Trump is targeting the atmospheric research center that is the key to the fires, California

from Rachel BeckerCalMatters

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California officials and researchers across the country are sounding the alarm over the Trump administration’s plans to dismantle a global center for weather, wildfire and climate science: the Colorado-based National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Russell Vaught, president Donald Trumpdirector of the Office of Management and Budget, published on Tuesday on social media platform X that the National Science Foundation would “break up” the scientific institution he called “one of the biggest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”

The move comes as Trump clashes with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. But scientists warn that the dismantling of federally funded science center will endanger Americans even more than the hundreds whose jobs are now at risk in Colorado.

“I’m alarmed. I’m worried. I’m upset. And I think we need to connect the dots between the attacks on science and what that means for the safety of Americans,” California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot told CalMatters.

Vought said in its social media post that “all vital activities such as weather research will be moved to another facility or location.”

But fields of research don’t unravel easily, and experts say weather science can’t withstand cuts to critical climate research. In California, extreme weather conditions highlight the high stakes as atmospheric river storm looms and one anniversary of Catastrophic Los Angeles wildfires fueled by climate approaches.

State Climatologist Michael Anderson said the National Center for Atmospheric Research has worked with California agencies in the past on projects to improve precipitation forecasts and snow cover modeling.

Losing the science center, he said, “will put the nation back in the ability to respond to extreme weather events.”

The research institution, often referred to as NCAR, is run by a nonprofit consortium of 120 colleges and universities. It shares instruments including aircraft and supercomputers, as well as expertise and research vital to understanding and predicting bushfire behaviour, exposure to smoke, stormsfloods and drought — with implications for public safety, agriculture, and more.

“Eviscerating NCAR puts American lives and property at higher risk from fire because we won’t have the information we need to really understand and deal with how fires are increasing in a warming world,” said Jennifer Balcha prominent fire scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder whose own work has examined the increasingly devastating wildfires in California and other western states.

Balch speaks as high fire risk weather in December forced a blackout in her Colorado neighborhood, leaving her family to grill breakfast.

“Undermining our scientific community in this way will only hurt Americans,” Balch said.

Craig Clementschairman of the Department of Meteorology and Climate Sciences at San Jose State University, said the next generation of scientists would lose vital training opportunities if the research center were dismantled.

“They get hands-on experience with state-of-the-art research, aircraft, facilities and researchers,” he said.

Clements said he was shocked this was even being offered. “How are they going to do this? Is this really going to happen?” he said. “This is going to destroy atmospheric science research globally — not just in California, not just in the U.S. This is the premier atmospheric science institution in the world.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office called the research “lifesaving” in a news release Friday.

“Unfortunately for the American people, Trump’s budget director, Russell Vought — aka “right wing absolute fanatic”— is targeted at the Center to line the pockets of Big Oil,” the statement said. “Despite what the Trump administration hopes, extreme weather does not take the day off.”

Crowfoot told CalMatters that the move is just another example of the Trump administration’s attack on the science that keeps Californians safe.

“One thing that had us struggling this fall was the cut in federal funding for California Nevada River Prediction Center” Crowfoot said. State of emergency in California storm and flood efforts rely on the forecast center to guide decisions such as where to pre-deploy emergency response teams.

Crowfoot said there are so many staff cuts that the state is scrambling to fill the gaps as the rainy season approaches. The gutting of the atmospheric research center, he said, will prompt a similar battle as universities and others try to maintain data, instruments and expertise in his absence.

“Federal data, science and information is critical. What we’re experiencing across the country is this alarming adjustment to the loss of that information — and it’s happening on a weekly basis,” Crowfoot said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.