A network of more than 900 crucial ocean monitoring instruments, slated for removal, will remain in place – for now
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Trump officials have announced that plans to dismantle an observation system made up of 900 instruments – which has provided crucial data on oceans, climate change and marine biodiversity for more than a decade – have been abandoned.
In a statement on Thursday 18 June, the National Science Foundation (NSF) said: ‘Effective immediately, NSF will not proceed with further removal or de-scoping of equipment.’
Instead, the agency announced that future of the system, known as the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), would be determined by an expert panel.
Plans for dismantling the system, which is located across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, were first announced in May. Over a 15-month period, the instruments – worth around $338million – were to be recovered along the coasts of North Carolina, Oregon, Alaska and Washington, as well as in the waters between Iceland and Greenland.
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The OOI system, which launched in 2016, was originally scheduled to operate for at least 25 years. Despite this temporary reprieve, its long-term future remains uncertain. If the system is eventually removed, scientists will be left in the dark, unable to record crucial data on ocean currents and climate change.
Such data includes that on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) – a system of vital ocean currents known as the ‘global conveyor belt’ that shape global climate. Research has shown the AMOC may be at risk of declining by the end of the century, causing effects from plummeting temperatures in Europe to changing vegetation in the Amazon.
In addition, the global oceans are currently in a period of huge change, with events from mass coral bleaching to heightened water temperatures all requiring research to better understand. Without oceanic observations, ‘we are effectively choosing to navigate an increasingly volatile ocean with diminishing visibility,’ said Helen Findlay from the Plymouth Marine Laboratory. For Findlay, uncertainty around the future of the AMOC ‘is precisely why long-term, consistent monitoring is more vital than ever.’
According to NSF head of media affairs, Mike England, the original decision to descope ‘aligns with NSF’s wider strategy of a nimbler approach to prioritise support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies, as well as smart lifecycle management within its research infrastructure portfolio’.
The recent announcements follow the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to defund climate change mitigation strategies and scientific research – as Geographical reported earlier this year. Last month, the administration also announced an additional $1.1billion in cuts to research covering topics such as marine wildlife, ocean currents, and fish populations.
Some have suspected that the move to ‘descope’ the OOI system is to appease fossil fuel companies. ‘Fossil fuel is heating our oceans by the zettajoule, so Trump’s corrupt fossil fuel stooges want to turn off the monitors,’ said Democrat from Rhode Island, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
If current efforts to save the system fall through, scientists warn that rebuilding it later could prove extremely difficult. ‘If we want to put [the instruments] back out again, we need people who know how to do it, and the team that knows how to do it is being dismantled along with the infrastructure program itself,’ said Professor of Marine Biogeochemistry and Oceanography at Boston College, Hilary Palevsky.
‘We’re potentially at risk of having a gap in our ability to regain the expertise to do things that we had sort of just figured out how to pull off.’
