Free The DSCOVR Satellite

A climate satellite is built and paid for. Nations offer to launch it for free. Scientists say it's an essential mission. So what's it doing in a box outside DC?

At a time when the Earth's climate is at the top of practically every nation's agenda, it might seem perplexing that there's a $100 million, fully completed climate-sensing satellite stored in a warehouse in Maryland.

The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) was supposed to be delivered five years ago to the L1 Lagrangian pointa gravity-neutral parking spot between the Earth and the sun that affords a continuous, sunlit view of the planet. From here, DSCOVR would measure the planet's energy balance and reflectivity, known as albedo, which is critical data for calibrating climate change models and monitoring the ozone layer. Yet the mission was quietly killed this year, so the satellite is sitting in a box at Goddard Space Flight Center.

Could the decision to kill DSCOVR have anything to do with the politics of climate science? For years, Republicans have claimed the need for more data before acting to curb global warming. A letter President Bush wrote to four Republican senators in March 2001 (after DSCOVR's endorsement by a National Academy of Sciences review panel) referred to the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change. More recently, in a 2005 briefing, [former] White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan asserted that there is still a lot of uncertainty when it comes to the science of climate change. Dr. Kevin Trenberth, Head of the Climate Analysis Section at National Center for Atmospheric Research, said, It is as if the administration prefers to continue to hide behind lack of definitive data as an excuse for lack of action and leadership.