Noaa imposes limits on scientists, sparking concerns over global forecasts | Trump administration

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has set new restrictions on its scientists, who say that people inside the agency say that the quality and availability of weather forecasts in the world are among the other major services.

The new requirements have created a feeling of uncomfortable within the agency, according to the current NaASCIENTS specialists and officials who spoke with them, and worried partners in European agencies.

“My expectations are that this is a climate campaign,” said one of the leading scholars. “People are somewhere between discomfort and terror.”

Last week, the Research Office sent a message to all employees as “immediately”, the agency’s headquarters will implement a new layer of supervising the email of its scientists and “virtual meetings” with foreign citizens. The new restrictions also require all NAAA employees and companies affiliated with documenting “all international posts” in an internal spreadsheet to be approved by a political appoiner Trump on the basis of each case separately.

The scientist said: “We haven’t stopped anything yet,” but “it is a crazy amount of things to do. Work internationally is very routine, it is barely thinking about it.”

“It is time to be a federal employee at the present time,” said the scientist, who did not want to be named.

The direction of NOAA did not prevent its scientists from continuous continuous international cooperation, but it seems that the additional administrative burden is not particularly stressful for the national weather service (NWS) – the NOAA section that supports all weather forecasting in the United States and provides a stable stream of data and oceans to the world Free as a public commodity.

The climate scientist at the European Union Copernicus, who did not want to call it, said he was “shocking and sad” when he heard the news last week. “The climate crisis does not know any limits, and stopping international scientific cooperation can undermine our ability to understand and combat it.”

Employees within NOAA are also preparing for further cuts in the budget and employees that will put more pressure on the agency. According to CBS reports, “current employees were told to expect a 50 % reduction in employee and budget discounts by 30 %.”

Before confirming as director of the Management and Budget Office last week, Project 2025 Architect Russell vickt Proposal The budget reduction by 38 % for NOAA to “curb the excessive task crawl in the main agencies, stood up to the climate steadily in the department, and eliminating the priorities of the waking agenda.”

Other policy experts in Trump’s inner circle want to privatize NWS. A A recent study I found that every dollar investor in the national weather service, it produces $ 73 for the American people (and more to the world by accessing the available general data for free).

Since NWS is very valuable for society, Greg Carein, who served as head of the expected operations branch of the NWS weather center, said that the restrictions on NOAA cannot be considered a procedure to completely save costs.

“Cuting these services will now be a reckless decision that costs much more in lives and damage than it may provide in the public budget,” said Carbin. “Investing in weather and climate services is not cost – it is a basic protection for security, economy and welfare security.”

The steps seem to be part of more coordinated effort than before Trump administration To reduce government spending and re -clean up federal efforts away from the climate crisis.

Earlier this month, Elon Musk“Government Efficiency Department” (Doug), the head of the Human Resources Team in NOAA In administrative leave And it started Purification of activities at the agency level Concerning diversity, fairness and inclusion. according to More reportsNOAA employees were recently asked to collect lists with all the climate -related programs currently managed by the agency or money.

Sources inside NOAA say that the additional administrative burden, along with a continuous side Freezing federal employment Additional discounts for employees and the expected budget, will hinder the United States’ ability to maintain the operating general weather service. This may also lead to restrictions in the freedom available use of NOAA data abroad, which may have a profound global effect.

Carbine said: “Define predictions protect lives, reduce billions of dollars in disaster damage, and enable companies, from agriculture to transportation, to work more efficiently.”

European scientists working with NOAA said they were concerned about what they heard from their colleagues in the United States, but they were waiting for what changes in practice means.

“One of the most aspects of this situation is the availability of American data groups for environmental sciences, especially in predicting weather and climate science,” said Nicholas Busraz, an air scientist in Copernicus, who was not talking on behalf of the agency.

Bousserez, which is widely collaborated with NOAA and NassaHe said that it was not yet clear whether access would be short, but “this extremist scenario remains reasonable and could have severe consequences.”

Peter Thorne, the climate scientist at the University of Mainouth, who collaborated with Copernicus and Nawa, said the United States played a major role in climate and weather for decades, especially in the basic climate notes. “It is not as if it was in the worst cases of NOAA grievance, everything will be sent to an existential crisis … [but] You will not be beautiful. “

Noaa did not respond to a request for comment.

NWS usually employs about 4,500 scientists and technicians, but it is struggling to keep its employees completely. NOAA has a sprawling task that extends to the entire world, but focuses mainly on maximizing the benefit of science for society.

“If the proposed discounts are enacted to NOAA and NWS, the consequences will be severe,” said Carbin. “This will lead to weather forecasts and less precise and slow warnings – exploitation of lives and property.”

A senior Noaa estimated that the “hundreds” of NOAA staff have already accepted a federal purchase provided by the Trump administration.