Hundreds of images derived from classified data that could be used to better understand rapid loss and transformation of Arctic sea ice should be immediately released and disseminated to the scientific research community, says a new report from the National Research Council.

That was the opening paragraph when I set this news article aside for possible posting. The Feds actually responded that afternoon:



Ice on the East Siberian Sea in 2008

The United States released more than a thousand intelligence images of Arctic ice to help scientists study the impact of climate change, within hours of a recommendation by the National Academy of Sciences.

In an unusually fast move by a U.S. government agency, the Interior Department made the images public on Wednesday. The academy’s report urging this action was released at 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

Some 700 images show swatches of sea ice from six sites around the Arctic Ocean, with an additional 500 images of 22 sites in the United States…

The Arctic images have a resolution of about 1 yard (1 meter), a vast improvement on previously available pictures of sea ice, said Thorsten Markus of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

“That doesn’t happen every day,” said a person familiar with the government’s decision. “This is a great example of good government cooperation between the intelligence community and academia. In the science community, we call it a no-brainer.”

Until this administration, questions of science and politics were decided by hacks with No Brains.