9:45 AM Senate Energy and Natural Resources
2008 Forest Service Budget Hearing
366 Dirksen
Witnesses
USDA Forest Service global warming programs include:
The dreary budget numbers for Forest Service research: in 2006, $301 million; in 2007, $303 million; in 2008, $285 million.
10 AM: House Energy and Commerce: Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee
Review of Administration Energy Proposal for the Transportation Sector
2123 Rayburn
No information available yet on this hearing, chaired by Rick Boucher of Virginia.
10:30 AM: Senate Appropriations: Defense Subcommittee
2008 Department of Defense Budget Hearing
106 Dirksen
I'm including this hearing because the DOD funds a tremendous amount of energy research, but somehow I think this hearing will focus on something other than that.
1 PM: American Meteorological Society
Anticipating Abrupt Climate Changes: Are Our Perceptions Consistent with the Evidence?
385 Russell
AMS's open monthly global warming lectures at the Capitol continue with another interesting one.
Is the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation in danger of shutting down in the near future and if so, what are the likely consequences? What do observations, current understanding of ocean processes, and models tell us about the likelihood of such an event in the near and distant future?
What is the current understanding of long-term droughts and what drives them? How well are historic droughts faithfully reproduced in the current generation of models? Is there sufficient forecasting skill to estimate the likelihood of long-term droughts in the Southwestern U.S. and in the sub-tropics, in general? If so, what is the outlook?
Panel
- Dr. M. Susan Lozier, Professor and Chair, Earth and Ocean Sciences, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University, Durham, NC -- ocean circulation
- Dr. Richard Seager, Doherty Senior Research Scientist, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY -- Climate mythology: The Gulf Stream, European climate and Abrupt Change
2:30 Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation
2008 NASA Budget Hearing
253 Russell
NASA's research satellites are the global gold standard for climate observation, as is their modeling. The budget submitted by Bush continues to cripple research. The budget request seeks a 5% increase to NASA's budget--but all the extra money would go to the agency's various exploration-related programs.
The crippling of our science funding under Bush is just criminal and will be yet another element of his long-lasting legacy of destruction. |