The Nation’s leading scientists have issued a stark warning: America’s ability to monitor the environment is rapidly diminishing. And if we don’t properly fund our satellite capabilities, the country could lose three quarters of its Earth observation systems by 2020.

That alarming conclusion comes from the National Research Council in a new report assessing the progress of the nation’s Earth observation programs. In short: our leading scientific institutions aren’t actually making much progress.

Rather, a lack of funding and infrastructure will result in “a rapid decline” in our ability to monitor extreme weather and changes to the climate.

The committee found that the number of NASA and NOAA Earth observing instruments in space is likely to decline to as little as 25 percent of the current number by 2020….  The U.S. system of environmental satellites is at risk of collapse.

The projected loss of observing capability could have significant adverse consequences for science and society. The loss of observations of key Earth system components and processes will weaken the ability to understand and forecast changes arising from interactions and feedbacks within the Earth system and limit the data and information available to users and decision makers. Consequences are likely to include slowing or even reversal of the steady gains in weather forecast accuracy over many years and degradation of the ability to assess and respond to natural hazards and to measure and understand changes in Earth’s climate and life support systems.

The report is a mid-term update of the NSA’s 2007 decadal survey — a proposed 10-year plan for improving earth sciences programs at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The NSA assessment did find that NASA was able to launch new satellites into space and work on international partnerships to make up for shortfalls in money; however, those won’t be enough to meet needed technology improvements.

There are three major factors contributing to this unprecedented decline in Earth monitoring capabilities: budget cuts, a rapidly aging fleet of satellites, and a lack of launch capabilities.

The budgetary issues have been ongoing. According to the NSA progress report, NASA’s Earth science program still hasn’t been funded to the requested $2 billion to meet future objectives.

And as Climate Progress reported last year, Republican lawmakers proposed slashing $1.2 billion from NOAA’s funding levels, cutting into satellite programs. The satellite programs were eventually funded to requested levels, but future funding is uncertain. Senate lawmakers have proposed moving NOAA’s satellite program over to NASA where operational efficiencies could potentially save money.

Officials at these agencies say that more money is needed to replace the fleet of aging satellites that will inevitably fail in the coming years. According to the NSA report, there’s also a severe lack of launch vehicles for Earth satellites that “directly threatens programmatic robustness.”

After all, satellites aren’t much good without a way to launch them.

What’s the solution? Increasing the budget for new satellite infrastructure is the most obvious. But a major boost in funding for these programs is unlikely. So the NSA report recommends establishing new partnerships and “balancing costs with science objectives and priorities” by focusing on a more diverse range of projects rather than a few high-profile missions.

Programmatic efficiency is key. But it still doesn’t fully address what could become a national crisis. As our planet overheats — making extreme weather more intense, deadly and expensive — our ability to monitor the health of planet is collapsing.

JR: The fully study in the journal Nature, “Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation” is here (subs. req’d).

Credit: flickr/Rita Willaert

by Michael D. Lemonick, via Climate Central

Climate scientists have long argued that ancient air trapped in Antarctic ice is the smoking gun that links carbon dioxide to global warming. Over the past 800,000 years or so the planet has gone through a series of ice ages interspersed with relatively warm periods (during which glaciers retreat back toward the poles) — and inevitably, these warm interludes happen when there’s more CO₂ in the atmosphere.

The only tricky part of this argument is that the smoke seems to come before the gunshot. It’s most apparent in the most recent warming period, which began about 19,000 years ago: the temperature seems to begin rising before CO₂ concentrations increase. Climate skeptics have argued that since effects don’t come before causes, the whole theory falls apart.

In fact, it’s not much of an argument, since even little bit of warming would release extra carbon dioxide into the air, leading to a feedback loop, causing even more warming. But whatever feeble merit the skeptic argument might have had, a new study just published in Nature — one of two climate studies from that prestigious journal that we’re reporting on — pretty much demolishes it. It’s the most comprehensive analysis ever done of carbon dioxide and temperature at the end of the last ice age, and it shows quite clearly that in most of the world, the thermometer began to shoot up only after the atmosphere was spiked with carbon dioxide. “I think,” said Jeremy Shakun, a Harvard postdoctoral fellow and the lead author of the study, at a press conference, “this ends the skeptic argument.“

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AP Photo

by Jonathan D. Moreno

Republican Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum has declared that:

“(w)hen it comes to the management of the Earth, they [the Democrats] are the anti-science ones. We are the ones who stand for science, and technology, and using the resources we have to be able to make sure that we have a quality of life in this country and (that we) maintain a good and stable environment.”

