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The Hindu
07-07-2025
- Science
- The Hindu
US plans to shut observatory that captured ‘reality' of climate change
The greenhouse effect was discovered more than 150 years ago and the first scientific paper linking carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere with climate change was published in 1896. But it wasn't until the 1950s that scientists could definitively detect the effect of human activities on the earth's atmosphere. In 1956, United States scientist Charles Keeling chose Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano for the site of a new atmospheric measuring station. It was ideal, located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and at high altitude away from the confounding influence of population centres. Data collected by Mauna Loa from 1958 onward let us clearly see the evidence of climate change for the first time. The station samples the air and measures global CO₂ levels. Charles Keeling and his successors used this data to produce the famous Keeling curve – a graph showing carbon dioxide levels increasing year after year. But this precious record is in peril. US President Donald Trump has decided to defund the observatory recording the data, as well as the widespread US greenhouse gas monitoring network and other climate measuring sites. We can't solve the existential problem of climate change if we can't track the changes. Losing Mauna Loa would be a huge loss to climate science. If it shuts, other observatories such as Australia's Kennaook/Cape Grim will become even more vital. What did Mauna Loa show us? The first year of measurements at Mauna Loa revealed something incredible. For the first time, the clear annual cycle in atmospheric CO₂ was visible. As plants grow in summer, they absorb CO₂ and draw it out of the atmosphere. As they die and decay in winter, the CO₂ returns to the atmosphere. It's like the earth is breathing. Most land on the earth is in the Northern Hemisphere, which means this cycle is largely influenced by the northern summer and winter. It only took a few years of measurements before an even more profound pattern emerged. Year on year, CO₂ levels in the atmosphere were relentlessly rising. The natural in-out cycle continued, but against a steady increase. Scientists would later figure out that the ocean and land together were absorbing almost half of the CO₂ produced by humans. But the rest was building up in the atmosphere. Crucially, isotopic measurements meant scientists could be crystal clear about the origin of the extra carbon dioxide. It was coming from humans, largely through burning fossil fuels. Mauna Loa has now been collecting data for more than 65 years. The resulting Keeling curve graph is the most iconic demonstration of how human activities are collectively affecting the planet. When the last of the Baby Boomer generation were being born in the 1960s, CO₂ levels were around 320 parts per million. Now they're over 420 ppm. That's a level unseen for at least three million years. The rate of increase far exceeds any natural change in the past 50 million years. The reason carbon dioxide is so important is that this molecule has special properties. Its ability to trap heat alongside other greenhouse gases means the earth isn't a frozen rock. If there were no greenhouse gases, the earth would have an average temperature of -18° C, rather than the balmy 14° C under which human civilisation emerged. The greenhouse effect is essential to life. But if there are too many gases, the planet becomes dangerously hot. That's what's happening now – a very sharp increase in gases exceptionally good at trapping heat even at low concentrations. Keeping our eyes open It's not enough to know CO₂ is climbing. Monitoring is essential. That's because as the planet warms, both the ocean and the land are expected to take up less and less of humanity's emissions, letting still more carbon accumulate in the air. Continuous, high-precision monitoring is the only way to spot if and when that happens. This monitoring provides the vital means to verify whether new climate policies are genuinely influencing the atmospheric CO₂ curve rather than just being touted as effective. Monitoring will also be vital to capture the moment many have been working towards when government policies and new technologies finally slow and eventually stop the increase in CO₂. The US administration's plans to defund key climate monitoring systems and roll back green energy initiatives presents a global challenge. Without these systems, it will be harder to forecast the weather and give seasonal updates. It will also be harder to forecast dangerous extreme weather events. Scientists in the US and globally have sounded the alarm about what the closure would do to science. This is understandable. Stopping data climate collection is like breaking a thermometer because you don't like knowing you've got a fever. If the US follows through, other countries will need to carefully reconsider their commitments to gathering and sharing climate data. Australia has a long record of direct atmospheric CO₂ measurement, which began in 1976 at the Kennaook/Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station in north-west Tasmania. This and other climate observations will only become more valuable if Mauna Loa is lost. It remains to be seen how Australia's leaders respond to the US retreat from climate monitoring. Ideally, Australia would not only maintain but strategically expand its monitoring systems of atmosphere, land and oceans. Alex Sen Gupta is associate professor in climate science, Katrin Meissner is professor and director of the Climate Change Research Centre, and Sydney Timothy H. Raupach is Scientia senior lecturer, all at UNSW Sydney. This article is republished from The Conversation.
