[morbius]

Findings like this, I think, are the most convincing arguments for retaining NASA's highly productive climate science division. There is a breadth of talent there squandered by horrible management both intra-agency and inter-agency. The fact that it's run by Congress and has little, if any autonomy is also a very sad, sad thing. I'd much rather see it spin off into its own thing that receives a set amount of funding but lets Dr. Bolden and the board have a degree of autonomy on where to spend it, much like USPS or Amtrak. Having anthropologists and attorneys decide critical science for the future just seems archaic, myopic, and horribly miscalculated.

[mturmon]

I'm puzzled by this comment. Are you talking about GISS, the small Columbia-U. adjacent NASA institute that specializes in climate? Because there is no "climate science division" at NASA -- that activity is spread out over several centers, besides GISS, most prominently at GSFC (Maryland) and, to some extent, JPL (California). The post here, for instance, was released by JPL. Additional climate work goes on at NOAA, NCAR, etc.

I'm also puzzled by the "run by Congress"/"little autonomy" comment, which is not true.