The National Center for Atmospheric Research operates aircraft to study the atmosphere. Breannan Linsley/AP
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
The Trump administration is breaking up a research center praised as a “crown jewel” of climate research after accusing it of spreading “alarmism” about climate change.
Russell Vought, the director of the White House’s office and management budget, said the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, would be dismantled under the supervision of the National Science Foundation.
“This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” he wrote in a social media post. “A comprehensive review is underway & any vital activities such as weather research will be moved to another entity or location.”
The announcement was the latest in a series of climate-skeptic moves by the administration, which has vowed to eliminate what it calls “green new scam research activities.”
It drew fierce condemnation from climate experts, who said the Colorado center was renowned for advances in the study of weather patterns, including tropical cyclones.
Roger Pielke Jr, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute thinktank, told USA Today, which first reported the story, that the facility was “a crown jewel of the US scientific enterprise and deserves to be improved not shuttered.”
He added: “If the US is going to be a global leader in the atmospheric sciences, then it cannot afford to make petty and vindictive decisions based on the hot politics of climate change.”
The move was also criticized by Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, who said it put “public safety at risk.”
“Climate change is real, but the work of NCAR goes far beyond climate science,” he said. “NCAR delivers data around severe weather events like fires and floods that help our country save lives and property, and prevent devastation for families.”
The center employs approximately 830 staff and includes the Mesa Laboratory in Boulder, which Vought said would be shut. It also operates two aircraft for atmospheric research and manages a government-owned supercomputing facility in Wyoming.
The decision to dismantle it is consistent with Donald Trump’s frequent characterisations of climate change as a “con job” or a “hoax.”
The White House has accused the centre of following a “woke direction” and identified several projects that administration officials say are wasteful and frivolous, USA Today reported.
These include a Rising Voices Center for Indigenous and Earth Sciences that seeks to “make the sciences more welcoming, inclusive, and justice-centered,” as well as research into wind turbines, an innovation that Trump has repeatedly denounced.
The administration has already proposed a 30 percent cut to the funding of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, slashing spending on its climate, weather and ocean laboratories, which work to improve forecasting and better understand weather patterns.
