper itself combines multiple estimates from different independent scientists. If you don't want to read the article, the summary says: However, a new paper in GRL this week by Annan and Hargreaves combines a number of these independent estimates to come up with the strong statement that the most likely value is about 2.9C with a 95% probability that the value is less than 4.5C.

You'll get similar results from examining models used in the ensemble of Meehl 2004. Sorry that I don't have time to make all this explicit. As you can tell, I'm swamped with pseudoscientists and I simply can't give everyone a crash course in climate physics.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

Incidentally, 5.76 degrees F is a rather large range. Don't you think they could cut it down at all?

We're trying to, as fast as we possibly can. But note that this is a 95% confidence interval, not a 1-sigma error bar.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[ArcherB]

Well, considering that anthropogenic climate change is probably a bigger threat in the long run than terrorism it's good that the CIA is helping.

I know. Maybe the CIA can help spin... explain how anthropogenic global warming is causing the worldwide Arctic blasts right now that are causing the coldest winter in decades worldwide, I'm glad the CIA is getting involved to help push the political agenda along. Nothing says "increase government power" like a worldwide spy agency. I wonder if we can get the KGB's assistance.

Funny how in the summer, it's anthropogenic global warming, but in the winter, it becomes anthropogenic climate change.

Seriously, as long as the data is honestly looked it at and made public and not "influenced" by any political factors, I'm all for it. Otherwise, I don't like the idea of my tax dollars going to twist the facts in order to push political agenda.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

Or maybe you could step back and realize that no GCM predicts monotonic warming, that there's a difference between local weather and the global climate, and that reading crackpot websites isn't a substitute for a graduate education in climate physics?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

The global climate is an average over the entire globe for at least several years. Probably 20 year averages are necessary to eliminate ENSO variability. And yeah, you wouldn't need a graduate education in geology, because that's not relevant. Try computational geophysics.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rising Ape]

Now we have governments offering billions to people who prove climate change - do you really think any of them are going to provide evidence to their masters that it's not real?

Do you really think the government want it to be true? They've as much reason as anyone to hope it's not, as the measures to deal with it will be politically unpopular. Furthermore, the Bush administration would have been *very* interested in anti-AGW results, given their fossil fuel links - in fact they pretty much told researchers not to talk about their results showing AGW. Nevertheless, the results showing that climate change was happening kept coming out, despite being against the government line.

If it's real, what does any scientist have to gain from it? Killing us all?

How about money from fossil fuel interests? And if you really have to ask what fossil fuel companies have to gain by denying climate change, then there's no hope for you. It's not going to kill us all (and nobody's said it will) - the doom-mongers are the ones saying that doing anything at all to stop it will destroy civilisation. Speaking of which...

If it was just a scientific issue, then I wouldn't give a rats ass if people are lying or not. However, since the way to "fix" it involved destroying the industrialized world

Good job nobody's proposed destroying the industrialized world then isn't it? Well, nobody anyone's going to listen to. It'll just cost money, resulting in slightly lower economic growth than otherwise (though probably still an overall benefit if you consider costs of adapting to climate change avoided).

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rising Ape]

Look, AGW is not string theory.

No, for a start it's an experimental science. And interpreting data correctly is very hard to do, particularly for something like a wide variety of factors affect it. The one common factor I see in these discussions is that people who aren't experimental scientists (e.g. programmers or engineers) have *no* understanding of how subtle and difficult it is. In fairness, neither did I before I did my experimental physics PhD, but at least I wasn't so sure that I knew better than the people who actually practiced these fields. There are so many things that can trip you up and give a completely wrong answer - and unlike programming (where your program doesn't compile or run correctly) you have no automatic way of discovering mistakes.

. Since that action demands changes in behavior for virtually every human on Earth, we are inherently qualified to discuss this.

What? You may be qualified to discuss what, if any, action should be taken, but that doesn't make you qualified to discuss the science. That's independent of its consequences.

That means the climate scientists need to explain their evidence, their models to us.

It's all published, knock yourself out.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[smashin234]

"crash course on climate physics" ....

Since you are the expert and the teacher, teach me why its wrong for people to question science?

Once again, its been said over and over again, but the basic tenant of science is questioning theories vigorously until they are proven through exhaustive testing.

Or why climate has anything to do with physics? I am also confused on that point...

All I hear is climate scientists have a "consensus" on what the future holds, and here you quote these people and claim to be one of these experts...Tell me, how is my stock going to do in 5 years? 10 years? 50 years....

It may seem like a bad example, but climate "physics" as you called it predicts the future, and there are many things that we do not know of the future that may effect climate. Even trying to predict 10 years in the future is dangerous because any number of unknowns may pop up...here are 4 examples, and you can tell me how the models take these into consideration...

1. The sun has an unusual period of sunspots. Not beyond the realm of impossible.
2. Major volcanic eruption. We still can't predict volcanic eruptions as of yet.
3. An increase in photosynthesis in plants that actually reduces CO2 from what we predict it will be.
4. Nuclear holocaust and/or insert your doomsday prediction here___________________ .

Again, you are the expert since you appear to be a teacher, so enlighten us all....

I don't know, sea lions can be trouble

[magsol]

"...Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, said the agency should be fighting terrorists, 'not spying on sea lions.'"

