Ashley Siefert Nunes
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has provided no evidence that would justify dismantling or restructuring the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and doing so would undermine one of the nation’s most important scientific institutions, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) wrote in a letter submitted today.
UCS submitted the comments in response to an NSF “Dear Colleague Letter” soliciting proposals for how to restructure NCAR’s critical weather infrastructure. That letter followed an earlier announcement by the Trump administration that it plans to break apart the research center and close its headquarters in Boulder, Colo., where it has been operating for 60 years.
“This is clearly an attack on science to serve the political purposes of the White House through the Office of Management and Budget,” UCS scientists Dr. Carlos Martinez and Dr. Marc Alessi wrote in the letter. They noted that the NSF renewed its cooperative agreement with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) three years ago to manage the center through 2028 with full support and no expressed objections.
The NSF also announced last month that it will transfer management and operations of the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center to an unnamed third party, which UCS calls “a deeply harmful action.”
“NCAR represents one of the most successful models of federally supported scientific infrastructure in the United States,” the scientists wrote. “UCS strongly urges NSF to preserve NCAR as an intact national research center.”
Additional Resources:
- Press release: “Amid Federal Moves to Dismantle Premier Weather Research Center, UCS Requests Public Release of Management Agreement”
- Op-ed in Earth and Space Science News (EOS) by Dr. Carlos Martinez, UCS senior scientist: “What Americans Lose If Their National Center for Atmospheric Research Is Dismantled”
- Press statement: “Trump Administration Threatens to Dismantle Leading Climate and Weather Research Center”