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Don't let eyes in sky go blind

Whether they help to predict hurricanes or drought, track airborne diseases or wildfires or detect changes in sea level or volcanic activity, satellites give the world a critical first defense in coping with climate change. But a new study by the National Academies shows this window on the Earth closing soon. Half the nation's environmental satellites will stop working by 2010, the report by the academies' National Research Council said. That is a dire call for more funds, given the catastrophe millions could face from sudden and severe weather changes.

Most Americans take the satellite data for granted. Beyond alerting the world to natural hazards, satellites are key to understanding the Earth's science, from the risks posed by global warming to the humanitarian crises that would erupt should the ice sheets or fisheries collapse. The report found that NASA's capability to monitor the Earth "will decrease dramatically" in the next four years, thanks to deteriorating equipment and a change in missions, leaving scientists without such critical information as measures of Earth's radiation and sea surface winds and a fuller picture of the life-sustaining atmosphere.

Officials said spending an additional $500- to $625-million a year through 2020 would restore the monitoring program to its Clinton-era levels and provide for critical research into climate change, emissions, weather forecasting and the ozone layer. This information is useful in making everyday decisions about where to live, what to build and how to use our natural resources - much more so than what President Bush has envisioned in his call for manned missions to the moon and Mars. The president's NASA priorities are misplaced. Monitoring climate change is a public health concern with implications for national security. Congress should adequately fund it.

[Last modified January 19, 2007, 01:30:39]