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Earth Government The Almighty Buck

Proposed Budget Seeks To Close Mauna Loa Observatory's Climate CO2 Study (cnn.com) 115

Posted by BeauHD from the chopping-blocks dept.
"Slashdot regularly posts milestones on CO2 levels reported by the Mauna Loa Observatory," writes longtime Slashdot reader symbolset, pointing to a new article highlighting how the Trump administration's proposed budget would eliminate funding for the lab's carbon dioxide monitoring. "Continuous observation records since 1958 will end with the new federal budget as ocean and atmospheric sciences are defunded." From a report: [I]t'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.

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 (PDF) 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.

Proposed Budget Seeks To Close Mauna Loa Observatory's Climate CO2 Study More | Reply

Proposed Budget Seeks To Close Mauna Loa Observatory's Climate CO2 Study

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  • Retrospective (Score:5, Interesting)

    by symbolset ( 646467 ) * on Wednesday July 02, 2025 @10:07PM (#65492808) Journal

    The Slashdot discussion from crossing 400 ppm in 2013:

    https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]

    This year's monthly average peak so far, and a new record, was 430.51 ppm in May.

    https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/tren... [noaa.gov]

  • Predicrtable. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ndsurvivor ( 891239 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2025 @10:08PM (#65492814)
    Soon we will not know our GDP, and will not know our unemployment rate. It is Dictator style. If you do not believe what your "Great Man" says, then you are traitor.

    • Re: Predicrtable. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by francisew ( 611090 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2025 @10:28PM (#65492866) Homepage
      It is truly reprehensible that they're seeking to destroy all abject truth around their favorite political talking points. It's so sad that so many people are proud to believe anything they are told, and that many will cheer these closures. Production of concrete results contrary to tightly held personal beliefs is exactly why science is not political, and should not be run as a political exercise.

      • Contrary to popular belief, ostriches do not try to escape danger by putting their head into a hole in the ground. They're much too intelligent. Only a truly idiotic species would try to use that strategy.

    • Re:Predicrtable. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Thursday July 03, 2025 @12:08AM (#65493000)

      Don't forget building camps for "undesirables" and stripping political enemies of citizenship. No don't build housing for homeless veterans or anything that could help people.

      • I truly admire Trump. No hear me out, he's the bravest man in history. Yeah he gets some flak to running away from the Vietnam war, but that is childsplay compared to attempting to become dictator in the 2nd Amendement capital of the world. I'm genuinely surprised republicans didn't support democrats in gun control prior to going down this path.

        The man has gonads!

        Oh shit I used a foreign word. I guess I'd self deport if I lived there now.

        • I truly admire Trump. No hear me out, he's the bravest man in history. Yeah he gets some flak to running away from the Vietnam war, but that is childsplay compared to attempting to become dictator in the 2nd Amendement capital of the world. I'm genuinely surprised republicans didn't support democrats in gun control prior to going down this path.

          The man has gonads!

          Oh shit I used a foreign word. I guess I'd self deport if I lived there now.

          Brave and crazy may not be direct synonyms, but there's an awfully tight rope of correlation between them.

        • As we have seen, the 2a nuts mostly don't do shit. The only time he's allegedly been attacked is one of the most obvious false flag operations of all time. I wish I were shocked to see so many on this site fall for it, but I already knew there were loads of idiots here.

    • Soon they'll be saying "he made the trains run on time".

    • It is possible for private citizens and organizations to gather data, you know? How hard is it to get an air sample and analyze it?

      There are plenty of think-tanks, universities and companies that collect and publish economic data. If you rely on the government to do everything for you, you run into exactly the kind of problem we have here.

  • We're losing so much (Score:5, Insightful)

    by skam240 ( 789197 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2025 @10:12PM (#65492822)

    We're losing so much all in the name of giving tax cuts to the wealthy and we'll still see trillions added to the national debt.

    It would be one thing if they were honestly trying to reduce our debt level but all this just so our wealthy can all be even more wealthy is just immoral.

    • agreed.

    • Re:We're losing so much (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2025 @10:22PM (#65492848)

      We're losing so much all in the name of giving tax cuts to the wealthy and we'll still see trillions added to the national debt.

