Even in the best of cases, long -term observations can be very fragile. It is difficult to convince financing agencies to put money in long -term observations because, by definition, they are continuations; They have already been made. Most of the financing entities, from scientific agencies to philanthropic organizations, wish to be associated with exciting and revolutionary revolutionary work and supported observations are too routine to scratch this itching. (Dave Keeling records in his autobiography, Earth surveillance awards and penaltiesthat at one point, a director of the National Science Foundation program asked that, to maintain funding, he generates two discoveries per year from his balance sheet of carbon dioxide levels.)
Another vulnerability stems from the fact that the community of researchers making supported measures of atmospheric carbon dioxide probably has under 30 years of age. Graduate students interested in learning to carry out this arcanic work are a rare goods. Patience and attention to details are necessary, and years may be necessary to accumulate enough data to answer key questions or make revolutionary discoveries. Researchers must be extremely diligent and demanding to ensure that measures in 1958 are comparable to those of today. Calibration is an endless chore. This scientific pursuit is not for everyone.
Perversely, although Keeling's curve has reached emblematic world importance, this can actually bother, rather than helping the financing situation. Environmental programs tend to be organized by geographic area and discipline – the national water quality program of the US Geological Survey, the NSF Arctic Observation Network and the US Forest Service, for example. In the midst of these targeted efforts, the overview can be lost. As the field of climate change has evolved, we have found more and more difficult to find sponsors who accept the responsibility to measure the vital signs of the earth as a whole.
Mauna Loa origin measures were launched during the international geophysical year in 1957/1958. It was a massive and remarkable effort, led by the United States and including 67 countries, with the objective (quite simply) to measure each possible physical attribute on earth in one year. This has led to many important scientific discoveries and to the creation of many measurement programs around the world. He established the South Pole station, for example, a vital climatic research house that still takes place today. It was a period of enormous optimism, of international cooperation (even at the height of the Cold War), large dreams, global cooperation. And the United States was proud to show the way.
This feeling of effort continued in the 1970s, when President Richard Nixon – a conservative republican – established the Noaa to better understand the oceans and the atmosphere of the world. In the 1980s, the NOAA grew up, alongside scripps effort, to become the beating heart of global climate science. Now, after only three months of the Trump administration, we are considering the abdication of American leadership in ocean and atmospheric sciences and the loss of the largest and most critical observation network for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and their calibration laboratories.
Our colleagues in the Noaa live day by day, I do not know if tomorrow will be their last job. We pray that common sense prevails and the Noaa will be spared the worst. Whatever its fate, we will remain in the fight to preserve the capacity of the world to measure the levels of carbon dioxide with the support that we can bring together, a small bulwark against the new dark age of climate science.
