The Trump administration is moving to dismantle one of the world's leading climate and weather research institutes, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. The decision, experts say, will undermine U.S. scientific competitiveness and leave millions of people vulnerable to worsening climate hazards.
Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, made the surprise announcement Tuesday evening. publish on X.
“This facility is one of the largest sources of climate panic in the country,” Vaught wrote. “Due diligence is being carried out and any vital activities such as weather research will be moved to another organization or location.”
This news caused shock in the scientific community. The center's work is used by governments, universities, emergency planners and the private sector to forecast and plan responses to natural disasters. It's complicated Community Earth System Model underlies international climate assessments and much of U.S. policy. The federally funded research center has about 830 employees, making it one of the world's largest consortia of scientists studying weather, climate and Earth systems using advanced models and supercomputers.
“The Trump administration has targeted one of the leading centers for weather and climate research and modeling in the United States, threatening to destroy decades of government investment,” said Carlos Martinez, a former researcher at the center and now a senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Intentionally dismantling an institution so important to weather forecasting and predicting climate change will not only undermine scientific research, but will also leave people across the country less prepared to deal with the dangers of global warming.”
A senior White House official confirmed the plan to The Times, saying the National Science Foundation, which funds the center, would dismantle the facility to “terminate Green New Scam's research activities.” As the largest federal research program on climate change, the center serves as “the main research bastion of left-wing climate madness,” the official said.
National Science Foundation officials said Wednesday that the agency is “reviewing the structure of research and observational capabilities” at the center and is exploring options for transferring control of its Wyoming Supercomputer Center to the “relevant operator”. The agency is also seeking to sell two aircraft operated by the center and “redefine the scope” of research and modeling and forecasting operations.
“NSF remains committed to providing world-class infrastructure for weather modeling, space weather research and forecasting, and other critical functions,” the agency said. “To do this, NSF will engage with partner agencies, the research community, and other stakeholders to obtain feedback to revise the functions of the work currently performed by NCAR.”
Although a White House spokesman described the center's work as “climate madness,” climate change is happening faster than many scientists predicted. The basic science of climate change is firmly established through decades of research.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at California Agriculture and Natural Resources University, said the center's importance cannot be overstated. “There is no other institution like NCAR—not just in this country, but anywhere in the world,” Swain said during briefing Wednesday morning. He feared that no other global organization could absorb all of its expertise.
Swain also characterized the administration's decision as “overtly politically biased” and not in the public interest. The center's forecasts “are not just useful or convenient – they save lives and save the economy,” he said, adding that closing the facility would be “an incredible, truly truly shocking, self-inflicted wound to American competitiveness.”
Indeed, losing the site would leave millions of people vulnerable to worsening climate hazards such as wildfires, hurricanes, tropical cyclones and winter storms, Swain and other experts say. Its supercomputing center in Wyoming provides enormous computing resources to national and international scientists to run complex weather and climate models and simulations.
In California, many universities and state agencies use the center's data and modeling for air pollution monitoring, water management, emergency planning and wildfire risk assessment, among many other purposes.
The center's data and tools are also used directly or indirectly by the private sector.
For example, the center provides large volumes of atmospheric data via Climate Data Guide And Numerical Simulation of a Large Ensemble Community Earth System Modelwhich researchers, insurance companies, and even AI data scientists can access and use to train models, assess risks, and make predictions.
The aviation, energy and private weather forecasting industries rely on data and tools developed by the center, including a technology product known as BoltAlertwhich is used to predict lightning strikes, and Maintenance Decision Support Systemwhich alerts snow plows and trucks to road conditions.
The $700 billion reinsurance industry also relies on the center's data, tools and climate models to create financial instruments such as catastrophe bonds that are directly tied to weather or natural disaster risks. Such vehicles depend on detailed and accurate historical data, as well as climate models to predict potential risk.
For example, reinsurance giant SwissRe credits the center's work in developing its own forecasting tool known as CatNet. In a press statement about the product, the company said its disaster experts are collaborating with the center to create globally validated hail forecasts.
Franklin Nutter, spokesman and former president of the Reinsurance Association. of America, a reinsurance trade group, said it believes NCAR will be split up and tasked with focusing on “weather.”
“It is unclear what this means for climate research,” Nutter said in an email. “NCAR has become the world's leading research center” thanks in part to its supercomputing capabilities, which allow it to analyze weather over time, or climate.
He said a recent study of 40 years of hail patterns in the Midwest shows that hail patterns have changed – in frequency, severity and geographic location. The insurance industry, as well as local and state governments, use this information to assess changing risk patterns. He said the center also “studied the dynamics of forest fires to understand the patterns and intensity of their development.”
The center also provides real-time weather data that the insurance, reinsurance and investment sectors use to determine whether catastrophe bonds will pay.
“Perhaps most importantly, NCAR is needed to pool critical resources [super computing and talent] provide weather-related research and innovation that will provide federal, state and local governments with preparedness and response insights,” he said, noting that funding for the center comes not only from the National Science Foundation, but also from the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy and the Federal Aviation Administration.
“Continuing U.S. leadership and developing science talent and innovation has been a hallmark of NCAR,” he said. His trade group “believes it should be retained and given additional resources.”
The decision to close the facility follows other efforts by the Trump administration to halt scientific research and change public opinion about climate change. This includes dismissal of hundreds of employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and cuts funding to its research division. The Trump administration also fired hundreds of scientists is working to prepare a congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment and deleted the site in which previous assessments were posted.
The announcement came as a surprise to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who said in a statement shortly after Vought's announcement that the state has “not yet received information” about the plan.
“If this is true, public safety is at risk and science is under attack,” Polis said. “Climate change is a reality, but NCAR's work goes far beyond climate science. NCAR provides data on severe weather events like fires and floods that help our nation save lives and property, and prevent devastation for families. If these cuts continue, we will lose our competitive advantage over foreign powers and adversaries in the pursuit of scientific discoveries.”
When White House officials were asked why the administration was closing the center, they pointed to so-called “woke” programs at the center that they said were “wasting taxpayer dollars” and “deviating from strong or useful science,” such as Center for Rising Voices aimed at integrating indigenous knowledge and geosciences, and art series who explored the relationship between man and water.
They also referred to the center's statement wind turbine research The goal of the project was to better understand the impact of weather conditions on offshore wind energy production. Trump spoke openly about his resistance to sea wind and other forms of renewable energy.
