US cancels NASA’s carbon monitoring project

US President Donald Trump’s administration has cancelled NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) programme citing reasons of budget constraints and higher priorities within science budget. It was also in line with Donald Trump’s latest broad attack on climate science.

Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) Programme

NASA’s CMS Programme costing $10 million per year was meant to track carbon and methane, key greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. It also tracked sources and sinks for carbon and made high-resolution models of planet’s flows of carbon. It was designed to make significant contributions in characterizing, quantifying, understanding and predicting evolution of global carbon sources and sinks through improved monitoring of carbon stocks and fluxes.
The System uses full range of NASA satellite observations, modelling and analysis capabilities to establish accuracy, quantitative uncertainties and utility of products for supporting national and international policy, regulatory and management activities.
CMS also maintains global emphasis while providing finer scale regional information, utilizing space-based and surface-based data. It had initiated generation and distribution of products both for user evaluation and to inform near-term policy development and planning.

Month: Current Affairs - May, 2018