On the recordMay 28, 2014
This bill is providing reasonable levels of funding for research and development to the National Science Foundation and NASA, but in the NOAA accounts, climate research is singled out for major cuts below last year's spending. It seems there are a number of us who believe that we can improve weather forecasting without doing climate research. This simply is not the case. The distinction between weather and climate is created by the time period we define to examine the temperature, precipitation, humidity, and other atmospheric phenomena we are experiencing. As our society and our economy have become more advanced, more interconnected, and more global, we increasingly operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. For better or worse, we assume that everything can and is operating all the time. Well, often because of weather conditions, that assumption is challenged. Travel delays in the airline industry alone due to weather events can result in multibillion-dollar losses. Phenomena such as droughts and floods and fires are not merely single weather events. Their probability of occurrence, duration, and intensity is a function of climactic factors that can only be understood and predicted if we can better understand short-, medium-, and long-term climate trends. I would note that the bill before us retains funding for the National Drought Information System. That is good news.…
