The Five Stages of Grief revisited by Albert Gore Jr. in the face of his 2000 presidential defeat. Now he is the Prophet of Doom for the super scary cause of Global Warming; some of his duties include hanging out with vapid celebrities and lecturing t…

In California we were just hit with energy surcharges in order to reduce “global warming”. That decision was based, in part, on the work of GISS. That data is costing me real money out of my pocket. That data and software should be placed where others can verify its integrity.

Looks like you are right – GSFC considers GISS an element of GSFC. That actually makes this mistake much worse

Even if I am wrong and he is a civil servant he is one voice – not “NASA”

No, I am not incorrect. JPL is a lab and under contract to NASA. It is not a civil servant run organization. Now NASA employees can be detailed to work on site, so that is possible. But it would be simple – someone should ask who pays him!

See here for an example contract with Hansen’s name

“is a laboratory of the Earth Sciences Division of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Cente”

They are a lab. Years ago I wes a contractor to NASA and have been to Goddard (worked at the building that had the shuttle payload bay mockup and acoutsic vibration chamber along with a couple of clean rooms and a deep space simulation chamber. This would be in the time just before Challenger malfunctioned. I know the difference between contractors and labs. Hansen himself might well be an employee of Columbia, I have never seen his paycheck but GISS is a “official” NASA lab who may or may not hire contractors to do the actual work involved.

But according to his NASA bio here he seems to be a NASA employee. His resume lists his current position as: 1981-present Director: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies

So it certainly LOOKS like he is a NASA employee.

If you are familiar with MITRE or Aerospace, it would be akin to calling them part of the Air Force. They are FFRDC institutions under specialized contracts to the Federal Government.

Cheers, AJStrata

The NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), at Columbia University in New York City, is a laboratory of the Earth Sciences Division of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and a unit of the Columbia University Earth Institute. Research at GISS emphasizes a broad study of global climate change.

And STILL they refuse to release either their data or process for scrutiny by outsiders.

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/