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US Climate Monitoring Information Service Gets Go-Ahead in Washington
Noaa Climate Services 'one-stop shop' on data to shore up public faith after IPCC's faulty glacier claims and academic email scandal
The Obama administration delivered a vote of confidence in climate science today by founding a service to study and report on global warming.
Noaa Climate Services hopes to undo the climate scepticism caused by the IPCC's unfounded claims about Himalayan glaciers melting. Photograph: SUBEL BHANDARI/AFP/Getty Images It
will put scientists and data from the national weather service and
various departments of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (Noaa) under one roof in Washington DC.
Administration officials described Noaa Climate Services, which will be accessible to the public at www.climate.gov, as "one-stop shopping" for business, the public and officials seeking information on climate change.
They added it could help shore up the public's faith in climate science after errors in what was supposed to be the scientific gold standard, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's reports, and the exposure of hundreds of emails showing efforts to evade requests for data and apparent attempts to cover up flawed climate information.
"We are the world's largest library of data on climate change," said Gary Locke, the commerce secretary who has overall charge of Noaa. "Creating this office will help us provide leadership on more deliberate research on climate monitoring and assessment and doing it in a much more co-ordinated fashion so everyone will be able to see exactly what Noaa does and the climate service does." The proposed reorganisation will not require additional funding but it will still need to be authorised by Congress.
Jane Lubchenco, who as head of Noaa is one of the administration's most prominent scientists, noted that the new US climate site will feature constantly updated data on temperature, carbon dioxide concentration and sea level, which will be readily available to scientists and the public.
"Noaa is committed to openness to making available all the data it collects freely and accessibly," she said. "The new climate portal should make it even easier for the public to access and be able to examine for themselves the information that goes into various assessments."
She said that Noaa had become an increasingly valued resource for business and planners. The service would seek to build on that, offering information for schools, businesses and town planners. "Having trusted sources as providers of that information is critically important," she said.
She defended the overall credibility of the IPCC despite the error on Himalayan glaciers when it admitted that earlier claims the Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035 was unfounded. "It is not a perfect process and I think recent events have highlighted a couple of areas where it can be improved," she said.
"That said, I think the vast majority of conclusions in the IPCC are credible and have been through a very rigorous process and are absolutely state of the science."
- Posted in
11 Comments so far
Show AllThis will also provide "one-stop" targeting for the denialist industry.
I cannot agree. I've not seen how the center will be established, but if we look at other scientific disciplines that provide access to complete world data, the job for denialists becomes significantly harder because it is easy to expose cherry picking and data "tweaking". Of course, it works both ways, but it is good to eliminate poor science from the debate.
E.g., the seismological community hosts almost ALL digital data accumulated since the 1960s on a huge mass-store. Anyone with a browser can request raw waveform data and meta-data for free. This has absolutely revolutionized that field, and now represents the Holy Grail of scientific data dissemination. Many other scientific disciplines, with encouragement (ie mandated) by the National Science Foundation, are setting up their own mass-stores. Such disciplines include optical astronomy, hydrology, genomes etc.
Such systems basically eliminates "private" data and provides absolute traceability. It is a good move.
"it could help shore up the public's faith in climate science after errors in what was supposed to be the scientific gold standard, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's reports"
I amazes me that deniers only need to be right once in a blue moon, but IPCC literally can't have a 10 word mistake in a 3000 page report without Faux News and Glenn Beck counciling the sheep to discard the entire report.
Guys: blatant lying and bias in news reportage used to be constrained to fringe reports. When a mainstream media source like Faux News tilts its coverage so completely that climate change supporters must be PERFECT before they can be taken seriously, something sick is loose in our society.
I'm not sure how much longer we're supposed to just let Faux News turn our fellow citizens into informational Neaderthalls before taking matters into our own hands, and stringing some of these puppets up.
You heard it first here:
This sounds somewhat fishy, possibly some kind of coordinated action across countries on the issue of climate change. The media is either failing in its duty or has been co-opted.
Here's why:
Some time ago, the Indian minister for environment announced a similar move - where he said the Indian government would set up an agency to build expertise within the country on climate science, made of about 200 researchers from various institutes in the country, initially. It sounded really weird to me at that time - and this was announced soon after the Himalayan glacier story broke out.