I sincerely doubt the CIA is going to put terrorism intelligence-gathering on the back burner in order to free up resources for this initiative. I also wouldn't be surprised if this Senator was one of the many who called for heads of the CRU scientists; and now he's quashing an attempt to make this research more transparent (not that there was really anything over which to call for the heads of the CRU scientists, unless you were part of a conspiracy circle).

Straw Man

[P0ltergeist333]

An unreasonable assertion with a lack of any pertinent information. Seems to me the Wyoming Republican expects you all to fall for his straw-man argument.

imaging issues

[girlintraining]

I can only assume -- or hope, that the data has been sanitized before release so that the image quality has been significantly degraded to not reveal the full capabilities of said satellites. The capabilities of those satellites are a closely-guarded national secret, and for good reason.

Industrial behavior has climatic effects, so...

[soup_laser]

tracking climatic effects should show industrial behavior. Tracking industrial behavior of foreign countries sounds like the business of the CIA to me.

Re:"Shouldn't be spying on sea lions"

[Bragador]

I wanted to mod you insightful instead of your current "Funny" status that you currently have.

Instead of having these guys spread the fear of terrorism and spy on us, they actually get to help science.

I can't believe people are angry over this.

Important to note

[Anonymous Coward]

That they aren't going to take a single new additional picture. This just allows the scientists to look at pictures after they have already been taken. This is getting an additional bang for our buck. We have already paid for these pictures, getting another use from them is a great thing.

not free

[ncohafmuta]

Even though the program is "basically free" in terms of CIA involvement

nothing's free. man hours aren't free. somebody has to task those satellites. this isn't SkyNet.

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Countries worldwide are lining up to fight water wars; some current civil wars, such as Darfur, can be traced directly to scarcity of water. Canada is making territorial claims to the Northwest Passage which a number of other countries dispute -- nobody cared before the ice started melting, but now it's a different story. This is the reality right now, not in 50 or 100 years; how is keeping track of it not part of the CIA's job?

One Phrase

[The Wild Norseman]

One phrase comes to mind and that is "plausible deniability."

CIA Dude: Hey, we're not intentionally spying on your country from our satellites. We're tracking migratory patterns of pigeons and their nests in and around your capitol buildings. Completely innocent, I assure you.

Re:Bullshit

[khayman80]

Did you read the DRAFT paper you cited.

That's because it's the publically accessible version. Here's the version you want if you're on campus. Citation: Annan, J. D., and J. C. Hargreaves (2006), Using multiple observationally-based constraints to estimate climate sensitivity, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L06704, doi:10.1029/2005GL025259.

I've already discussed the lag between temperature and CO2. Aside from your conspiracy theories, the only other thing you say is that model parameterizations in general can't be used to learn about the universe. What a weird attitude coming from someone who's using technology created with the help of computer models!

Re:Deniers

[hairyfeet]

This is actually an easy argument to solve, and why I personally don't trust the AGW'ers ATM. Show us the CODE! Give us ALL the raw data, every last scrap, and let us see the code behind the models. As much as I can't stand RMS I have to agree with him when it comes to something this important: We just can't trust "black box computing" and without the code it can be manipulated to say anything you want. Considering it will cost billions and make a lot of scammers (Goldman Sachs and the whole "carbon credit" bullshit) an assload of cash I want to see the code.

I may not have the skills to read the daw data, but one of the nice things I learned from the FLOSS movement is their are plenty of really smart folks out there that can read the code if it is made available. And frankly I would trust the Comp Sci geeks a LOT more than all the political BS we have seen from BOTH camps in this debate. Want us to believe you? Show us the code!

Re:Education

[NeutronCowboy]

Please explain how everyone of the thousands of papers published in peer-review journals failed the Scientific Method. Please. I'm not sure if you'll be done within the next 100 years or so, but I'll be happy to wait.

Re:Deniers

[tjstork]

1. To label skeptics Deniers tells us all about your agenda. This is not about Jews and the Holocaust.

Holocaust? Didn't you know, World War II was faked. In fact, there's actually no such place as Germany!

Re:Deniers

[geekpowa]

You assert alot of things about the state of climate science here - yet previously you said that you are not a climatologist and all non-climatologists (including presumably yourself) should butt out.

I never broadcasted my opinion on this issue only to request more transparency and to assert that climate science fundamentals are reasonably approachable without requiring too much onerous background knowledge.

With all due respect to you, your assertion that science, as it is practiced today is already fully transparent and by inference is free from politics, self interest and corrupting influences is a little naive - especially coming from a practising scientist.

Finally - if you insist on only getting data from credible/qualified sources - then good for you. If you insist on personalities over empirical evidence, that can be easily accommodated. For a skeptical "qualified" viewpoint - hears some personalities: Lindzon, Haynie, McKintyre, Spencer, McKitrick, Lomberg. Quite a diversity of research and conclusions should you care to take a look.

Re:Deniers

[riverat1]

The vast majority of data and model codes are available if you care to look for them. The GISS has links on their web site to all of theirs including the Model E General Circulation Model (GCM, aka Global Climate Model) code. That's one of the GCM's used in the latest IPCC report. NOAA has lots of data available including raw station data. Knock yourself out.