Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Do climate scientists require Federal Government funding? The answer surprisingly appears to be no; President Obama’s former Federal Climate Advisory Committee have secured other sources of funding, to enable them to continue work previously funded by the Obama administration.

Climate scientists exiled by Donald Trump to reconvene at Columbia University and continue research

Richard Moss of University of Maryland to reunite peers from disbanded federal advisory panel at New York institution to resume work into global warming

Eric Roston Friday 5 January 2018 14:57 GMT

The Trump administration disbanded a federal advisory committee on climate change last year but the scientists on the panel won’t be deterred. They’re taking their research elsewhere.

Columbia University’s Earth Institute has hired one of the committee’s researchers, Richard Moss of the University of Maryland, who will reconvene most of the former panel members and produce the same report.

The shadow panel, announced on Thursday, is the latest example of how President Donald Trump’s antipathy towards climate change research and policy is pushing scientists into internal exile.

As a visiting scientist, Moss and the panel will produce the report, which is an addendum to the quadrennial National Climate Assessment, released in early November, that focuses on local impacts of the warming world. The effort is expected to receive some financial backing from New York State as well as administrative support from the American Meteorological Society, a professional group based in Boston. The report will be available for public and peer review in June.

New York State wants the committee to “continue its critical work without political interference and provide the guidance needed to adapt to a changing climate,” it said in a statement.

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