Carbon dioxide flooding at Mauna Loa Observatory at Hawaii could be stopped by US spending
Noaa
Scientific agencies in other countries must prepare to take over as much of the most important carbon dioxide monitoring services currently performed by the United States as possible, climate scientists warn.
This surveillance could end next year under planned budget cuts, resulting in loss of important data. “At the moment, I’m not aware of anyone who says,” okay, we can do it. We will take over ”,” says Pierre Friedlingstein at the University of Exeter in the UK. “It’s been.”
Friedlingtein is leading the global carbon budget, an international effort to quantify exactly how much CO₂ is emitted and how much is absorbed by the country and the oceans – crucial factors to understand the soil’s rising storms.
This work reads Heavoy on the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is targeting budget cuts by the Trump administration. A budget document for tax year for tax year 2026 suggested eliminating the agency’s expenses for climate and weather research and cutting its full-time employees with more than 2000 people. It also suggested closing laboratories included Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, an important place for CO₂ monitoring.
“Noaa Gml [Global Monitoring Laboratory] Greenhouse gas program is the backbone of Global Carbon Compensation, which serves many roles, “says Ralph Keeling at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California.
NOAA measures directly the level of gases like CO₂ in many places and supports such monitoring elsewhere around the world, including by calibration of measurements based on sent to it, says Friedlingstein.
The agency also includes and analyzes all the global data. This included with the help of the small differences in CO₂ levels between places together with knowledge of atmospheric traffic to find out CO₂ streams.
“NOAA delivers critical baseline data,” says Keeling. “If the NOAA effort is completed, we are also the ability to track streams of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases that are connecting across the globe.”
“All this thing has been replaced by other agencies,” says Friedlingstein
Even if this happens, the loss of monitoring sites and replacing Noaa’s items with others will cause problem. “Long -term texture here is the key,” says Keeling. “You can just jump from one index to another and still solve trends.”
There is particular concern about the continuation of the surveillance of Mauna Loa, which began in 1957 – Longget Continuous Record of CO₂ in a single place. NOAA helps the scripping-led surveillance there.
“Without NOAA involved, it will be difficult not impossible to continue the measurements nearby,” says Keeling.
He also cares about the scripping-led surveillance on the South Pole. It currently depends on NOAA staff at the American station there. The station itself depends on the US National Science Foundation, whose funding is also threatened.
“The South Pole is by far the most important long -term station in the southern hemisphere, and it is as critical as Mauna Loa to establish a reliable long -term global average, as well as the evolving difference between the northern and southern mémisfer to track large carbon currents,” says Keeling.
CO₂ levels can also be monitored by some satellites, says FriedlingTein, but they measure CO₂ in the eligible air column between the surface and the satellite, not only at the surface – so they are not a direct replacement.
Asked if it had any plans to replace what NOAA is doing, the European Union’s Copernicus atmosphere Monitoring Service Direct Direct New scientist To contact the European Commission General Agency for the Defense Industry and the Space (Defice). Defense Lispland at the deadline of this article.
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