It’s a shame to read that Canadian climate research will likely continue to go unfunded, meaning the demise of the decade-old Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. This research entity has been working on studies related to climate change such as the melting arctic, the consequence of permafrost thaw, and the pattern of drought in the praries. The Foundation has a mandate that runs through 2012, but it hasn’t received any funding since the Conservative government took charge in 2006. Without any funding, it will likely shutter its doors this year.

It’s concerning that science continues to be censored in areas of atmospheric research and global change. Assessing and understanding the trends and impacts of climate change should have no political bias, as the consequences affect everyone. Such a research network fosters larger science of an interdisciplinary and collaborative nature that follows no agenda and that cannot be swayed by politics. Perhaps it’s time for more of a global entity for research and science on this topic, taking advantage of the work of the Group on Earth Observations and facilitating coordinated global research efforts.

The U.S. State Department launched a new data visualization site called Opinion Space yesterday. The online data visualization tool gives you the means to gauge how your own opinions stack up to those of others around the world. The visualization isn’t aligned to geographic space, but instead maps opinion space by showcasing the consensus and moderate views. T opinion map aims to depolarize online comments while also allowing for a text-based sharing of “Ideas for Secretary of State Clinton.”

This innovative means to collect feedback is made possible through a partnership with the Berkeley Center for New Media. The idea to collect and map opinions over time will add a feedback mechanism and a sense of changing perceptions about the objectives of U.S. diplomacy and how these efforts are perceived both domestically and internationally.

Borrowing from federal CIO Vivek Kundra’s success with Web Services challenges for the District of Columbia in his Apps for Democracy challenge, the federal government is now poised to usher in an era of web services challenges for federal problem solving. A detailed 12-page memo was released on Monday to executive department heads and agencies that outlines the use of challenges for transparency and open government, with details on the potential benefits as well as an outline of many different types of prizes.

Geospatial tools are well poised to take advantage of this new Web Services paradigm shift, and individual developers as well as larger companies stand to benefit. With this big federal push, it stands to reason that states and local government will soon follow suit. If you’re a consultant or small service business owner, now’s the time to polish your web services skill sets and to forge alliances with other developers.

The Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control has just released an online fatal injury mapping model that allows you to query injury statistics to create custom maps of death rates throughout the United States. There’s a fascinating level of detail to this resource, including the intent of injury, ethnicity, age, and cost of injury. The map can be detailed at several different levels of detail, and there’s the ability to smooth and color code the data for definitions.

Louisiana Senator David Vitter wants to stop the Federal Emergency Management Agency from updating flood maps in areas where levees have been found deficient. The senator would like to see a phased levee certification fix that would allow repairs prior to mapping in order to avoid steep insurance hikes that would hamper redevelopment.

The sticking point seems to be the need for local dollars to fix the problems, with a federal entity that is pointing out the risks.

A new mapping tool brings together the functionality of HealthMap and Bio.DIASPORA to analyze the potential health threats to Canada due to the global convergence of people around the 2010 Olympic Games. HealthMap provides a means to track global infection trends via a Google Maps mashup that trolls the Internet for signs of emerging epidemics, while the Bio.DIASPORA system adds the global patterns of human travel via commercial airlines.

Disease outbreaks have surrounded similar global events in the past. The potential impact to Canada can be assessed with these tools,  with analysis of who is coming to Canada for the games and the types of medical issues that are experienced in the country of origin. Such a tool can be useful for future international gatherings to help the host country be more prepared.

Read more about this effort in an article in today’s Globe and Mail.

The RCMP searched the Whistler Olympic village with a dog team after a suspicious map of the complex was found. The map contained notations that the authorities said were concerning, although they refused to reveal the nature of the notations. Security is a significant component of the games these days, with Canada reportedly spending $866 million on this line item.

Read more about the incident here.

Fusion Core, the mapping system that combines Microsoft’s SharePoint Server with ESRI’s ArcGIS Server, is at the center of the security system developed for Super Bowl XLIV. The system brings together various data streams into one system and allows users to exchange documents, information and alerts.

The system, called Project Dolphin, enables multi-agency collaboration for situation response.

Read this story in Information Week for more details.

I spoke today with Carla Burzyk, Director of Office of Budget and Performance at the U.S. Geological Survey, to understand better the proposed cuts to the National Geospatial Program. She filled me in on the budget process and addressed some of the concerns that I’ve outlined in previous posts about the status of the National Map partnerships.

• Status of the budget: This is the first round of the 2011 budget that won’t be decided until the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. The budget is the vehicle for deliberation by Congress, and much can be changed in the process.
• Tradeoffs: The budget represents eight months of deliberations to conform to guidance that is set by the Office of Management and Budget. Given this guidance there were a number of decisions made to align funds to high-priority programs, and grant programs were seen as the first target for cuts. While there is a $3.5M cut to the Partnership Implementation program, the entire budget of the program was $14M so the bulk of the program remains.
• Jobs: The priority for cuts was also aimed at areas where people would not be let go. While the justification indicates that liaison positions in 13 states will go away, these duties are just a part of larger jobs and the duties will go while the people stay.
• Justification: I was most interested in hearing some justification for this loss of data collection, hoping that there was some off-setting reason to reduce data collection efforts. The USGS did receive $140M in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and $14.6 Million of that went to improving imagery and elevation maps. It was suggested that the USGS would be looking at a decrease in data if it weren’t for these funds, so with the funds and the cuts, the agency will maintain roughly the same level of data as in they past years.
• IFTN Speculation: My speculation about the possibility that the Imagery for the Nation Program might reach approval wasn’t part of the thinking. While there has been some positive indications that the proposal is meeting with greater support, there’s no pending action.

I appreciated the quick and thorough response that I received regarding these questions. Overall the increases to the USGS budget are still positive, with the budget larger than it has been in past years, but there areas where it could certainly be larger. Much could change when Congress deliberates over this guidance, so I’ll work to stay on top of this as it develops.