Thursday, February 11, 2016

CSIRO cuts "appalling and troubling"

Scientists and farmers have called the CSIRO's cuts to climate science appalling and troubling.

CSIRO's chief executive Dr Larry Marshall announced this week climate change was well modelled and it was time to move on to find solutions to how to live with it.

But farmers who are climate champions say climate changes are ongoing and more work was needed to understand the impacts..

The CSIRO is meeting staff to tell them how many jobs will be restructured from Oceans and Atmosphere and Land and Water divisions. 

Of the 350 jobs that will be potentially lost in the organisation, 110 jobs would be lost in climate research.

Heatwave researcher decries loss of CSIRO research

A researcher of heatwaves at the University of New South Wales, Dr Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick said the latest round of job cuts from CSIRO were appalling.

"The climate research work conducted by CSIRO has been pioneering and of global standard," she said.

"While we know that the climate is changing because of human activity. We have not simply 'answered' that question after the Paris agreement — many more questions remain. 

"Like other scientific fields — such as biology, chemistry and medicine — continual research is required to continually improve our methods, understanding and knowledge. 

"Research in any field does not, and cannot stop after an apparent question has been answered." 

Dr Perkins-Kirkpatrick said in terms of climate science, much more research needed to be done on furthering our understanding of these changes.

"Monitoring the climate as it does change, and making our climate and weather models more efficient and improving their capabilities." 

She said much of this work was undertaken by CSIRO.

"Now a big hole will be left. If we want to properly safeguard our country from climate change, we require ongoing fundamental climate research — we cannot create innovative and effective solutions towards climate change without it."

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