CSIRO climate change expert John Church gets termination notice while on research trip between Antarctica & New Zealand

The fear of some CSIRO scientists of being axed from their jobs is taking place now. Climate change expert Dr John Church found out he was terminated through a phone call while he was aboard a research vessel of the organisation.

Mashable reports that Church was informed he would be made "potentially redundant" while aboard the RV Investigator which was sailing between New Zealand and Antarctica. Most of the job cuts would hit climate researchers like Church who has been with CSIRO since the 1970s. From his unit, Oceans and Atmosphere division, around 70 of climate experts would lose their jobs.

Although Church was demotivated by the termination, he assures that the value of information on changes in ocean temperature and salinity, ocean carbon content, he is collecting would remain valuable for decades to come, “regardless of bad decisions made by CSIRO management.” He adds the value of the ongoing programme is more critical than his personal situation

Besides the planned 275 job cuts due to lower CSIRO budget, Church may have been the target of the higher management because of his criticism in February over CSIRO’s decision to scrap its climate modelling programme that originally targeted to axe 350 jobs, lowered to 275, points out ABC.

The repercussions of CSIRO’s move has gone beyond Australia. Over 2,800 scientists from different parts of the world have signed a letter describing the axing of climate change experts as devastating. Among those who signed the letter is former US Vice President Al Gore who suggested a revisit of the decision.

Gore said in a statement, “Further development of climate modeling and observations by CSIRO and colleague scientific organizations is essential to planning for climate mitigation and adaptation to global warming.”

In response to the axing, a CSIRO spokesman declined to comment on details, saying, “All of the talks and negotiations at present have the same goal of ensuring the excellent science and long-term future of CSIRO is maintained.”