And now, we are hearing something exactly similar - from the US government. Noaa, right. Nice name. And the US commerce secretary "has overall charge of Noaa". I don't think that the acronym not being in all CAPS is an accident - it's probably meant to give a friendly feel - sort of like Nato.
This sounds like the first, coordinated step in the sidelining of the IPCC and the UN (the IPCC is a UN body, after all, and many Americans should have no problem with dumping the UN; I'm not saying the UN is perfect - but there are certain agencies within UN that have done great work against great odds; it's easy to paint the whole of the UN with the same brush). The Kyoto Protocol itself is based on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Even the sabotaging of the Copenhagen conference seemed clearly a coordinated attempt - between the developed countries and some of the "emerging" economies - such as China, India, Brazil, South Africa, etc. Russia, too, possibly. The emerging economies probably were not the initiators of the sabotage - but they clearly didn't want to be stuck with a bullsh!t agreement where the historically large polluters would continue to dodge their share of responsibility, and they did not join openly with the so-called "least developed countries", because they have all given up any kind of moral posturing. It's purely business, unless everyone was willing to do their share.
Most of the developing countries - including the emerging economies - want to build on the Kyoto Protocol - which means some of the countries going back and meeting their earlier, totally modest commitments. It's unacceptable that some of the countries have allowed their emissions to increase AFTER signing the Kyoto accord, and now they want to pretend that Kyoto didn't matter. They want to pretend that the whole thing starts now - so they can lock in whatever advantages they have, and the developing countries would in turn be locked in - in their present status. Many people in the developed countries also seem to be under the impression that this whole thing starts now, and that cap-and-trade was the main point on the agenda. No, the process started in 1997 - most of the EU countries went ahead with meeting their commitments, Australia too joined in later, with somewhat easier target, but USA and Canada want to opt out of Kyoto, without saying so. The host country of the Kyoto Protocol, Japan, too will not meet its targets. So they all want to pretend that Kyoto doesn't matter.
Not only some countries want to dump the Kyoto Protocol, some of them also want to leave out the UN in any future agreements - so they can keep moving the goal posts.
The formation of "Noaa" seems to be the first step in dumping the UN from future climate-related agreements. I know I've been reading too many conspiracy theories. So I'm willing to listen if someone thinks I'm being paranoid.
Sorry. NOAA has been around for a long time, and is probably the world leader in studying and reporting global warming and ocean acidification. It was the Bush administration that tried to stifle reporting by NOAA and NASA. The agency is staffed by career scientists and Obama's cabinet appointments have been called an "environmental dream team".
The major controversies in the Obama admin do not include acceptance of AGW and ocean acidification. They do include money for clean coal carbon sequestration, nuclear power and biofuels.
Other things to follow are will the bipartisan clean energy/energy independence coalition of Lindsay Graham, Joe Liebermann and John Kerry gain traction or will the tea partiers and Fox hoot it down, and will crazies like Bachmann and Murkowski try to gut (last resort) EPA enforcement?
Thanks for the correction,bbr-001. So it's the "Noaa Climate Services" that is new, then? Also, why is NOAA under the Commerce Department?
Do you think "acceptance of AGW and ocean acidification" are controversies? Sorry, that sentence of yours is not too clear. I agree - that trying to sneak in "clean" coal and nuclear under the climate change agenda is a dead giveaway that they don't really care about tackling climate change. Moves like these, and the not-so-clever attempt on cap-and-trade, and the British/European insistence on biofuels - all of these do nothing to improve their credibility, and I'm at a loss about where to draw the line on the denial industry.
The author did define "Noaa" as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in her first paragraph.
As for India, India has a national policy of NEVER sharing scientific data of any kind with scientists outside of India. Actually, they treat it as a felonious offense. It is one of the reasons why most world scientists never cooperate with scientists in India because they treat all their data as "private". I know of several US scientists who have been detained by Indian Customs when they attempt to export a hard drive with data. The US scientists were released and allowed to continue their journey home, sans data.
