Scientists issue urgent warning as vital US forecasting systems near collapse: 'I was completely blindsided'
Federal spending cuts have put a 175-year-old program that measures Arctic sea ice in jeopardy.
The Trump administration on May 5 ended sea ice and snow cover data services under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Alaska Beacon reported.
The National Centers for Environmental Information will cut back the services of the National Snow and Ice Data Center to basic levels, allowing access but forgoing maintenance, updates, and support. A NOAA spokesperson said the process began over a year ago.
The Beacon reported that this will affect infrastructure planning in Alaska and eliminate important tools that help measure the changing climate and are used around the world. That includes monthly analyses of sea ice extent and concentration that dates to 1850, historical photos of glaciers, and data about snowpack properties.
"They're all things that are useful for illustrating change," Rick Thoman of the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy told the Beacon. "I mean, why on Earth would you take away a glacier photo collection?"
Other services can help fill some of the information vacuum, but comparisons "will be much more difficult," Thoman said, adding his reaction to the change: "I was completely blindsided." The historical tracking may be gone forever.
Earth is warming rapidly because of humans' burning of dirty fuels such as gas and coal for energy. This produces toxic heat-trapping gases that envelop the planet like a blanket and harm human health, contribute to increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events, and endanger biodiversity.
"The dark surfaces of open water exposed by ice melt absorb more solar heat than white, ice-covered surfaces do, so loss of sea ice is part of a self-reinforcing warming loop called Arctic Amplification," the Beacon stated.
Arctic sea ice has dropped significantly over the last four decades, and tundra regions have switched from carbon sinks to carbon emitters, per the nonprofit news outlet.
This could explain part of the administration's fixation on Greenland and Canada, which would become bigger trade and economic hubs if sea ice cover was permanently lost.
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The Alaska Senate in April asked NOAA to continue its Marine Environmental Buoy Database, which is another program set to be axed, at the end of the month. The data helps improve marine safety, the Beacon reported, and the body would also like buoys to be repaired to improve the service.
News outlets' reporting on these critical climate issues is essential to raise awareness of the issue as well as problems such cuts could cause. Individuals can act by contacting their elected representatives and spreading the word among friends and family.
Broadly, the loss of Arctic sea ice can be slowed by the adoption of cleaner energy sources. At home, this means investing in solar energy, installing efficient appliances, and even using less plastic. On a smaller but still important scale, support brands that make eco-friendly decisions, shop for secondhand clothes, and make better use of the things you no longer need by trading them in rather than throwing them out.
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