NASA to increase climate research

NASA officials laid out plans yesterday to boost spending on climate research substantially over the next five years to make up for cutbacks during the Bush administration.

Edward Weiler, the agency's associate administrator for science, said that NASA's Earth Science budget will get a $2.4 billion, or 62 percent, increase through 2015. By that point, the program will have launched as many as 10 new missions, collecting information about ocean temperatures, ice coverage, ozone depletion and the central question of how much carbon dioxide is being released through human activities.

The budget increase reflects both a campaign promise by President Obama to focus far more on the threat of climate change and what NASA officials called a "philosophical shift" on the issue. From now on, they said, the agency will place a higher priority on collecting a broad range of interrelated climate data to make sure it is done in a long-term, continuous way.

Washington Post