CNN
01-07-2025
- Science
- CNN
Trump admin tries to kill the most indisputable evidence of human-caused climate change by shuttering observatory
The Trump administration's proposed budget seeks to shut down the laboratory atop a peak in Hawaii where scientists have gathered the most conclusive evidence of human-caused climate change since the 1950s. The Mauna Loa laboratory in Hawaii has measured atmospheric carbon dioxide, which — along with other planet-warming pollution — has led directly to climate change, driving sea level rise, supercharging weather and destroying food systems. The president's budget proposal would also defund many other climate labs, including instrument sites comprising the US government's greenhouse gas monitoring network, which stretches from northern Alaska to the South Pole. But it's the Mauna Loa laboratory that is the most prominent target of the President Donald Trump's climate ire, as measurements that began there in 1958 have steadily shown CO2's upward march as human activities have emitted more and more of the planet-warming gas each year. The curve produced by the Mauna Loa measurements is one of the most iconic charts in modern science, known as the Keeling Curve, after Charles David Keeling, who was the researcher who painstakingly collected the data. His son, Ralph Keeling, a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, now oversees collecting and updating that data. Today, the Keeling Curve measurements are made possible by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration, but the data gathering and maintenance of the historical record also is funded by Schmidt Sciences and Earth Networks, according to the Keeling Curve website. In the event of a NOAA shut down of the lab, Scripps could seek alternate sources of funding to host the instruments atop the same peak or introduce a discontinuity in the record by moving the instruments elsewhere in Hawaii. In 1958, when the Keeling Curve began, the concentration of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere was 313 parts per million. In 2024, that had risen to 424.61 ppm, and this year, monthly average CO2 levels at Mauna Loa exceeded 430 ppm for the first time. The proposal to shut down Mauna Loa had been made public previously but was spelled out in more detail on Monday when NOAA submitted a budget document to Congress. It made more clear that the Trump administration envisions eliminating all climate-related research work at NOAA, as had been proposed in Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for overhauling the government. It would do this in large part by cutting NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research entirely, including some labs that are also involved in improving weather forecasting. NOAA has long been one of the world's top climate science agencies, but the administration would steer it instead towards being more focused on operational weather forecasting and warning responsibilities. CNN has reached out to NOAA and Scripps for comment.
New York Times
14-03-2025
- Science
- New York Times
Famous Climate Observatory's Lease May End Because of DOGE
On the flanks of the largest active volcano on Earth, the Mauna Loa Observatory tracks the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that are warming the planet, and has been doing so since 1958. But the office in Hilo, Hawaii that manages the world-famous site could close in August, according to a copy of an internal federal document viewed by The New York Times. The observatory has been a pole star of global scientific research. The data collected there helped to create the Keeling Curve, a famous upward-sweeping graph that documents the steep rise in carbon dioxide concentrations over decades. 'These data are our eyes on the planet,' said Ralph Keeling, a climate science professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego and the son of Charles Keeling, the curve's creator. 'It's really vital base line data for how things are going to change going forward.' The observatory's office is among 30 buildings operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the nation's leading agency for climate research, that are listed on the spreadsheet for possible lease terminations, beginning as early as May. It is unclear what would happen to operations at the observatory if the office were to close. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to comment, writing in an email, 'As a matter of policy, we do not respond to reporters with pronouns in their bios.' Over the course of a day, the levels of carbon dioxide rise and fall, and within a year, there are seasonal variations. But the Keeling Curve shows the number has risen by more than 100 parts per million since 1958. In 2024, more carbon was emitted than ever before, and the average annual reading showed a record jump from the year prior. That rise has warmed the atmosphere, causing climate change that has led to more frequent and intense extreme weather events like heat waves, floods and wildfires. The Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting effort spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk, has so far proposed terminating 793 leases across the federal government. The list on the DOGE webpage includes at least 19 NOAA leases. The federal government could save about $500 million by ending them, according to DOGE. That is less than 0.1 percent of the more than $1.3 trillion that the U.S. government will spend on defense in fiscal year 2025. In addition, the General Services Administration, which manages federal real estate, posted, and then took down, a list of 443 federal buildings it planned to sell, designating them as 'not core to government operations.' If implemented, that list, which included at least five child care facilities, could potentially save the government 'more than $430 million in annual operating costs,' according to a March 4 news release. At least 13 are NOAA buildings according to a document created by former NOAA employees and viewed by The New York Times. One building on that list was a NOAA satellite control room outside Washington, D.C., from where the federal government oversees a fleet of at least 15 weather satellites. Another was the National Center for Environmental Information in Asheville, N.C., which manages the digital and physical archives of more than a century of climate data. A GSA spokesman told The Times in an email that since publishing the list, the agency had 'received an overwhelming amount of interest' and that the list would be 'republished in the near future.' Such initiatives were in support of the Trump administration's executive order empowering DOGE to cut costs, according to the statement. But the initial GSA list added to the anxiety caused by the federal shake-up in personnel and funding allocations, according to Janet Coit, the former assistant administrator of NOAA Fisheries. Ms. Coit said that NOAA Fisheries operates out of many leased facilities, and if leases are abruptly terminated, staff won't know whether they have an office or access to essential equipment. 'If you kick them out of their offices,' said Ms. Coit, 'you just reduce their effectiveness and their ability to do their jobs.' Nine of the 30 proposed lease terminations at NOAA are law enforcement offices for NOAA Fisheries. These offices monitor more than four million square miles of ocean along the United States and territorial coastlines. Those officers make sure that seafood is harvested sustainably and in compliance with the law. Along with potential lease terminations and facility sales, staffing reductions have impacted the accessibility of climate science. The National Centers for Environmental Information announced this week that monthly media briefings on U.S. and global climate data, including monthly temperature and precipitation reports, would end in April. John Bateman, a meteorologist and NOAA spokesman, said in an email on Thursday that the change came after the center lost 'a significant number of its staff' through job cuts and retirements. In February, 1,300 workers were terminated from NOAA and another 1,000 layoffs are planned. Together, those initial cuts could reduce agency staff by nearly 20 percent.
