The Trump administration plans to disband the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, the largest federal climate research laboratory.
Russ Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, announced the plan on Tuesday. in a statement regarding X.
“The National Science Foundation will disband the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado,” Vought wrote, citing story from USA Todaywho first reported on the administration's efforts. “This facility is one of the largest sources of climate panic in the country. A comprehensive review is currently underway and any vital activities such as weather research will be moved to another facility or location.”
The move would be a major blow to climate research in the United States at a time when the United Nations and other world leaders have said time is running out to prevent the most devastating effects of global warming.
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, parent organization of NCAR, said in a statement on Tuesday that he was aware of plans to close the center, but had no information about it.
“We look forward to working with the administration to continue to focus on protecting the security and prosperity of our country,” Antonio Busalacchi, UCAR president, said in a statement.
In response to an inquiry from NBC News about the NCAR plan, a senior White House official took aim at Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat.
“Perhaps if Colorado had a governor who actually wanted to work with President Trump, his constituents would be better off,” the official said.
The official called NCAR “the main research bastion of left-wing climate madness” and said disbanding it would “destroy Green New Scam's research efforts.”
Policy said in a statement on Tuesday that Colorado has not received information from the administration about the plan to eliminate NCAR, but if this is true, it would amount to an attack on science.
“Climate change is real, but NCAR’s work goes far beyond climate science,” Polis said. “NCAR provides data on severe weather events such as fires and floods that help our nation save lives and property and prevent destruction for families. If these cuts continue, we will lose our competitive advantage over foreign powers and adversaries in the pursuit of scientific discovery.”
Many in the climate and weather community reacted with shock at the announcement.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote on X that it would be “a terrible blow to American science as a whole.”
“This will destroy not only climate research, but weather, wildfire and disaster research that underpins half a century of progress in forecasting, early warning and resilience,” Swain said, adding that the reverberations would ripple throughout the global weather and climate community.
“NCAR has played a greater cumulative role in advancing weather forecasting and atmospheric modeling than perhaps any other organization in the world,” he said.
Katherine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, said dismantling NCAR would be “like taking a sledgehammer to the cornerstone on which our scientific understanding of the planet rests.”
“Almost everyone who studies climate and weather—not just in the U.S. but around the world—has walked through its doors and benefited from its incredible resources,” he said. she wrote in X.
Andy Hazelton, research fellow at the Cooperative Institute of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Miami, called the move “extremely myopic.”
Some Democrats have vowed to fight the NCAR shutdown.
“This is a very dangerous and clear retaliation move by the Trump administration,” said Rep. Joe Neguse, a Colorado Democrat whose district is home to the climate research center. wrote on X. “NCAR is one of the most renowned scientific centers in the WORLD, where scientists conduct cutting-edge research every day. We will fight this reckless directive with every legal tool at our disposal.”
