Over the last few months, … there’s been an explosion of news about proposed budget cuts to science in the US. … Researchers and civil servants are sounding the alarm that those cuts mean we might lose key data that helps us understand our world and how climate change is affecting it.
… James Temple … [writes] about researchers who are attempting to measure the temperature of mountain snowpack across the western US. Snow that melts in the spring is a major water source across the region, and monitoring the temperature far below the top layer of snow could help scientists more accurately predict how fast water will flow down the mountains, allowing farmers, businesses, and residents to plan accordingly.
But long-running government programs that monitor the snowpack across the West are … being threatened by cuts across the US federal government. Also potentially in trouble: carbon dioxide measurements in Hawaii, hurricane forecasting tools, and a database that tracks the economic impact of natural disasters. It’s all got me thinking: What do we lose when data is in danger?
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