Trade-off da – gdi 2011 1 Earth Science D/A 2
Satellites !—Climate Monitoring Good—Disasters
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- Satellites !—GEOSS I/L
Satellites !—Climate Monitoring Good—DisastersMonitoring now key to climate predictions and responsiveness Auld & MacIver 11 (Heather &Don, Adaptation and Impacts Researcers, Environment Canada, 11/29, http://pyr.hazards.ca/Docs/images/Adaptation_Options_for_Infrastructure-1568988254.pdf, accessed 7-2-11, CH) Climate change will impact infrastructure through gradual changes in weather patterns, increasing variability and severity of extreme events. Because infrastructure built in current times is intended to survive for decades to come, it is critically important that climate change adaptation options be developed today and implemented as soon as possible. The many implications of the changing climate will require a structured approach for the updating of climate design values, codes and infrastructure standards, for reinforcement and retrofit of existing infrastructure and for planning redundancy of critical infrastructure. Underlying these activities will be an ongoing need for careful monitoring of regional climate conditions and prioritization of adaptation actions. “No regrets” adaptation actions are available in the near term to reduce the vulnerability of infrastructure. These “no regrets” actions include measures to reduce uncertainties in climatic design values and to update calculations, to enforce engineering codes and standards, to safeguard the quality and length of climate data records and networks, to require regular maintenance of existing infrastructure and to ensure consistent forensic analyses of infrastructure failures and community disaster management planning. In other cases, it is likely that the impacts of future climate change will lie outside of existing experience and coping ranges of infrastructure, requiring that adaptation options be developed over time through “adaptation learning”. Weather prediction key to responding to natural disasters—saves lives Northrop Grumann, No Date (http://www.northropgrummanglobalsecurity.com/Details.aspx?id=33, accessed 7-2-11, CH) What if we could forecast the weather? Not days before, but months before. What if we could monitor and reverse the effects of global warming on our planet? What if we could predict natural disasters — earthquakes before they struck, tornadoes before they touched down, hurricane impact before the eye reached land? We'd save thousands of human lives every year. That's what we're working on. Overview An integral part of ensuring global security is learning to better predict and prepare against climatic threats, and to better understand the effects of climate change. Satellites !—GEOSS I/LAff trades off with the Global Earth Observation System of System, international climate change research, and tanks U.S. space leadership Sabathier and Faith, International Public Policy Issues, 07 (Vincent and Ryan, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 07-31-07, “Minding the Gaps: Keeping Exploration Alive”, http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/070731_space_commentary.pdf, accessed 6-21-11, JG) Finally, the third challenge relates to the collection of environmental data through earth observation satellites. Global concern with climate change makes the sacrifice of earth observation to support human space exploration a very unappealing option. Further, the United States has already committed to a bold leadership role with the July 2003 launch, by former secretary of state Colin Powell and current National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) administrator VADM Conrad Lautenbacher (USN, ret.), of a worldwide effort to build the Global Earth Observation System of System. If we establish an organization to create a system like GEOSS and then immediately fail to meet our agreed-on commitments, it will be very difficult indeed to generate future support for international projects, and as a consequence, our basic ability to lead in other space-related areas—especially returning to the Moon—will be greatly compromised. Historically, the way that NASA has dealt with such competing priorities is through the senseless cannibalism of one project after another. This may not, however, currently be an option. On one hand, the broad, bipartisan support for a national vision of space exploration and the immediate interest should encourage solid, robust support for human space exploration; on the other hand, the growing concern of global climate change necessitates full support of earth observation. In these space leadership challenges, failure to provide near-term support will immediately erode our credibility, while in the longer term, our leadership role is at great risk. In recent years, the number of tasks undertaken by our civilian space agencies has grown dramatically, yet budgets have not kept pace with these increased responsibilities. There are some ways to limit the unrestrained growth of space spending, such as through international cooperation or better coordination of other U.S. capabilities like NOAA’s well established operational earth observation capabilities. It is far more important, however, to provide balanced funding for both human space exploration and earth observation at the levels needed to fulfill the obligations we have undertaken. Simply shifting funds from one program to another not only creates program instability and delays but also is, in the end, simply a stopgap measure built around falling short on one promise for the sake of keeping another. 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