A bipartisan government watchdog group filed the complaint. complaint Requested the U.S. Department of Commerce to investigate possible unethical and unscientific practices at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The watchdog is particularly interested in NOAA’s $1 billion Weather and Climate Hazard Tracking Project (also known as the Billions Project), which has tracked weather-related disasters since 1980. As the name suggests, this project focuses on the possible resulting disasters. Losses are more than $1 billion.
According to Protect the Public’s Trust, those behind the Billions project may be responsible for “scientific integrity violations” and “misleading and inaccurate claims about the project’s datasets.”
This is especially problematic because the Billions project has a huge impact.it has been quoted “Climate Change Indicators” by the U.S. Global Change Research Program.The data is Referenced Last year, the same federal program’s Fifth National Climate Assessment cited it as evidence that “extreme events are becoming more frequent and severe.” The results are said to be as follows. quoted With about 1,000 articles.
In an April 3 letter to NOAA Science Integrity Officer Cynthia Decker and U.S. DOC Acting Inspector General Roderick Anderson, the Protect the Publics Trust said: Although cited as evidence, the Billions Project does not utilize climate data. The project’s dataset only collects and reports economic data on disaster losses.”
The PPT notes that because the Billions Project relies on economic data, “the effects of climate change as a driver of disaster losses and human impacts such as increased vulnerability of people and wealth and exposure to disaster damage due to population growth and It is not possible to distinguish between the effects of these factors.” and economic growth. ”
PPT claimed that the project:
- It uses opaque methods to calculate losses from individual disaster events, “resulting in loss estimates that are significantly higher than those reported by other NOAA agencies.”
- “Undisclosed non-traditional costs” are used in the calculation. [which] It may mislead and misinform the public about the relevant magnitude of disaster losses reported in the project’s dataset. ”
- Add disaster events to or remove disaster events from the dataset without explanation.
- It adjusts its loss data “beyond what is necessary to adjust for inflation,” and does so for unexplained reasons.
- “‘Scale up’ loss data based on various factors without disclosing calculation methods or baseline data.”and
- It appears that inconsistent calculation methods are used over time.
The PPT stressed that “the national dialogue on climate change and disaster response should not be tainted by inaccurate, misleading and self-serving scientific analysis.”
“Americans expect and demand that scientific research funded by their taxpayers’ money is conducted to the highest standards of integrity, transparency, and quality,” PPT Director Michael Chamberlain said in a statement. I even have a right.”
“This means that research is used to support decisions that affect nearly every aspect of their lives, from the cars they drive to the foods they eat and the way those foods are prepared. This is especially true when the Billions Project is used to influence exactly this type of decision, and the principles of scientific integrity, transparency and quality are too significant for its research. It seems to be missing,” Chamberlain added.
just news report it is study Dr. Roger Pilke Jr.’s paper mentioned in PPT’s complaint raised similar concerns earlier this year.
“The public claims NOAA advances regarding the data set and its importance are flawed and misleading,” Pilke, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, wrote in a preprint of his upcoming paper. “There are…similarly flawed are NOAA’s.” They argue that the increase in multibillion-dollar disasters each year is partly a result of anthropogenic climate change. ”
NOAA responded to this series of criticisms in January with the following statement: tell “Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Hazards Product Methodology, Smith and Katz, 2013, Peer-reviewed publications, in accordance with NOAA’s Information Quality and Scientific Integrity Policy. ”
Chamberlain said the response from publicists was “something like, ‘You just have to believe us.’ They may call themselves ‘scientists,’ but that’s not how science works.” I felt that.
Billions Project concluded The previous annual report reported that there were 28 weather and climate disasters in 2023, “more than the previous record of 22 in 2020, with a value of at least $92.9 billion. The project claims that the United States has suffered 378 weather and climate disasters each resulting in at least $1 billion in damages or costs since 1980, which collectively It is estimated to reach $2.69 trillion.
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