      It would be one thing if they were honestly trying to reduce our debt level but all this just so our wealthy can all be even more wealthy is just immoral.

      I agree with what you said, except the word "immoral" should be replaced with the phrase "evil and criminal". (Keeping in mind that I'm using the definition of "criminal" which applied before Trump and his sycophants changed its meaning to "disagreeing with us or merely being someone we don't like or approve of").

    • Not just tax cuts for rich people (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2025 @11:20PM (#65492930)
      Don't forget the moral panics.

      Make no mistake people, especially people here who tend to be better educated and informed, made a trade.

      I don't believe for a second there is anyone here on this forum that doesn't know Republicans are bad for the economy. Tech nerds have more than enough pattern recognition to figure that one out.

      So you have to start asking why the people here voted trump, and I know they did. Not everybody but I would guess the majority.

      And that just leaves moral panics. Woke, dei, trans, those are the current ones but there were plenty before that that people traded there economic future for.

      Mind you none of them believe they're going to be the ones personally hit. If they did they would have voted against trump.

      Probably one of the most famous quotes from a trump supporter out there is, he's not hurting the people he's supposed to be hurting.

      At this point nobody is going to escape the damage. But Trump voters will go to their graves not believing that. Even as they lose their houses to Banks after mortgaging them to pay for medical care.

    • We're losing so much all in the name of giving tax cuts to the wealthy

      This isn't even that. The motivation behind funneling money to the wealthy and shutting down of basic science isn't the same. The Big Beautiful Bill (do republicans have a thing for fatties, or is BBW the only porn style available in the USA these days?) raised the debt ceiling with a stroke of a pen by an exorbitant amount. That more than covers the tax breaks while it would have allowed for an increase in the science budget.

      Science is under attack for a different reason, and it's far worse than to make ri

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        Yes but it's being sold as "for the budget" hence me saying "in the name of" :)

        I most definitely see the anti science agenda at play here where the goal of getting rid of anything that disagrees with their politics is pretty apparent.

  • There does seem to be a direct correlation between the wealth that the 1% "earned" from 1980 to now... A direct correlation as if the National Debt of the Unites States of America was given to the Rich. 40 Trillion Dollars.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by DamnOregonian ( 963763 )
      You've reached that time in your life where someone explains to you how the national debt works. We'll ignore the coupon for simplicity's sake.

      US needs $100.
      They print a bond. They sell that bond. Someone buys that bond at auction.
      The US gets $100 in its treasury, $100 in debt, and someone just traded $100 for a new asset worth $100.

      The US is funded by the rich, the public in general, and foreign governments. But mostly the rich.
      • I think you forgot an option that is used frequently. the Fed. This is a pretty good synopsis. https://www.pgpf.org/article/t... [pgpf.org] Such nuggets as "The Federal Reserve owns nearly a fourth of domestically held debt", "Domestic holdings of federal debt have increased notably over the past decade, rising from $7.0 trillion in December 2014 to $20.3 trillion at the end of December 2024. ".

        The Fed has in recent years been selling its debt, but I expect this must change. Trump's insistent on reducing rates coupled

        • I think you forgot an option that is used frequently. the Fed.

          I didn't.

          I think it's important to really understand what The Fed [wikipedia.org] is, and how it works.
          QE has, indeed, led to a large increase of Treasury holdings by the Fed- but they're still only 25% of domestically held debt, and the debt they do hold, they use to issue dollars to banks so that they can loan those dollars to businesses, really just acting as a risk holder for the rich.

          I don't think the Fed will reduce rates, because as you succinctly noted:
          "Who wants to buy Treasuries at 2% rates when inflation i

  • As it should be (Score:1, Insightful)

    by PPH ( 736903 )

    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.

    For all that money they are supposed to be spending on improving weather forecasting, they aren't doing a very good job. The European Model [wikipedia.org] is considered to produce better forecasts. For US weather. Drop the screwing around with highly theoretical climate models and get better at "operational weather forecasting and warning responsibilities".

