Asheville’s Karl, director of National Climatic Data Center, pushes new data initiative and funding in congressional testimony

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Tom Karl as worked as director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center here in Asheville for the last 10 years. The NCDC is the repository for the nation’s weather records, housed in the federal building in Asheville. 

Karl is one of the most respected weather scientists (I don’t know his exact academic credentials) in the world. He’s worked for differing presidential administrations, and that can be a tight-wire act these days with all the politics intertwined with climate science. And he’s right here in Asheville.

Earlier this week, Karl testified before a congressional subcommittee looking at appropriating money for various departments of the federal government, including the Commerce Department, which funds NOAA and NCDC. 

It costs a lot of money for up-to-date technology for data archiving and access. And Karl was also describing a new initiative that NOAA plans to undertake with NASA to upgrade satellites and use information generated from these satellites to track climate change. 

It looks like the Obama administration plans to fund the initiative. The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee recently introduced a $410 billion bill to wrap up work on fiscal 2009 appropriations bills. It’s unclear how much of that money is headed to Asheville, but here’s what is proposes to fund in terms of climate change and science:  

Summary of 2009 consolidated appropriations bill for commerce, justice and science

Global Climate Change Research: Nearly $2 billion, $262 million above 2008, to study global climate change, one of the greatest challenges facing our country. This includes: 

NASA: $1.3 billion, including over $150 million to fund Earth science missions and to measure climate change – such as measuring Earth’s radiation or changes in polar ice, as recommended by the National Academy of Sciences. 

NOAA: $394 million to improve computer models, install climate sensors on satellites and improve the accessibility of climate data. 

National Science Foundation: An estimated $230 million to research the impacts of human activities on the climate and to study carbon cycles, land use, and impacts on ecosystems. 

Economic Development Administration: $14.7 million for the Global Climate Change Mitigation Fund, to encourage businesses to use green practices. 

National Institute of Standards and Technology Research: $819 million, $63.1 million above 2008, to promote American innovation and economic competitiveness by improving scientific measurements, standards, and technology. 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: $4.4 billion, $468.7 million above 2008, to increase important ocean, weather, and climate research activities and for satellite acquisitions. 

 If you really want to geek out, you can search around and find tons of information about these satellite data sets and what scientists say about their importance when it comes to tracking changes to our planet. Suffice it to say that the satellites are getting old and need to be replaced, and the computer power needed to make sense of all the satellite data that’s collected constantly needs to be upgraded. Like I said, geek out.

Check out Karl’s testimony here and here.

This, of course, is not the end of it. There’s another, related, story brewing here: it’s the long-debated creation of another federal agency dedicated to climate change. It would be known as the National Climate Service, sort of akin to the National Weather Service, which tracks our weather.

A National Climate Service would track climate-related information. Could such a service be headquartered in Asheville? It’s absolutely possible, but I’ll save that for a follow-up post.