President Trump references a map while talking to reporters about Hurricane Dorian on Sept. 4, 2019. The map appears to have been altered by a black marker to extend the hurricane’s range to include Alabama.
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The White House plans to break up a key weather and climate research center in Colorado, a move experts say could jeopardize the accuracy of forecasting and prediction systems.
It’s the latest climate-related move by President Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, cut funding for climate research, and removed climate and weather scientists from their posts across the federal government. During his first term, Trump famously contradicted the nation’s weather forecasting service by redrawing a Hurricane Dorian’s path on a map with a Sharpie.
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, in a post Tuesday on X, announced the plan to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, calling it “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.” NCAR was founded more than six decades ago to provide universities with expertise and resources for collaborative research on global weather, water, and climate challenges.
Vought said the center was undergoing a “comprehensive review” and that any “vital activities such as weather research will be moved to another entity or location.”
Antonio Busalacchi, who heads the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a nonprofit consortium of 129 U.S. universities that oversees the Boulder facility, told NPR he received no prior notice before the announcement and believes the decision “is entirely political.”
NCAR’s job is to study both climate and weather, and Busalacchi says the two cannot be understood separately. “Our job is to state what the science is, and it’s for others to interpret what the significance of that science is,” he says. “We’re very careful not to cross over that line to advocacy or policy prescription.”
Plan faces a political backlash
Vought’s announcement drew an immediate response from Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, who said in a statement that if the White House goes ahead with the plan, “public safety is at risk and science is being attacked.”
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Rep. Joe Neguse, a Democrat whose district includes Boulder, have suggested that the proposed NCAR closure amounts to political brinkmanship by the White House in response to Colorado’s refusal to release Tina Peters. Peters, a former Mesa County clerk, is serving a nine-year prison sentence for illegally accessing voting machines after the 2020 election. Recently pardoned by Trump, Peters, a Republican, has neither been charged nor convicted in federal court, making the pardon largely symbolic. In April, the government terminated scientists involved in the nation’s primary climate report and subsequently removed the report from an official government website.
In 2019, Trump became embroiled in a scandal dubbed “Sharpiegate” after disputing the official forecasts of the National Weather Service regarding Hurricane Dorian by claiming that Alabama was directly in the storm’s path. He later presented a map in the Oval Office with an altered storm trajectory drawn with a black marker. Earlier this year, Neil Jacobs, a NOAA official implicated in misconduct related to the incident, was approved by the Senate to head the agency.
The White House’s 2026 budget proposal includes a suggestion to reduce NOAA’s budget by approximately 27% and eliminate NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which is the agency’s primary branch for climate and weather research. Additionally, funding for climate science from the National Science Foundation has been scaled back by the administration.
The potential closure of NCAR would not have an immediate impact on weather forecasting, according to Furtado. However, he believes it would gradually diminish the scientific community’s capacity to further advance in understanding weather and climate.
Furtado emphasizes the importance of acknowledging the data and working on strategies to mitigate and adapt to the changing climate. Ignoring the data could lead to less accurate forecasts, putting lives and property in jeopardy.
