Trump's Freezing Unidata - Just Another Boring Science Acronym, Right? No.
Updates below | The effect of Trump’s initial blitzkrieg assault on science is like a multi-armed monster eating away at budgets, agency staff, technical systems and the spirits of thousands of scientists and other staff who support them - and citizens who rely on the innovations that flow from research, and students pondering careers in everything from meteorology to medicine.And Trump loves it when concerned people like me or you get fixated on the potency of his impact. But I have to set aside my personal frustration with the troll of all trolls and convey what’s going on nonetheless. This post is focused on just one of today’s mini disasters - the suspension of Unidata, a portal and network for realtime data sharing that you’ve likely never heard about but that matters enormously. Amid the paywalls, it’s hard to chip in one more time, but for those who like what I’m doing and can afford it, please consider a donation.For instance, Unidata efforts underpin the capacity for you to track live weather radar on your smartphone. That’s just one of the insights I gleaned from a brief pop-up conversation I just had with Jim Steenburgh, a University of Utah atmospheric sciences professor who’s been a user of such data for decades:He also gave me permission to repost a piece he just published on the Wasatch Weather Weenies blog on the significance of this development:NSF Cuts Shutter NSF UnidataThere's an organization you may have never heard of, but if you are a user of weather data and graphics on the web, they have almost certainly contributed to the cyberinfrastructure that made it possible.Their name is NSF Unidata, or just "Unidata" for short.Unidata developed organically in the 1980s when Universities has a pressing need to access weather data in real time, but couldn't. The Internet at the time was nascent and there was essentially no hardware and software systems capable of delivering, processing, and analyzing weather data. In 1983, a workshop at the University of Wisconsin involving about 80 US atmospheric sciences programs coined the name "unidata" and recommended that it be developed to provide:* Access to current and archived weather data, including satellite imagery and forecasts.* Support interactive computer capabilities at universities.* Communications capabilities between universities, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and NASA.These are things that we take for granted today, but would not have happened without Unidata. Amongst the products they developed are the Local Data Manager (LDM) which acquires and shares data between providers and users like the National Weather Service, NASA, and universities; netCDF (Network Common Data Form) which is a file format for storing self-described, multidimensional scientific data; and metpy which is a collection of python tools for reading and processing weather data. They have been transformative for the atmospheric and related sciences, with benefits not only for universities, but also the private and academic sectors and across the world.I have benefited and been actively involved with Unidata throughout my career, including volunteer service on their Users and Strategic Advisory (formerly Policy) Committees. Last year I gave a short virtual talk on Unidata's history that provides some examples of the various ways that Unidata has benefited my career and the atmospheric and related sciences as a whole (apologies that the initial part of the talk is cutoff in the video below).On 30 April, the National Science Foundation (NSF) froze funding for Unidata, with instructions to stop all funded actions until further notice. Due to this freeze, most staff in the Unidata program center are being furloughed effective today. The impacts on are fully summarized below. This is yet another example of the damage being done to the US scientific enterprise by the Trump Administration. Unidata is an example of an organization that has widespread support from the University community because it develops and provides essential scientific services for research and education in the atmospheric and related sciences. The radar feeds that you take for granted today on your smart phone were first developed by the Unidata CRAFT product. The distribution of model forecasts that you can access today was first developed by the Unidata CONDUIT project. And a lot of the graphics that you see on the web rely on Unidata MetPy and visualization software.These disruptions of the scientific enterprise are pure insanity. The halting of funding to Unidata will stymie scientific advancement, slow educational innovation, and limit classroom experiences.Here’s Alan Gerard’s Balanced Weather post:Sustain What is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit revkin.substack.com/subscribe
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