Livestream event highlights impacts of climate work by federal agencies
Daniel Swain, University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources climate scientist, will host a live “Ask Me Anything”-style session online at 6:30-7:15 p.m. Pacific Time on Saturday, May 31.
The interactive session is part of the “100 Hours to Save America’s Forecasts” livestream event, featuring climate and weather experts speaking about how their work benefits all communities across the U.S. The event started Wednesday and will last for 100 straight hours, ending at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday.
“If you’ve ever checked the weather on your smartphone, the TV news, or even used a forecast from a private company, you’ve used data from the federally funded National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) or the National Weather Service – whether you realized it or not,” said Daniel Swain, University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources climate scientist.
The goal of the livestream event is to raise awareness of the impacts to people and their communities of budget cuts to federal agencies including NOAA, NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy, along with the loss of university research funding for weather and climate science.
“Virtually all of the remarkable historical advances we’ve made in weather prediction and climate projection, including life-saving and economy-protecting severe weather warnings, have been made thanks to sustained public investment in research and development over decades,” Swain said. “And at this moment, we are at a critical juncture: The risks to the American weather and climate enterprise are alarming, expanding and potentially existential, yet the societal value of understanding, quantifying and predicting disruptive weather and climate events has never been greater.”
Watch Swain’s “Ask Me Anything” session and other livestream events at https://www.youtube.com/@wclivestream/live. For more information, visit https://wclivestream.com.
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