Bush's Legacy: Changing Science

For the worse.

We will be seeing a lot of these enforced 'retirements' as we slowly go through each governmental office and thin out the loyal Bushies:

Miami, IN (AHN) - The National Hurricane Center has a new director in veteran forecaster Bill Read. Read took over responsibilities on Friday from his predecessor, who lasted for only 6 months.

Read, 58, has been acting as the deputy director since August and said he would focus on teamwork and boosting morale.

The veteran meteorologist has said that he plans to follow Max Mayfield, the director who retired in 2007, in dealing with his responsibilities.

Mayfield told the Miami Herald, "Bill Read brings a wealth of experience to the NHC as both a meteorologist and manager. I can assure you that Bill understands the importance of communicating the forecast and the uncertainty in the forecast."

Meanwhile, Read said of his appointment on Friday, "Awesome opportunity. I am quite excited about the opportunity to take the reins," reports the St. Petersburg Times.

His predecessor, Bill Proenza was ousted after six months in office in the face of staff mutiny. His comments about outdated equipment at the center hampering efficiency had raised the hackles of the staff and he was removed from office in July.

Read, however, disagrees that equipment is outdated and has said that the center is a top notch institution.

Remember the deliberate gutting of the FDA, Bush's indifference to global warming, and the silencing of environmental scientists over drilling for oil in the Arctic...

Update 1/28: Think Progress:

In 2006, the government’s top global warming researcher, James Hansen, revealed the government’s efforts to muzzle him from speaking out about climate change. NASA political appointees reviewed all his lectures, papers, and requests for interviews from journalists. In a new e-mail, Hansen reveals that the censoring is not only happening to him, but to all government scientists.

The satellite is failing! The satellite is failing!

Chicken Little he ain't, but he's being told to shut up anyway:

MIAMI — The director of the National Hurricane Center, who has been outspoken in warning about an aging satellite used for hurricane forecasting, was chastised today by a superior for his comments.

Bill Proenza has been talking about the QuikScat satellite since taking office in January. The satellite was launched in 1999 and designed to last two to three years but is now showing signs of its age. Certain hurricane forecasts could be up to 16 percent less accurate if it fails, Proenza has said. That could lead to wider areas placed under hurricane watches and warnings. A satellite with technology meant to replace QuikScat would not fly until 2016, seven years later than planned, The Associated Press reported this week.

On Friday, Proenza was given a 3-page letter from the acting head of the Weather Service, Mary Glackin. Proenza’s recent statements “may have caused some unnecessary confusion about NOAA’s ability to accurately predict tropical storms,” Glackin wrote.

Update 6/18: Excellent overview of the history of QuikScat and an attempt to head off political biases clouding up the issue by the Combat Philosopher:

QuikScat was launched in 1999, as an emergency replacement for the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) instrument on Japan’s Midori satellite (previously known as the Advanced Earth Observation Satellite (ADEOS)). This satellite failed, about nine months after launch. QuikScat was supposed to be a 'quick and dirty' stop gap measure, with a limited intended life span, of at most two or three years.

In the words of an insider,

"It [QuikScat] was built in 13 months (hence the Quik) from spares from the one already in process, modified to fit on a commercially available satellite bus (Ball BCP2000) and launched on a surplus obsolete TitanII the AirForce had sitting around....

The instrument was designed as part of an effort to collect 10 years or more of continuous data as part of an overall "understand the interactions of air and sea" program. So JPL developed a ground data system oriented towards that need (hosted at PODAAC). As it happens, we also had a real time feed of the data to NOAA (think of a "tee" early in the data pipeline), which, it turns out, has been very useful in the forecast business (back in 1999 and earlier, when this was all being done, people weren't sure it would be useful.. certainly not to the point of kicking in large sums of money to that end..). It took several years for the forecast community to start heavily using QS data (they were justifiably nervous about depending on an experimental satellite that was never intended to run this long...)"

So, when this satellite was put up, it was at best a short term hack. Furthermore, at the time, the usefulness of the data was not fully appreciated. When these facts are combined with the length of time usually required for a satellite deployment (normally around 8 years, or so), in conjunction with cost, it is really not too surprising that there is no replacement for QuikScat, as yet.