当3月初旋风阿尔弗雷德（Alfred）朝昆士兰州海岸驶去时，当局的警告部分基于来自强大的美国卫星的数据。他们为我们提供了有关海洋上风速和其他改善天气预测的数据的重要见解 - 而且它们几乎没有替代品。
美国卫星数据有助于旋风Alfred等事件的天气预测和警告系统。 Credit: Nick Moir
Access to that public good science and a vast array of other weather and climate data is under its own cloud after deep and apparently random cuts by the Trump administration.
Remarkably, even the US National Weather Service wasn’t sure until just days before the Atlantic hurricane season began ramping up whether it would retain
可以理解的是，自从第二届特朗普政府在一月份上任以来，政府和媒体一直专注于对贸易的每一次攻击。但是，路透社周五报道，针对美国科学机构及其全球合作伙伴关系的变化在很大程度上已经在雷达下进行。
至少有七个欧洲国家正在审查其对美国海军陆战队，气候和天气服务的依赖。
赌注几乎不会更高。澳大利亚的主要天气和气候模型依赖于美国的投入，因此，如果数据访问在没有其他选择的情况下结束时，它们的准确性将受到破坏。
您不必是农民，水手或飞行员来重视良好的预测。如果您想知道何时可能会引发藻华或地震如何释放海啸，那么您也可以欣赏全球连接的预警系统的内在重要性。
Globally connected early warning systems can alert us to risks such as an algal bloom, which has killed rays in SA.Credit: Getty Images
Among those systems at risk is the Argo float program, a swarm of drifting devices that measures the temperature and salinity of the top two kilometres of oceans every 10 days. The US funds more than half the $60 million array, including 380 of these floats in Australia’s own search and rescue domain.
The looming funding cuts may mean the US removes 900 floats a year. It may also stop paying the $2 million annual data transmission costs and sack the eight-person team in the US that processes the information for global use.
Short-term ocean forecasts, particularly in the tropics where US Argo floats predominate, would be rendered useless for most applications, should the cuts occur. A hint that national security may be compromised is the risk posed to the related Bluelink ocean prediction service, which won a Department of Defence Eureka Prize for outstanding science in safeguarding Australia in 2024.
Then there’s the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL), among a slew of climate labs and co-operative institutes with 420 staff that the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been earmarked to close next year. As The Conversation noted in an article last week, Australia has relied on PMEL for early warnings to declare every El Nino and La Nina for the past 30 years.
Similarly, a vital component of Australia’s ACCESS (Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator) climate model is developed primarily at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. Without GFDL, the pace of model progress would be halved, affecting a program that underpins all Australian climate projections used by industry and government for planning and climate risk.
The Climate Change Authority is monitoring the threats closely. Just last week, we published a report on the outlook for the Great Barrier Reef. Grim as it is – unless the world slashes carbon emissions – the work relied on data from NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch, another service in doubt. Our Bureau of Meteorology tracks Coral Sea temperature changes, but not to NOAA’s standard.
LoadingThe authority welcomes efforts by Australia’s science agencies, universities and government departments to assess where our most pressing vulnerabilities lie.
The US has put us on notice, even if our worst fears aren’t realised. For insurance, we must invest more in our domestic capabilities and forge new partnerships abroad, not least because the challenges – from carbon emissions cuts to climate adaptation – are going to intensify.
It’s worth recalling that collaboration on weather forecasting persisted through the Cold War because of the clear global good. The World Meteorological Organisation marked 75 years in March, as one example, and international teamwork will be a central theme of this year’s global climate change summit in Brazil.
In an era when climate change is driving ever wilder weather, we’re going to need more such co-operation – no matter the whims of the White House.
Matt Kean is chair of the Climate Change Authority. He previously served as NSW’s Liberal treasurer.
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