NASA cancels carbon monitoring research program
The administration of President Donald Trump has waged a broad attack on climate science conducted by NASA, including proposals to cut the budget of earth science research and kill off the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 mission. Congress has fended these attacks off—with one exception. NASA has moved ahead with plans to end the Carbon Monitoring System, a $10-million-a-year research line that has helped stitch together observations of sources and sinks of methane and carbon dioxide into high-resolution models of the planet’s flows of carbon, the agency confirmed to Science. The program, begun in 2010, has developed tools to improve estimates of carbon stocks in forests, especially, from Alaska to Indonesia. Ending it, researchers say, will complicate future efforts to monitor and verify national emission cuts stemming from the Paris climate deal.
| By Paul Voosen |
May 9th, 2018 |
