National Geographic: Like a celestial version of Pixar's industrious robot Wall-E, environmental-monitoring satellites continually whiz overhead, quietly performing their allotted tasks of taking data and beaming the information down to climate researchers and weather forecasters.
But a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report highlights the fact that this monitoring network-which weather forecasters and climate researchers rely on-is in trouble.
That's because these U.S.-owned satellites are aging,...