Until recently in America, science hasn’t been far down the list from motherhood and apple pie. At one time a candidate for office would have been sorely tempted to kiss Albert Einstein’s balding pate along with that of an infant. So why does Rick Santorum feel compelled to assure us that he is pro-science? And why now?

As I’ve noted before, the idea that one would be for or against science is something new in America. In the 19th century, physics, engineering, and chemistry were regnant, and biology was still largely observational rather than experimental, so the great debates about evolution and the origins of life were yet to come. Partly for this reason, conservative religious beliefs were quite compatible with a cohesive moral vision through the late 19th century. Ministers and naturalists could agree on their beliefs about nature. Santorum would have been quite comfortable with many pastoral sermons about the importance of science in American churches in the 1880s. He surely would have wanted to greet John Glenn on his return from orbit 50 years ago.

What has changed this American sensibility? Why does a cultural conservative feel the need to announce he is pro-science?

The answer lies in the advent of experimental biology and modern genetics, which has stimulated political controversies like those over cloning and stem cells and invoked old images of Dr. Frankenstein instead of Dr. Einstein. Similarly, the modern environmental movement pits scientific “experts” against … opponents of government regulation. Science has become a cultural wedge issue, so that a candidate like Rick Santorum feels compelled to recapture science from the secular elite.

Underlying this conflict, therefore, is a mistrust of scientists themselves, of their perceived hubris. When the National Academy of Sciences supports human embryonic stem cell research and 97 percent of scientists say that climate change is caused by humans, a cultural divide is opened up that is not only new for American, it is worrisome. Keep going down that list of American tropes — mom, apple pie, and science, and very soon you reach opportunity and progress. In my book The Body Politic I argue that without a fundamental sense that the innovators can be trusted it’s hard to see how a nation musters the will to lead the world in an era in which leadership in science is not optional.

Jonathan D. Moreno is a Senior Fellow at American Progress, where he edits the magazine, Science Progress. This piece was originally published at the Huffington Post.

In “The Great Dying” 250 million years ago, the devastation came with runaway greenhouse warming

The geology of Griesbach Creek in the Arctic tells an ancient tale of slow extinction.  Source NSF.

A reposted National Science Foundation press release.

The deadliest mass extinction of all took a long time to kill 90 percent of Earth’s marine life–and it killed in stages–according to a newly published report.

It shows that mass extinctions need not be sudden events.

Thomas Algeo, a geologist at the University of Cincinnati, and 13 colleagues have produced a high-resolution look at the geology of a Permian-Triassic boundary section on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic.

Their analysis, published today in the Geological Society of America Bulletin [abstract here], provides strong evidence that Earth’s biggest mass extinction phased in over hundreds of thousands of years.

About 252 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period, Earth almost became a lifeless planet.

Around 90 percent of all living species disappeared then, in what scientists have called “The Great Dying.”

Algeo and colleagues have spent much of the past decade investigating the chemical evidence buried in rocks formed during this major extinction.

The world revealed by their research is a devastated landscape, barren of vegetation and scarred by erosion from showers of acid rain, huge “dead zones” in the oceans, and runaway greenhouse warming leading to sizzling temperatures.

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As climate science continues to be attacked and politicized, it’s time for us to shower some much-needed affection on the scientists who are helping us understand the changing world around us.

As a reader of this blog, we know you love climate scientists. And with Valentine’s day coming up tomorrow, now is your chance to show your appreciation for the necessary research that scientists are doing around the world.

Climate Nexus has rolled out a new social media campaign called “I Heart Climate Scientists,” that features pictures of people (and animals) expressing their love for the work that climate scientists do.

From the Climate Nexus campaign:

“Climate change deniers are sending hate mail and threats to dedicated climate scientists working to protect our families, finances and future. Show these hardworking experts some love — even digital hugs count this Valentine’s Day. Remind them their work is valuable, their opinions respected, and that they are not alone.”

The campaign has it’s own Facebook page and twitter hashtag #iheartclimatescientists, so be sure to take your pictures and send them in! (Paste a link in the comment section here too.)

Valentine’s Day is a good hook for the I Heart Climate Scientists campaign. But you can help extend it far beyond that. Help combat the bullying and the political threats by showing year-round how much you appreciate what climate scientists do through Facebook and Twitter.