micnd90 [he/him,any]

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Joined 5 years ago
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Cake day: August 17th, 2020

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  • In this particular scenario, the purpose of NOAA global monitoring network is to provide baseline clean air measurements from around the world. This is for aerosols, ozone, various greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, N2O) and their respective isotopes, ozone-depleting gases (CFCs, HCF, etc), and other trace gases (CO, COS, etc). We are not measuring air in polluted urban cities, those are up to local meteorological institute and universities, but we’ll gladly assist with the instrumentation and providing technical expertise if needed. To get background clean air you have to measure far away from polluted urban areas. Measuring air in the middle of the ocean also gives you a benefit that the air is well-mixed and somewhat representative of large areas on Earth. That’s why we have observatories in remote islands. The lines you see there are ship tracks from partners. Ships en route from Japan-New Zealand, New Zealand-US West coast, and US-East Coast to South Africa occasionally grab air samples for us.


  • NOAA runs the central calibration laboratory, and instruments to measure air flasks collected from around the world. The most famous product being the CO2 concentration “Keeling Curve” at Mauna Loa.

    The stations in other countries are mostly being run in cooperation with the local meterological institute in that country. But only the US has the might and logistics to collect samples from remote sites like American Samoa, Midway island, Ascension Island, Marshall Islands, and Antarctic sites (South Pole, Palmer Station, Drake Passage, etc.)









  • To my knowledge it is a bit fragmented. Like there are different tiers of public option for rural vs. urban people, and employers still obligated to provide insurance to their workers (also with different tiers), and a lot of people do out of pocket supplementary insurance. The rural vs. urban divide creates weird problem like some of my colleagues from China said if city people went hiking in rural areas, roll their ankle and had to be helicoptered out, they are out of coverage because they live in cities. But more or less the whole population have some base of insurance (e.g., universal coverage), and emergency services are covered, so people never got bankrupt from ambulance trip. It is just that for very expensive medical treatment, like cancer treatment or some specialist visits, MRI, etc. it is not completely free.







  • Just to dispel a little bit of fearmongering, the National Weather Service, who is responsible for weather forecast after significant pushback actually got their budget slightly increased compared to last year. So hurricane and severe weather warning will mostly be OK (discounting tons of people who got fired and retire early this spring). What is truly dire currently is the research division (“Ocean and Atmospheric Research”, OAR) at NOAA slated for complete annihilation, which would results in thousands of actual scientists losing their jobs, massive lost of institutional knowledge and gaps/shutdown in long-term observations (e.g., CO2 levels at Mauna Loa).