U.S. Says Climate Satellites Too Costly

United States Is Cutting Back On Efforts To Monitor Global Warming From Space

(AP)  The United States is drastically scaling back efforts to measure global warming from space, just as President George W. Bush tries to convince the world America is ready to take the lead in reducing greenhouse gases.

A confidential report to the White House, obtained by The Associated Press, warns that U.S. scientists will soon lose much of their ability to monitor warming from space using a costly and problem-plagued satellite initiative begun more than a decade ago.

Because of technology glitches and a near-doubling in the original $6.5 billion cost, the Defense Department has decided to downsize and launch four satellites paired into two orbits, instead of six satellites and three orbits.

The satellites were intended to gather weather and climate data, replacing existing satellites as they come to the end of their useful lifetimes beginning in the next couple of years.

The reduced system of four satellites will now focus on weather forecasting. Most of the climate instruments needed to collect more precise data over long periods are being eliminated.

Instead, the Pentagon and two partners — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA — will rely on European satellites for most of the climate data.

"Unfortunately, the recent loss of climate sensors ... places the overall climate program in serious jeopardy," NOAA and NASA scientists told the White House in the Dec. 11 report obtained by the AP.

They said they will face major gaps in data that can be collected only from satellites about ice caps and sheets, surface levels of seas and lakes, sizes of glaciers, surface radiation, water vapor, snow cover and atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Rick Piltz, director of Climate Science Watch, a watchdog program of the Washington-based Government Accountability Project, called the situation a crisis.

"We're going to start being blinded in our ability to observe the planet," said Piltz, whose group provided the AP with the previously undisclosed report. "It's criminal negligence, and the leaders in the climate science community are ringing the alarm bells on this crisis."

Mr. Bush has repeatedly cited his administration's record on researching global warming as a response to criticism of his opposition to forced reductions in the greenhouse gases blamed for it. The administration has been spending about $5 billion a year on global warming: $2 billion on climate research and $3 billion on technologies for combating it.

Last week, Mr. Bush proposed the idea of the 15 largest global-warming polluters — the United States is the largest, followed closely by China — meeting to set goals for fixing the problem while leaving it up to each nation just how to do it. The problem will be a major topic at this week's summit of world leaders in Europe.

Mr. Bush requested $331 million for work on the scaled-back satellite system next year in his 2008 budget proposal. Congress has yet to act on it.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences have both cautioned that downsizing the satellite program will result in major gaps in the continuity and quality of the data gathered about the Earth from space.

[susanhelit]

If those dang inconvenient scientists won't stop proving global warming exists and is serious, I'm just going to have to hide the evidence! Goldingit, what's more important around here - making money, or the survival of the human species after I'm out of office? Duh!
- George W Bush.

[martene1]

Thanks Susan!!!! I think you wrote my email for me.

[cozzicon]

Someone somewhere get George Bush out of office. Impeach him, vote him out- who cares.... just end the madness.

This is power misused for ideological purposes.

I'm ashamed of my government. What decent government de-funds scientists because they don't like what the scientists say?

No decent government does this.

[hypnotoad72]

How do the Europeans think of us borrowing their data?

Though I'll agree, why reinvent the wheel?

[jimfinster]

What a brilliant solution!

Don't like the data? Just quit collecting it. Then you can use all that money you saved for something REALLY important. For example, the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska. Yeah!!

[omega39-2009]

Oh yeah, more money for sound science like abstinence education and proving Darwin wrong through the promotion of Creationism.

[cozzicon]

"What a brilliant solution!

Don't like the data? Just quit collecting it. Then you can use all that money you saved for something REALLY important. For example, the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska. Yeah!!

Posted by jimfinster at 07:41 PM : Jun 04, 2007"

It's not brilliant- it's the act of a sociopath.

A Mnemonic for anti-social persnolity disorder (A sociopath) is as follows:

* C - cannot follow law
* O - obligations ignored
* R - remorselessness
* R - recklessness
* U - underhandedness
* P - planning deficit
* T - temper

You be the judge.

