CSIRO abruptly scraps globally recognised climate forecast program

Exclusive: Funding halted from June 2021 without fanfare and after science agency reportedly spent $15m on teams of scientists

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Australia's premier science organisation abruptly scrapped a fully-funded, globally recognised program to predict the climate in coming years without consulting an advisory panel that had praised its good progress" only weeks earlier.

Launched in 2016 with $37m in funding over 10 years by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, the Decadal Climate Forecasting Project was meant to help industries from agriculture to dam operators and emergency services to better cope with climate variability and extremes.

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