Alabama 811 | Know What's Below.

Crucial research proposal unfunded

| January 12, 2011 @ 4:16 pm | 29 Replies

“Your proposal was well received by
the review panel and was recommended for funding.
However, limited program resources will prevent us from
supporting your proposal.”

This was the most painful part of an email I received this morning from
NOAA. It was regarding a 30-page, single-spaced proposal I sent in last October, to examine the effects of terrain and friction effects on tornadoes, especially in the SE United States. We have found that friction gradients associated with rivers and even crops and urban areas affect tornadoes, as does topography (through channeling the wind and through downhill
stretching). We were asking for enough to pay half my salary for 3 years…not much when you consider the number of lives to be saved, and the $12 million that was spent on an unsuccessful VORTEX-2 program, studying the same flat, open tornadoes they’ve been studying for 30 years. There are several reasons for this. Number 1 is the state of our government today.
People want to cut the debt, and rightfully so. We are going bankrupt as a nation. However, when cuts are limited to “discretionary” spending only (things like FBI, NOAA/National Weather Service, FAA, DOT), a 5% cut in the overall budget (as is being proposed in Congress), means a 27% cut in what
government is supposed to be doing (see pie chart), as opposed to paying interest on debt, or redistributing wealth, or paying for the Medicare budget bloated by ridiculous drug ads on TV and physician salaries that are paid mainly by medicare.
Number 2 is that, according to a source close to the NWS, NOAA’s budget for research has been shrinking for years due to the high pay scale of NOAA employees.

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OK, perhaps I’m a little upset today, because this means I will, at best, become a part-time employee when the NOAA money we were getting runs out (they started sending it all to a university who has no meteorology program to build a building.) However, I think you should know how your government works, how money is really spent, and what “budget cuts” really mean.

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