"C.I.A. Data Sharing With Environmental Scientists Is Revived"

"The nation's top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government's intelligence assets -- including spy satellites and other classified sensors -- as sensitive instruments that can assess the hidden complexities of environmental change. They seek insights from natural phenomena like clouds and glaciers, deserts and tropical forests.

The collaboration restarts an effort the Bush administration shut down and has the strong backing of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. As part of the effort, reconnaissance satellites in the last year have scrutinized Arctic sea ice in an effort to distinguish things like summer melts from climate trends, and images of the ice pack have been declassified to speed scientific analysis."

William J. Broad reports for the New York Times January 4, 2010.