Atmospheric scientists and weather experts are sounding alarms over reports that the Trump administration is considering dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado—an effort they say could weaken the nation’s ability to improve forecasts and prepare for high-impact weather.
Concern spread across the weather and climate community this week after reports suggested the administration planned to split up NCAR, a federally funded research center known for work in weather modeling, climate research, and environmental science.
On Tuesday night, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought criticized the institution in a post on X, calling it “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” and said the National Science Foundation (NSF) would be “breaking up” NCAR. The development follows earlier budget-driven staffing reductions across federal agencies this year, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service (NWS), prompting warnings from experts that fewer personnel and weakened infrastructure could make storms more dangerous by limiting forecasting and public alerts.
“A comprehensive review is underway & any vital activities such as weather research will be moved to another entity or location,” Vought wrote.
When contacted for comment, a senior White House official suggested the decision was linked to Colorado Governor Jared Polis, though the official did not explain how the governor’s actions factored into the administration’s thinking. “Maybe if Colorado had a governor who actually wanted to work with President Trump, his constituents would be better served,” the official said.
The White House also described NCAR as a center of what it called “left-wing climate lunacy,” pointing to programs and projects it characterized as unnecessary or ideological. The administration said that while key capabilities—such as weather modeling and supercomputing—would continue, they would be moved under another organization or to a different location. The stated goal, according to the White House, is to eliminate what it called “Green New Scam research activities” at the facility.
The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), which manages NCAR, said in a public statement that it was aware of the administration’s plans but had no “additional information about any such plan.”
“NSF NCAR’s research is crucial for building American prosperity by protecting lives and property, supporting the economy, and strengthening national security,” the statement said. “Any plans to dismantle NSF NCAR would set back our nation’s ability to predict, prepare for, and respond to severe weather and other natural disasters.”
Experts warned that even if some operations are preserved, breaking up NCAR could slow progress in forecasting and disrupt the systems many forecasters rely on day to day.
Steve Decker, director of the Meteorology Undergraduate Program at Rutgers University, said NCAR plays an outsized role in producing and maintaining research models widely used to improve forecasting. Dismantling the institution, he said, could cause a “substantial slowdown” in advancements—effects that might take years to fully emerge. But other consequences could appear much sooner.
NCAR also “carries the data flow from weather stations, radars, satellites, you name it, to our computers so that we have an understanding of what the weather is doing,” Decker said.
“I believe many folks in private sector companies, and even the NWS, rely on that infrastructure, so everyone would be ‘flying blind’ to some extent,” he added. “It’s so fundamental and so embedded in the weather enterprise that I don’t know if anyone really knows how blind everyone is going to be if the plug is pulled. These impacts on infrastructure could start to be felt immediately.”
Jeff Basara, an atmospheric scientist and department chair at the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Science Program, also called the idea of dismantling NCAR a “mistake.”
Basara said he has visited NCAR dozens of times over the past three decades and described its work as spanning severe weather, turbulence, fire weather, flash-flood research, and forecast model development—tools and insights that support agencies such as the NWS and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), among others.
“There is no question that impacts on NCAR are going to have … cascading impacts to all those other agencies and their mission to protect life and property,” Basara said.
As an example, Basara pointed to NCAR’s research into major recent disasters, including a deadly flash flood along the Guadalupe River in Texas over the summer that killed more than 100 people, many of them children. He also cited projects examining Hurricane Helene’s flooding and loss of life in September 2024, as well as the Lahaina Fire in Maui in August 2023.
“Those are the types of projects they’re working on to understand the mechanisms and … what do we need to know so we can have better warnings that go out in the future,” Basara said. “NCAR is doing the research to help understand the mechanisms so the operational folks can have that information and get that out better.
“Losing that link on the science side impacts the ability to provide more timely and advanced information down the line to protect lives and property.”
