Weather satellites gradually going dark
MIAMI – Scientists soon will lose access to crucial information that helps them better understand and predict everything from hurricanes and earthquakes to global warming and environmental decay, according to a candid and sobering report by prestigious experts.
“It’s a train wreck,” said Otis Brown, dean of the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and a member of the National Academy of Science’s panel that issued the report earlier this month.
Among the reasons for this reversal of scientific fortunes: sharp budget cuts, ill-advised technological compromises, and a botched partnership between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to the report.
And the setbacks come at an inopportune time.
NOAA recently reported that last year was the warmest on record in the United States, and a major study scheduled for release Friday by an international group of scientists is expected to amplify the developing crisis of global warming.
To date, no one has challenged the panel’s conclusions, which were released Jan. 15. NOAA and NASA said they were studying the 436-page report. A congressional committee vowed to apply “vigorous oversight” to the situation.
Among the highlights of the report by scores of experts working with the academy, which is chartered by Congress:
•By 2010, the number of operating sensors and instruments on NASA’s aging fleet of weather and other global-monitoring satellites will decrease 40 percent, and replacement sensors are behind schedule, over budget and, in many cases, less capable.
• There is “substantial concern” about the pending loss of an important satellite-based instrument.
The QuikSCAT information helps scientists estimate wind speeds at the ocean’s surface. That information contributes to year-round forecasts of marine conditions, and it’s crucially important to hurricane specialists.
But the device is well past its designed lifetime, which was expected to end by 2002, and budget concerns and technical compromises prompted NOAA to replace it with a less sophisticated instrument that still hasn’t been launched, the committee said.
•Much of NASA’s budget and many of its scientists are being diverted to the human space program that was re-energized by President Bush’s proposal to send astronauts back to the moon and to Mars.
In response to the new report, NASA and NOAA issued noncommittal responses.
“It’s useful to have such consolidated and prioritized information from the users of our data,” NOAA Administrator Conrad C. Lautenbacher said in a written statement. “Once we have a more complete understanding of this complex study, we will be working closely with NASA to assess how our two agencies can best address recommendations.”
NASA said it appreciated the group’s work and already devotes considerable resources to earth sciences.