The weather forecasts seen on television and the harsh storm warnings you get from the app are driven by federal science agencies lined up for some of the most dramatic cuts proposed by the Trump administration to date.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) employs approximately 12,000 staff worldwide, with over half of them being scientists and engineers. NOAA operates 18 satellites and 15 ships, with a budget of $6.8 billion. Their job is to study the sky, the oceans, the fish, track how they are changing, and predict what will happen to them. NOAA's work is essential for offshore oil and gas exploration, especially when it comes to aviation, fishing, climate research, and modelling weather.
“You and your family and friends are dependent on NOAA people, even if you don't know what they're doing,” said Jane Lubuchenko, who led NOAA under President Obama. I wrote it on Vox by email.
Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staff are targeting probation employees to cut jobs across the federal government. There are approximately 216,000 workers with this status, nearly 10% of the total federal workforce. Thousands of workers have already been fired across the federal government, across sectors such as the National Park Service and the Department of Energy. Approximately 75,000 staff members accepted the postponed offer of resignation.
However, the potential reductions at NOAA exceed that. CBS News reported that NOAA employees were asked to prepare to halve staffing and prepare to cut the budget by 30%. One source within the agency who asked to remain anonymous because they were not allowed to speak to the press told VOX that some NOAA weather offices would be completely eliminated. .
“With a shortage of staffing office, there will be some disruptions and declines in quality of service. Timothy Galadette, who served as NOAA's representative administrator during President Donald Trump's first term, said: He said: “It is crucial to our weather satellites, public safety, and disruptions in maintenance and operation can also be an issue.”
While it does a valuable job, NOAA is at the intersection of broader push to reduce government, an ideological battle against climate change, and perhaps personal grievances with the president himself.
This reduction could have widespread consequences for the US economy and American safety as an extreme weather region in increasingly populated regions. “NOAA does great things that impact all Americans every day in a positive way,” Gallaudet said. The dramatic cuts that some of the Trump administration wants from agencies “can all be slowed down and halted.”
Why main climates and weather agencies line up for deep cuts
NOAA is looking at the stars here on Earth. However, unlike NASA, NOAA is not an independent agency. It is under the Ministry of Commerce, led by Howard Lutnick, former CEO of financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald, which was confirmed on February 18th.
As the Department of Commerce's mission is to promote US trade and economic growth, it may seem strange to run scientific institutions, particularly those that make up 60% of the budget. However, historically NOAA research has been carried out with commerce in mind, particularly with fisheries and maritime trade in mind. Even today, NOAA's real-time mapping of seabeds and currents ensures safe travel across ports, contributing to the US economy of $5.4 trillion each year. The agency's fisheries management supports nearly $10 billion in the fishing sector. Prediction work through NOAA's National Weather Service is essential for farmers, event planners and for generating life-saving alerts ahead of extreme weather events. NOAA also conducts basic science research on climate change.
These features have attracted the rage of some within the Trump administration. Project 2025, the conservative policy agenda created by the Heritage Foundation, calls for the systematic removal of climate change from government policymaking in particular. In the Project 2025 training video obtained by Propublica, Trump's first term officials say that the future conservative president “must root out climate change references from anywhere.”
It makes sense that NOAA will become a ripe target. Project 2025 is called by NOAA “dismantled, many of its functions have been eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized or placed under national and local control.” NOAA's six major offices describe it as “one of the major drivers of the climate change warning industry and harming America's future prosperity.” With the National Weather Service, it is necessary to “fully commercialize forecasting operations.”
Governmentwide, many of the specific objectives laid out in Project 2025 have already been checked from the list. However, during his confirmation hearing, Lutnick said he was opposed to the proposal for Project 2025 to dismantle NOAA.
Trump also got accustomed to NOAA during his first term. In 2019, Hurricane Dorian reached Category 5 strength and was heading towards the Gulf Coast. Trump posted on Twitter that Alabama is one of the most likely states to hit, but the National Weather Service's Birmingham office said there is no hurricane impact on the state.
