Trump Administration Threatens to Dismantle Leading Climate and Weather Research Center

News reports indicate that the Trump administration intends to dismantle the National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), one of the United States' leading weather and climate research institutions. The Trump administration is apparently set to begin dissolving NCAR immediately, potentially closing the center's main laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. Details of the full plan remain unclear.

NCAR was established in 1960 as one of the world's premier weather and climate research and modeling centers. It brought a consortium of universities together to conduct earth science research to improve weather and climate prediction. One of NCAR's most important contributions is the Community Earth System Model, a cornerstone of international climate assessments and US policy analysis.

Below is a statement by Dr. Carlos Martinez, senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists:

"The Trump administration has put a bullseye on one of the United States' premier weather and climate research and modeling centers, threatening to destroy decades of public investment. As a former early career researcher at NCAR, I saw firsthand the contributions it made to benefit the U.S. public, and I am in complete shock. Dismantling NCAR would impact every earth science and atmospheric science university department in the country. Without NCAR's infrastructure and supercomputing abilities, many small colleges and universities wouldn't be able to conduct climate or weather research with the latest models. The research done at NCAR influences every piece of weather and climate prediction in the United States, enabling air quality monitoring, forecasting of droughts and extreme precipitation events, and improving hurricane intensity forecasts.

"Deliberately dismantling an institution so central to weather forecasting and climate change prediction would not only undermine scientific research, it would leave people across the nation less prepared for the dangers of a warming world.

"Once again, this anti-science administration is threatening to take a hatchet to climate research with the sole purpose of trying to bury the evidence of climate change and boost its fossil fuel agenda. Congress should stand up to these attacks and halt these destructive actions of the Trump administration."