"The Flow of Scientific Research"

Image source: "NOAA ATTRIBUTES RECENT INCREASE IN HURRICANE ACTIVITY TO NATURALLY OCCURRING MULTI-DECADAL CLIMATE VARIABILITY," NOAA Online magazine, November 29, 2005

Source: Joe Davidson, The Washington Post, December 12, 2008.

Excerpt:

The Commerce Department's inspector general said in a recent report that agency policies on the dissemination of scientific research "were in many cases unclear and contradictory, or overly burdensome and often ignored."

The report looked at charges that political appointees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had blocked publication of facts linking increased hurricane intensity to global warming.......

The controversy grew from a 2005 article in NOAA's online magazine that said hurricane activity is cyclical. That upset some researchers who, according to the IG report, "believed it failed to reflect the full spectrum of the agency's research on hurricanes and the related effects of global warming."

To address that criticism, NOAA decided to issue a fact sheet in January 2006. It was completed in May but not released until that September and then only after press inquiries. Fourteen senators also complained.

One reason for the delay, according to the report, was "inaction by a senior policy advisor who provided limited assistance to NOAA in obtaining departmental clearance for the fact sheet despite being sent at least 6 drafts over a 4 month period."

Here are the Abstract of the Report, and the Report in full.

Comment: Still another example of the Bush administration's failure to make government science available to the public in a timely fashion. JAD