[billpl-2009]

too late to disprove Darwin

they finally found the missing link!

...in the White House.

[ammianus]

The Sorrows of Young Dumus, Art. XIII
Direction of the Hegemon%u2019s space policy was assumed by Imbustus Vulturinus, who convened a secret group of five Oligarchs of the religious-totalitarian movement. Bereft of any knowledge of science, these persons were recommended by their large financial contributions to the imperial clique and their fanatical opinions on the use of space to subjugate all the nations of Earth. This group was convened on an irregular schedule to compose recommendations on particular space policy issues. Vulturinus then proceeded to implement their recommendations. Vulturinus%u2019 orders flowed to an oversight board in the Office of Management and Budget and thence to the Administrator of the Hegemon%u2019s space agency. Michael Griffin attained his position by swearing absolute fealty to Vulturinus and the totalitarian faction of the legislature. The ultimate object of the space policy oligarchs was to turn the Earth and the solar system outside Earth into one vast prison. More immediately, scientific inquiries into matters threatening the propaganda of the Oligarchy, such as global climate change, were quietly starved. Likewise, the search for life outside the Earth was terminated. Such discoveries would conflict with the teachings of the religious totalitarian clique supporting Dumas. Little did the Oligarchs suspect that by substituting blind superstition for reasoned inquiry, they would finally pull down their own house.

[jimfinster]

they finally found the missing link!

...in the White House.
Posted by billpl at 08:03 PM : Jun 04, 2007

Well, that is pretty charitable. Have you been to bushorchimp.com?

[cdfoxtrot]

Iraq: 2-3 billion dollars a week? No problem.
Saving the planet by gathering data that might be helpful: The equivalent of a month or two of Iraq. Too expensive.
I think Bush and his cronies have just proven Darwin's theory.

[ubrew12]

With a greater emphasis on competition in contract awarding, climate satellites could be brought down in price, maybe by 20-40%. That was something the Clinton Admin would have done (and tried to do with defense contractors). But for Bush the Defense Dept gets whatever it wants (and produces it poorly) and everyone else passes the hat. Gov't CAN encourage greater competition among contractors, but you need an administration that actually believes gov't can accomplish anything at all, and that is not this administration.

Hiring GW Bush to head the gov't is like hiring a stock analyst who thinks the stock market is all baloney. What a great gig: he congratulates himself and is rewarded by his employers the more incompetently he does his job...

[nearl4511]

Yes, we know.

Everything is too costly except for corporate welfare and endless war.

CBS. Please, Don't bother us with non-news articles like this one. This is not news. It is meaningless, without any reference in cost of other "important" things.

[imnho]

This idea is about as crazy as they come. This will come back to bite us both in emergency mangement and the defense of the nation. This is truly nuts to think if you stop collecting data that the problems associated will some how go away

The white house has now a Alice-in-wonderland six impossible things before brekfast attitude

[dcp32]

Just when you believe you've seen this administration corrupt nearly everything they possibly can, they find something else of significance to ruin. Will America have the resolve for the election of the successive administrations it is going to take to undo the damage of King George and his friend ***???

[brianbwb-2009]

Hey everyone, in the current administration we have a treasonous war criminal, who has proven over and again that he doesn't care for law, or humanity, we all know this already.

Isn't it time to quit complaining passively and take it to the streets, or do we wait until the patient is dead, and then talk about what medicine we should have given?

[brianbwb-2009]

Heres' the slogan; "JAIL 'EM ALL, OR ELSE WE FALL!"

[brianbwb-2009]

Or better still; "JAIL ALL THOSE WITH GEORGIE B., DUMBEST FOX IN HISTORY!"

[sparks224]

I wonder what it will cost us to NOT have those satellites up there?

[alphaa10-2009]

Bush once hoped to pass himself off as the "science president", promoting a manned Mars mission when he needed to distract the public from his NSA spying scandal.

Now, from all appearances, Bush is still frozen in denial about global warming, though his speechwriters struggle to make it appear Bush agrees there is a problem with greenhouse emissions.

