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Trump White House Quietly Cancels NASA Research Verifying Greenhouse Gas Cuts (sciencemag.org)
Paul Voosen, reporting for Science magazine: You can't manage what you don't measure. The adage is especially relevant for climate-warming greenhouse gases, which are crucial to manage -- and challenging to measure. In recent years, though, satellite and aircraft instruments have begun monitoring carbon dioxide and methane remotely, and NASA's Carbon Monitoring System (CMS), a $10-million-a-year research line, has helped stitch together observations of sources and sinks into high-resolution models of the planet's flows of carbon. Now, President Donald Trump's administration has quietly killed the CMS, Science has learned.
The move jeopardizes plans to verify the national emission cuts agreed to in the Paris climate accords, says Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of Tufts University's Center for International Environment and Resource Policy in Medford, Massachusetts. "If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the agreement," she says. Canceling the CMS "is a grave mistake," she adds.
The move jeopardizes plans to verify the national emission cuts agreed to in the Paris climate accords, says Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of Tufts University's Center for International Environment and Resource Policy in Medford, Massachusetts. "If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the agreement," she says. Canceling the CMS "is a grave mistake," she adds.
Other countries need to fill in as the US culls science programs and generally sets itself back to the stone age. After all, you'll need to know how much CO2 is being emitted when the US has to come crawling back years from now to buy carbon credits from the EU and China...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
This isn't a uniquely Republican / Democrat United States problem. It's a problem in the UK and and it's a problem in Australia and so likely in most Western Democracies.
Simplistic ideas presented with easy-to-remember slogans defeat any complexity because of how humans work. Very few voters have any understanding of the various issues facing modern society, so politicians can say whatever they want without really being held to account in any kind of realistic fashion.
As a meta-example, it would be easy for me to get on your Republican-bashing bandwagon, but the issues at stake are infinitely more complex than that. The Republican / Democrat divide is a perfect example of humans inability to process nuance outside their areas of deep understanding, which are generally very narrow if they exist at all.
We've got easily persuaded societies under political systems that reward the kinds of people least deserving of positions of power.
If anti-science wins votes, then anti-science it is!
Headline doesn't mention that the US is simply not measuring greenhouse emissions to ensure Paris Climate compliance, because after all, why should the US spend money on something it was withdrawn from?
Such monetary figures equate to a basement project for likes of Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer, Al Gore, etc. Each of those charlatans has aircraft and maintenance costs that approach $65 million dollars - just to spew carbon for their collective convenience they're paying it already.
They can pay for this easy
Precisely. NOAA is handling it, and their funding was 100% maintained. NASA is refocusing on space and exploration. Additionally, people here don't understand that funding comes from Congress - not the President. If a program's funding was cut, it was cut by Congress.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Exactly.
The NOAA actually does monitor this. It's just another government duplication
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/...
Wrong. NOAA monitors the same variables but though different mechanisms. They use what looks like fixed land based sites and measurements from ocean vessels.
NASA's monitoring involved sampling from Aircraft and satellite measurements. Not only are you measuring CO2 in areas the NOAA can't (different parts of the atmosphere... different parts of the globe), and providing different kinds of data they cant, but you're also providing an independent check on the NOAA data.
I stole this Sig
No to Agenda 21 and its heirs
No to Kyoto and its heirs, specifically the PCA.
I'm more concerned about Trump and his heirs than your crackpot conspiracy theories.
None of these "international agreements" have ever been ratified by the Senate and are therefore not binding on the US or its citizens.
Any programs of dollars spent towards any of these things that were "nodded" to by previous administrations needs to be stopped immediately.
Just because you're not obliged by international treaty doesn't mean you shouldn't do something.
I stole this Sig
I'm not sure where you get your news... but, the Russia thing is not bullshit. Russia did hack the US and spread FUD on social media to try and influence the election. These are known facts. The Mueller investigation is still going on, so we don't know for sure if there was any collusion or not.
Trump is mentioned by people on here, not because people are "butthurt", but because his administration pulled the plug on a vital program. It is an idiotic move. Especially given that the common argument of Climate change deniers is that "We don't know if climate change is man made. We don't have enough evidence." So...lets stop collecting more evidence and more science. If you don't have enough evidence, wouldn't you want to ramp up and collect more evidence and study it more? Besides the fact that there are many hundreds of thousands of peer-reviewed documents which come to the same conclusion. i.e. Man made climate change is real and is a fact.
Wrong. NOAA monitors the same variables but though different mechanisms. They use what looks like fixed land based sites and measurements from ocean vessels.
NASA's monitoring involved sampling from Aircraft and satellite measurements. Not only are you measuring CO2 in areas the NOAA can't (different parts of the atmosphere... different parts of the globe), and providing different kinds of data they cant, but you're also providing an independent check on the NOAA data.
There's no reason why NOAA can't use and study the data. They would have the access to the satellites and data that NASA has.
There's no reason why this couldn't be rolled under NOAA's budget as a cost savings measure since that data could be used internally by NOAA for other projects. It's not like the Satellite coudn't be used for other projects or rolled into upcoming weather satellites.
There's no reason why NASA, a Space Engineering Agency needs to be independently checking NOAA, a Climate Science and Research Agency. especially when there's no less than three other agency's (NWS, EPA, DEP) that are better equipped (both professionally and equipment wise) to verify climate and CO Emissions than NASA.
This Notion that NASA is a science agency needs to stop now. It is an Engineering agency. Of course there is science in NASA, but that Science should be focused on engineering the satellites and equipment we need in conjunction with the established science and research bodies such as NOAA, NWS, EPA, Various Colleges and Universities, etc so that they have the tools they need to do their scientific studies.
If we can shift that 10 Million from NASA to NOAA, and NOAA orders the satellite from NASA and uses the leftover cash for more climate studies instead of hiring climate experts (which NASA would have to do. NOAA already has experts), then nothing has changed study wise and the money could be more efficiently spent.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
If we can shift that 10 Million from NASA to NOAA, and NOAA orders the satellite from NASA and uses the leftover cash for more climate studies instead of hiring climate experts (which NASA would have to do. NOAA already has experts)
NASA already has experts too. You wouldn't actually save any money. You still need the same work to be done. By moving the project from one place to another, you would even incur extra costs and inefficiencies during the transition.
But all of that is completely irrelevant. The project and budget isn't shifted. It's shafted.