U.S. climate office called inadequate on many levels

Critique notes funding shortfall
By Mike Lee
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

September 14, 2007

The federal office that oversees the nation's research on global warming is inadequate on many levels and some of its tools are falling apart, according to a critique issued yesterday by a committee of the National Research Council.

Lack of new investment would mean that “U.S. capability to monitor trends, document the impacts of future climate change and further improve prediction and assimilation models . . . will decline even as the urgency of addressing climate change increases,” said the report, which focused on the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.

The bleak assessment was led by Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a climate and atmospheric scientist at UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

It is the second major study released in recent days that denounced the U.S. government's handling of global warming. The other, written by the Government Accountability Office, blamed the Bush administration for doing little to address how climate change is altering the nation's lands and waters.

It's unclear whether such criticisms will gain traction at the White House, which has been faulted for years for not making global warming a priority.

Bill Brennan, acting director of the climate science program, said he welcomed the latest review.

“I . . . don't disagree with its findings,” he said. “We will take what they have provided and use it to help us steer the program.”

Thirteen federal agencies work with Brennan's office, which has an annual budget of about $1.7 billion.

Ramanathan and the other evaluators did find some positives, including the program's understanding of global temperature trends and its improved ability to make climate predictions.

But they also found many shortcomings. The reviewers said the science program's officials have:

little authority to prioritize funding.

been slow to synthesize data.

barely addressed global warming's effects on people.

minimal communication with other government leaders and advocacy groups.

The program also is threatened by the loss of data sensors on Earth and in space, the evaluators said. The report noted that several satellite-based measuring devices critical to long-term data gathering have been canceled or seriously delayed, and that monitoring networks are deteriorating because of money shortfalls.

Committee member Jeanine Jones, a resources manager for California's Department of Water Resources in Sacramento, said the climate science program should emphasize practicality.

“If you fixed everything today with regards to (greenhouse gas) emissions, you are still going to have to live with the impacts for a long time going forward,” she said. “Decision-makers . . . need (climate) information scaled down to a regional or local level.”