Clearly, Bush is no friend of science or exploration at all-- especially when he might address rationally something Bush finds an "inconvenient truth". Bush even deleted portions of governmental research recognizing global warming-- and warned US scientists not to cross the political taboo again.

The real problem Bush and some of the GOP have with global warming is not its existence, but its cost. For Bush and some of the GOP, money is the only issue, not science, because global warming redress threatens a principal GOP cash cow-- the oil industry.

[brianbwb-2009]

To S_Temper, how about Northrup-Grummond, Raytheon, and Bechtel? This is not a partisan issue, it is simply insane that 35b PER MONTH is ok for an illegal war, but 12b is too much for future generations to have data they will need to deal with the mess we leave them.

It would be equally insane under any partisan government. Please keep the irrelevant and pointless partisan rhetoric to yourself, and join the solution, your kids (assuming you have them) and possibly yourself in your all too soon to come senior years will be the ones suffering. This is not off in the future, it is happening now.

[incog-nito]

We can't afford these satellites! We need every penney for the war in Iraq. The defense contractors are expecting another record-breaking quarter, and we don't want to let them down, do we?

[ubrew12]

"The program has been a black hole, into which $12 billion has been dumped." Posted by S_Temper at 12:56 AM : Jun 05, 2007

They always run over budget cuz the gov't doesn't police them adequately once they've won the contract. But notice that the program is going through, only the 'climate' related payload items are being taken off, while the 'weather-prediction' items stay on. That smacks of a cover-up since the scientific payloads aren't that different for either aspect. I think Bush and his handlers just don't want the data. Total Global Warming rip-off.

[incog-nito]

To S. Temper:

Boo!

[pixelslinger]

S_Temper - to answer your question directly: Congress may hold the strings, but the Administration has set the policy. Aside from that, there's the whole Veto power.

No matter how you attempt to explain away this Administrations staunch anti-environmentalism regime, the blunt, blatant, UNDENIABLE fact of the matter is that under Bush and the GOP, every suggestion, report, and request for action in this topic has been forcefully resisted.

You don't like the cost of the programs? Neither do I. But here's what I like a lot less: the fact that programs like this were allowed to become necessary in the first place.

[annd2302]

Ok, Hilliary,

What say you on this issue?

Or would you rather just wait and see if we can get a cheaper one? Waste not, want not, you will have to make those quick and decisive decisions.

You do know if you have any problems in the decision making arena, just roll over and ask Bill what he would do. Now, if you should roll over and find him pre-occupied with that petite French naked maid, just give him a few seconds and then he can let you have your turn.

Then, when he tells you what to do then by all means DO IT, he has been the smartest we have had in many many moons Hillary, it is all about taking care of business when it rises, if you had, Monica would not of been there, where every good wife should be. Truth hurts, so be it. Suck it up ! ! !

I vote you will say the %u201CCHEAPER ONE%u201D

How about you Mr & Mrs Public?????

[pixelslinger]

Yes, because I'm definately going to take my entire degree in meteorology and climatology, not to mention over 6900 peer-reviewed scientific journal entries, over the word of a Google video. It's 'popular media', as you say, that is accounting for discrediting of information we've had for decades.

Being purpofully ignorant of overwhelming evidence is a choice, not a right.

[incog-nito]

Yes, Islamism is a grave and mortal danger to us all, and we should all be very, very concerned. So let's forget about all this healthcare crisis and global warning nonsense, and use every resource to combat this grave and mortal danger. By the way, did I mention that it's a grave and mortal danger, and we should all be very, very concerned? Oh yes.

So what should you as ordinary citizen do to help fight this grave and mortal danger? Well, nothing. Just continue about your daily life, go shopping, especially for one of those great big SUVs. We need to show those Middle-Easterners that we're rich enough to continue to buy their oil, and willing to pay through the roof for it, too. Oh, and don't forget to get one of those cute "Support our Troops" magnets for your SUV. The troops in Iraq really appreciate that.

