Proposed Budget Seeks To Close Mauna Loa Observatory's Climate CO2 Study (cnn.com) 53
"Slashdot regularly posts milestones on CO2 levels reported by the Mauna Loa Observatory," writes longtime Slashdot reader symbolset, pointing to a new article highlighting how the Trump administration's proposed budget would eliminate funding for the lab's carbon dioxide monitoring. "Continuous observation records since 1958 will end with the new federal budget as ocean and atmospheric sciences are defunded." From a report: [I]t's the Mauna Loa laboratory that is the most prominent target of the President Donald Trump's climate ire, as measurements that began there in 1958 have steadily shown CO2's upward march as human activities have emitted more and more of the planet-warming gas each year. The curve produced by the Mauna Loa measurements is one of the most iconic charts in modern science, known as the Keeling Curve, after Charles David Keeling, who was the researcher who painstakingly collected the data. His son, Ralph Keeling, a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, now oversees collecting and updating that data.
Today, the Keeling Curve measurements are made possible by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration, but the data gathering and maintenance of the historical record also is funded by Schmidt Sciences and Earth Networks, according to the Keeling Curve website. In the event of a NOAA shut down of the lab, Scripps could seek alternate sources of funding to host the instruments atop the same peak or introduce a discontinuity in the record by moving the instruments elsewhere in Hawaii.
The proposal to shut down Mauna Loa had been made public previously but was spelled out in more detail on Monday when NOAA submitted a budget document (PDF) to Congress. It made more clear that the Trump administration envisions eliminating all climate-related research work at NOAA, as had been proposed in Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for overhauling the government. It would do this in large part by cutting NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research entirely, including some labs that are also involved in improving weather forecasting. NOAA has long been one of the world's top climate science agencies, but the administration would steer it instead towards being more focused on operational weather forecasting and warning responsibilities.
Today, the Keeling Curve measurements are made possible by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration, but the data gathering and maintenance of the historical record also is funded by Schmidt Sciences and Earth Networks, according to the Keeling Curve website. In the event of a NOAA shut down of the lab, Scripps could seek alternate sources of funding to host the instruments atop the same peak or introduce a discontinuity in the record by moving the instruments elsewhere in Hawaii.
The proposal to shut down Mauna Loa had been made public previously but was spelled out in more detail on Monday when NOAA submitted a budget document (PDF) to Congress. It made more clear that the Trump administration envisions eliminating all climate-related research work at NOAA, as had been proposed in Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for overhauling the government. It would do this in large part by cutting NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research entirely, including some labs that are also involved in improving weather forecasting. NOAA has long been one of the world's top climate science agencies, but the administration would steer it instead towards being more focused on operational weather forecasting and warning responsibilities.
Retrospective (Score:5, Interesting)
The Slashdot discussion from crossing 400 ppm in 2013:
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
This year's monthly average peak so far, and a new record, was 430.51 ppm in May.
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/tren... [noaa.gov]
Re:Retrospective (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, it appears comment #1 was wrong.
The rapid increase of CO2 sparked instead a united movement of the plainly ignorant and the willfully ignorant, which is successfully shutting down science in the former USA.
Predicrtable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Predicrtable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
Trump is the dictator of the proletariat.
The white-collar bourgeoisie is not happy.
It's not turning out like Marx predicted.
Re: Predicrtable. (Score:4, Insightful)
He don't care about working-class people, except when playing on fears, insecurities or prejudices can help him getting power or spreading hate. Indications: Just look at actual politics, like cutting medicaid, veterans benefits, and a large amount of the other small provisions that existed to make life bearable people that are not billionaires.
Re: Predicrtable. (Score:2)
Re: Predicrtable. (Score:3)
Trump is as much for the 'proletariat' as Hitler was who hunted those who really were and had them executed. Trump's claim to act for normal people or the 'working class' is the same lie as Hitler's putting the term 'socialist' in the name of his party.
Re:Predicrtable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget building camps for "undesirables" and stripping political enemies of citizenship. No don't build housing for homeless veterans or anything that could help people.
Re: (Score:2)
I truly admire Trump. No hear me out, he's the bravest man in history. Yeah he gets some flak to running away from the Vietnam war, but that is childsplay compared to attempting to become dictator in the 2nd Amendement capital of the world. I'm genuinely surprised republicans didn't support democrats in gun control prior to going down this path.
The man has gonads!
Oh shit I used a foreign word. I guess I'd self deport if I lived there now.
We're losing so much (Score:5, Insightful)
We're losing so much all in the name of giving tax cuts to the wealthy and we'll still see trillions added to the national debt.
It would be one thing if they were honestly trying to reduce our debt level but all this just so our wealthy can all be even more wealthy is just immoral.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:We're losing so much (Score:4, Insightful)
We're losing so much all in the name of giving tax cuts to the wealthy and we'll still see trillions added to the national debt.
It would be one thing if they were honestly trying to reduce our debt level but all this just so our wealthy can all be even more wealthy is just immoral.
I agree with what you said, except the word "immoral" should be replaced with the phrase "evil and criminal". (Keeping in mind that I'm using the definition of "criminal" which applied before Trump and his sycophants changed its meaning to "disagreeing with us or merely being someone we don't like or approve of").
