Trump administration plans to eliminate ‘green new scam research activities’ and sources of ‘climate alarmism’
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The Trump administration is set to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colorado, according to a senior White House official.
‘This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,’ wrote Russell Vought, Trump’s budget director, announcing the planned closure in a post last week on social media platform X. In a statement, the White House called NCAR ‘the premier research stronghold for left-wing climate lunacy’.
The National Science Foundation (NSF), which provides funding for the centre, ‘will be breaking up NCAR to eliminate Green New Scam research activities. Any vital functions, such as weather modelling and supercomputing, will be moved under the purview of another entity or location.’
The work to dismantle NCAR will begin immediately, USA Today reported, and will involve the closure of the centre’s Mesa Laboratory.
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The most recent agreement between the NSF and UCAR, signed in 2023, was set to provide US$938 million to run NCAR for five years. Cancelling such an award would essentially eliminate most of NCAR’s annual budget, with the rest of the budget coming from other federal and non-federal sources.
Researchers and scientists alike have expressed their concern over the move.
‘Dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet,’ wrote climate scientist at Texas Tech University Katharine Hayhoe on social media, adding the laboratory is the ‘global mothership’ of atmospheric science.
‘To me personally, it’s just another unbelievably reckless blow to American science,’ said oceanographer and geographer Dawn Wright. ‘If the NSF does follow through with these plans to break up NCAR, that’s just going to decimate a huge chunk of the US climate research that we all depend on.’
Back in 1960, the NSF established NCAR to support US atmospheric scientific research that required computing or other resources beyond the means of any single institution. According to NCAR’s website, the organisation advances scientific breakthroughs by providing the research community with leading-edge modelling, observational tools, and computing resources.
The dismantling of NCAR is one of a series of sweeping moves the Trump administration has taken to limit climate change research, including cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and attempts to roll back strict pollution regulations set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). See our full report on the cuts to scientific research being made by the Trump administration.
‘NCAR is a unique & valuable asset – far more than a climate model, or observations, or technology, or training ground, or gathering space,’ wrote climatologist Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, on Bluesky. ‘It covers weather, space weather, data, climate, paleo-climate, and everything in-between. [Its] building is an icon, but [its] iconic status goes far beyond that.’
See our full report on the cuts to scientific research being made by the Trump administration
