UK climate research under threat from centre closures
Controversial plans by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to close three of its main UK research centres and sack 200 scientists have faced strong opposition from UK and foreign stakeholders - bodies that have direct interest in the work done by the NERC.
8th March 2006
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The centres under threat are:
Monks Wood - Cambridgeshire
Winfrith - Dorset
Banchory - Scotland
Sir David Attenborough called the proposal "a nonsense", while the Ukraine State Museum wrote that "The closures are a very grave error."
The centres have been responsible for many discoveries directly linked to global warming and climate change. These include scientific evidence that global warming is having an impact on the living environment and that spring now arrives in Britain 3 weeks earlier than 50 years ago.
It is widely believed that the closures, if carried out, will significantly impact the UK's climate research programmes. "Britain's ability to understand and deal with the impact of climate change will be disrupted and may never fully recover", said a leading scientist.
Environment groups are calling for increased research to further develop our understanding of the impact climate change will have during the next century. Areas of particular concern are the relationship between climate change and bio-diversity, as it is widely believed that many native plants and animals could face extinction as global warming accelerate.
Research by Professor Sarah Wanless (Banchory - Scotland) has established a link between warming sea water and declining kittiwake breeding.
