"Scientific monitoring in the Pacific Ocean, using buoys to take seawater temperatures, screeched to a halt when the government recently shut down for 35 days.
But those efforts to monitor El Nino, the warming of the equatorial Pacific Ocean that affects global weather patterns, are just some of the shutdown’s impacts on science that Kevin Trenberth describes.
“Things that broke did not get fixed,” Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told Bloomberg Environment. “Computer models did not get updated. Websites shut down and affected the flow of information to researchers. The 2018 announcement of the global temperatures was delayed. And so forth.”
Other affected scientific work includes earthquake monitoring and research at the U.S. Geological Survey and studies focused on wildlife, forestry, agriculture, and other areas at the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, and other agencies."
Bobby Magill reports for Bloomberg Environment February 12, 2019.
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