Climate scientists face the loss of a critical research center — and vow to fight back

By Andrew Freedman, CNN

NEW ORLEANS (CNN) — Stress balls were the swag item of choice at the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s booth Wednesday morning, during the world’s largest gathering of climate scientists.

NCAR representatives came to this meeting — the convention of the American Geophysical Union — to talk about their research, which is crucial to the climate and weather community. Instead, they’ve ended up fielding questions about Trump administration plans to break up this Boulder-based center, which conducts research and maintains supercomputing facilities on behalf of the government and 129 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.

The impending breakup of NCAR, first reported by USA Today and announced on X Tuesday night by OMB director Russ Vought, would be aimed at ending the center’s climate programs while maintaining its supercomputing facilities and weather-related programs.

In his post on X, Vought called the center “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”

His announcement landed with a thud, even among some experts who have supported the Trump administration in the past.

Ryan Maue, who briefly served as a top official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during Trump’s first term, denounced the move against NCAR on X, stating: “If you believe A.I. and numerical weather prediction are important for our economy and national security, then NCAR in Boulder probably is our best bet to compete globally.”

“(American) weather modeling has been neglected for 20 years, and moonshot focus is needed, not dismantling.”

Created in 1960, the lab feeds models, tools and insights into government agencies including NOAA and NASA. At a town hall meeting last week, NOAA’s administrator touted the need to form a closer partnership with NCAR in order to improve the agency’s weather modeling, according to an agency staff member who attended.

That work could be put in jeopardy by the center’s breakup.

The NCAR is funded by the National Science Foundation and managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which is also in Boulder. As part of the administration’s plans, all the center’s existing facilities, including its I.M. Pei-designed headquarters in the Boulder foothills, would be shuttered and moved to other locations.

In his statement, Vought said “vital activities such as weather research” will move to these new locations. The White House did not respond to CNN’s request for further details about the plan, such as how officials aim to discern the difference between weather and climate programs when deciding which to continue.

At the AGU conference, researchers expressed suspicions that climate research is not the only reason NCAR has been targeted. “Something more is going on,” said Antonio Busalacchi, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

He noted it would be possible, for example, to shut down NCAR’s climate research programs without parceling its facilities to other locations, presumably in other states. The Trump administration has already sought to move major infrastructure out of Democrat-led Colorado, with the Space Force headquarters slated to move to Alabama.

Busalacchi said the center has been the bedrock of atmospheric science innovation for decades, citing the invention of the dropsonde instruments that Hurricane Hunters drop into tropical cyclones to gauge their wind speeds as an example. “NCAR is the jewel in the crown internationally as it pertains to weather water and climate,” he said.

Busalacchi spoke with CNN from his New Orleans hotel room, where he has set up a mini war room of sorts to coordinate a response from his fellow scientists and conference attendees. “What we’re seeing here is overt effort to cancel freedom of scientific thought and inquiry,” he said. “That should send a chill down the spine of every US citizen.”

Busalacchi said he and his colleagues plan to engage Congress in an effort to fight the administration’s impending moves.

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