Re: (Score:2)
Not just tax cuts for rich people (Score:2)
Make no mistake people, especially people here who tend to be better educated and informed, made a trade.
I don't believe for a second there is anyone here on this forum that doesn't know Republicans are bad for the economy. Tech nerds have more than enough pattern recognition to figure that one out.
So you have to start asking why the people here voted trump, and I know they did. Not everybody but I would guess the majority.
And that just leaves moral panics. Woke
Re: (Score:3)
As I have said before. It's kind of like the US drove into oncoming traffic trying to avoid a squirrel in the road. I really don't know where all this angst for the dems came from that you would rathe
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We're losing so much all in the name of giving tax cuts to the wealthy
This isn't even that. The motivation behind funneling money to the wealthy and shutting down of basic science isn't the same. The Big Beautiful Bill (do republicans have a thing for fatties, or is BBW the only porn style available in the USA these days?) raised the debt ceiling with a stroke of a pen by an exorbitant amount. That more than covers the tax breaks while it would have allowed for an increase in the science budget.
Science is under attack for a different reason, and it's far worse than to make ri
Correlation does not equal. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
US needs $100.
They print a bond. They sell that bond. Someone buys that bond at auction.
The US gets $100 in its treasury, $100 in debt, and someone just traded $100 for a new asset worth $100.
The US is funded by the rich, the public in general, and foreign governments. But mostly the rich.
As it should be (Score:1, Troll)
It would do this in large part by cutting NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research entirely, including some labs that are also involved in improving weather forecasting. NOAA has long been one of the world's top climate science agencies, but the administration would steer it instead towards being more focused on operational weather forecasting and warning responsibilities.
For all that money they are supposed to be spending on improving weather forecasting, they aren't doing a very good job. The European Model [wikipedia.org] is considered to produce better forecasts. For US weather. Drop the screwing around with highly theoretical climate models and get better at "operational weather forecasting and warning responsibilities".
Climate Science politics may very well be distorting the forecasting function. You don't start out with your idea of the weather and then seek out data, models and sci
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Re: (Score:2)
Watch it again.
https://youtu.be/zicGxU5MfwE?s... [youtu.be]
Re: As it should be (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The European Model [wikipedia.org] is considered to produce better forecasts. For US weather.
There are a few asterisks needed to make that claim true, but with those asterisks it is- and I do agree that's not a great look for us.
The GFS is generally inferior to the IFS. These are both global models.
The HRRR and NAM have no analogues- and the IFS doesn't come anywhere close to doing what they do, so it's not accurate to say that "The European Model is more accurate for US Weather.".
It is more accurate than the GFS for US weather- that much is true. But US forecasts aren't using the GFS.
FUCK TRUMP (Score:5, Insightful)
What more can you say really.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Every morning I wake up looking forward to them finding his bloated corpse dead on his golden toilet. Nothing but disappointment so far.
Extending Trump's COVID strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
"If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any"
becomes "if we stop measuring, we'd have much less excess CO2, if any"
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Extending Trump's COVID strategy (Score:2)
global network (Score:1, Flamebait)
You are aware that there is a global netwwork of atmospheric measuring stations and you can estimate it from satellites as well? Oh good. All this pearl clutching about withdrawal of government funding from one facility (paging Di Caprio, billionaires and Al gore ) is rather funny.
Re: (Score:1)
those are all controlled by CHY-nah who started this climate change hoax
Re: (Score:3)
But if I seal you in a tank and start filling it with water, you're not going to be very excited about how amazing it is in very short order.
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Just don't become addicted to it.
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Yeah carbon is the building blocks of life. I suspect leaded paint was a part of your childhood.
Same way he handled Covid (Score:2)
If you don't monitor it the problem will surely go away,
Re: Is it the job of the NOAA to track CO2? (Score:3)
You do need hard data to understand climate change change. That is the difference between science and mere belief. Mona Loa has a continuous record for many decades. That is very valuable data.
Re: (Score:3)
It's convenient to make up your own facts, yes? NOAA's mission, as established by several congresses, is rather more than weather forecasting.
https://www.congress.gov/crs-p... [congress.gov]
Re: (Score:1)
but it appears to me that there's a government agency already tasked with tracking CO2 emissions from the USA. That's likely the Department of ... Commerce.
If only there was agency within the Department of Commerce with a chartered purpose of tracking the oceans and atmosphere. If only this agency was given the strict purpose of monitoring the atmosphere for climate and weather data for the Dept of Commerce. If only this agency had that information directly stated in their mission statement and funded by Congress every year. https://www.noaa.gov/our-mission-values-and-vision [noaa.gov]
Idiot
Ignore the climate (Score:3)
Probably useless anyway... (Score:1)
I wish I could be optimistic, but looking around makes it quite difficult to me...
Why would we need to track CO2 emission, when anyway most people do not care? Just have a quick look at FlightRadar24 [flightradar24.com]. All these yellow tiny spots (that look like cockroaches to me) contribute to the CO2 emission. But most people simply want to have fun right now, without thinking about the future of their own kids. Look at the huge corporations just doing whatever they can to increase their profit, right now.
So why would we
No need for Fed funding (Score:1)
Re: No need for Fed funding (Score:2)