Concern rising over global weather hub

The move comes as Trump clashes with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. But scientists warn that dismantling the federally-funded science center will endanger Americans even beyond 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 attacks on science and what it means to the safety of Americans,” California’s Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot told CalMatters. 

Vought said in his social media post that “any vital activities such as weather research will be moved to another entity or location.”

But the research fields aren’t easily disentangled, and experts say weather science can’t withstand the cuts to critical climate research. In California, weather extremes highlight the high stakes as an atmospheric river storm looms and the one-year anniversary of Los Angeles’ climate-fueled catastrophic wildfires approaches.

State climatologist Michael Anderson said that the National Center for Atmospheric Research has worked with California agencies in the past on projects to improve precipitation predictions and snowpack modeling. 

Losing the science center, he said, “will set the nation back in being able to respond to extreme weather events.”

The research institution, often referred to as NCAR, is managed by a nonprofit consortium of 120 colleges and universities. It shares tools including aircraft and supercomputers, as well as expertise and research vital to understanding and predicting wildfire behavior, smoke exposure, storms, floods and drought — with implications for public safety, agriculture and more.

“Gutting NCAR is putting American lives and property at higher risk of fire, because we’re not going to have the information that we need in order to really understand it and address how fires are increasing in a warming world,” said Jennifer Balch, a preeminent fire scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, whose own work has investigated California and other Western states’ increasingly devastating wildfires. 

Balch spoke as high fire-risk weather in December forced a power shutoff to her Colorado neighborhood, leaving her family to cook their breakfast on the grill. 

“Undercutting our science community like this is only going to hurt Americans,” Balch said. 

Craig Clements, chair of the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science at San José State University, said that the next generation of scientists would lose vital training opportunities if the research center were dismantled. 

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

Clements said he was in shock that this was even being proposed. “How are they going to do this? Is this really going to happen?” he said. “It’s going to devastate atmospheric science research worldwide — not just California, not just the U.S. It is the leading atmospheric science institution in the world.” 

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office called this research “life saving” in a news release Friday. 

“Unfortunately for the American people, Trump’s Budget Director, Russell Vought — also known as  “a right-wing absolute zealot”— is targeting 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 one more example of the Trump administration attacking the science that keeps Californians safe. 

“One that had us scrambling this fall was cuts to the federal funding for the California Nevada River Forecast Center,” Crowfoot said. California’s emergency storm and flood efforts rely on the forecast center to guide decisions such as where to pre-position emergency rescue teams.

Crowfoot said there were such large personnel cuts that the state has been racing to fill the gaps as the rainy season takes hold. Gutting the atmospheric research center, he said, will force a similar scramble as universities and others try to maintain data, tools and expertise in its absence. 

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

Rachel Becker is a journalist reporting on California’s complex water challenges and water policy issues for CalMatters.org, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.