    Climate Science politics may very well be distorting the forecasting function. You don't start out with your idea of the weather and then seek out data, models and sci

    • Re:As it should be (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ndsurvivor ( 891239 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2025 @10:46PM (#65492888)
      The words: "Science", and "Politics", do not work well together in the age of the president telling people to drink bleach in order to prevent disease.

    • The European Model [wikipedia.org] is considered to produce better forecasts. For US weather.

      There are a few asterisks needed to make that claim true, but with those asterisks it is- and I do agree that's not a great look for us.
      The GFS is generally inferior to the IFS. These are both global models.
      The HRRR and NAM have no analogues- and the IFS doesn't come anywhere close to doing what they do, so it's not accurate to say that "The European Model is more accurate for US Weather.".
      It is more accurate than the GFS for US weather- that much is true. But US forecasts aren't using the GFS.

      • Just as an anecdote, I've recently been in Portugal and Spain for a month and I was astonished at how shitty weather forecast is for the general public. Not a single day the predictions were right, not only the day before but even in the same day, just a couple of hours ahead.

        Even in my "shithole country" forecasts are usually very precise and I can, for example, confidently say that in my town next Saturday around 10AM, weather will be cloudy, 17C.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        But US forecasts aren't using the GFS.

        Which forecasts? One of our local meteorologists, Cliff Mass, quotes several models. And often rags on the US one as being inferior.
        Most of our TV forecasters voice no opinions on the models. But, cute as they are*, they are not doctors of atmospheric science as Cliff is. So I'm going to take his word for this.

        *I've often told people that I'd like to marry the TV weather lady. Because she's always lying to me, so we have that part of the relationship going already.

        • Typically, domestic forecasts are using the HRRR, which is ridiculously accurate (at least as far as meteorological models go), but only does the territorial US, and to a limited range in the future.
          IFS (The Euro model) is global, as is GFS (NOAA's global model).

          I love Cliff!

          He has ragged on GFS significantly in the past- and it's well deserved. The GFS is not very good.
          He has generally indicated he's quite impressed with the HRRR.

          To be clear- things like "10 day weather forecasts" are not done with

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
      The model itself is the Unified Model.

      Drop the screwing around with highly theoretical climate models and get better at "operational weather forecasting and warning responsibilities".

      UM does both. But it's very compute intensive.

  • FUCK TRUMP (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GrahamJ ( 241784 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2025 @10:45PM (#65492884)

    What more can you say really.

  • Extending Trump's COVID strategy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by haruchai ( 17472 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2025 @10:49PM (#65492894)

    "If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any"
    becomes "if we stop measuring, we'd have much less excess CO2, if any"

  • If you don't monitor it the problem will surely go away,

  • I have a theory. Someone, at some point, somewhere in the federal government thought they could gain some political leverage on having a government agency track CO2 levels in the atmosphere. There isn't a "climate office" in the government so they had to seek some federal agency for this. The closest match for this task was the NOAA.

    The NOAA isn't in the business of tracking global warming. Their job is to make accurate weather forecasts for the purpose of commerce, military effectiveness, and the prese

    • Re: Is it the job of the NOAA to track CO2? (Score:4, Informative)

      by joe_frisch ( 1366229 ) on Thursday July 03, 2025 @12:42AM (#65493044)

      You do need hard data to understand climate change change. That is the difference between science and mere belief. Mona Loa has a continuous record for many decades. That is very valuable data.

      • And likely way way way more valuable than it costs to keep it running. As you say decades of prior data at that position on the planet. And to just toss it to save literally less than rounding error on the budget is criminal. Especially when I suspect trump's little parade cost more than it will cost Mon Loa to keep collecting CO2 data for the next decade. I doubt the CO2 data collection costs more than a few hundred K over the nominal operating costs for the observatory.

      • You do need hard data to understand

        ... to understand ANYTHING.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      but it appears to me that there's a government agency already tasked with tracking CO2 emissions from the USA. That's likely the Department of ... Commerce.

