Global warming linked to national security

U.S. intelligence agencies briefed Congress today - and told them global warming is a threat to US National Security.

According to the Estimate – global warming is likely to increase illegal immigration, create humanitarian disasters, destabilize precarious governments, add to terrorism, and increase extreme weather events in the US, all of which could threaten national security - all based on a new National Intelligence Assessment on the National Security Implications of Global Climate Change to 2030.

The study used a fundamentally different kind of analytical methodology from what is typical for an intelligence product - it depended upon open sources and greatly leveraged outside expertise.

Since the Intelligence Community does not conduct climate research, they began the effort by looking for other US government entities that were experts in this area. They worked with the US Climate Change Science Program and visited with climate modelers and experts from the Department of Energy national laboratories and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA). They also relied upon support from the Joint Global Change Research Institute—a joint research program between the University of Maryland and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network and the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey California.

In this environment geospatial interoperability and open access to environmental information through standards like Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) SDI 1.0 services are vital to the climate change battle.

- Jeff