Top Scientific Organizations Back $9 Billion Plan to Counter Warming

Eight leading U.S. scientific organizations are urging the next president to fund a major program to cope with a greater incidence of extreme weather events expected in a warming world. The organizations — which include the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research — said the U.S. should spend $9 billion from 2010 to 2014 to pay for satellite and ground-based instruments to improve Earth observation and weather forecasting. Some of the funds would be used to research ways that state and municipal governments can better respond to hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and other extreme weather events that could threaten 25 percent of the U.S.’s economic output.