NOAA budget cuts to gut U.S. climate research and slash jobs

Japan Times

11 hours ago

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is proposing cutting about 18% of its workforce and slashing $1.5 billion from its budget, including terminating programs to protect coastal communities and research that supports better forecasts and natural disaster prediction.
At least 2,256 positions, out of 12,596, have been targeted for elimination, according to a budget estimate released Monday. NOAA's Oceanic and Atmospheric Research office, described as "the engine that drives the next-generation' of science and technology, will be eliminated, with some of its functions going to other departments.
The string of cuts and eliminations outlined in the budget include the termination of the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, aimed at helping sustain coastal communities and economies. The budget would also terminate a program that provides research grants to academic institutions and nongovernmental organizations.
"This is the big one, it would be catastrophic,' said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. "Even if only half of it happens it would still be catastrophic.'
The budget comes amid U.S. President Donald Trump's cuts to climate research and federal weather forecasting agencies, reductions that critics say will diminish the ability to predict weather and erode the quality of weather models as fewer observations are made. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick pushed back against some of these criticisms in a congressional hearing earlier this year, saying the agency will use automation and artificial intelligence to cover the gaps.
NOAA is responsible for forecasting weather through its National Weather Service, as well as protecting U.S. oceans. It is a sweeping agency under the Department of Commerce, which has its own uniformed service and operates a fleet of aircraft, ships and satellites. A wide range of industries depend on NOAA data, especially energy and commodity markets as weather impacts demand and crop yields.
Hurricane forecasting will suffer, said James Franklin, a retired atmospheric scientist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Progress on building better models to track and forecast nature's most powerful storms would "come to a near stop,' he said.
A recent study showed forecast improvements since 2007 have saved the U.S. economy $5 billion per storm that makes landfall, Franklin said. "That's four times the annual National Weather Service budget and we had five landfalling U.S. hurricanes last year.'
The cuts would not just affect climate change research, but also many aspects of long-term weather, Swain said. A number of high-profile labs, including the National Severe Storms Lab that was made famous by the movie Twister, would be impacted.
"It would mark the end of the era when the American government had the best and the brightest,' Swain said.
The agency will continue to oversee U.S. fisheries. However, it will transfer its responsibility for enforcing parts of the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the document said. NOAA will prioritize marine mining and energy production. The new reductions are in addition to cuts and retirements made early this year. The proposed 2026 fiscal year budget represents about a $1.5 billion reduction from 2025 funding.
"For a trivial cost savings we're now going to start turning the clock back,' Franklin said. "Stopping the progress we've made and instead start watching forecasts degrade as things break and there's no one to keep them running.'
Franklin said once the labs are closed down, the decision can't simply be reversed by the next election. "It would take years or decades to recover,' he said.
NOAA referred all requests for comment to the White House, which did not immediately respond.