      If only there was agency within the Department of Commerce with a chartered purpose of tracking the oceans and atmosphere. If only this agency was given the strict purpose of monitoring the atmosphere for climate and weather data for the Dept of Commerce. If only this agency had that information directly stated in their mission statement and funded by Congress every year. https://www.noaa.gov/our-mission-values-and-vision [noaa.gov]

      Idiot

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

        but it appears to me that there's a government agency already tasked with tracking CO2 emissions from the USA. That's likely the Department of ... Commerce.

        And...

        Congress has explicitly directed the Secretary of Commerce, who has delegated to NOAA, or NOAA itself to carry out some actions related to climate change

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

      The NOAA isn't in the business of tracking global warming.

      In reality, it's one of its functions, and has been for decades. I am not sure why you are saying something so obviously counter-factual. Also like abiogentic oil being significant. Or promoting Patrick Moore, climate-science denier.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

      Since the NOAA was never formally tasked with tracking CO2 levels

      It was. From congress.gov

      Congress has explicitly directed the Secretary of Commerce, who has delegated to NOAA, or NOAA itself to carry out some actions related to climate change

  • Ignore the climate (Score:3)

    by algaeman ( 600564 ) on Thursday July 03, 2025 @03:42AM (#65493168)
    If you ignore the climate long enough, eventually it will go away.

  • I wish I could be optimistic, but looking around makes it quite difficult to me...

    Why would we need to track CO2 emission, when anyway most people do not care? Just have a quick look at FlightRadar24 [flightradar24.com]. All these yellow tiny spots (that look like cockroaches to me) contribute to the CO2 emission. But most people simply want to have fun right now, without thinking about the future of their own kids. Look at the huge corporations just doing whatever they can to increase their profit, right now.

    So why would we

    • Just have a quick look at FlightRadar24 [flightradar24.com]. All these yellow tiny spots (that look like cockroaches to me) contribute to the CO2 emission. But most people simply want to have fun right now, without thinking about the future of their own kids.

      Why the focus on aviation? Production of meat and dairy is responsible for ~5x the carbon emissions.

    • I wish I could be optimistic, but looking around makes it quite difficult to me...

      Why would we need to track CO2 emission, when anyway most people do not care? Just have a quick look at FlightRadar24 [flightradar24.com]. All these yellow tiny spots (that look like cockroaches to me) contribute to the CO2 emission. But most people simply want to have fun right now, without thinking about the future of their own kids. Look at the huge corporations just doing whatever they can to increase their profit, right now.

      So why would we want to measure the temperature inside the house when the house is already burning?

      Some people seem willing to go to Mars, basically giving up on Earth, but they will only repeat the same mistakes there.

      While I don't disagree with your basic premise here, some of us are still curious and inquisitive enough to enjoy digging through the ash as it falls around us. Personally, even if we're going to do nothing to stop it, I'd like us to at least keep good records of the damage we're causing to the environment as we burn ourselves out. Maybe, once we get through this period of greed run amok and lower the population back down far enough we aren't pushing the environment into multiple crisis scenarios at the sam

  • of all possible timelines.

    • Yes. These people are totally f*cking insane. We are living in the "oppositeland" timeline. Whatever is true, call "fake news". Whatever science and wisdom say you need to do as government, do the opposite. We are truly down the f*cking rabbit hole.

  • It's not an ideal solution, but $Trump will eventually die, and we need to plan beyond that.

    • Europeans, or Canadians, or whatever, should just set up camp in Hawa'ii as "tourists" and bring portable or stealth CO2 measuring equipment to a hidden location somewhere near the top of Mauna Loa FFS. Don't want to lose the data timeseries integrity.

  • Science might say something we don't like. So let's take years of painstaking work and throw it away.

  • Ignorance is knowledge. Superstition is science. Cruelty is compassion. Greed is altruism.

  • In 2013, the CO2 average hit 400 ppm
    In 2025, it crossed the 430 ppm mark.

    That is ~ 7.5% over a mere 12 years.

    This is frightening for anyone who takes science and observations seriously.

    • Parts per million - so it increased from practically zero to practically zero.

      • Parts per million - so it increased from practically zero to practically zero.

        Practically zero, just like the thickness of the atmosphere relative to the size of Earth.

  • Is to get rid of the evidence. Problem solved. Simples.

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