Then, at an oval office briefing on September 4, 2019, Trump presented a National Weather Service map of Hurricane Dorian Pass, enveloping southern Alabama, which looked like a loop drawn on a marker. The episode was called Sharpiegate and led to a struggle within NOAA as career staff were pushed back against political appointees who wanted their career staff to confirm Trump's statement. Craig McLean, the then-representative Chief Scientist at NOAA, was kicked out of his post.
McLean told Vox that the incident was part of a broader political effort to bending science into Trump's agenda. “When Trump people first arrived [during the first term]they were pushing me to change direction for the climate program,” McLean said. “The complaints were that the people in Trump were unable to accomplish that. The climate program survived and continued to assert clear scientific truths. But now I have a flaw and a sledgehammer. I hope they come in and start banging the program. That's what relates to me. Climate is a big target.”
NOAA has room for improvement
A former NOAA official said there is a long-term friction point for agencies that deserve scrutiny and could benefit from strategic restructuring, reductions and privatization.
The big problem is simply that NOAA is under the wrong department. “The political appointees of the Commerce Department didn't have a good appreciation for what NOAA is doing,” Gallaudet said. “That was the biggest problem, to be honest with you. They really didn't really understand us. Whenever we have direct access to the White House, it's when we pushed our initiative forward.”
While NOAA is unlikely to move from the Department of Commerce anytime soon, having the best political officials who grasp NOAA's mission and its value to the American public can smooth out bureaucratic conflicts .
NOAA can also benefit from teaming up with the private sector. Private weather forecasts are currently a US $10 billion industry, but fully commercializing the National Weather Service is something some of these companies have opposed. Accuweather, a company that provides weather forecasting services, has opposed the proposal for Project 2025, saying it cannot replace everything NOAA does. “The author of 'Project 2025' used us as an example of forecasts and warnings offered by private sector businesses without Accuweather knowledge or permission,” Accuweather CEO Steven R. Smith said last year I'm writing this in.
However, by working with companies like Accuweather, NOAA has expanded its forecast scope, with more likely adjustments to companies that are affected by harsh weather and are at risk. Get important alerts in people's hands. Gallaudet said NOAA is constantly building up a mass of weather indicators informing local meteorologists, app developers and farmers, but the collection is awkward. Private companies can help agents automate data collection and optimize their analytical software. Machine learning tools developed by high-tech companies can also help NOAA improve predictions.
Another issue is that NOAA's broad research portfolio unconsciously overlaps with scientific projects from other institutions, such as NASA, the Department of Energy, and the US Geological Survey (USGS). is.
“I went on a diving trip off the coast of North Carolina and went to several shipwrecks while I was at NOAA. Unofficially, it was my recreational event. It turns out he worked on sturgeons.” Galadette said. “There were two [sturgeon] NOAA's lab. Our sturgeon scientists had never spoken to USGS sturgeon scientists. There are not many sturgeons in the country! We think our scientists will work together and be more efficient, but no. ”
Meanwhile, there are areas of research that NOAA can invest in even more investments, particularly in social sciences. Meteorologists have extended lead times to weather forecasts, but how people analyze and act on this information has emerged as a limitation. Early tornado warnings are not very useful if the recipient doesn't immediately seek shelter, or if they try to squeeze in a last-minute grocery run. Listening to people's warnings and taking precautions is a critical challenge.
“People from the Commerce Department, both Democrats and Republican administrations, said NOAA would not do social science. “In my tenure, we opened gates and spent it on social sciences, and people would be able to make these predictions and more. I worked so hard to understand how I respond to the tools I use to make predictions.”
And moving ahead of the practical impacts of climate change must be a top priority for agents. For example, as average temperatures rise, fish strains are forced to move towards the poles and adapt to fishermen. “Today's main lobster will be Canadian lobster tomorrow,” McLean said. Disasters are becoming very expensive as the weather is reaching extremes and more people and property are causing harm. It is wise to invest in tools to monitor and predict these events, and dismantle them will make you vulnerable to more expensive catastrophes in the future.