After the 2004 Sumatran earthquake, many countries around the Indian Ocean built seismic and tsunami warning networks. India invested very, very heavily in its own networks, but refuse to share any of the data with its neighbors who eagerly share data from their own networks.
I think your point about India not sharing data may be true only in certain fields - and I also know a little bit of the rationale there. India and China have much experience with how sharing of technical knowhow works. There is clearly a rich-man's club. It's even possible to call it a white-man's club - but Japan is part of this club sometimes. For example, the International Space Station has completely kept out any sort of involvement by India and China.
I think you are completely wrong about the tsunami warning network. It would be idiotic for any of the countries along the Indian Ocean to choose to go it alone, and I don't think the Indians are *that* stupid. India was however not part of the *Pacific* network at one time - maybe that was a mistake. Maybe it's still not part of the Pacific network.
I think the reality regarding "sharing" of data is something different. The elite in India have signed away much knowledge - both recent scientific data and a whole lot of data on traditional medicinal plants - as part of a so-called "India-USA Knowledge Initiative". What the Indians get under this is just some copyright protection on their software sold in the US. In return, US pharmaceutical companies get fantastic access to data from India. I remember some protests by activists - primarily because they feared this would lead to more patenting of drugs developed out of previously non-patented information.
Well, you got me there. India shares data from only 4 stations within its new tsunami warning system, a system of 70 seismic stations and 50 tide gauges:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7071/full/4381060a.html
So my statement "never shares data" is erroneous. Thanks for the catch.
My point in my earlier post was that India may be toeing the line of the US and other developed countries here, in sidelining the IPCC. I also mentioned not-capitalizing NOAA - I didn't say that the acronym was not explained. I noticed that recently Nato is not capitalized in some newspapers - it's possibly to present a friendlier feel.
I've been trying to make sense of the real motivation behind the formation of the "Noaa Climate Services". The subtitle on this story looked suspicious. That the US government was trying to "shore up" public faith on the issue of climate change sounded reeeeally strange. I guess if I had bothered to check some other sources, even the New York Times, for example, it would have been clearer:
what seems to be happening is that the US administration seems to go straight to adaptation. Most of the rest of the world - other than the rich countries in temperate climate - wants to focus on mitigation, even while preparing for, and asking for help with, "adaptation". Mitigation would involve serious reduction of emissions. The USA seems to have quietly moved on to adaptation without committing to any meaningful reduction in emissions. As with everything else, there are plans for the involvement of the private sector, too.
The complete ABSENCE of the word "adaptation" and an *idiotic* subtitle by this Guardian reporter (which is what really sent me on a conspiracy trail) is probably an indication of the need for "sexing up" stories. A pathetic attempt to fit this story into the glacier story, while leaving out the word "adaptation". And the name for the information service seems to be "Noaa Climate Service", whereas "Noaa Climate Services" is probably the web portal.
The following is from the NYT story:
**************************************************************
The Obama administration announced plans yesterday to create a new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Service.
The proposed entity would provide "user-friendly" information to help governments and businesses adapt to climate change, creating a central federal source of information on everything from projections of sea level rise to maps of the nation's best sites for wind and solar power.
*[NOTE: This is my favorite quote - just below:]*
"Even with our best efforts, we know that some degree of climate change is inevitable," said Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, whose department includes NOAA. "American citizens, businesses and governments -- from local to federal -- must be able to rise to the challenges that lie ahead. And that's where NOAA's climate service will prove absolutely invaluable."
Just as NOAA's National Weather Service provides information on short-range environmental conditions, the proposed climate service will provide long-term projections of how climate will change, he added.
And just as a private weather industry -- including companies like the Weather Channel -- has sprung up around the National Weather Service, Locke said he hopes creating the climate service will spur a new private climate information sector.
"If you own a ski resort, you're might be wondering, do you expand or not expand? What's the impact of climate change on weather patterns at a certain elevation where your ski resort is?" he said. "Some people will take this information to the private sector and focus just on ski resorts."
While attention on Capitol Hill has focused on efforts to mitigate global warming by slashing greenhouse gas emissions, state and local governments and the private sector have been asking the federal government for help understanding how the shifting climate will affect their operations.