[factchecker]

Global warming is happening. That's the way it is on this planet. If you refuse to believe this, you are free to get on the next rocket ship and leave. Until then, please be quiet. We're trying to figure out how to fix your mess. And while you're at it, quit driving that giant truck. No one thinks you're cool, okay? We just think you're an ******.

[ubrew12]

Typically, they spend twice as much on these gov't satellites as the estimate, and it lasts twice as long.

Global heating is a no brainer: interrupt infrared radiation on its voyage out of the planet without changing incoming visible radiation, and the planet's going to heat up - first law of thermodynamics. There are 2 ways something can heat, it can warm and it can change phase (ice-water or water-vapor). The warming part isn't what has everyone freaked, its the changing phase part, cuz that's what drives climate patterns, and ocean circulation patterns and levels. At the very least, if you like the weather you've been having, kiss it goodbye. But it could get better for you locally. It's just a huge, unnatural experiment which, for some people, will likely be disastrous.

[gil3al]

these are the types of things that happen when a nation is too far in debt. How many other projects will we not be able to afford? Yet congress and the administration continue to ignore the fiscal health of the country. Spend, spend, spend and the devil take tomorrow.

[nonameabc]

oh...yea... we have $ for the war...

[coffeehead-2009]

30 billion for condoms but this is too costly for him? lmao

[luckygirl042]

Why am I not surprised?

[bluestardad]

The Geostationary Observational Environmental Satellite GOES is in orbit right now! Flight model J and K ! I worked building them! We dont need any thing else!

[crater7]

Since when does the saftey of the American People become too costly?

Satellites to Costly, Cut medicare by 10% in 08.

Give AMNESTY to 12 to 20 million illegal aliens, and give them immediate access to the medicare system.

Cut funding to the FDA, and inspect only less than two percent of imported food thats comes from countries like China etc.

BUT HEY! build a Radar System in the Czech Republic, and install INTERCEPTER MISSILES in Poland.

Do you feel as safe as I do?

[coffeehead-2009]

If you want to worry about a real problem, you should be very concerned about the practices of US credit card companies (US banks) and the innumerable card holder bankruptcies that are bound to occur.

ditto on your comment.......

Thomas Jefferson once said:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies . . . If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." -- Thomas Jefferson -- The Debate Over The Recharter Of The Bank Bill, (1809)

[coffeehead-2009]

The editor of Fortune Magazine, Andy Serwer, has done even better. He wrote:

"As for the bankruptcy bill, too many Americans have been copying big business %u2013 and they shouldn't be allowed to do that. Folks just don't understand that companies that declare bankruptcy %u2013 like US Air, Winn-Dixie, and Kmart %u2013 are living, breathing entities. And a bankrupt company like, say, Interstate Bakeries (they make Ho Hos and Ding Dongs) is more important than any one citizen, regardless of whether or not he or she makes Ding Dongs for a living. You follow? Another problem is that personal bankruptcies were cleaning out the credit card industry. According to CardWeb.com, profits in the card biz grew from $ 12.9 billion in 1995 to $ 31.6 billion last year. That's only a 144% increase in a decade, which is a scandal. Earnings should have been up at least 300%!

"I guess what I'm suggesting is a return to the Gilded Age, when it was %u2018anything goes%u2019 and everything did. The way we're stifling wages, ending personal bankruptcies, and blocking lawsuits, soon even corpulent guys in top hats may be coming back into style."

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0331-33.htm

[space_poet]

Gee, 6.5 billion, what is that, 2 maybe 3 days in Iraq, yea, I see where our priorities are...

[space_poet]

I've seen that Google vid Semper is propagating. I did some research on the makers, and lo and behold, no science backing what so ever, pure white washing at its best. Nice try, why don't you pick up a science journal some day and get back to us when you have some facts. People who care about the environment care about this planet and the people that live on it, and all you care about is killing an entire race of people, because of the backlash they gave us for terrorizing them, nice.

