The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has filed a lawsuit to avoid its closure after being accused of promoting climate alarmism. At the same time, the U.S. Forest Service proposes closing 57 of its 77 research stations and eliminating its scientific budget by 2027, threatening to erase decades of unique data.
Climate big data at risk: archives spanning over a century 🌍
The Forest Service's network of stations contains records of temperature, humidity, and soil composition dating back to 1910. This is irreplaceable data, collected with manually calibrated instruments in remote areas. Without it, current climate models would lose their historical baseline. NCAR, for its part, houses supercomputers that process petabytes of simulations. Without funding, the validation of these models would fall into the hands of private initiatives without scientific oversight.
Climate science, now on sale for demolition 🔥
The official justification says the stations are expensive and have low occupancy. Sure, like a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean: costly to maintain, but useful if you don't want to crash. Now the government proposes saving money by closing the lighthouses and hoping the ships don't collide. Meanwhile, scientists look at their 100 years of data and wonder if the next record will be the auction of their computers.