Science policy in the USA – in blind flight into extreme weather

With rabids, the new US government is taking action against authorities and public institutions. Last but not least, the victims include education and science. Climate protection and climate science in particular are systematically dismantled. While from Geneva the World Organization for Meteorology WMO in its year published this week from the warmest year since the beginning of the weather records, the highest atmospheric CO₂Concentration for at least 800,000 years and over 150 extreme weather events previously seen in the past year, the Trump government is putting scientific institutions on the body. The US environmental agency EPA, for example, wants to close its research department, writes the AP news agency. Up to 75 percent of the scientists are to be put at the door, which would be in 1155 of the biologists, chemists and toxicologists employed by the EPA.

The new EPA boss Lee Zeldin-a companion of Donald Trump-wants to shorten the budget of his authority by 65 percent. As a former member of the Republican, Zeldin regularly voted against sharper environmental laws and climate protection measures in the congress. In his election campaigns, he spoke out for the expansion of oil and gas funding and, accordingly, could not complain about the lack of donations from the industry. According to the environmental organization Sierra Club, he stated as one of his priorities in the EPA to want to strengthen the United States’ “energy dominance”. At the end of January he was proposed by Trump and confirmed by the Senate with the votes of the Republicans and Dreier Democrats.

EPA is only one of numerous authorities in which the US magazine “Forbes” is currently organizing a wave of discharge on a wealth of $ 321.4 billion (295 billion euros) on behalf of Trump. Most of the employees are affected whose trial period had not yet expired. At the beginning of March, these newcomers received termination letters from the US authority for Oceans and atmosphere Noaa, which accused them of that their services had not met.

“People will die in extreme weather who don’t have to.”

Daniel Swain Climate researcher

The NOAA not only operates climate research by working on large earth system models, simulating the atmosphere, oceans, land surfaces and its interactions. It also operates a hurricane forecast center, two tsunami warning centers and the US weather service, which supplies the whole country with general and specialized weather forecasts, such as agriculture and fishing. 880 employees have been at the door at the NOAA since February, as the Reuters news agency reports.

“These mass layoffs at the NOAA are a national catastrophe,” quotes Reuters Jane Lubchenco, who had led the authority under Barack Obama. With around 12,000 employees, Noaa is already a “slim” authority. “Noaa the ability to provide life -saving information, protect the seas and strengthen the economy makes no sense at all,” says Lubchenco. Daniel Swain from the University of California in Los Angeles, who specializes in extreme weather events, also speaks of the agency of human lives: “People will die in extreme weather that would not have to be saved” if the prediction would be saved.

Even private prediction services cannot take on Noaa’s role, as different scientists assure against Reuters. As in this country, private providers work with the data that national weather services collect several times a day at tens of thousands of weather stations, measure with satellites or win from the rise of radio probes. This data is prepared in real time, partly made available to the public and entered the prediction models several times a day. Only with their results can private service providers work.

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Among other things, two important centers of the weather service are threatened by the savings plans, the lease contracts of which are to be terminated. One is a data center at the University of Maryland, in which 825 NOAA scientists work on analyzes, data preparation and on weather forecasts and which, among other things, has extensive equipment for data transmission. The other facility is the headquarters of all weather radars operated in the United States, which are maintained from there, coordinated and their data is compiled. This should end at the end of September.

Whether the center in Maryland will also be closed is still uncertain. From there, the US weather data has so far been passed on internationally, which is essential for the weather forecast on all continents. Florence Rabier, the general director of the European Center for Medium-term weather forecasts operated by 35 countries, says about the processes in the USA when asked by ND: »Governments around the world need high-quality weather data to make investments and decisions to protect their citizens. Medium -term weather forecasts (three to 15 days) are essential for planning extreme weather events such as hurricanes, which is crucial for the protection of life and property. The weather knows no boundaries, and for a successful prediction of the weather in a certain area, data from all over the world is needed, which requires access to many sources, from satellites to ground -based observations. «Mutual dependency has led to a permanent and for all profitable data exchange between all regions of the world. It seems questionable whether this cooperation will continue to work smoothly in the future.