[racam_us]

Since a lot of the blame lies with the burning of fossil fuel, force the biggest oil companies to pay for these satellites or at least part of them. I'm sure their profits from no more than 2 weeks would pay the whole amount.

[terrapin78]

Just because they want to poke out our eyes, that does not change the facts on the ground.

Man made climate change is real and the next generation will be the ones that suffer from its effects.

But fear not! The Rapture will come first!! LOL

[gil3al]

S_Temper, I will agree on your statement of credit card companies-another issue Congress prefers to not look at. However, on the issue of national debt, I just can't drink that kool-aid. The old standard about it being good to be in debt was made up by those that have their hands in your pocket. In order to maintain a balance, more debt means less money to invest or to get to work for you. Would you rather work for your debts or have cash to pay for what you want/when you want it? Debt is slavery.

[talkingham]

This article should come with a big photo of Cheney talking out of the side of his mouth liek the Penguin in Batman movies (and John Stewart too).

This pack of liars lies about everything even when they don't have to-- they are just chronic liars. If it weren't for 911 his whole presidency would have been lableled a crock of u-know-what long ago. Isntead it's taken 6 years and thousands and thousands of lives and thousands of billions dollars. Can't say this country doesn't give a suckerer and even break.

[omega39-2009]

This kind of reminds me of the treasury report commissioned by Paul O'neil that was shelved before talk of big taxcuts, or the EPA report about the air quality in NY right after 9/11 that was altered because "the markets needed to be opened. What about trying to do away with the state department's terror assessment when you don't like the fact that the numbers are rising? then theres cutting funds to the IRS forcing them to lay off one half of their estate attorneys because you were unable to abolish the estate tax, you get the idea.

[davebco]

Lets see, 14 billion for valuable climate data, 140 million taxpayers, about 10 years avg satellite lifetime... less than $1 for each taxpayer.
The cost of the war will be at least $300 per taxpayer. The cost of global warming... who knows? I would guess, as a ballpark estimate, $1000 per taxpayer. Then there are the lives, political instability, and environmental destruction for generations to come. I think we should start taxing gas to pay for this tragic war. Maybe people would think more about what the costs really are. Imagine the benefits if the world could cut it's dependence on middle east oil.

[DrColes]

AS we already know what causes global climate change (the Sun) we do need to spend our money where is is needed.
http://www.InteliOrg.com

[mountainzen]

Georgie blew all the money in Iraq looking for non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

He suggests hanging a rock from a string to predict the weather.

Who needs accurate weather reports?

Besides, those crazy satellites keep coming up with evidence of "Global Warming," so by getting rid of those pesky satellites we'll be getting rid of global warming, too! Sheer genius, Georgie!

[davebco]

I am a solar physicist, and was recently called on to comment on the assertion that the sun causes global warming, as I have 30 years experience in the link between solar variability and terrestrial effects (along with several thoushand other scientists worldwide). I can catagorically state that the sun does NOT cause global warming. There is virtually no data to support this claim. The http://www.InteliOrg.com site (and others) are so full of misinformation and fabrications it would be laughable, if it weren't so malicious. The tiny percentage ( 1%) of the critics of global warming are either unqualified or politically motivated (usually both). Thousands of solar-terrestrial scientists are unanimous: global warming is man-made and ominously severe.

[pakaal]

AS we already know what causes global climate change (the Sun) we do need to spend our money where is is needed.
http://www.InteliOrg.com
Posted by DrColes at 12:43 PM : Jun 05, 2007

Oh, not THAT group again! Anyone who touts NASA's Tim Griffin as one of their "experts" on global warming deserves to be mocked mercilessly. Griffin's ex-CIA, and a Bush political appointee, he has no climatology expertise. He's shown himself to be of the same caliber as many other Bush appointees such as Michael "Yes, Katrina was on my watch" Brown - meaning politically loyal, and virtually no expertise in the job he was appointed to do.

Please DrColes, let's try a little harder next time to come up with something other than junk science to back up your points. Oh, sorry, I forgot, there is no science to back up your points, other than the junk kind.