31 March 2017, Climate Central, ‘Critical’ NASA Climate Missions Targeted in Budget Cuts. In his most recent weekly address, President Trump praised NASA’s “mission of exploration and discovery” and its ability to allow mankind to “look to the heavens with wonder and curiosity.” But left out of his statements was the work NASA does to peer back at our home planet and unravel its many remaining mysteries — a mission targeted for cuts in his administration’s budget outline released earlier this month. In a budget otherwise scant on specifics, four climate-related NASA satellite missions were proposed for termination, including one already in orbit. Those missions are aimed not only at helping scientists learn more about key parts of the climate system and how global warming is changing them, but also at practical matters such as monitoring the health of the nation’s coastal waters and providing earlier warnings of drought stress in crops. The proposed cancellations mesh with statements made by Trump, administration officials and some members of Congress who have argued that NASA should be focused on outer space and leave the job of observing Earth to other agencies. But NASA’s unparalleled experience and expertise in developing new observational technologies and launching satellites makes it a crucial part of the Earth science enterprise, many experts say. Read More here
Category Archives: The Science
27 March 2017, The Guardian, Trump presidency ‘opens door’ to planet-hacking geoengineer experiments. As geoengineer advocates enter Trump administration, plans advance to spray sun-reflecting chemicals into atmosphere. Harvard engineers who launched the world’s biggest solar geoengineering research program may get a dangerous boost from Donald Trump, environmental organizations are warning. Under the Trump administration, enthusiasm appears to be growing for the controversial technology of solar geo-engineering, which aims to spray sulphate particles into the atmosphere to reflect the sun’s radiation back to space and decrease the temperature of Earth. Sometime in 2018, Harvard engineers David Keith and Frank Keutsch hope to test spraying from a high-altitude balloon over Arizona, in order to assess the risks and benefits of deployment on a larger scale. Keith cancelled a similar planned experiment in New Mexico in 2012, but announced he was ready for field testing at a geoengineering forum in Washington on Friday. “The context for discussing solar geoengineering research has changed substantially since we planned and funded this forum nearly one year ago,” a forum briefing paper noted. While geoengineering received little favour under Obama, high-level officials within the Trump administration have been long-time advocates for planetary-scale manipulation of Earth systems. David Schnare, an architect of Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency transition, has lobbied the US government and testified to Senate in favour of federal support for geoengineering. He has called for a multi-phase plan to fund research and conduct real-world testing within 18 months, deploy massive stratospheric spraying three years after, and continue spraying for a century, a duration geoengineers believe would be necessary to dial back the planet’s temperature. Geoengineers argue that such methods would be an inexpensive way to reduce global warming, but scientists have warned it could have catastrophic consequences for the Earth’s weather systems. Scientific modelling has shown that stratospheric spraying could drastically curtail rainfall throughout Asia, Africa and South America, causing severe droughts and threatening food supply for billions of people. Read More here
21 March 2017, The Guardian, Record-breaking climate change pushes world into ‘uncharted territory’ Earth is a planet in upheaval, say scientists, as the World Meteorological Organisation publishes analysis of recent heat highs and ice lows. The record-breaking heat that made 2016 the hottest year ever recorded has continued into 2017, pushing the world into “truly uncharted territory”, according to the World Meteorological Organisation. The WMO’s assessment of the climate in 2016, published on Tuesday, reports unprecedented heat across the globe, exceptionally low ice at both poles and surging sea-level rise. Global warming is largely being driven by emissions from human activities, but a strong El Niño – a natural climate cycle – added to the heat in 2016. The El Niño is now waning, but the extremes continue to be seen, with temperature records tumbling in the US in February and polar heatwaves pushing ice cover to new lows. “Even without a strong El Niño in 2017, we are seeing other remarkable changes across the planet that are challenging the limits of our understanding of the climate system. We are now in truly uncharted territory,” said David Carlson, director of the WMO’s world climate research programme. “Earth is a planet in upheaval due to human-caused changes in the atmosphere,” said Jeffrey Kargel, a glaciologist at the University of Arizona in the US. “In general, drastically changing conditions do not help civilisation, which thrives on stability.” The WMO report was “startling”, said Prof David Reay, an emissions expert at the University of Edinburgh: “The need for concerted action on climate change has never been so stark nor the stakes so high.” The new WMO assessment also prompted some scientists to criticise Donald Trump. “While the data show an ever increasing impact of human activities on the climate system, the Trump administration and senior Republicans in Congress continue to bury their heads in the sand,” said Prof Sir Robert Watson, a distinguished climate scientist at the UK’s University of East Anglia and a former head of the UN’s climate science panel. Read More here
10 February 2017, Carbon Brief, Guest post: Why NOAA updates its sea surface temperature record. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is one of a number of climate agencies that pieces together global temperature from thousands of measurements taken each year across the world’s land and oceans. Last weekend, an article in the Mail on Sunday sparked interest in the way NOAA constructs its temperature record. The claims in the article, widely rebutted shortly after its publication, focused on the most recent version of NOAA’s sea surface temperature (SST) record. I have been involved in the development of this dataset since 2011 and it is due to be updated again shortly. However, an early draft of the journal paper about this update appears to have been circulated amongst media without the permission of the authors (including myself). I have, therefore, decided to make some observations here in a personal capacity that may help make better sense of how the dataset is produced and what it shows. Peer review The status of the new version of our dataset – nominally labelled “ERSSTv5” – is that we have submitted a paper to a journal, and it is undergoing peer review. As is the academic norm, the authors wish to respect the review process and did not give their permission for the draft to be shared with the media. To be clear, the authors have expressly not given permission for the draft to be used or quoted in the media. To be equally clear, at this juncture, copyright of the paper remains with the authors. The peer review process on the paper has only just begun, therefore it is premature and incorrect to analyse the dataset in detail before the paper is published. Peer review is an essential step towards eventual acceptance of any new research. It is highly unusual – and, in my view, undesirable – to discuss the specifics of submitted manuscripts in a public manner before this process has concluded. Peer review will, inevitably, point out ideas which shall serve to strengthen any given analysis. I shall, therefore, not be discussing specific scientific aspects of the draft paper and shall refer to it below only to the barest extent required. If and when the paper is published, this will be the appropriate time to discuss its findings in depth and I would be delighted to do so. Read More here