A Vital Challenge: Sustaining Long-Term Science in a Short-Term World
Meet scientists from the Keeling Foundation fighting to keep an accurate view of our rapidly changing planet.
There’s nothing more emblematic of the value of long-term observation than the Keeling Curve - the graph showing measurements of carbon dioxide from 1958 onward taken atop Mauna Loa in Hawaii. The measurements were initiated and maintained by Charles David Keeling. After Charles’s death in 2005, his scientist son, Ralph, kept at it.
But Ralph Keeling, recognizing the inconsistency of federal support for careful long-term observations of a host of Earth’s vital systems, has ventured well outside the world of climate science. He wrangled an array of scientists committed to sustaining sustained monitoring of atmospheric, ecological and other systems and formed the Keeling Curve Foundation. (Disclosure: I’ve offered advice off and on.)
The mission is simple:
Long-term records have the power to transform how we view the world. Each year, due to lack of appreciation and support, we miss opportunities to collect crucial data. We need environmental datasets like the Keeling Curve to track changes across the atmosphere, oceans, and land.
The demolition of science budgets and agencies under the second term of President Trump is posing an extraordinary challenge to that mission.
On May 7 I explored next steps for sustaining critical observational infrastructure and expertise with Ralph Keeling, the climate-focused Stanford ecologist Chris Field and Betsy Weatherhead, a leading researcher focused on earth observation science and technology.
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What drives me nuts is that even scientists who think global warming warnings are way over the top agree on this fundamental point about long-term monitoring. I have to post this section of my mind-blowing 2017 ProPublica conversation with Will Happer, who was a top candidate for science advisor in Trump’s first term and who is in/famous for his assertion that more carbon dioxide is great.
He said this:
One of our problems in climate is that you need long-term good science — for example long-term temperature records, long-term records of CO2, and it’s very hard for the government to support that kind of stuff because you go to Congress and they say, ‘Isn’t that what you were doing 20 years ago or 50 years. Aren’t you finished yet?’
…I’m all for climate science, you know. If I were King, I would maintain and improve, if I could, any measurement systems we have — satellites, ocean buoys. I think those are wonderful things.
In 2025, I reached out again when Trump’s acting NASA administrator, Secretary of Transportation Chris Duffy, described plans to shutter the agency’s Earth-focused science.
Happer said this:
I am still in favor of federal support of honest, well calibrated measurements of key properties of the atmosphere, the oceans and the Sun. I hope these continue indefinitely.
In the meantime the Trump administration is continuing its demolition apace, with this example from the U.S. Forest Service (via Minnesota Public Radio) offering just one distressing glimpse:
The Trump Administration announced a massive reorganization of the U.S. Forest Service this week that will result in the closure of two research facilities in northeast Minnesota, including an office in Grand Rapids that leads internationally recognized projects on the impact of climate change on peatlands and northern forests.
The Grand Rapids office is one of 57 research facilities that will be shuttered across the country, more than 20 of which are part of the Northern Research Station, which spans from upper Midwest states, including Minnesota and Wisconsin into New England.
Also see this Data Foundation summary of a presentation by Keeling and others at Climate Week in New York City last fall: Why Long-Term Climate Observations and Innovation Matter for Risk Management.