Rocky Mountain News - "NCAR faces budget crisis"

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Rocky Mountain News - "NCAR faces budget crisis"

The research center in Boulder whose scientists shared this year's Nobel Peace Prize for its reports on global warming is facing a fiscal nightmare.

Some 100 people, many of them scientists, have lost their jobs at the National Center for Atmospheric Research as federal money hasn't kept up with inflation the past five years.

"It's presented substantial challenges for us," NCAR director Eric Barron said.

"Were expecting a shortfall next year of 8 to 10 million dollars." That's out of an $88 million budget from the National Science Foundation, Barron said.

Scientists are given a one-year notice that their jobs are disappearing, to cushion the blow.

Barron worries that the cuts will erode the quality of the scientific work and the heavy-duty computers that provide climate and forecasting models for the world.

"We're doing our darndest to make sure we don't have to cut good programs and can maintain our mission."

Also worried is U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, whose district includes NCAR and who is the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate.

"I am deeply concerned about the closure of NCAR's Center for Capacity Building," Udall said today, adding that the decision "doesn't square with the Bush Administration's recent commitment to a global action plan on climate change ... and the need that we have for the research the center provides."

NCAR's Center for Capacity is unique in its focus on the societal effects of climate extremes. It's "a research area that needs more, not less, funding," Udall said.

"The fact that we cannot find a way to fund the Center's $500,000 annual budget is a reflection of misplaced priorities — and this funding shortfall is a problem I am determined to fix."

Several NCAR scientists, seeing the red ink on the wall, have moved to prestigious universities or other labs the past couple years, he said.

"We're hiring some people" to replace them "but not at the same level of those who left."

"People here are worried about whether it's going to have a longer term impact on our ability to do climate predictions."

NCAR's weather forecasting model is so advanced that it is being adopted by 100 new local agencies each month around the world.

"But we can't keep up," he said. The model is sparking innovative ideas from the forecasters in the field, but NCAR "can't keep up," because of the budget cuts, he said. "We don't have the funds to hire the individuals to support all of those users."

"We've had to make painful cuts in all areas of our scientific and facilities programs," said Rick Anthes, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which oversees NCAR. That incudes climate, weather, atmospheric chemistry, solar physics and computer modeling.

Earlier this month, NCAR closed its center for Capacity Building, and it also has reduced administrative positions.

"At a time in which climate and weather forecasting and their impacts are recognized as being extremely important for the world, we potentially are falling behind," Barron said.

NCAR's largest funder, the National Science Foundation, only boosted its research budget by 1 percent for 2008.

The new budget calls for a 13 percent climb, but the worry is that Congress won't pass that budget — at least not until there is someone new in the White House.

"We have to budget as if we're getting a zero percent increase," Barron said. "Who knows what will happen? A new budget might not be approved until 2010."

"I can't spend money if I don't know what we're going to get."

Some of NCAR's scientists pay their own salaries through grants, and will continue to do so, but the portion of the budget that relies on the NSF is seeing a shortfall of some $9 million, or 10 percent of that budget.

On Wednesday, NCAR will join seven other scientific organizations in a teleconference in which they'll challenge Barack Obama and John McCain to outline specific steps to strengthen science. That will require better scientific funding to "better protect the nation from the impacts of severe weather and climate change," the coalition said.

NCAR generates models for international assessments of climate change, and is constantly working on bettering the models for more accurate predictions.

"Some of the testing we'd like to do, we can't do as quickly," due to the fiscal crisis, he said. "It's really slowing the pace of our ability to provide the best predictions."

The pace is beginning to slow in making improvements on forecasting severe weather events such as hurricanes, he said.

"When you know you can do things that really can serve society, but that you can't make the investment to do them, that is frustrating," he said.

He said the scientists at NCAR remain "very proud of this place. But there is a sense of stress because this has been proceeding for several years."

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